Why do reforms return again and again? To illustrate that the question is valid, I offer three examples drawn from instructional, curricular, and governance planned changes that have returned more than once. To answer the question, I first examine the dominant explanation presented by researchers and policymakers: the lack of rationality in proposing and implementing planned change. I explore why the dominant explanation is flawed in its frequently used metaphors and analysis. I then offer alternative explanations for recurring reforms—a political and an institutional perspective harnessed together—to explain the puzzle of why reforms return. The point of this analysis is to enlarge the repertoire of explanations that researchers and policymakers use to examine potential and past reforms. The policymaking stakes run high for expanding the range of explanations because the questions of why reforms failed in the past and why they return go to the heart of present policy debates over whether federal, state, ...

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/1176529.pdf

Reforming Again, Again, and Again

I have often argued to students, only in part to be perverse, that one cannot understand the history of education in the United States during the twentieth century unless one realizes that Edward L. Thorndike won and John Dewey lost. The statement is too simple, of course, but nevertheless more true than untrue and useful for several reasons. First, it suggests that, even if Thorndike and Dewey both spoke and wrote in the “progressive” idiom, the differences of view that separated them were large and significant. Beyond that, it calls attention to differences in the way each man's ideas were received. If Dewey has been revered among some educators and his thought has had influence across a greater range of scholarly domains—philosophy, sociology, politics, and social psychology, among them—Thorndike's thought has been more influential within education. It helped to shape public school practice as well as scholarship about education. Finally, the observation that Thorndike won and Dewey lost has value because it can open new questions about the Deweyan legacy, which, despite the many extant studies (some of which are excellent), remains richly suggestive and worthy of further exploration.

The Plural Worlds of Educational Research

This study investigated how the organization of the mathematics curriculum in US high schools affects how much students learn in that subject The study used data on the background and academic p

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/1164205.pdf

Course-Taking, Equity, and Mathematics Learning: Testing the Constrained Curriculum Hypothesis in U.S. Secondary Schools:

This article examines the political, economic, historic, and cultural explanations for why the United States lags behind other major English-speaking countries in the formal delivery of media education. The research relies on formal documents and newsletters, interviews with leading media education researchers and teachers from numerous nations, and site visits to five countries. Among the many factors explored are the sheer physical size of the U.S., its highly heterogeneous population, resistance to the federal government’s making central educational or broadcasting policy, the fact that the U.S. exports far more media products than it imports, and a long-standing reluctance to take the popular arts seriously. * * * The United States finds itself in the ironic position of being the world’s leading exporter of media products while lagging behind every other major Eng1ish-speaking country in the world in the formal delivery of media education in its schools. Are there specific reasons that explain the less developed state of U.S. media education? If so, what obstacles lie ahead? The formal research for this study began in 1993 when I began collecting material from around the world, including formal documents, brochures, newsletters, and educational plans; interviewing leading media education scholars and researchers, as well as experienced media education master teachers and inexperienced teachers from around the world; and directly observing in five countries, spending the greatest periods in England, Scotland, and the United States. A worldwide movement in media literacy education has been growing for roughly 30 years. Since the mid-1990s, Australia has mandated media education from kindergarten through 12th grade. Ontario has mandated it for grades 7-12 since 1987. In Britain in 1996, approximately 25,000 students took their GCSE exams (for 16-year-olds) and some 8,000 university-bound 18-year-o1ds took their A Level (advanced level) exams in media studies. Even before the fall of apartheid, South Africa was already ahead of the United States in formal media education (Criticos, 1997). Numerous non-English-speaking regions and countries have also developed media education initiatives at a rapid rate. Substantive developments have occurred in Scandinavia, South America, Europe, Asia, Russia, and Israel (see Brown, 1991; Piette & Giroux, 1997). In the United States, significant statewide initiatives are now in place in New Mexico and North Carolina, with noteworthy developments having occurred in Wisconsin, Minnesota, and other states. Most states are home to one or more organized groups working to advance the cause of media education, locally, statewide, or nationally. In 1992, the first National Leadership Conference on

https://medialit.org/sites/default/files/362_kubey_obstacles.pdf

Obstacles to the Development of Media Education in the United States

The Newtonians and the English Revolution, 1689-1720@@@The Great Instauration: Science, Medicine and Reform, 1626-1660

