Children of the Revolution

Download Children of the Revolution PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 288 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (91 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Children of the Revolution by : Jonathan Kozol

Download or read book Children of the Revolution written by Jonathan Kozol and published by . This book was released on 1978 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tells of how one hundred thousand students helped bring an education to Cuba's illiterate adults as part of the Great Campaign of 1961 and looks at the Cuban school system today.

The Cuban Teacher

Download The Cuban Teacher PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 78 pages
Book Rating : 4.A/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Cuban Teacher by :

Download or read book The Cuban Teacher written by and published by . This book was released on 1974 with total page 78 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Teaching History Then and Now

Download Teaching History Then and Now PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781612508870
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (88 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Teaching History Then and Now by : Larry Cuban

Download or read book Teaching History Then and Now written by Larry Cuban and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Teaching History Then and Now, Larry Cuban explores the teaching of history in American high schools during the past half-century. Focusing on two high schools where he once taught--Cleveland's Glenville High School and Washington DC's Cardozo High School--Cuban augments his recollections of and research on the featured schools with a sweeping, nationwide account of the field. The result is exemplary education research, capturing the gritty facts of classroom practice and the larger currents of policy, institutional, and national change. "Teaching History Then and Now takes us back into the classrooms where Cuban himself taught, in the 1950s and 1960s, then brings us into the same schools today. The result is both a memoir and a history, a tale of one educator's life and a meditation on what it means for the rest of us." --Jonathan Zimmerman, professor of history of education, New York University, and author, Too Hot to Handle "Cuban has done it again. He has looked deeply into an important topic in a way that both reads well and gets to some critically significant issues. Everyone from would-be or new teachers to policy makers needs to read this from cover to cover." --Deborah Meier, author, In Schools We Trust "With his deft touch for humanizing education history and drawing the links between policy and practice, Larry Cuban offers an intimate and immensely readable look at how history teaching has changed over the past half-century. Touching on everything from the New Social Studies to the role of technology, his deeply personal narrative explores what 'reform' ultimately means for teachers and students." --Frederick M. Hess, director of education policy studies, American Enterprise Institute "Larry Cuban draws on his experience as a high school history teacher and educational historian to show how much impact fifty years of school reform have had on American schools. Returning to urban schools where he once taught, he finds that schools remain dynamically conservative organizations, where teachers continue to serve as gatekeepers for policy change and where the grammar of schooling remains strong." --David F. Labaree, professor of education, Stanford University Larry Cuban is professor emeritus of education at Stanford University.

Confessions of a School Reformer

Download Confessions of a School Reformer PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Harvard Education Press
ISBN 13 : 1682536971
Total Pages : 260 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (825 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Confessions of a School Reformer by : Larry Cuban

Download or read book Confessions of a School Reformer written by Larry Cuban and published by Harvard Education Press. This book was released on 2022-10-18 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Confessions of a School Reformer, eminent historian of education Larry Cuban reflects on nearly a century of education reforms and his experiences with them as a student, educator, and administrator. Cuban begins his own story in the 1930s, when he entered first grade at a Pittsburgh public school, the youngest son of Russian immigrants who placed great stock in the promises of education. With a keen historian's eye, Cuban expands his personal narrative to analyze the overlapping social, political, and economic movements that have attempted to influence public schooling in the United States since the beginning of the twentieth century. He documents how education both has and has not been altered by the efforts of the Progressive Era of the first half of the twentieth century, the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s through the 1970s, and the standards-based school reform movement of the 1980s through today. Cuban points out how these dissimilar movements nevertheless shared a belief that school change could promote student success and also forge a path toward a stronger economy and a more equitable society. He relates the triumphs of these school reform efforts as well as more modest successes and unintended outcomes. Interwoven with Cuban's evaluations and remembrances are his "confessions," in which he accounts for the beliefs he held and later rejected, as well as mistakes and areas of weakness that he has found in his own ideology. Ultimately, Cuban remarks with a tempered optimism on what schools can and cannot do in American democracy.

