"When School Policies Backfire focuses on education policies designed to help disadvantaged students that instead had the perverse effect of exacerbating the very problems they were intended to solve. The book features rigorous case studies addressing important areas of education reform, and shows how and why each intervention backfired. It offers a sobering reminder of the responsibility that policy makers and researchers bear for the well-being of our most vulnerable students." --
This volume brings together six case studies of education policies in the US that were meant to help at-risk students, but ended up exacerbating the problems they were meant to solve or eliminate: middle school literacy interventions, accountability policies and summer setback, minimum grading policies, school closures, school choice policies, and technology programs. Contributors are education and other researchers from the US. Annotation ©2016 Ringgold, Inc., Portland, OR (protoview.com)
Like medical practitioners, educators share the moral obligation to “first, do no harm.” But as this provocative volume shows, education policies do not always live up to this ideal, especially policies intended to help our most vulnerable students.
Like medical practitioners, educators share the moral obligation to “first, do no harm.” But as this provocative volume shows, education policies do not always live up to this ideal, especially policies intended to help our most vulnerable students. When School Policies Backfire draws our attention to education policies designed to help disadvantaged students that instead had the perverse effect of harming them by exacerbating the very problems they were intended to solve.
The rigorous case studies that make up the book are contributed by a diverse group of scholars with different methodological approaches. The cases address important areas of education reform, from literacy and technology programs to school closings, school choice, and accountability policies. Each case shows how and why a particular program backfired. Taken together, they present a wide-ranging critique of the kinds of policies that compose the cornerstones of current education reform efforts.
Many books have examined policies that fall short of achieving their goals, or that result in unintended consequences. But few have documented the effects of policies whose failures have been so spectacular. When School Policies Backfire is a sobering reminder of the responsibility that policy makers and researchers bear for the well-being of our most vulnerable students.