childhood into a time punctuated by Dickensian moments. The intrepid Berrigan journeys through pain and spiritual growth, the harshness of a restless, demanding father, buffeted by economic uncertainty and unfulfilled personal promise. Throughout his chronicle, colorful characters abound: mystics, martinets, eccentrics, innovators. Berrigan's recollections of Jesuit training include an unnamed novice master, \"at odds with his time and place,\" from whose example Berrigan gleaned that \"serious Christians . . . exist in the world as in a conscientious limbo, out of their element, walking uneasily\" (p. 94), and Pere Charmot, a Jesuit who introduced the young priest to a new understanding of Scripture and to the worker priest movement of France, which was then under fire by the Vatican. The latter portion of the autobiography, more than one half of the volume, covers Berrigan's emergence as an antiwar leader during the Vietnam War. The influence of his younger brother, Philip, and his experiences as a member of the social justice program frame Berrigan's radicalization. Yet throughout the tumultuous sixties, seventies, and eighties, it is clear that his spirituality and activism nurtured each other. Daniel Berrigan raises a rare prophetic voice, urging Christians to live the gospel and to question complacency within the church as rigorously as they challenge the injustices of the secular order. To Dwell in Peace is a classic example of religious autobiography and an account of ongoing Christian conversion. Along with Dorothy Day's Long Loneliness and Thomas Merton's Seven Storey Mountain, it uncovers the roots of a radical impulse deep within twentieth-century American Catholicism. Berrigan's autobiography, full of wit and irony, also explores the sources of turmoil in the Catholic church and presents a thoughtful memoir of the role that committed Christians played in the eclectic antiwar coalition of the 1960s. Most importantly, Berrigan's life illustrates how a prophetic voice might emerge from a conventional church.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/7342231F805FB349008E9D3789912F89/S0009640700060650a.pdf/div-class-title-span-class-italic-american-education-the-metropolitan-experience-1876-1980-span-by-lawrence-a-cremin-new-york-harper-and-row-1988-xiii-781-35-00-div.pdf

American Education: The Metropolitan Experience, 1876–1980 . By Lawrence A. Cremin. New York: Harper & Row, 1988. xiii + 781. $35.00.

Science and religion both constitute vital dimensions of experience, but people differ in their views on proper relations between the two. In modern times, when science increasingly dominates the outlook of society, many regard science and religion as incompatible and strive to maintain them in watertight compartments. In 1972, for example, the National Academy of Sciences, responding to a demand that creationism be given equal time with the theory of evolution in biology classrooms and textbooks, adopted a resolution stating that “religion and science are … separate and mutually exclusive realms of human thought whose presentation in the same context leads to misunderstanding of both scientific theory and religious belief.” The battle over creationism continues, with the National Academy of Sciences and orthodox religious groups both insisting on the incompatibility of the two spheres.

Science and Religion in Early America: Cotton Mather's Christian Philosopher

The Sabbath in Scripture and History. Edited by Kenneth A. Strand. Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1982. 391 pp. $19.95.

According to Harvey (1957), written observations and speculations on the nature of fungal bioluminescence can be traced as far back as Aristotle. Among the important discoveries Harvey cites are Bacon's observations (1677) on the essential similarity of the luminescence of wood and other objects, Boyle's proof (1668) that luminous wood requires air to produce light, and Heller's demonstration (1853) that the light emanating from decayed wood is fungal in origin. The continuing interest in fungal bioluminescence is reflected by the subject's inclusion in many twentieth century textbooks and popular books on mycology. Among the more recent accounts of bioluminescence in fungi are those by Buller (1924), Rolfe and Rolfe (1925), Wassink (1948,1979), Ramsbottom (1953), Harvey (1957), and Findlay (1967). Recently we encountered several accounts of fungal bioluminescence dating from the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries that either were not cited in these works or were incompletely discussed. In addition to the intrinsic interest of the subject matter, these accounts serve as examples of how mycological discoveries were made and the results disseminated during the crucial era when modern science was beginning to flourish. Accordingly, herein we discuss these early records in relation to the science and scholarship of their times. The earliest reference to fungal bioluminescence by an American author appears to be that by Cotton Mather (1663-1728). Mather mentions the subject in The Christian Philosopher: A Collection of the Best Discoveries in Nature, with Religious Improvements. The manuscript was completed in 1715 and the book was published in England in 1720, although it bears an imprint of 1721. Mather's (1721) avowed purpose was to demonstrate "that Philosophy is no Enemy, but a mighty and wondrous Incentive to Religion." The organization of the book reflects the traditional Aristotelian view of nature. Mather

Early accounts of fungal bioluminescence

about the meaning of balance and their ideas of liberty and mobility. Their picture of the cosmos and of balance, not so hidden to those less advantaged, sounds like a defense of the political and economic privilege of their congregations rather than a recognition of a dynamic and democratic social order. Their ideas sound like an apology for the New England Federalism of the postwar period. Corrigan's study provides a fresh approach to these formative figures in early American life and a stimulant to revisit other studies such as those of Heimert, Haroutonian, and Baldwin in order to sort out further the issues and the moral of the story.

Winton U. Solberg

Papers

American Education: The Metropolitan Experience, 1876–1980 . By Lawrence A. Cremin. New York: Harper & Row, 1988. xiii + 781. $35.00.

Science and Religion in Early America: Cotton Mather's Christian Philosopher

The Sabbath in Scripture and History. Edited by Kenneth A. Strand. Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1982. 391 pp. $19.95.

Early accounts of fungal bioluminescence

Faith of Our Fathers: Religion and the New Nation . By Eawin S. Gaustad. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987. xii + 196 pp. $15.95.