The End of School Reform

Education as a major social movement is coming to an end. The End of School Reform derives its theoretical framework from the ideas of Hegel, who perceived an end to history, and Thomas Kuhn, who theorized that history does not follow a linear path but that the scientific landscape changes through large-scale movements called "paradigm shifts". This book examines the partial successes of history's three major educational reform movements (the Progressive Education movement at the beginning of the 20th century, the Equity Reform movement of the 1960's-1970's, and the Excellence Reform movement from 1983 to the present) and contends that such major movements in education will never be seen again. Blending Arthur Danto's "end of art", John Horgan's "end of science", and Francis Fukuyama's "end of history" theses—all of which argue that only minor reforms will occur in the future—and drawing on interviews of education historians and policy professors, the "end of school reform" thesis maintains that educational innovation may still continue, but only on a piecemeal basis.