Notice bibliographique
- Notice
Type(s) de contenu et mode(s) de consultation : Texte noté : sans médiation
Auteur(s) : Reed, Douglas S. (1964-....)
Titre(s) : Building the federal schoolhouse [Texte imprimé] : localism and the American education state / Douglas S. Reed
Publication : New York : Oxford University Press, cop. 2014
Description matérielle : xxv, 321 pages ; 25 cm
Collection : Oxford studies in postwar American political development
Lien à la collection : Oxford studies in postwar American political development
Note(s) : Includes bibliographical references (p. 293-309) and index
"Over the past 50 years, the federal government's efforts to reform American public
education have transformed U.S. schools from locally-run enterprises to complex systems
in which federal, state and local actors jointly construct the educational environment
of U.S. children. Through struggles over school integration, the growth of special
education, the teaching of English learners and the rise of accountability politics,
the federal role in U.S. education has meant a profound reconstruction of local expectations,
roles and political alignments. Seeking to construct the federal schoolhouse - an
educational system in which there are common national expectations and practices -
has meant the creation of new modes of education within local institutions. The creation
of this "education state" has also meant that federal educational initiatives have
collided with - or reinforced - local political regimes in cities and suburbs alike.
To the extent that "all politics is local," the federal role in public schools has
changed both the conduct and the norms of local educational politics. Building the
Federal Schoolhouse examines how increasing federal authority over public education
in the U.S. changes the practices of 'operational localism' in education and how local
regime commitments implement, thwart, or even block federal policy initiatives. The
book examines these issues through an in-depth, fifty year examination of federal
educational policies at work within one community, Alexandria, Virginia. The home
of T.C. Williams High School, memorialized in the Hollywood movie Remember the Titans,
Alexandria has been transformed within two generations from a Jim Crow school system
to a new immigrant gateway school district with over 20 percent of its students English
learners. Along the way, the school system has struggled to provide quality education
for special needs students, sought to overcome the legacies of tracking and segregated
learning and simultaneously retain upper-middle class students in this wealthy suburb
of Washington, DC. Most recently, it has grappled with state and federally imposed
accountability measures that seek to boost educational outcomes. All of these policy
initiatives have contended with the existing political regime within Alexandria, at
times forcing the local regime to a breaking point, and at times bolstering its reconstruction.
At the same time, the local expectations and governing realities of administrators,
parents, politicians and voters alike have sharply constrained federal initiatives,
limiting their scope when in conflict with local commitments and amplifying them when
they align. Through an extensive use of local archives, contemporary accounts, school
data and interviews, Reed not only paints an intimate portrait of the conflicts that
the creation of the federal schoolhouse has wrought in Alexandria, but also documents
the successes of the federal commitment to greater educational opportunity. In so
doing, he highlights the complexity of the American education state and the centrality
of local regimes and local historical context to federal efforts to reform education"
Sujet(s) : Éducation et État -- États-Unis
Enseignement -- Réforme -- États-Unis
Identifiants, prix et caractéristiques : ISBN 9780199838486 (hardback). - ISBN 0199838488 (hardback)
Identifiant de la notice : ark:/12148/cb438849905
Notice n° :
FRBNF43884990
(notice reprise d'un réservoir extérieur)
