This book is a comparative analysis of the tensions, compromises and conflicts over school reform in four urban school systems in the United States. In examining the contradictory forces that shaped urban education in the U.S., it illuminates how grassroots movements operated during the early twentieth century. Unlike many of the standard…

In the Four Corners region of rural southwest Colorado is Battle Rock Charter School--a one-room school attended by students in grades 1-6 that live in McElmo Canyon. For most of the 1900s, the canyon's isolation meant that people lived and worked as they had in the previous century, and the community was allowed to retain its tiny school because…

The study documents what happened in 10 rural communities when a federal educational funding program (Experimental Schools) in 1972 provided 5-year grants for demonstration projects designed both to improve the school system and, through the schools, to address a variety of community needs. The study employs two strategies to document the ways in…