Revolution at the Margins
The Impact of Competition on Urban School Systems

  • Title:

    Revolution at the Margins
  • Paperback ISBN:

    0815702094
  • Paperback Dimensions:

    9'' x 6.28''
  • 268 Paperback pages
  • Hardcover ISBN:

    0815702086

Urban school systems have a difficult mandate: to educate large numbers of disadvantaged children under the heavy hand of often dysfunctional managerial, accountability, and regulatory systems. Over the past decade they have also been challenged--in some cases threatened--by competition from school vouchers and charter schools.

Revolution at the Margins examines how urban school systems are responding to education competition. Drawing on case studies conducted in three school districts at the center of the school choice debate, the book seeks to clarify how competition is likely to play out in urban education; shed light on the ways in which system structure and practice hamper efforts to improve urban schooling; and better understand what promise market-driven reform holds for the future of children's education. Given the likelihood that conventional public systems will educate most students for the foreseeable future, the impact of choice-induced competition is likely to be an issue of concern for years to come. Revolution at the Margins explores whether the "cleansing" force of competition can lead to a more focused and effective model of governance.

Frederick M. Hess is a resident scholar at AEI.

About the Author

 

Frederick M.
Hess



  • An educator, political scientist and author, Frederick M. Hess studies a range of K-12 and higher education issues. He is the author of influential books on education including “The Same Thing Over and Over,” “Education Unbound,” “ Common Sense School Reform,” “ Revolution at the Margins” and “Spinning Wheels,” and he pens the Education Week blog, Rick Hess Straight Up. His work has appeared in scholarly and popular outlets such as Teachers College Record, Harvard Education Review, Social Science Quarterly, Urban Affairs Review, American Politics Quarterly, Chronicle of Higher Education, Phi Delta Kappan, Educational Leadership, U.S. News & World Report, National Affairs, The Washington Post, New York Times, The Atlantic and National Review. He has edited widely cited volumes on education philanthropy, stretching the school dollar, the impact of education research and No Child Left Behind.  He serves as executive editor of Education Next, as lead faculty member for the Rice Education Entrepreneurship Program, on the review boards for the Broad Prize in Urban Education and the Broad Prize for Public School Charters as well as on the boards of directors of the National Association of Charter School Authorizers, 4.0 SCHOOLS and the American Board for the Certification of Teaching Excellence. A former high school social studies teacher, he has taught at the University of Virginia, the University of Pennsylvania, Georgetown University, Rice University and Harvard University. He holds an M.A. and Ph.D. in Government from Harvard University as well as an M.Ed. in Teaching and Curriculum.


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  • Email: rhess@aei.org
  • Assistant Info

    Name: Lauren Aronson
    Phone: 202-862-5904
    Email: lauren.aronson@aei.org
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