Apple, Michael W. (2001). Educating the “Right” Way: Markets, Standards, God, and Inequality

	Apple, Michael W. (2001). Educating the “Right” Way: Markets, Standards, God, and Inequality. New York and London: Routledge/Falmer. Pp. 306 $23.95 (paper)     ISBN 0-145-92462-6 Reviewed by Ramin Farahmandpur Portland State University November 11, 2003 For the past two decades, one of the major undertakings of critical educational theorist Michael Apple has been to study the causes of the rise of the New Right and its impact on educational policies in the United States. Educating the “Right” Way: Markets, Standards, God, and Inequality can be described as a sequel to his two previously published books: Official Knowledge: Democratic Education in a Conservative Age (1993) and Education and Cultural Politics (1996), in which Apple explored the resurgence of the conservative restoration in the United States. In his most recent work, Apple examines how the social, political, economic, and cultural movements on the right have succeeded in forming a "hegemonic alliance" in order to influence and shape educational policies in the United States. In chapters one and two, Apple identifies four major social, political, and ideological movements, which he refers to as the "hegemonic alliance of the New Right." These four movements include: neoliberals, neoconservatives, authoritarian populists, and the new middle class. Apple suggests that although each movement has different and oftentimes conflicting political and ideological interests, they form a "hegemonic alliance" when it comes to opposing progressive and democratic forces on the Left. In a concerted effort to advance its social, economic, political, and ideological agenda, Apple claims that the New Right exercises hegemony primarily through the medium of ideological leadership. He explains that the New Right’s tactics include, for example, the use of key concepts such as markets, standards, God, and inequality. Each concept constitutes one of the central tenets of the social movements within the New Right. For instance, neoliberals are proponents of the market; neoconservatives are determined to enforce traditional curriculum and national standards across the country; authoritarian populists are motivated by a desire to integrate religion and God within the school curriculum; and finally, the new middle class and the professional managerial class are associated with maintaining social and economic inequality by supporting educational policies that are favorable to their class standing within society. In his analysis of the causes of the rise of the "conservative alliance," Apple draws upon Gramsci’s concept of the "commonsense." Apple generally limits the "commonsense" to ideological struggles and defines it as the "basic categories" or "key words" such as "democracy," "freedom," and "equality" that are used by people to make sense of the social world. He attributes the rise of the New Right to its cunning ability to change or "alter" the meaning of the commonly held beliefs and views of people of the social world. (Note 1) Apple believes that the New Right success in changing people’s commonsense is due to its use of a "simple" language that people can understand. He refers to this strategy as "plain speaking." In chapter three, Apple examines the hegemonic alliances among the forces on the Right and the Left. He identified these alliances as a “decentered unity,” a concept whose origin can be traced back to the "radical democratic" approach of post-Marxists Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe (1985). (Note 2) Apple explains that the "decentered unity" consists of a constellation of progressive social groups that form a counter-hegemonic alliance against the dominant social groups in society (i.e., the New Right). In contrast to the Leninist strategy of "democratic centrism," in which the vanguard party operated as the "ideological and political compass" of the proletariat, Apple firmly espouses the notion of a "decentered unity" that consists of an alliance among feminists, multiculturalists, lesbians, gays, anti-racists, environmentalists, peace activists, progressives, and neo-Marxists. (Note 3) Apple describes the "decentered unity" as an alliance that encompasses a broad range of progressive forces and social groups. Hence, he maintains that the "decentered unity" does not succumb to an "official" centralized bureaucratic party line because it is inclusive of multiple voices and subject positions. In chapters four and five, Apple takes a closer look at the ideology behind the authoritarian populist religious conservative movement. Apple offers both a historical and a political overview of one of the most hotly debated controversies that has erupted over the years in public schools, namely, the teaching of evolutionary science. Apple provides a number of examples including one state school board in Alabama that required all biology textbooks adopted by the state to have a disclaimer noting that evolutionary science is one of the many theories explaining the development of human life. Apple also shows how politicians such as Ronald Reagan and Pat Buchanan have been instrumental in supporting the causes of the religious Right by denouncing Darwinism and evolutionary science. In chapter five, Apple also shows how evangelicals and Christians on the Right of the political spectrum, including Pat Robertson and Ralph Reed, have been major political and ideological forces in influencing the course and the direction of educational policies at the local, state, and national levels. One example involves the controversy over school prayers in public schools. In chapter six, Apple examines the growing trend of homeschooling in the context of the current social, political, cultural, and economic climate. He notes that while not all parents who homeschool their children hold conservative religious viewpoints, most have a biblical interpretation of the family unit, maintain non-secular views on gender dynamics, and have their own views on what counts as "legitimate knowledge." Apple is alarmed with the homeschooling movement because he believes it is leading to the "suburbanization of everyday life" and the "segmentation of American society." Here, he is referring to the increasing race, class, and gender divisions in American society. Apple is equally concerned about the contradictory nature of educational policies that allows public money for creating charter schools be used by homeschoolers to teach religious viewpoints that would otherwise violate the separation of church and state in the constitution. Apple believes that these loopholes in the federal and state educational policies privileges students from religious segments of society over students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. Chapter seven includes perhaps the most contentious facet of Apple’s concept of "decentered unity." In this chapter, Apple puts forth a "dual strategy" approach for building counter-hegemonic alliances. Apple’s dual strategy approach consists of progressive and tactical alliances. Progressive alliances are those that are forged among progressive forces, which include anti-globalization activists, peace organizers, environmentalists, feminists, the working class, and gays and lesbians. On the other hand, Apple explains that tactical alliances are those that can be developed among progressive forces and factions from within the Right wing. For example, Apple proposes that it is possible to make tactical alliances with the anti-corporatist sentiments of authoritarian populists on the Right. The reasoning behind this type alliance is based entirely on common ideological interests. For example, he notes that both the populist Right and the Left have been strong opponents of Chris Whittle’s Channel One. By the same token, Apple is optimistic that tactical alliances can be forged with the populist Right on controversial issues such as state curricula and testing. Of course, this is not to suggest that Apple does not recognize that these alliances need to be approached with extreme caution. While I agree with Apple’s deep-seated social and political convictions, and concur with his criticism of the New Right’s attempt to shape the course of educational policies in the United States, I remain skeptical regarding his theoretical framework, in particular his neo-Marxist approach to educational reform on a number of major points. These include, among others, his neo-Marxist interpretation of Gramsci’s concept of the “commonsense”; his use of the “decentered unity,” which he identifies as an counter-hegemonic alliance among progressive forces on the left; and finally, his notion of a “dual strategy” for building alliances between progressive forces on the left and those on the Right. First, there is no doubt that Gramsci’s concept of commonsense is an improvement over Marx and Engels’ interpretations of ideology as “false consciousness.” Yet, to their credit, Marx and Engels were wholly aware that the concept of ideology, which they interpreted as “false consciousness,” did not simply express a false outlook or a "simple inversion" of the social world that the ruling classes imposed on the masses. Consequently, Apple’s claim that the New Right’s success in changing our commonsense is achieved simply by redefining those key ideas (i.e., equality, freedom, democracy) on its own turf is not entirely convincing. Hegemony cannot be achieved simply by means of discursive practices or by way of a "war of position" alone. Stated differently, in their struggles to build alliances by winning over the masses, the Right and the Left do not merely engage in what Gramsci referred to as the "war of position," but also in a "war of maneuver." (Note 4) Apple believes that the task of the counter-hegemonic alliances among the progressive forces