Oversold and Underused

Download Oversold and Underused PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 0674030109
Total Pages : 258 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (74 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Oversold and Underused by : Larry CUBAN

Download or read book Oversold and Underused written by Larry CUBAN and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-06-30 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Impelled by a demand for increasing American strength in the new global economy, many educators, public officials, business leaders, and parents argue that school computers and Internet access will improve academic learning and prepare students for an information-based workplace. But just how valid is this argument? In Oversold and Underused, one of the most respected voices in American education argues that when teachers are not given a say in how the technology might reshape schools, computers are merely souped-up typewriters and classrooms continue to run much as they did a generation ago. In his studies of early childhood, high school, and university classrooms in Silicon Valley, Larry Cuban found that students and teachers use the new technologies far less in the classroom than they do at home, and that teachers who use computers for instruction do so infrequently and unimaginatively. Cuban points out that historical and organizational economic contexts influence how teachers use technical innovations. Computers can be useful when teachers sufficiently understand the technology themselves, believe it will enhance learning, and have the power to shape their own curricula. But these conditions can't be met without a broader and deeper commitment to public education beyond preparing workers. More attention, Cuban says, needs to be paid to the civic and social goals of schooling, goals that make the question of how many computers are in classrooms trivial.

Cuba’s Academic Advantage

Download Cuba’s Academic Advantage PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Stanford University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780804755986
Total Pages : 228 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (559 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Cuba’s Academic Advantage by : Martin Carnoy

Download or read book Cuba’s Academic Advantage written by Martin Carnoy and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2007-03-12 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first in-depth analysis of how an entire educational system delivers higher student achievement.

How Teachers Taught

Download How Teachers Taught PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Teachers College Press
ISBN 13 : 0807776394
Total Pages : 388 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (77 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis How Teachers Taught by : Larry Cuban

Download or read book How Teachers Taught written by Larry Cuban and published by Teachers College Press. This book was released on 1993 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the first edition of this seminal study, Larry Cuban presented the last century of American teaching as one of a stable teacher-centered pedagogy. Within this framework, Cuban explored how major school reform efforts to alter classroom teaching often resulted in modest shifts in pedagogy in elementary schools and even less change in secondary schools.Now, in this second edition, How Teachers Taught: Constancy and Change in American Classrooms, 1890–1990, Larry Cuban returns to his pioneering inquiry into the history of teaching practice in the United States, responds to criticisms, and incorporates the scholarship of the last ten years. While not abandoning his basic thesis of the remarkable continuity in teacher-based instruction, Cuban now examines more closely the phenomenon of “hybrids” of student-centered and teacher-centered pedagogy, and finds many instances of classroom change sufficient to give pause to those who see futility in classroom reform. The author looks closely at socioeconomic contexts and the evolution of curriculum content. In the final chapter, Cuban directly assesses the implications of his work for policymakers, practitioners, and researchers. Historians, sociologists, and educators will also find powerful relevancy to their work, and the general reader will join in an exciting search for historical realities. “There are no bumper-sticker solutions to educational problems here, no election year gimmicks. Rather, this book presents the seasoned hopefulness and skeptical wisdom of a scholar-practitioner who gives us a better map of where we have been and a sense of where we might go.” —From the Foreword by David Tyack

Cuba in My Pocket

Download Cuba in My Pocket PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)
ISBN 13 : 0374314683
Total Pages : 182 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (743 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Cuba in My Pocket by : Adrianna Cuevas

Download or read book Cuba in My Pocket written by Adrianna Cuevas and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR). This book was released on 2021-09-21 with total page 182 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By the author of 2021 Pura Belpré Honor Book The Total Eclipse of Nestor Lopez, a sweeping, emotional middle grade historical novel about a twelve-year-old boy who leaves his family in Cuba to immigrate to the U.S. by himself, based on the author's family history. “I don’t remember. Tell me everything, Pepito. Tell me about Cuba.” When the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 solidifies Castro’s power in Cuba, twelve-year-old Cumba’s family makes the difficult decision to send him to Florida alone. Faced with the prospect of living in another country by himself, Cumba tries to remember the sound of his father’s clarinet, the smell of his mother’s lavender perfume. Life in the United States presents a whole new set of challenges. Lost in a sea of English speakers, Cumba has to navigate a new city, a new school, and new freedom all on his own. With each day, Cumba feels more confident in his new surroundings, but he continues to wonder: Will his family ever be whole again? Or will they remain just out of reach, ninety miles across the sea? A Kirkus Best Children's Book of the Year "...Cuevas’ latest is a triumph of the heart...A compassionate, emotionally astute portrait of a young Cuban in exile." —Kirkus, STARRED REVIEW "Cuevas’ intense and immersive account of a Cuban boy’s experience after the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion brings a specific point in history alive." —Booklist, STARRED REVIEW "Cuevas packs this sophomore novel with palpable emotions and themes of friendship, love, longing, and trauma, attentively conveying tumultuous historical events from the lens of one young refugee." — Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW

The Cuban Family

Download The Cuban Family PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : McFarland
ISBN 13 : 0786481757
Total Pages : 232 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (864 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Cuban Family by : Rosemarie Skaine

Download or read book The Cuban Family written by Rosemarie Skaine and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2015-01-24 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work explores how relationships of blood, marriage, sex, and residence work in each type of Cuban family, particularly as it is affected by Cuba's struggle to transform its economy. It also examines historical perspectives on the contemporary Cuban family, ethnicity and race, marriage, the extended family, family rights, the emigrating family, United States' citizenship issues, religion and the Cuban-American family. Tables list such details as population numbers, age, life expectancy, growth, birth, and death rates, immigration and mortality rates, HIV rates and literacy. The book also includes narratives of childhood memories from pre-revolutionary Cuba to the late 20th century, providing fresh insights into the cultural value attached to the family.

Preparation, Practice, and Politics of Teachers

Download Preparation, Practice, and Politics of Teachers PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN 13 : 9462090777
Total Pages : 177 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (62 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Preparation, Practice, and Politics of Teachers by : Mark Ginsburg

Download or read book Preparation, Practice, and Politics of Teachers written by Mark Ginsburg and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-02-11 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This edited volume, based on papers presented at the World Congress of Comparative Education (Istanbul, 2010), presents research examining pre-service teacher education, in-service teacher development, and the politics of teachers’ work in a variety of geographical regions, including Asia, Africa, Eurasia, Europe, Latin America, and North America. More specifically, the chapters examine the situations, activities, and education of teachers in the societal contexts of Cuba, Equatorial Guinea, France, Germany, Ghana, Hong Kong, Ireland, Lithuania, The Netherlands, Scotland, Spain, Turkey, and the United States. The authors address a variety of important questions related to a group of employees who are key actors in determining the quality of education: How can pre-service teacher education best be organized for different purposes in various settings? What kinds of activities should be organized and who should be involved in in-service professional development to promote teacher capacity and commitment to perform their roles in classrooms and communities? What kinds of incentives can motivate teachers’ engagement with various aspects of their work? How do certain educational policies and reforms promote the professionalization or the deprofessionalization and proletarianization of teaching? What are the opportunities and constraints for teachers as they seek to operate within themicro-politics of schools and the macro-politics of society? The book thus contributes to refining our understanding of the critical theoretical issues in the field of comparative and international education as well as calling attention to dynamics that should be considered in developing and implementing as well as critiquing and resisting educational policies in varying contexts.

A Cuban Refugee's Journey to the American Dream

Download A Cuban Refugee's Journey to the American Dream PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Indiana University Press
ISBN 13 : 0253035570
Total Pages : 169 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (53 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis A Cuban Refugee's Journey to the American Dream by : Gerardo M. González

Download or read book A Cuban Refugee's Journey to the American Dream written by Gerardo M. González and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2018-08-01 with total page 169 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A touching memoir recounting the journey of a young Cuban immigrant to the US who went on to become a professor and university dean. In February 1962, three years into Fidel Castro’s rule of their Cuban homeland, the González family—an auto mechanic, his wife, and two young children—landed in Miami with a few personal possessions and two bottles of Cuban rum. As his parents struggled to find work, eleven-year-old Gerardo struggled to fit in at school, where a teacher intimidated him and school authorities placed him on a vocational track. Inspired by a close friend, Gerardo decided to go to college. He not only graduated but, with hard work and determination, placed himself on a path through higher education that brought him to a deanship at the Indiana University School of Education. In this deeply moving memoir, González recounts his remarkable personal and professional journey. The memoir begins with Gerardo’s childhood in Cuba and recounts the family’s emigration to the United States and struggles to find work and assimilate, and González’s upward track through higher education. It demonstrates the transformative power that access to education can have on one person’s life. Gerardo’s journey came full circle when he returned to Cuba fifty years after he left, no longer the scared, disheartened refugee but rather proud, educated, and determined to speak out against those who wished to silence others. It includes treasured photographs and documents from González’s life in Cuba and the US. His is the story of one immigrant attaining the American Dream, told at a time when the fate of millions of refugees throughout the world, and Hispanics in the United States, especially his fellow Cubans, has never been more uncertain. “Author and educator Gerardo M. González brilliantly illustrates the joys and struggles of the refugee experience, and the inarguable role of education as an open door to opportunity. This is a delightful read, and one that will inspire you to achieve greatness regardless of the odds.” —Dr. Eduardo J. Padrón, President, Miami Dade College “There can be no more persuasive testimony to the power of intelligence, commitment, and inspiration than Gerardo M. González’s memoir. The contribution of immigrants to America’s prosperity and national achievements is undeniably impressive. Yet, this transformational story of challenge and achievement, while individually exceptional, is nonetheless emblematic of the experience of countless immigrants who have made America better than it could otherwise have been. No finer antidote to the simplistic sloganeering of the immigration debate exists.” —John V. Lombardi, President Emeritus, University of Florida, and author of How Universities Work

