How Schools Change: Lessons from Three Communities Revisited / Edition 2

by Tony Wagner

Overview

The first edition of How Schools Change chronicled the efforts of three very different high schools to improve teaching and learning in the early 1990's. Now, in a new second edition, Wagner concisely summarizes the decade-long history of education reform efforts and revisits the three communities at the beginning of a new century.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780415927635
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	11/13/2000
Edition description:	Revised
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)
Lexile:	1310L (what's this?)

About the Author

Tony Wagner is Co-Director of the recently created Change Leadership Group at the Harvard University Graduate School of Education. He also chairs the Harvard Seminar on Public Engagement and consults to numerous school districts and foundations, in the United States and internationally. He is currently senior consultant to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Prior to assuming his current position at Harvard, Tony was a classroom teacher for twelve years, a school principal, a project director for the Public Agenda Foundation, a university professor in teacher education.

Table of Contents

Foreword by Theodore R. Sizer Acknowledgments Introduction to the Second Edition Introduction: A Nation at Risk One: The Hull Junior-Senior High School Two: The Academy at Cambridge Rindge and Latin Three: The Brimmer and Mary School Four: Some Lessons Learned Five: Reflections at the Dawn of the Millenium Notes Bibliography Index

Editorial Reviews

"In school reform, three careful case studies are worth 300 reports from blue-ribbon commissions. In How Schools Change, Tony Wagner portrays the trials and the triumphs of three schools engages in reinventing themselves." — Howard Gardner, author of Creating Minds "Vivid and compelling... A provocative work that argues for a better understanding of the change process before we head off on some new fad."
"Tony Wagner's fresh look at his three subject institutions in How Schools Change reveals sober and useful insights into contemporary educational reform. We must pay close attention to Wagner's conclusions." — Theodore R. Sizer, Chairman of the Coalition of Essential Schools

From the Publisher

This study of the ninth grade in three Boston-area high schools--two public, one private--presents an objective, behind-the-scenes view of the process of educational change. Much has been written about the need for reform of American pedogogy and one of the more creative, and apparently successful, programs is the Coalition of Essential Schools (CES), a construct of Brown University educational specialist Theodore Sizer. To the extent that each school integrated CES philosophy--clear academic goals, core values shared by an involved community and collaboration among teachers, students, parents and others--the systemic change is achieving noticeable results in varying degrees. The most promising seems to be the private school for a host of reasons, especially because it is small and autonomous. Wagner's compelling appraisal of dedicated educators at work delivers a strong message. The author is an assistant professor of education at the University of New Hampshire. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

The mythical American high school in Theodore Sizer's Horace's School: Redesigning the American High School (LJ 1/92) has real-life counterparts in the Coalition of Essential Schools (CES). Wagner presents a case study of three school communities. One, Brimmer and May, is a CES school in which Wagner's basic principles for change-setting clear academic goals, fostering core values, and facilitating collaboration among students and teachers-are vigorously and successfully pursued. Brimmer and May, though, is an upper-class private school with small classes and fewer bureaucratic burdens than larger public schools. Wagner's arguments for how this experiment can be transferred to large urban public schools are not so convincing. Still, the book functions well as a socioanthropological study of specific educational environments. A good addition to large education collections.-Arla Lindgren, St. John's Univ., New York

Library Journal

A behind-the-scenes look at three high schools that are trying to create learning communities that prepare their students for the 21st century: Hull Junior-Senior High School, a primarily white public school in a recession-battered community; Cambridge Rindge and Latin, a multi-ethnic, urban public school; and Brimmer and May, a private school in a wealthy suburb. Wagner concludes with an analysis of the necessary components of successful school reform. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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