is to develop "creative ways" or measures to win over the masses. In other words, the educational Left should emulate the Right’s success by providing the popular masses an alternative progressive discourse that redefines those key "concepts" (i.e., democracy, freedom, and equality). However, in doing so, Apple falls into "theoretical voluntarism." This is because he underestimates the intimate relationship between ideology and the “material structural determinations” (Mészáros, 1989). Given the fact that the anti-capitalist movements must overcome overwhelming “material constraints,” there is no symmetrical distance in the relationship between “critical ideology” and “established ideology” to the commonsense of the people (Mészáros, 1989). Furthermore, Apple holds that ideological dispositions do not necessarily correspond to economic, political, or cultural positions of individuals or groups of people. He claims that ideology, class, politics, and culture are "relatively autonomous" from one another. However, his explanation offers little, if any, insight into “how ideologies become a part of the popular consciousness of classes and class fractions who are not among the elite” (Meiksins Wood, 1986, p. 16). The reason why Apple attributes the rise of the New Right to its ability to alter the meaning of concepts such as "democracy" and "freedom" is because he severs ideological contradictions from class antagonisms. Absent from Apple’s neo-Marxist approach to educational reform is any sustained effort to examine class antagonisms among the subordinate groups and the dominant groups. Subsequently, Apple is stranded in a form of "radical idealism." This is because people’s commonsense is shaped not only by the alteration of the meaning of key concepts like "democracy" and "freedom" but also by the class struggles between the capitalist class and the working class. Finally, Apple’s understanding of the concept of commonsense is limited because it is not sufficiently grounded within the material practices and activities of men and women. There are other pressing questions that remain unanswered. Some of these include: What is the relationship between good sense and bad sense? How are truth and misrepresentations related to one another? What is the composition of the commonsense? Are there more elements of bad sense than good sense? In short, Apple’s employment of the "commonsense" fails to explain, in the main, how and why people’s misperception of the world occurs the way that it does. Second, I find Apple’s notion of the "decentered unity" highly problematic for a number of reasons. To begin with, one of the questions is: what holds the "decentered unity" together? Stated differently: What is the ideological bond that unites these diverse groups of differing social, political, and economic interests? Apple is quick to acknowledge this dilemma. He admits that there are “real differences” among the wide spectrum of social and political groups that include, for example, political, epistemological, and educational differences. If this is the case, then the follow-up question is: What are the ideological or political forces that conjoins these diverse groups? Responding to these criticisms, Apple writes that the "decentered unity" is “united in [its] opposition to the forces involved in the new conservative hegemonic alliance” (p. 96). However, Apple’s reply does not sufficiently justify such a loosely knitted coalition. For example, Apple derives the identity of the new social movements from their immediate experiences with oppression. Yet, in his polemic against E. P. Thompson, Perry Anderson (1980) reminds us that experiences alone do not guarantee agency. In other words, there is no assurance that experiences arising from a particular form of oppression will generate progressive forms of social action, or motivate a class, for example, to organize itself and rise up against social injustices. Anderson (1980) raises a number of other fundamental questions that are no less important. These include: How can we distinguish between a valid and invalid experience? And are religious experiences valid? Apple further notes that the New Right’s success is largely due to its ability to build a "decentered unity." Consequently, he recommends that the Left and progressive forces should learn from the victories of the New Right in their effort to build a progressive "decentered unity." On this point, Apple notes: “The right has been much more successful …than the left, in part because it has been able to craft—through hard and lengthy economic, political, and cultural efforts—a tense but still successful alliance that has shifted the major debates over education and economic and social policy onto its on terrain.”(p. 195). However, one of the underlying weaknesses in Apple’s strategy is that he juxtaposes the hegemonic and counter-hegemonic alliances among the forces of the Right and the Left. In Apple’s view, the Right and the Left are involved in a battle to persuade the masses to join their social and political cause. Hence, Apple leaves us with a political project that reduces social struggles to ideological battles between the Right and the Left that are largely fought in the terrain of discourse and language. Finally, in response to Apple’s proposal for a dual strategy, which consists of progressive and tactical alliances, the question I raise is whether it is feasible to develop alliances with factions of the New Right. Can the Right and the Left articulate mutual interests against corporations purely on common ideological interests? To Answer this question we need to take a step back and revisit Laclau and Mouffe’s (1985) notion of radical democracy and their unconditional endorsement of the new social movements. For Laclau and Mouffe (1985), the primary contradictions within capitalist social relations of production are not limited to class antagonisms alone, but also extend to ideological and political contradictions. By agreeing with Laclau and Mouffe (1985), who proclaim that political identity is not reducible to class identity, and who also endorse the premise of the irreducibility of ideological and cultural conflicts to class interests, Apple can claim that ideological and cultural struggles enjoy some measure of autonomy from class struggles. And by claiming that ideology and culture are relatively autonomous from class relations, it is clear why Apple believes that the New Right can simply alter the meaning of key concepts such as "democracy," "freedom," and "equality" to serve its own social, economic, and political interests. Cloaked in a poststructuralist reading of hegemony, Apple simply reduces socialist struggle to an ideological warfare between the Left and the Right. In spite of my critical review of his book, there is no question that over the years Michael Apple has made important scholarly contributions to the field of educational theory and practice. For the past three decades, Apple has not only proven to be one of the most vocal critics of the New Right, but he has also a tireless activist in the North American radical educational scene, not to mention a prominent scholar within international circles. Nonetheless, I believe that Apple’s neo-Marxist disposition in rebuilding alliances and coalitions remains both theoretically and practically problematic for organizing and developing a coherent anti-capitalist social and political movement among the educational left. Notes 1. There are, however, a number of inconsistencies in Apple’s arguments. For example, there are moments when Apple reduces social struggles to mere ideological struggles, and there are other moments when ideological struggles take precedence over class struggles. 2. One definition of the term is, “to undermine the usual hierarchy of a dominant system by showing that its center may hold only a relative, not a fixed point, or that the center may be exchanged with a place on the margins.” 3. One of the major flaws associated with Michael Apple’s distinction between moral and intellectual leadership and political domination is that he rejects the important role the vanguard party plays in seizing political power. To establish "the dictatorship of the proletariat," the working-class must seize state power. However, Apple’s claims that the ruling classes (in Apple’s case, the New Right) establishes domination by means of moral and intellectual leadership alone. For Apple, hegemony connotes moral and intellectual leadership. In addition, moral and intellectual leadership precedes political dominance. Overall, Apple’s objective is to deny the importance of the vanguard party. 4. Here, I am using the term “war of maneuver" to mean class struggle. References Apple, M. W. (1993). Official knowledge: Democratic education in a conservative age. New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Apple, M. W. (1996). Education and cultural politics. New York: Teachers College Press. Laclau, E., and Mouffe, C. (1985). Hegemony and socialist strategy: Toward a radical democratic politics. London and New York: Verso. Mészáros, I. (1989). The power of ideology. New York: New York University Press. Wood, E. M. (1986). The retreat from class: A new 'true' socialism. London and New York: Verso classics. About the Reviewer Ramin Farahmandpur is an assistant professor in the Department of Educational Policy, Foundations and Administrative Studies at Portland State University. He recently completed his Ph.D. in the field of Curriculum Theory and Teaching Studies from the Graduate School of Education and Informational Studies at UCLA. His work has appeared in Educational Researcher, Journal of Teacher Education, Journal of Curriculum Theorizing, Educational Policy, and Multicultural Education. His current interests include Marxist educational theory, critical pedagogy, and multicultural education.

