Rapid Total System Change: How Urban School Reform Failure Is Transforming American Education

• In Event: Roundtable Session 13
  In Roundtable Session: Equity Considerations in School Improvement

Abstract

Urban education reform frequently fails. After failure policy makers usually formulate more complex and more comprehensive reforms to achieve the goals of the original reforms. Using two failed urban education reforms in New Jersey that intended to close the achievement gap through incremental change this paper explores why the next reform is more complex than its predecessors, and intends to replace instead of change urban education by using a rapid total system change strategy. As the response to incremental reform failure, rapid total system change that replaces urban education may close the achievement gap. But it also has multiple negative consequences including the potential to create more inequality and limit democracy by imposing state control on urban school systems.

Author

• Barry A. Gold, Pace University