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READERS' FORUM MC MILLAN era of early Progressivism. At best, it seems that the "humanistic" and the "practical" aims of education will come together only for the rich, who can rely on other means-family wealth, status, lucrative special talents-to gain access to economic advantage. For the middle and lower classes, the present humanism is not likely to dislodge the dominant cultural sentiment that one goes to school "to get a good job." There is another current movement toward educational reform-community control-but before considering it, it may be useful to extract certain "lessons of history" from previous reform efforts. The first observation is that far-reaching educational reforms have had very little effect on dominant cultural values. Schools change after political and economic values change, not before. I have heard reformers speak of "kids I touched"; indeed, evaluation of educational reform in general might proceed on such a level. It appears to me that trying to change the political, economic, or social value structure of American society by introducing changes in the public schools, which are almost solely a manifestation of political, economic, and social (parent) interests, is not unlike trying to change the course of a lumbering elephant by tugging at its tail. The way to change economic and political values is through economic and political activity, not through the public schools, at least not directly. This observation may provide insight to educational reformers about the process of goal setting. The point is that educational reformers must know exactly what they are trying to change, and exactly what obstacles are standing in the way of that change. My knowledge and experience lead me to believe that many educational reform efforts falter on precisely this point: reformers are unaware-or at least act that way-of basic value clashes between their ideology and the country. One who seeks to change schools must realize the limitations of schools. It is not professional educators who are in the vanguard of the movement for community control, it is concerned laymen (Harnett, 1968; Levin, 1970; Mc-Coy, 1971). Yet inasmuch as efforts at community control represent efforts to use the schools to change the society, they must be viewed as paralleling previous reform movements. Community control advocates, lay people and professional educators have motives similar to past reformers: they are challenging a widely held dominant cultural value, specifically, that public urban 65
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Reopened for Editing 2024-02-21 16:47:15
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Reopened for Editing 2024-02-21 23:57:48