Cecil, Nancy Lee (2003). Striking a balance: Best practices for early literacy

	Cecil, Nancy Lee (2003). Striking a balance: Best practices for early literacy. 2nd edition. Scottsdale, AZ: Holcomb Hathaway. 359 pages $35.95     ISBN 1-890871-43-5 Reviewed by Maureen R. Gerard University of Arizona, South November 5, 2003 The current national focus centers on young children’s beginning reading and writing. The report from the National Reading Panel (2000) generated renewed interest in early reading practices. Provisions of the No Child Left Behind legislation (2001) translate in to Reading First classroom practices and research-based reading instruction. The current thrust of federal funding policy emphasizes academic readiness. The initiative is founded in the belief that greater emphasis on academics, specifically language acquisition and literacy development in preschool and the primary years, insures reading success by third grade and, consequently, later academic success. Another Bush administration initiative, Good Start, Grow Smart, requests that each state develop voluntary standards for prekindergarten children that align with state K-12 academic standards, including standards for language and literacy, to insure reading readiness. Nancy Lee Cecil’s second edition text, Striking a Balance: Best Practices for Early Literacy ( 2003), addresses these timely issues on the current national education agenda − early literacy and the practices which insure that young children learn to read. This edition of the text, written for preservice early childhood educators, has been updated to ensure that a balanced, comprehensive program for early readers conforms to the findings of the National Reading Panel. Chapter 1 of Cecil’s book entitled “A Child Learns to Read: Process and Product”, explains theories of reading. The author defines the linguistic cueing systems and, then, follows with a description of some skills and characteristics of the reading process. Chapter 2 is entitled “A Quest for Balance: Moving Forward”. Cecil outlines the history of the ‘Great Debate’ in this chapter with a discussion of the cyclic spiraling between transmission, skills based models of phonics instruction and holisitic, transactional models of literacy immersion. In order to strike a balance between the two extremes, Cecil creates a three column table display of elements from phonics, a holistic model, and the balanced approach. Chapter 3 “Emergent Literacy: When and How Should We Begin” briefly touches on the oral language foundations of literacy and early reading readiness indicators. A definition of emergent literacy and the practices which foster emergent literacy are outlined for the practitioner. These positive practices are ‘tried and true’ methods for most kindergarten teachers and deserve mention in any emergent literacy text. Chapter 4 of the Cecil text is entitled “Phonemic Awareness: The Sounds of Our Language.” The author devotes an entire chapter to understanding and teaching of the ability to hear, identify, and manipulate the sounds of spoken language. The recent emphasis on an early oral and auditory ability, rather than the relationship of letter shape and its sound is noted by the author. Awareness of the individual sounds in spoken words predicts future reading success, according to the Cecil text. She offers a plan for developing phonemic awareness in young children, and provides the preservice teacher with activities, some borrowed from noted reading researchers, to instruct in phonemic awareness. Chapter 5, “Phonics Instruction: Why and How” describes direct, systematic phonics instruction. Cecil offers tips on beginning phonics instruction, a sequence for teaching phonics, approaches to teach children to sound out words, and a method for teaching sight word vocabulary. The author also addresses fluency and decoding automaticity within the chapter on phonics instruction. She recommends repeated oral readings, reader’s theatre, patterned predictable text, and choral reading as ways to build fluency in early readers. Chapter 6 devotes focused attention to spelling and the learning of complex organizational patterns in words. The author presents a detailed stage view of spelling development beginning with the prephonetic speller progressing to the conventional speller. Cecil thoroughly explains experimental spellings and outlines the progression that experimental spellings will follow as children become more attuned to pronunciations and conventional written language. She again offers practical activities for word study to enrich the spelling curriculum. Vocabulary and word meanings are addressed in Chapter 7. Types of vocabulary instruction are explored and classroom activities are offered. Chapter 8 “Reading Comprehension: Making Sense of Print” describes a number of useful teacher directed activities to foster critical thinking and understanding of text. Chapter 9 “Reading −Writing Connections: Reciprocal Paths to Literacy” presents the classroom management of the Writer’s Workshop approach. Each step of the writing process is defined and described for the preservice teacher. Cecil offers writing tools and tips as well as activities for writing in this chapter. Chapter 10 “Mediated Reading: Creating a Literate Community” focuses on the social nature of reading and examines shared readings in depth. Guided reading is compared to shared reading in a smaller group setting. Grouping strategies for reading instruction are offered as well. The final three chapters of the text include “Informing Instruction: Assessment of Early Literacy Development”, “Home as Partner: The Shared Connection”, and “Early Literacy; Orchestrating a Balanced Program.” All topics are critically important to early literacy practice. Cecil includes assessment of all types in Chapter 11. Informal, ongoing, and formal assessments each inform the teaching, learning, planning cycle in a very specific way. Preservice teachers must include all of these forms of assessment in their repertoire to be effective early literacy educators. The next chapter recognizes the indissociable role of the home in literacy development. Activities to bring parents into reading instruction are included in the text. The final chapter synthesizes the text by outlining a typical day in a classroom with a rich literacy climate. The strength of the Cecil text is its weakness. The strength of the new edition lies in the updates which reflect current research and field knowledge as these conform to the findings of the National Reading Panel. (evidence to the contrary notwithstanding: Allington, 2002; Coles, 2001; Camilli, Vargas, & Yurecko, 2003). The effort to provide research-based instruction based on guidelines from the National Reading Panel limits the picture of early literacy instruction. The first chapter of the book sets an operational definition of literacy which narrows literacy development to the reading process. Broad understandings of literacy allow the preservice teacher to envision all children as meaningful communicators whether their literacy means graphic, nonverbal, sign, enacted, or written communication. Preservice teachers who view the children in their classrooms through a broader lens understand success in a radically different manner. Other prominent authors in the early literacy field such as Mandel Morrow, and Christie, Enz, & Vukelich establish the entwined, interrelatedness of literacy learning. Foundations in oral language, auditory capacity, early bonding, and experiences with print form a complex web in early literacy. The importance of the infant/ toddler years is overlooked by the author. The author misses the equally invaluable preschool experiences in play and oral language. Chapter 2 begins with a recitation of the two ‘opposing’ stage and nonstage theories in reading research. In describing these two theories, Cecil sets up a dichotomy of thinking about the reading process which decades of the ‘reading wars’ have been unable to bridge even yet. The author views the pitting of phonics against a literature-based approach as a false dichotomy, however, the table and chapter 2 discussion perpetuate the dichotomy. Decades of research in reading and literacy resulted in more than just two models of reading. The title and content of this chapter begs the question, “Is balance in literacy development a ‘holy grail’ that we are on