| Fortunately, we do not need to choose between full-scale restructuring of American education and no innovation at all. Government and politics in the United States is both fragmented and decentralized. Decisions can be taken at the national, state, and local level. Now that choice is on the table, the issue is being addressed not only by Congress and state officials but by thousands of local school boards as well. It is good that such fragmentation precludes wholesale governmental transformation at any one point in time. It is also fortunate that these many points of decision provide multiple openings where experimentation can begin. We hope that what is contained in this volume may prove helpful to those who wish to move forward. |
| To learn more about school choice developments nationwide, a conference, "Rethinking School Governance," was hosted in June 1997 by Harvard's Program on Education Policy and Governance, located within the Kennedy School of Government's Taubman Center on State and Local Government and the Center for American Political Studies in the Department of Government. Scholars from around the country reported on an array of recent developments. This volume contains revised versions of many of the essays presented at the conference. In addition to the authors of these essays, other conference participants included Jeanne Allen, Tom Carroll, Andrew J. Coulson, Carol D'Amico, Nathan Glazer, Charles Glenn, Christopher Jencks, Helen F. Ladd, Tom Loveless, Susan Mayer, Abigail Thernstrom, Sammis B. White, Alan Wolfe, and Philip Zelikow. |
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