How Can I Fix It?

Download How Can I Fix It? PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Teachers College Press
ISBN 13 : 9780807740491
Total Pages : 86 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (44 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis How Can I Fix It? by : Larry Cuban

Download or read book How Can I Fix It? written by Larry Cuban and published by Teachers College Press. This book was released on 2001-04-13 with total page 86 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With this highly accessible and unique little guide, Larry Cuban offers educators indispensable tools to make sense of the daily complexities they encounter in their work. Teachers face dozens of classroom situations where conflicts occur. Similarly, principals wrestle with school issues that call for changes in attitudes, behaviours, and procedures. Because the process is so familiar, even expert teachers and principals often have difficulty in explaining what it is that they do and how they go about solving problems and coping with dilemmas in their classrooms and schools. Using concrete and varied examples drawn from the workplace, Cuban presents vivid and provocative case studies of practitioners’ experiences in urban and suburban schools that deal with the routine conflicts of school. He draws on his own extensive experience in public schools and his research into teaching and administration to set forth a practical framework for identifying, defining, and coping with both puzzling problems and tension-filled dilemmas. A much-needed resource for both new and experienced practitioners, How Can I Fix It? focuses on common skills that practitioners have, but seldom take time to consider, and applies these skills to concrete situations.

Inside the Black Box of Classroom Practice

Download Inside the Black Box of Classroom Practice PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781612505572
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (55 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Inside the Black Box of Classroom Practice by : Larry Cuban

Download or read book Inside the Black Box of Classroom Practice written by Larry Cuban and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Inside the Black Box of Classroom Practice takes as its starting point a strikingly blunt question: "With so many major structural changes in U.S. public schools over the past century, why have classroom practices been largely stable, with a modest blending of new and old teaching practices, leaving contemporary classroom lessons familiar to earlier generations of school-goers?" It is a question that ought to be of paramount interest to all who are interested in school reform in the United States. It is also a question that comes naturally to Larry Cuban, whose much-admired books have focused on various aspects of school reform--their promises, wrong turns, partial successes, and troubling failures. In this book, he returns to this territory, but trains his focus on the still baffling fact that policy reforms--no matter how ambitious or determined--have generally had little effect on classroom conduct and practice. "For forty years, Larry Cuban has been a voice of thoughtful analysis amid the overwrought rhetoric of American education reform. His distinctive contribution--updated, deepened, and extended in this book--has been to focus our attention on the persistent gap between the misconceptions of policy elites and the realities of daily practice in the classroom. One hopes that the next generation of American educators will learn the essential lessons of Cuban's analysis more deeply than the current generation. Young people considering a career in education should hold the lessons of this book close to their hearts." -- Richard F. Elmore, Gregory R. Anrig Professor of Educational Leadership, Harvard Graduate School of Education "Larry Cuban's well-written book convincingly demonstrates why current education reforms don't work, can't work, and won't work." -- Diane Ravitch, research professor of education, New York University "Anyone with a deep interest in public schools should read Inside the Black Box of Classroom Practice. Cuban takes the reader through the history of earnest efforts to improve our schools--through technology, structural reforms, and accountability systems--and shows why they have met with mixed and often disappointing results. His recommendations for us are both cautionary and hopeful, and always respectful of the dilemmas that teachers face each day they walk through the classroom door." -- Gary Yee, board director, District Four, Oakland Unified School District, and retired vice chancellor, Educational Services, Peralta Community College District Larry Cuban is professor emeritus of education at Stanford University.