a quest to discover?” “ Is some sort of Platonic ‘mean’ the balance in this false dichotomy?” While Cecil attempts to present a balanced approach which includes embedded instruction, she misses the authenticity of reading, writing, and communicating when instruction is embedded in real language. Instruction delivered at point of use, one-on-one is direct and systematic, yet it is immediately useful to the child for his own purposes. This differs greatly from the review and reteach done in a direct, systematic model and in the reteaching or redirecting done during ‘individual practice’. Embedded instruction demands constant vigilance and observation from the teacher while children are really reading and really writing. This defies distillation in a methods textbook. What is missing from the definition and discussion of practices of emergent literacy in Chapter 3 are the weighty, important language experiences of the toddler and preschool years. A decade of neuroscience demonstrates how infant/toddler visual, hearing, and motor development set the conditions for language and literacy acquisition. Play in the preschool years embodies the extraordinary mode in which young children deepen representational thought, develop vocabulary, experiment with the metalinguistic features of speech, enact story structure, setting, and other literary elements. These, too, constitute early literacy but receive only passing mention from the author. Best practices in early literacy include time and opportunity for experimentation with a vast range of literacy materials during the first 5 years. A more apropos title to this text might be Striking a Balance: Best Practices in Primary Grades Literacy Instruction. Chapters 4, 5, and 6 give unbalanced attention to letter-sound relationships in early literacy; three chapters on phonemic awareness, phonics, and spelling compared to a single chapter on comprehension and meaning making in literacy. The author acknowledges that making sense of reading is the ultimate purpose of the reading process. Her chapter contents indicate otherwise. An entire chapter on spelling examines stage theory of development, while a stage approach is assiduously avoided in Chapter 2. Some components of literacy development cannot follow a stage sequence of development while other components do not. The activities in these chapters smack of kinesthetic worksheet-type exercises rather than authentic reading and writing. A single chapter on reading-writing connections gives short shrift to the powerful impetus that writing gives to early literacy growth. Cecil’s discussion of writing misses the alternating shift of balance between reading and writing (Frith, 1985).Young children are so intent on making a mark on their world, they mark on walls, on furniture, on books, and on themselves. Chapter 9 does not convey this powerful urge. Nor does this chapter convey the important role of written communication. Striking a Balance: Best Practices for Early Literacy misses the mark in best practice for authentic literacy development. It is a ‘cookbook’ of techniques which focus on methods for 5 narrow components of the reading process and misses the child − the active learner who constructs meaning in each literacy act. The child is the starting point for all learning, all instructional planning, and all assessment. Little text is devoted to truly knowing the child, the child’s abilities, and the child’s needs. Literacy is much larger than the cognitive processes of learning to read and teaching methods for best practice. Literacy is human relationship, communicating important messages to important others, and encoding in to more than an alphabetic code. The heart of literacy is absent from the Cecil text. Heart is what young children deserve first as best practice. References Allington, R. (2002). Big brother and the national reading curriculum: How ideology trumped evidence. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Camilli, G., Vargas, S., & Yurecko, M. (2003). Teaching children to read: The fragile link between science and federal education policy, Education Policy Analysis Archives, Vol 11, No. 15, May 8. Available online at http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v11n15/. Coles, G. (2001). Reading Taught to the Tune of the 'Scientific' Hickory Stick. Phi Delta Kappan; v83 n3 p204-12 Nov. Frith, U. (1985). “Developmental dyslexia” In KE Patterson,( Ed) Surface Dyslexia, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Good Start, Grow Smart (2003). Bush Administration Early Childhood Initiative. http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/earlychildhood/toc.html Mandel Morrow, L. (1989). Literacy development in the early years. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. National Reading Panel (2000).Report of the National Reading Panel: Teaching Children to Read: An Evidence-Based Assessment of the Scientific Research Literature on Reading and its Implications for Reading Instruction.Washington, D.C.: National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health. No Child Left Behind: A Desktop Reference. (2002). Washington, DC: Office of the Undersecretary. Available on line at http://www.ed.gov/offices/OESE/reference.html" U.S. Department of Education (2001). Reading First. http://www.ed.gob/offices/OESE/readingfirst Vukelich, C., Chrisite, J. & Enz, B. (2002). Helping young children learn language and literacy. Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon. About the Reviewer Maureen Gerard, Ph.D. is assistant professor of Teaching and Teacher Education at the University of Arizona, South, Sierra Vista, Arizona. She was formerly a faculty member at Arizona State University in Early Childhood Education and in the Elementary Education Teacher Preparation Program. She spent 12 years a multiage classroom teacher in Phoenix. Her current research interests are in young children’s use of environmental print in emergent literacy.

Sleeter, Christine E. and Grant, Carl A. (2003). Making Choices for Multicultural Education: Five Approaches to Race, Class, and Gender.

	Sleeter, Christine E. and Grant, Carl A. (2003). Making Choices for Multicultural Education: Five Approaches to Race, Class, and Gender. N.Y.: John Wiley & Sons. Pp. x + 245 $54     ISBN 0-471-39352-5 Reviewed by Sidney C. McDougall University of Texas at El Paso November 5, 2003 Our schools are becoming more diverse and our teachers continue to be predominately white and female. How both new and established teachers not only accept but consider that diversity as part of their curriculum is imperative to multiculturalism. Multiculturalism does not belong exclusively in social studies or on museum field trips but is a part of every teacher’s epistemology. A teacher imparts not only knowledge of other cultures and classes but also teaches students which “lens” they will use to view the world. Sleeter and Grant critique several “lens” of multicultural education, from viewing “others” as culturally different to cultural pluralism. The majority of the book’s chapters examine current approaches found in our schools towards multicultural education. These current philosophies guiding classroom practice are critiqued and Sleeter and Grant provide an opportunity to reflect why each approach is limited. The authors build a powerful argument that that multicultural education must be both multicultural and social reconstructionist. “Others” can be different in not only race, class and gender but in abilities (either special education or gifted), culture, language dominance and sexual orientation. Every classroom should reflect and celebrate diversity of every type. Extending the role of schools, classrooms should be a base for local social action projects. Teachers are to facilitate the coalescing of diverse groups as students work toward social justice. Educators need to be encouraged to promote ideas towards a better society and the authors help them understand how their view of “others” will dictate what a truly multicultural education will become in their classroom. According to the authors, in 1999 the United States population was 12.8 % African American, 12.5% Hispanic, 3.6% Asian or Pacific Islander and 69.1% non-Hispanic White. Anyone working in public education would recognize the upward trend as over three million immigrants moved to the United States between 1995 and 1998. Sleeter