Predicting the Behavior of the Educational System

 

by Thomas F. Green

with David P. Ericson & Robert H. Seidman

 

"Anyone who wants to understand the U.S. school system . . . needs to read this book.  It explains the possibilities and limits of educational policy better than any other book I know.  [the work of] school reformers will be the better for it."

  —Linda Darling-Hammond, co-director, NCREST

 

"If it is possible, Predicting . . . is more pertinent fifteen years after its initial publication than it was when it first appeared.

               —Gene V. Glass, Arizona State University

 

This groundbreaking work was the first to propose an inquiry into the forms, dynamics, and constructs of educational policy.  This fine book remains the only treatment of the foundations of educational policy incorporating an account of the differences between various kinds of educational goods.  Professor Green explored the nature of policy and prospects for the future and it is a rare treat that we can now (more than fifteen years later) revisit the text to uncover his uncanny accuracy.

 

Partial table of contents:

The Educational System:

                                Primary & Derivative Elements

                                Control

                                Distribution

                                Hierarchical Principles

                                Hierarchies of Status

The System in Motion

The Dialectic of Two Principles

Arguments of Public & Private Benefits

 

Thomas F. Green is professor emeritus of education and educational foundations and the founding editor of the Educational Policy Research Center at Syracuse University.  He has been a member of many of the preeminent philosophy societies and was president of the Philosophy of Education Society in 1975.  Professor Green is also the author of The Activities of Teaching and Work, Leisure, and the American School.

 

1997/ 220 pp./paper $26.95/ISBN: 0-9658339-2-5