What do we really want from schools? Only everything, in all its contradictions. Most of all, we want access and opportunity for all children-but all possible advantages for our own. So argues historian David Labaree in this provocative look at the way "this archetype of dysfunction works so well at what we want it to do even as it evades what we explicitly ask it to do." Ever since the common school movement of the nineteenth century, mass schooling has been seen as an essential solution to great social problems. Yet as ...
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What do we really want from schools? Only everything, in all its contradictions. Most of all, we want access and opportunity for all children-but all possible advantages for our own. So argues historian David Labaree in this provocative look at the way "this archetype of dysfunction works so well at what we want it to do even as it evades what we explicitly ask it to do." Ever since the common school movement of the nineteenth century, mass schooling has been seen as an essential solution to great social problems. Yet as wave after wave of reform movements have shown, schools are extremely difficult to change. Labaree shows how the very organization of the locally controlled, administratively limited school system makes reform difficult. At the same time, he argues, the choices of educational consumers have always overwhelmed top-down efforts at school reform. Individual families seek to use schools for their own purposes-to pursue social opportunity, if they need it, and to preserve social advantage, if they have it. In principle, we want the best for all children. In practice, we want the best for our own. Provocative, unflinching, wry, Someone Has to Fail looks at the way that unintended consequences of consumer choices have created an extraordinarily resilient educational system, perpetually expanding, perpetually unequal, constantly being reformed, and never changing much.
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Add this copy of Someone Has to Fail: the Zero-Sum Game of Public to cart. $3.20, good condition, Sold by ZBK Books rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Woodland Park, NJ, UNITED STATES, published 2012 by Harvard University Press.
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Add this copy of Someone Has to Fail: the Zero-Sum Game of Public to cart. $4.09, good condition, Sold by More Than Words rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Waltham, MA, UNITED STATES, published 2012 by Harvard University Press.
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Fair. Book has internal/external wear and/or highlighting and underlining. It may have creases on the cover and some folded pages. This is a USED book. Codes have been used. All items ship Monday-Friday within 2-3 business days. Thank you for supporting Goodwill of OC.
Add this copy of Someone Has to Fail: the Zero-Sum Game of Public to cart. $7.99, good condition, Sold by bookseller909 rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from ANKENY, IA, UNITED STATES, published 2012 by Harvard University Press.
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Add this copy of Someone Has to Fail: the Zero-Sum Game of Public to cart. $17.50, good condition, Sold by SurplusTextSeller rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Columbia, MO, UNITED STATES, published 2012 by Harvard University Press.
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Good. Ships in a BOX from Central Missouri! May not include working access code. Will not include dust jacket. Has used sticker(s) and some writing or highlighting. UPS shipping for most packages, (Priority Mail for AK/HI/APO/PO Boxes).