and Grant describe an enlarging diversity and urge educators towards reforms in curriculum, ability grouping practices, and the way teachers view different student cultures and lifestyles. We are challenged to consider whether we work towards suppressing those alternative lifestyles and cultures or do we accept the widening gulf between teachers and students and seek to bridge it? Children’s understanding of society and of other people is based on the world they experience and how society connects to their world. If the society they encounter is predominately of one ethnic or racial group, children’s comprehension of racism or knowledge of other groups is extremely limited…Simply telling children about people or problems beyond their experience may not penetrate their understanding very deeply. Children need to have direct and active involvement with the group or issue of concern. (p. 203). Both teachers and prospective teachers should examine their attitudes towards diversity and Sleeter and Grant provide overviews of varying perspectives on multicultural education. Are students viewed in terms of their differences? I would agree with the authors that this is a predominant viewpoint of many teachers and administrators. How a teacher recognizes a student as “at-risk”, “gifted”, or “special education” speaks to their assumptions regarding any academic deficits or behavioral problems. Are they failing because they are from a family of recent immigrants or from a lower socioeconomic class? Mainstreaming all of the “other” students is viewed as just because teachers are preparing students for a “mainstream” society in language, culture and norms. However, with widening diversity, Sleeter and Grant challenge this “deficiency orientation” as an educational practice in need of reform; it belittles our students’ self-concept. Every chapter contains accurate scenarios of the way we view diversity in our schools. Each scenario will be depict a familiar teacher and challenge the goals of that classroom. Sleeter and Grant never comment on the scenarios they’ve drawn; the scenario allows the reader to explore the viewpoint of the student. One scenario, in a chapter titled “ Teaching the Exceptional and the Culturally Differen,” features an Anglo, female teacher of a predominantly African American and Hispanic Head Start class including several students that are language dominant in Spanish. The teacher has an engaging classroom that incorporates media, books, artwork and learning centers. The teacher is planning a fieldtrip to an art institute and reviews the artists of the lesson: Monet, Manet and Renoir. Sleeter and Grant let the reader conclude that the enrichment activities she is providing belong to an unfamiliar world regardless of the teacher’s best intent towards “mainstreaming.” Teachers need to recognize and value their student’s cultural backgrounds. Another approach towards multicultural education is Human Relations which targets the development of each student’s self-concept. Classrooms should reflect individual differences but are in danger of what is known as “tourist curriculum” in which there are certain days set aside to recognize cultures in terms of food, clothing or folk tales. What results is an occasional respite for students from the majority culture, not relevant, daily experiences with cultures and languages. Cooperative learning groups and strategies can, according to Human Relations, improve inter-group relationships among students. According to Sleeter and Grant, the Human Relations approach is the most popular approach among White elementary teachers. Human Relations also teeters very close towards assimilation; cultural differences are taught only to the extent necessary to improve our students’ self-concepts. The authors are correct in their viewpoint that teaching about food, clothing and folk stories of other cultures does not truly create a good foundation for multicultural education. Single-group studies are a term devised by Sleeter and Grant to describe women’s studies, African American studies, Hispanic studies or any particular program that targets a particular group. Some public schools have instituted Black studies programs. Democracy and the study of democracy should not only reflect the politically dominant group. In order to counterbalance textbooks that narrowly describe social problems, ethnic groups and their unique histories should be taught separately from Anglo studies. Students who grasp their own culture and recognize their contributions to society will be willing to work toward social change. Sleeter and Grant advocate that a teacher working with a majority Asian or Hispanic population is an excellent opportunity to help students learn about their own literature and history. Single-group studies can also limit the emphasis on White, male studies. The fourth of the five “approaches to race, class and gender” supports Multicultural Education’s goals but disagrees with its implementation in the schools. An important component of Multicultural Education is that it involves the entire school and touches all areas including staffing. Teachers should mirror cultural diversity as well as administrators. No one group, such as paraprofessionals, should dominate a school’s staffing strata. Tracking is dispelled as well as the concept of the “at-risk” student. In order to avoid preconceptions of academic deficits, teachers must expect all students to excel and not have expectations based on class, gender, language, socioeconomic status and race. There also can be no departmental divisions between teachers such as regular education versus special education. The authors recognize that teaching from a multicultural perspective requires commitment and time. Teachers have to pursue staff development sessions that will strengthen their knowledge and provide them with multicultural materials. Sleeter and Grant agree with the philosophy of Multicultural Education but they criticize current efforts. Schools emphasize cultural diversity. Following school, students will need skills that will help them challenge social inequality. The authors advocate not only Multicultural Education but Social Reconstructionist. The example they give is how we teach, not practice democracy, in our schools. Practicing democracy is where a student can “articulate one’s interests, to openly debate issues and to organize and work collectively with others.” Students should be aware of the injustices of society and learn how to acquire constructive responses. Sleeter and Grant ask a lot of schools and teachers. Curriculum, materials, films, and speakers are to present every diverse group. Schools should have staffs that replicate the cultural diversity of their community. Students are not to be tracked and assessments should only be used to improve instruction. Minority parents should be actively involved with the school and all extracurricular activities should dismiss race and sex stereotypes. Multicultural materials and curricula are present in most of our schools. A challenge would be to restructure curricula to not only present social problems such as the availability of low-cost housing, but to allow students to learn how to seek solutions. This would require teachers to have a background in activism. This book is highly recommended to teachers and administrators who would like to understand all perspectives of multicultural education as well as consider the possibility of teaching social reconstructionism. Readers will find that Sleeter and Grant’s goal, that our students would leave school with the skills to remedy social structural inequalities, as very lofty yet not currently attainable without major educational reforms. The authors emphasize that the diversity gap is widening and teachers and administrators have to seek solutions through Multicultural Education. We would argue that a mainstream curriculum in any subject area already does reflect the perspective and experiences of a group—the dominant group. As such, it is not neutral or universal. Your choice is not whether cultural groups will inform the education program but rather which groups. (p. 151). Any teacher reading Making Choices for Multicultural Education will think about what groups will dominate in their classroom.

Starratt, Robert J. (2003). Centering educational administration: Cultivating meaning, community, responsibility.

