Of General Interest
Managers of Virtue: Public School Leadership in America, 1820-1980, by David Tyack and Elisabeth Hansot (Basic Books, 10 East 53rd St., New York, N.Y. 10022; 312 pages, $17.95).
This history of American public education examines the influence of prominent public-school leaders and traces the rise and recent decline of the nation’s “faith in education.” The authors link the work of such leaders as Horace Mann, Catharine Beecher, and Ellwood Patterson Cubberley (the “managers of virtue”) to cultural shifts in values, politics, and economics. In doing so, the book attempts to explain the rapid spread of uniform public education in the mid-19th century; the response of school leaders to questions of race, religion, ethnicity, and class; and other issues in the history of education. Mr. Tyack, professor of education and history at Stanford University, and Ms. Hansot, associate professor of political science at the University of Nevada, conclude with a call for “a new community of commitment to public education as a common good.”
Using Local History in the Classroom, by Fay D. Metcalf and Matthew T. Downey (American Association for State and Local History, 708 Berry Rd., Nashville, Tenn. 37204; 284 pages, $17.50 [$13.50 for A.A.S.L.H. members]).
At a time when many Americans are searching for their “roots,” the authors provide high-school and college teachers with guidelines for studying local history in the classroom. Convinced that “the everyday experiences of ordinary men, women, and children in countless towns and neighborhoods also helped give shape to the past,” the authors offer information on using local museums, talking to local personalities, interviewing family members, and researching back issues of local newspapers, among other techniques that students can use to discover the histories of their own neighborhoods. The study of local history, the authors claim, can be used to improve students’ skills in writing, research, and documentation, and can open up to students subjects such as politics, economics, architecture, and photography. In three sections, the book addresses the skills needed to study local history; the significance of local history in a standard history curriculum; and the chronological, topical, and journalistic methods of teaching local history. Ms. Metcalf is a social-studies teacher in Boulder, Colo.; Mr. Downey is a history professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
For Special Interests
Measurement, Guidance, and Program Improvement, edited by William B. Schrader (Jossey-Bass, Inc., Publishers, 433 California St., San Francisco, Calif. 94104; 137 pages, paper $7.95).
A collection of 10 articles from the 1981 Educational Testing Service Invitational Conference, the book covers such issues as the relationship between testing and equity, the use of testing to improve schools, the identification of talent in students, and replacing or relabeling the Scholastic Aptitude Test. A part of the publisher’s New Directions for Testing and Measurement Series.
School Desegregation and Defended Neighborhoods: The Boston Controversy, by Emmett H. Buell Jr. (Lexington Books, 125 Spring St., Lexington, Mass. 02173; 219 pages, $22.95).
Based on a study of the federal-court decision that Boston schools were unlawfully segregated and the ensuing controversy over busing, the book addresses the development of the racially “defended neighborhood’'--a community of closely knit people who react against the social change brought about by busing. The author also offers recommendations for desegregating schools in other cities.
Trial and Error: The Detroit School Segregation Case, by Eleanor P. Wolf (Wayne State University Press, The Leonard N. Simons Building, 5959 Woodward Ave., Detroit, Mich. 48202; 374 pages, $19.95).
Ms. Wolf examines the effectiveness of court-ordered busing in Detroit through her study of the 1971 trial of Bradley v. Milliken, in which the Detroit school system was found guilty of maintaining segregated schools and was ordered to begin a busing program that was later redefined by the U.S. Supreme Court. A sociology professor at Wayne State University, Ms. Wolf questions the quality of the testimony presented at the trial and concludes that it failed to provide the court with the necessary information for thorough evaluation.
Anne Bridgman
