The Allure of Order: High Hopes, Dashed Expectations, and the Troubled Quest to Remake American Schooling (Studies in Postwar American Political Development)
“Here we go again” could be the subtitle of this exhaustive history, by Mehta, assistant professor of education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, of the nation’s century-long quest to reform public education. Often reading like a dissertation, this study painstakingly analyzes how three distinct periods of school reform—the Progressive Era in the early twentieth century, the 1960s and ’70s, and today’s post–No Child Left Behind efforts—pursue the same largely ineffective, top-down, industrial-management strategies. Our repeated failures, Mehta suggests, stem from the U.S. educational system being “put together backward,” unable to shake free of its original, and now institutionalized, gender-status inequality. The result is a feminized, low-status teaching force controlled by male administrators using ever-more-refined business principles and standardized, quantitative accountability measures. This leads to diminished teacher autonomy and a rejection of the profession by talented people. In other countries, where American bureaucratic structures are inverted, teaching is a highly selective field, more resembling respected professions like medicine, and emphasizing knowledge, extensive clinical training, and strong quality control at the delivery site. By following examples from abroad, American education, Mehta posits, could also meet with greater success. --Carolyn Saper