	Starratt, Robert J. (2003). Centering educational administration: Cultivating meaning, community, responsibility. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Pp. 224 $59.95     ISBN 0-8058-4238-1 Reviewed by Eric Jabal Ontario Institute for Studies in Education University of Toronto November 2, 2003 Robert Starratt’s (2003) Centering Educational Administration is a veritable tour de force. Erudite, thought-provoking, and compelling, it effectively marshals the many strands of social, pedagogical, and organizational theory to weave its main message: in the noble service of the next generation, educational administration can uphold education’s humanistic value by cultivating meaning, community, and responsibility. For Starratt, one of education’s most encyclopedic and articulate public intellectuals, this entails moving beyond simply considering the “discrete functions of administration” and towards engaging “the essentials of administering.” Much as the overtones of Starratt’s argument may have W. B. Yeats turning in his grave (i.e., there is a center to educational administration... that can hold), it should be heeded for its critically normative orientation and purpose: to move educators and institutions from what is to what ought to be. The book does so by centering educational leadership on the cultivating and monitoring of a learning agenda that begins with the self and students and extends to teachers and the community. Our ecological interdependence means that "School communities do not exist in isolation from their surrounding communities. What and how they learn needs to be in dialogue with their surroundings" (233). To this end, Starratt explores the separate and intersective synergy of theory and practice, teaching and learning, of individual and community, to organically develop a vision of school as “a humane and socially nurturing environment in which the pursuit of academic learning would go hand in hand with social learning” (96). He extends the conceptual foundations for ethical education first developed in Building an ethical school (1994) and engages substantive aspects of moral leadership, keeping students at the centre of the educational enterprise and offering perspectives to help educators through this late-modern era of high-stakes accountability, diversity, and uncertainty. In his inimitable way, Starratt achieves this ambitious purpose through thoughtful organization of material, clear, vivid prose, and rich illustrative examples. The eight chapters of Part I, Elements of the Leader’s Vision, take readers through the conceptual foundation of his argument about what school renewal looks like, why it’s needed, and how it can be achieved. As the book’s sub-title suggests, Starratt’s vision for a new centre of educational administration comprises three main themes: cultivating meaning, community, and moral responsibility. Positioning this triumvirate against the work of leading peers in the field, Starratt argues that the core work of educational leaders goes beyond “transformational leadership” and “learning organizations” respectively espoused by Leithwood, Jentzi & Steinbach (1999) and Elmore (2000). In cultivating curricula of meaning, community, and responsibility, Starratt maintains that educational leaders engage with what should be the core of their practice: nurturing quality learning for all students. This point of emphasis takes Starratt’s triumvirate deeper than Murphy’s (1999) trilogy of educational reform, whose centre-piece is institutional – i.e., school improvement – and from which a democratic community and social justice are supposed to emerge. For Starratt, school renewal is fundamentally about enriching and enhancing the learning of the schoolhouse’s many selves – student and staff – in relation to their physical, social, and human worlds. It is about nurturing “moral excellence” in all learners, a sense of being responsible to, and for, what one learns. To this end, educational administration’s core is therefore about cultivating personal, public, applied, and academic meaning-making by initiating “conversations among teachers about the basic meaning behind what and how they teach, and the meanings that are implied and assumed in the curriculum" (224). Part II, Bringing the Vision to Reality, builds on the opening section’s conceptual foreground to demonstrate how the active learning of all students, and the facilitating of this work by teachers, can take place in classroom, school, and district practices. Its six chapters apply Part I’s lenses of moral philosophy, critical sociology, and cognitive science to refract and cohesively connect theory, policy, and practice. With carefully selected examples, each chapter helps illustrate the interdependency of Starratt’s main themes in practical and workable situations. The site-based activities that conclude each of the book’s fourteen chapters are especially useful in Part II. Clearly rooted in Starratt’s vast experience as a scholar-practitioner-leader, they encourage readers to deepen their understanding of the many learnings through action research that is situated in the dynamics and structures of schools. Through this gestaltian marriage of theory and practice, readers are encouraged to reflect and operationalize the book’s many rich concepts. The book’s 57 site-based activities would make it a valuable addition to any graduate program in educational administration that seeks to integrate the scholarly with the practical. Given Starratt’s interest in the intersection of ethics and educational administration, it is not surprising that he concludes Part II with a familiar refrain: know thyself. Its final two chapters revisit his previous musings on the nexus between education and the self-definition journey, and cast a more constructive reading of the late-modern condition. We are not merely fragmented individuals in a pluralistic, contested world of increasing social diversity, but rather “are responsible to ourselves, to the gift that is our life – both personally and socially” (229). For Starratt, addressing the individual-community dialectic, the tension between isolated individual and artificial community, should frame all that schools do. This perspective means fostering student growth from “interpersonal responsibility to a more collective sense of responsibility for the everyday life of the school" (115) – and staff development through an understanding that “accountability to oneself as an individual educator and an individual human being” (242-43) is key to school renewal. Cultivating such “internal accountability” requires heightened reflexivity, a critical trait of those undertaking the challenging work of educational leadership. Starratt suggests that such self-scrutiny forces educational administrators “to an intellectual depth and a critical moral stance with ourselves” (250), making school administration an existential, autobiographical process – with all the attending pain and pleasure, setbacks and successes, ambiguity and clarity that characterize human undertakings. With that said, Starratt’s book goes a long way to help aspiring and current educational administrators marshal brain and heart to the service of cultivating meaning, community, and responsibility in the leadership of schools. Part I’s philosophical and sociological frameworks provide the intellectual orientations to this enterprise. Starratt’s emphasis on the social production of knowledge underscores its fundamentally human dimensions, connecting students and educators, individuals and communities, schools and society within a complex ecology. Part II’s framing of Starratt’s three main themes in the day-to-day, organizational and institutional life of schools shows how educational leaders can address quality learning for all students. Doing so requires an interdisciplinary view of educational administration, one that integrates an ethic of justice, care, and critique within a multidimensional framework and cultivates a responsible community of empowered people with the capacity for individual and collective agency. For Starratt, educational leadership is therefore about nurturing various forms of empowerment (e.g., bureaucratic, professional, moral, and existential) to build commitment and to energize meaningful teaching and learning. In this optic, educational administration is thus reframed "within a larger framework, in the service of that work of the school community, rather than in the service of some kind of abstract organizational efficiency" (181; emphasis in original). As stewards, educational leaders can and must make a difference to the lives of children and schools – and without lapsing into technocratic, cookie-sheet approaches to educational administration, Starratt’s text offers much to achieve this goal. As a former teacher and administrator turned doctoral student, I thoroughly enjoyed reading Centering Educational Administration. It challenged my thinking, forcing me to iteratively revisit eight years of professional experiences through Starratt’s tripartite conceptualization of centered educational leadership; and it extended my scholarly experiences, developed over 16 graduate courses in educational administration. Most helpfully, it enabled me to connect meaningfully my many scholar, practitioner, and leadership learnings of the last decade, honed as I moved in and out of schools as an educational administrator and the academy as a graduate student. Consequently, Starratt’s latest will definitely find a place close at hand on my bookshelf of important educational administration texts and readily used, particularly given its clear, two-part structure, 21 explicatory diagrams and figures, and helpful author and subject indices. However, going with it will also be three Post-It notes that mark the places where my thinking and experience caused me to diverge from Starratt’s. The first concerns his apparent mitigation of “youth culture” influence on student readiness for school learning: “school learning occasionally has to engage that culture, look beneath that sometimes silly surface expression of that culture…” (170; emphasis is mine). It would seem to me that since the popular world so entices young people today and increasingly shapes their identities (see e.g., Kenway & Bullen, 2001), educators should be striving to better understand it. Instead of approaching it tentatively, disparagingly, educators should be engaging it critically, ethically, as crucial parts of their work with young people. The second concern stems from Starratt’s suggestion that “Peer assessments should not be entered into the final grades of the students being assessed” (174). Once again, it would seem that involving youths in all aspects of their educational journey is paramount to nurturing meaningful relationships rooted in transparency, respect, and reciprocity. These aims should frame every stage of the teaching-and-learning enterprise, including assessment. The third Post-It marks the places when Starratt tends to overuse lexis from the semantic field of religion. Much as I fully support his ethically-rooted value system of educational administration, I prefer it framed inclusively – i.e., humanistically – rather than religiously. For example, when describing educational administrator’s interactions with external constituencies, Starratt’s extended metaphor portrays the educational leader as a preacher in a “dialogically bully pulpit” (175). Why not a public servant in the discursive arena of schooling? My concern with such religious phraseology is that it may deter more secularly-minded, but humanistically-rooted, educators from welcoming the full extent of Starratt’s message. This would be to the detriment of all, given the richness that Starratt has to contribute to the much-needed conversations about inclusively re-centering educational administration. Overall, I am nevertheless heartened by what Centering Educational Administration contributes to the field’s knowledge base. Much as “educational administration is not a work for the faint-hearted” (242), Starratt shows how educational administrators can connect leadership to teaching and learning and education in the service of the community and wider humanity. Both aspiring and serving school leaders, specialist and non-specialist alike, interested in school renewal would gain from its conceptual and practical perspectives on cultivating meaning, community, and moral responsibility. I therefore tip my hat to Starratt – and highly recommend he be read – for helping to re-centre educational administration. References Elmore, R. (2000). Building a new structure for school leadership. Washington, DC: The Albert Shanker Institute. Kenway, J. & Bullen, E. (2001). Consuming Children: Education, Entertainment, Advertising. Philadelphia: Open University Press. Leithwood, K., Jantzi, D. & Steinbach, R. (1999). Changing leadership for changing times. Philadelphia: Open University Press. Murphy, J. (1999). The quest for a center: Notes on the state of the profession of educational leadership. Columbia, MO: University Council for Educational Administration. Starratt, R. J. (1994). Building an ethical school: A practical response to the moral crisis in schools. London: Falmer Press. About the Reviewer Eric Jabal is a PhD candidate in Educational Administration at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto.

