Changing Classes
School Reform and the New Economy
Learning in Doing: Social, Cognitive and Computational Perspectives Series

How do schools help to create the kind of person a child becomes? Changing Classes tells the story of a small, poor, ethnically-mixed school district in Michigan's rust-belt, a community in turmoil over the announced closing of a nearby auto assembly plant. As teachers and administrators found ways to make schooling more relevant to working-class children, two large-scale school reform initiatives swept into town: the Governor's 'market-place' reforms and the National Science Foundation's 'state systemic initiative'. All this is set against the backdrop of the transformation to a global, post-Fordist economy. The result is an account of the complex linkages at work as society structures the development of children to adulthood.

Preface; 1. The Class of 2001; 2. Blue Monday: December, 1991–February, 1992; 3. Vehicle of reform, drivers of change; 4. America's birthday; 5. The last First Day; 6. Willow run is America: the 1940s and 50s; 7. Crossing to the new economy; 8. End of year report cards; 9. Rest and relaxation?; 10. Caught in the middle; 11. The change game; 12. The future of the kids coming behind us; 13. Quality or equality?; 14. Coda; Notes.