Marvin Lazerson - Böcker

From curriculum standards and testing to school choice and civic learning, issues in American education are some of the most debated in the United States. The Public Schools, a collection of essays by the nation's leading education scholars and professionals, is designed to inform the debate and stimulate change.In association with the Annenberg Foundation Trust at Sunnylands and the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, The Public Schools is the first in a series of books commissioned to enhance public understanding of the nature and function of democratic institutions. A national advisory board--including, among others, Nancy Kassebaum Baker, David Boren, John Brademas, Ellen Condliffe Lagemann, David Gergen, and Lee Hamilton--will guide the vision of the project, which includes future volumes on the press and the three branches of government.Each essay in The Public Schools addresses essential questions for policymakers, educators, and anyone committed to public education. What role should public education play in a democracy? How has that role changed through American history? Have the schools lost sight of their responsibility to teach civics and citizenship? How are current debates about education shaping the future of this democratic institution?Among the contributors are William Galston, Director of the Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy at the University of Maryland;Clarence Stone, Professor in the Department of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland - College Park and editor of Changing Urban Education and Regime Politics: Governing Atlanta, 1946-1988 (University Press of Kansas, 1998).; Susan Moore Johnson, Pforzheimer Professor of Education in Learning and Teaching, Harvard University; Michael Johanek, Executive Director of K-12 Professional Development, College Board; Kathy Simon, co-executive director of the Coalition for Essential Schools and author of Moral Questions in the Classroom (Yale University Press, 2001); and Jennifer Hochschild, Professor of Government and Professor of Afro-American Studies at Harvard University and author of Facing Up to the American Dream: Race, Class, and the Soul of the Nation (Princeton University Press, 1995).

An Education of Value is about the problems involved in reforming American schools - in the past and in the decades to come. The authors consider the historical, political, and philosophical tensions between the perennial twin goals of American education: equality and excellence. They discuss the necessary preconditions for enduring progress: enhancing the conditions of teaching, improving the education and re-education of teachers, rethinking the curriculum, developing learning through the use of computers, and strengthening the leadership of schools. The issues raised in this book concern every modern society, and the authors' ideas will challenge a wide audience.

In this hard-hitting history of "the gospel of education," W. Norton Grubb and Marvin Lazerson reveal the allure, and the fallacy, of the longstanding American faith that more schooling for more people is the remedy for all our social and economic problems--and that the central purpose of education is workplace preparation. But do increasing levels of education accurately represent the demands of today's jobs? Grubb and Lazerson argue that the abilities developed in schools and universities and the competencies required in work are often mismatched--since many Americans are under-educated for serious work while at least a third are over-educated for the jobs they hold. The ongoing race for personal advancement and the focus on worker preparation have squeezed out civic education and learning for its own sake. Paradoxically, the focus on schooling as a mechanism of equity has reinforced social inequality. The challenge now, the authors show, is to create environments for learning that incorporate both economic and civic goals, and to prevent the further descent of education into a preoccupation with narrow work skills and empty credentials.

Excerpts from 34 documents and commentary concerning U.S. education in the twentieth century are presented. Each document represents a landmark in the development of American education. Perspectives are also provided on conditions and dilemmas still being addressed by educators today. Among the issues covered are minority education, the Depression of the 1930s, the development of the federal role in education, and the relationship between higher education and elementary/secondary schools. The educational history is divided as follows: the transformation of education, 1900-1929; continuity and change, 1930-1941; educational excellence in a democratic society, 1942-1963; the expansion of opportunity, 1964-1980; and dilemmas of the 1980s. The tension between equality of opportunity and educational quality is a central theme in the recent development of American education.

This volume addresses the broad spectrum of challenges confronting the university of the 21st century. Elkana and Klöpper place special emphasis on the questions regarding the very idea and purposes of universities, especially as viewed through curriculum—what is taught—and pedagogy—how it is taught. The ideas recommended here for reform concern especially undergraduate or Bachelor degree programs in all areas of study, from the humanities and social sciences to the natural sciences, the technical fields, law, medicine, and other professions. The core thesis of this book rests on the emergence of a 'New Enlightenment', which requires a revolution in curriculum and teaching in order to translate the academic philosophy of global contextualism into universal practice or application. The university is asked to revamp teaching in order to foster critical thinking that would serve students their entire lives. This book calls for universities to become truly integrated rather than remaining collections of autonomous agencies more committed to competition among themselves than cooperation in the larger interest of learning.

The encounter between knight and science could seem a paradox. It is nonetheless related with the intellectual Renaissance of Twelfth-Century, an essential movement for Western history. The knight is not only fighting in battles, but also moving in sophisticated courts. He is interested on Latin classics and reading, and even on his own poetry. He supports "jongleurs" and minstrels and he likes to have literary conversations with clerics, who try to reform his behaviour, which is often brutal. These lettered warriors, while improving they culture, learn how to repress their own violence and they are initiated to courtesy: selected language, measured gestures, elegance in dress, and manners at table. Their association with women, who are often learned, becomes more gallant. A mental revolution is acting among lay elites, who, in contact with clergy, use their weapons for common welfare. This new conduct is a sign of modernity.

Marvin Lazerson (professor at the Central European University and the University of Pennsylvania) considers the successes of higher education in the USA and how this has also bred discontent. He traces the development of higher education from the last half of the twentieth century, and considers why the expansion occurred, how it became an industry, and the increasing role of education in job attainment, as well as problems like rising costs, debates about the economic worth of higher education, and the decline in its civic, moral, and intellectual purposes. He also discusses changes in governance to a more business-like model, the managerial imperatives colleges face, changes to curriculum and research, and reform.