Biddle, Bruce J. and Saha, Lawrence J. (2002). The Untested Accusation: Principals, Research Knowledge, and Policy Making in Schools

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	Biddle, Bruce J. and Saha, Lawrence J. (2002). The Untested Accusation: Principals, Research Knowledge, and Policy Making in Schools. Westport, CT: Ablex Publishing. Pp. xvi + 302 $71.95 ISBN 1-56750-622-4 Reviewed by Paul D. Hood WestEd October 21, 2003 Scientifically based research has recently become a familiar term in the educational research community. However, the perennial concern is whether educational research, no matter how scientifically based, can actually find its way into use in schools. The Untested Accusation provides us with a qualified, but generally strong, affirmation that school principals in both the United States and Australia are indeed aware of a broad range of educational research and they use that research knowledge in their schools. In this book Biddle and Saha flesh-out in substantial detail the findings from analyses of 120 in-depth interviews with U. S. and Australian school principals that were conducted in 1991 and 1992 and initially reported in Biddle, Saha & Anderson (1993) and Saha, Biddle, & Anderson (1995). Their study focuses on how principals acquire, evaluate, and think about knowledge derived from educational research, and how that knowledge is used to influence policies and practices in their schools. Their findings challenge common claims about the supposed faults and weak impact of educational research¾thus the primary title, The Untested Accusation. This decade-long effort was stimulated by an edited synthesis of research (Saha & Keeves, 1990) and an edited book focused on the use of research in education (Anderson & Biddle, 1991). The experiences in editing these books led the study investigators (Anderson, Biddle and Saha) to the realization that relatively little research was available on the impact of research knowledge on education. Following the earlier publications of reports of the study, Biddle and Saha continued to analyze the data and authored this volume. Chapter One, Does Research on Education Have an Impact? This very short chapter lays out the rationale for the study. The authors note that research on education has been criticized as having little impact. “Was it actually true that knowledge from research had few to no effects on users in the education community? And if it was not true, how did such users . . . actually view and utilize knowledge from research on education?” (p. 3) Chapter Two, Thinking Out the Problem. The first section of this chapter defines a number of key terms such as research, research on education, knowledge, and knowledge use. A second section discussed social research and its problems, especially those due to differences in ideology. Knowledge in social research is “always more complex, more tentative, and inevitably, placed within social and historical contexts. ¼ [Thus] applying social research knowledge is always more problematic than applying knowledge from physical or biological research.” (p. 11) Social researchers and users of research live in separate worlds with different concerns (p. 11) A sampling of some of the dilemmas of research on education discussed by the authors include the following: Critics say educational research “is uniquely flabby, weak, trivial, poorly conceived. or inappropriate for solving problems¼” Research has played a weak role in education reforms. All kinds of competing (and sometimes antithetical) activities, methods, and standards may appear under the educational research umbrella and this generates confusion. Advocates have sometimes justified support for research by claiming that research alone can solve problems. Education research is plagued by weak studies and this impression is enhanced the extremely broad coverage in ERIC. Researchers have been unwilling to defend their craft. (p. 15) Yet some research has had huge effects on users, such as measurement of intelligence, teachers’ expectations and the differential treatment of students, or the studies of prejudice that influenced the Supreme Court’s Brown vs. Board of Education decision. (p. 15) A short section on prior studies reviews work related to the study. The authors state that they found it difficult to locate systematic studies of effects of research knowledge on users in the educational community. However, extensive research had already appeared concerning principals, their roles, forces that affect them, and consequences of their behavior. Thus they decided to focus their study on school principals. Because the authors were located in the United States and in Australia, it was convenient to design the study to include a comparison between school principals in both countries. The chapter continues by laying out theoretical assumptions underlying the study. Some of the key items are the following. Knowledge is defined as “organized packets of information about events appearing in oral, written, or electronic form.” Knowledge resides in the symbolic representations of a society rather than in the thinking of the individual. This knowledge exists in various forms, but most knowledge is verbal knowledge. Most knowledge associated with research is also expressed verbally. Thus the core claims of research knowledge involve statements about events that are presumably backed by evidence. The authors call these core claims empirical propositions. These empirical propositions rarely appear in isolation. “Rather empirical propositions are normally bundled together within traditions of effort that involve a specific topic of interest and similar techniques, operational definitions, ways of interpreting evidence, and underlying assumptions about the nature of events.”(p. 21) The authors distinguish among three forms of transmitted knowledge: Primary sources, such as papers, articles in refereed journals, and monographs; Secondary sources, such as review articles, textbooks, and workshops; and Tertiary sources, such as newspapers, magazines, TV, radio, trade books, and unreviewed reports on research. They note that problems with secondary sources are that research knowledge is simplified, stripped of details, incomplete, and perhaps biased. A further problem with tertiary sources is that they are open to partisan misrepresentation. The authors decided to ask respondents to provide examples of education research in their own words. They restricted the phrase “research knowledge use to potentially observable changes in the conduct of principals or others associated with the schools whom the principal can influence.” And they required that use of research knowledge be linked to a causal trail. Thus the study focused on four related areas: ways principals acquire knowledge from research, opinions they hold about that knowledge, research knowledge they are familiar with, as well as depth and breadth of their understanding of that knowledge, and how they use that knowledge in their professional lives. An important additional assumption of the study was that knowledge use would be promoted if principal worked in a school environment that favored innovation. Chapter Three, A Design for Investigation. The investigators considered various education user groups, but decided to focus on school principals. They studied the use of research knowledge by 120 school principals; 81 in the United States (all in Missouri) and 39 in Australia (all in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) or the state of South Australia). The main focus was on how school principals acquire, evaluate, and think about knowledge from educational research, and how that knowledge is used to influence policies and practices in their schools. Their sampling included principals in primary and secondary public, parochial, and independent schools. Using structured interviews and a background questionnaire, data was collected and interviews were transcribed and coded during 1991 and 1992. Given the small sample size, findings are presented as data displays and simple statistics, primarily t-tests and correlations. The design assumes that four processes¾acquisition, opinions about research, familiarity with research, and use¾were likely to form a causal sequence and all four processes would be affected by environmental conditions (33 variables regarding background experiences, professional experiences, initial career stances, present career stances, school characteristics, and innovation forces). In the first stage of analysis, these environmental variables were correlated with knowledge source variables (exposure to sources, evaluation of sources, knowledge learned from sources). In the second stage, environmental and knowledge source variables were correlated with opinion variables (regarding research and regarding innovation). In the next stage environmental, knowledge source, and opinion variables were correlated with familiarity variables (volunteered examples of research knowledge, and recognition of a set of 20 research examples presented by the interviewer). And in the last stage, all