Reforming Schools: Working Within a Progressive Tradition During Conservative Times

Portrays the progressive school reform work of the Harmony Education Center over a 12-year period.

In Reforming Schools, Jesse Goodman discusses the possibilities, struggles, and complexities involved in reforming today's schools. Drawing from his own experiences at the Harmony Education Center-a progressive educational center he helped establish in 1990-Goodman offers a vision of how to persevere at a time when many progressive educators are feeling discouraged. He focuses on practical ideas for reform, such as establishing school autonomy; creating democratic structures, rituals, and values upon which school reform discourse can be generated; and by addressing the current conservative agenda, how to influence what happens in our nation's public schools. By situating school reform within a progressive history of Western society, the author offers valuable insights and ideas that are alternatives to both the conservative and the radical left analyses of schools and society.