A Guide to the Teaching of English for the Cuban Context I

Download A Guide to the Teaching of English for the Cuban Context I PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Editorial Pueblo y Educación
ISBN 13 : 9591340257
Total Pages : pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (913 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis A Guide to the Teaching of English for the Cuban Context I by : Isora J. Enríquez O’Farrill

Download or read book A Guide to the Teaching of English for the Cuban Context I written by Isora J. Enríquez O’Farrill and published by Editorial Pueblo y Educación. This book was released on 2021-07-16 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Este libro es el primer volumen de una colección creada para acompañar el estudio de la Didáctica de la Enseñanza de Idiomas Extranjeros. Su estructura se ha inspirado en el ejemplarTheTeaching of English in theElementary and IntermediateLevels. Contiene una variedad de tareas cuyo objeto es fomentar la reflexión sobre los temas que en él se discuten; gracias a ellas el lector podrá ser un participante activo en el proceso de enseñanza y aprendizaje.

Letters from Cuba

Download Letters from Cuba PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 0525516492
Total Pages : 290 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (255 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Letters from Cuba by : Ruth Behar

Download or read book Letters from Cuba written by Ruth Behar and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2021-08-31 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pura Belpré Award Winner Ruth Behar's inspiring story of a Jewish girl who escapes Poland to make a new life in Cuba, where she works to rescue the rest of her family The situation is getting dire for Jews in Poland on the eve of World War II. Esther's father has fled to Cuba, and she is the first one to join him. It's heartbreaking to be separated from her beloved sister, so Esther promises to write down everything that happens until they're reunited. And she does, recording both the good--the kindness of the Cuban people and her discovery of a valuable hidden talent--and the bad: the fact that Nazism has found a foothold even in Cuba. Esther's evocative letters are full of her appreciation for life and reveal a resourceful, determined girl with a rare ability to bring people together, all the while striving to get the rest of their family out of Poland before it's too late. Based on Ruth Behar's family history, this compelling story celebrates the resilience of the human spirit in the most challenging times.

Dreaming in Cuban

Download Dreaming in Cuban PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Ballantine Books
ISBN 13 : 0307798003
Total Pages : 274 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (77 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Dreaming in Cuban by : Cristina García

Download or read book Dreaming in Cuban written by Cristina García and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2011-06-08 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Impressive . . . [Cristina García’s] story is about three generations of Cuban women and their separate responses to the revolution. Her special feat is to tell it in a style as warm and gentle as the ‘sustaining aromas of vanilla and almond,’ as rhythmic as the music of Beny Moré.”—Time Cristina García’s acclaimed book is the haunting, bittersweet story of a family experiencing a country’s revolution and the revelations that follow. The lives of Celia del Pino and her husband, daughters, and grandchildren mirror the magical realism of Cuba itself, a landscape of beauty and poverty, idealism and corruption. Dreaming in Cuban is “a work that possesses both the intimacy of a Chekov story and the hallucinatory magic of a novel by Gabriel García Márquez” (The New York Times). In celebration of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the novel’s original publication, this edition features a new introduction by the author. Praise for Dreaming in Cuban “Remarkable . . . an intricate weaving of dramatic events with the supernatural and the cosmic . . . evocative and lush.”—San Francisco Chronicle “Captures the pain, the distance, the frustrations and the dreams of these family dramas with a vivid, poetic prose.”—The Washington Post “Brilliant . . . With tremendous skill, passion and humor, García just may have written the definitive story of Cuban exiles and some of those they left behind.”—The Denver Post

Tinkering toward Utopia

Download Tinkering toward Utopia PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 0674044525
Total Pages : 193 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (74 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Tinkering toward Utopia by : David B. TYACK

Download or read book Tinkering toward Utopia written by David B. TYACK and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-06-30 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For over a century, Americans have translated their cultural anxieties and hopes into dramatic demands for educational reform. Although policy talk has sounded a millennial tone, the actual reforms have been gradual and incremental. Tinkering toward Utopia documents the dynamic tension between Americans' faith in education as a panacea and the moderate pace of change in educational practices. In this book, David Tyack and Larry Cuban explore some basic questions about the nature of educational reform. Why have Americans come to believe that schooling has regressed? Have educational reforms occurred in cycles, and if so, why? Why has it been so difficult to change the basic institutional patterns of schooling? What actually happened when reformers tried to reinvent schooling? Tyack and Cuban argue that the ahistorical nature of most current reform proposals magnifies defects and understates the difficulty of changing the system. Policy talk has alternated between lamentation and overconfidence. The authors suggest that reformers today need to focus on ways to help teachers improve instruction from the inside out instead of decreeing change by remote control, and that reformers must also keep in mind the democratic purposes that guide public education.