previous sets of variables were correlated with knowledge use variables (volunteered examples of use, descriptions of policy decisions, and set of recognized topics). Throughout all the analyses, separate computations were made for the U.S. (Missouri) and Australian (ACT and South Australia) samples. Given the very large number of variables and the relatively small sample sizes, the investigators adopted a matching strategy in which relatively large and apparently significant correlations were ignored unless they appeared in meaningful clusters. Extensive quotes from respondent interviews are provided to support the statistical evidence. Chapter Four, Principals’ Exposure to Knowledge Sources. Two strategies were employed to investigate exposure to sources. In the first section of the interview, respondents were asked to volunteer examples of useful research knowledge and to provide details about those examples. In this section, respondents were asked where they had learned about the research they volunteered. In a fourth section respondent were handed a list of nine types of “sources for expert knowledge” plus an “other sources” category and asked a series of questions about each source, for example, How often was the respondent exposed to the type of source during the previous year? The nine types of sources were: Professional meetings, Workshops organized by others, Workshops organized by the respondent, Professional journals, Professional books, Professional bulletins from regional or national sources, Professional bulletins from district or system authorities, and University or college courses. A residual tenth category, Other sources, was replaced during the coding process with two additional categories, Other Professionals and Long term personal interests. Respondents were asked about their uses of the sources, details about each type of source, and usefulness of the source. The responses to both the volunteered sources and the pre-categorized sources were coded into 11 types of sources listed above. Most principals cited secondary sources. Americans were more likely to name professional journals. Australians were more likely to name professional meetings and professional books. The most important source type for everyone was professional journals. The authors note that prior studies reported that for principals, face-to-face interaction was the most important source for ideas about innovation. “To say the least, our findings do not support such conclusions.¼the most important source type for our respondents was not other professionals but professional journals and [bar chart displays] reveal substantial citations for workshops, bulletins, and professional books. (However, this reviewer notes that examination of the interview schedule makes it clear that only after asking an extensive set of questions about nine types of sources was the respondent asked, “How about other sources of professional knowledge?” It was only here that the respondent might mention other professionals. The category “other professionals” was created as part of the post interview coding process. Thus, the failure to identify face-to-face professional interactions as an important research knowledge source seems most likely due to the way the interview was designed.) Chapter Five, Principals’ Opinions About Research and Innovation. Principals hold generally positive views of research. Typically, respondents were not highly critical of research and considered the knowledge it generated as having a positive impact on their professional work. Critics have charged that educational research is badly flawed, and educators are hostile to it. “Our evidence implies that the typical principal is not hostile to educational research and its knowledge, thus the critics have been dead wrong about the opinions of at least this key group of educators.” (p. 121). Most principals say that they learn personally from research knowledge and that they use it to influence their colleagues and others. Moreover, most principals hold positive views about innovation. However, the authors found no significant relationships between attitudes toward research and attitudes toward innovation. Moreover, the authors found that most of their demographic, background, and prior experience variables failed to predict principals’ views toward research or toward innovation. The major exceptions were that reading professional books predicted positive opinions about research knowledge in Australia and about innovation in both countries. The chapter concludes with a discussion of some of the differences found between Australian and American principals, for example, American principals were more likely to talk about potential flaws in the conduct of research and ways in which research can be misused. Chapter Six, Research Knowledge That Principals Volunteer. When asked about examples of research knowledge they considered useful, respondents provided a very rich range of information. Contrary to some critics, who have argued that educators are disinterested in educational research knowledge, most of the principals in this study found it easy to recall and talk about their knowledge of research. The typical principal volunteered four to eight examples, usually covering various domains of professional responsibility. The authors conclude that the typical principal commands a broad range of salient knowledge of educational research. Moreover, the findings indicate that most principals can recall some details associated with the examples they volunteer. However they generally remember only the core contributions of their examples. In terms of predictors of this volunteered knowledge, principals in both countries tend to have greater ability to recall research knowledge when they are regular readers of professional books, have more scholarly interests, or lead a school where teachers have more academic qualifications. Moreover, principals in both countries tended to better recall auxiliary detail of the examples they volunteered when they acquired habits of scholarship or spent more time in settings where details are discussed. Thus, differences in their command of salient research knowledge are related to personal intellectual interests and exposure to specific experiences where details about research are made available. The chapter again concludes with a discussion of national differences. For example, American principals retain slightly more information about the knowledge they volunteer than do Australian principals, which is perhaps explained by the fact that the American principals have generally completed more postgraduate work. Chapter Seven, Research Knowledge That Principals Recognize. While chapter six examines knowledge the principals volunteer, this chapter focuses on principals’ ability to answer questions about a broad range of research topics. Twenty phrases selected from a much larger list of “important” research topics suggested by eminent researchers were listed on a sheet of paper entitled, “Examples of Research Generated Knowledge” and handed to the respondent at the start of this part of the interview. Respondent were asked, in turn, whether they were familiar with the research knowledge associated with each phrase. If the respondent was familiar with the phrase, follow-up questions were asked to assess depth of understanding. The typical principal was able to recognize and talk about findings associated with about half of the 20 topics. However, there were national differences. Of the 20 topics, all but six topics were recognized by at least half of the respondents interviewed in either county, but only three topics were recognized by most of the respondents in both countries. In contrast to the salient knowledge regarding volunteered examples, the knowledge concerning recognized items on this list of topics was much less rich in detail. Regarding predictors of core knowledge about the recognized topics, principals in both countries could provide more salient examples when they are regular readers of professional books, have more scholarly interests, or lead a school where teachers have more academic qualifications. When recall of auxiliary aspects of that research knowledge are involved, principals had more command when they have acquired detailed habits of scholarship or spend more time in settings where research details are discussed. American principals retained slightly more information than did Australian principals, perhaps because American principals are more likely to have completed postgraduate courses or because they were exposed more often to news about educational research. Chapter Eight, Principals’ Reported Use of Research Knowledge. The investigators used several strategies to investigate the issue of research use. Early in the interview respondents were asked to volunteer examples of useful research knowledge. About midway in the interview respondents were asked to describe a recent event in which a decision about a policy or program issue had been made in the respondent’s school, the part they had played in the event, whether research knowledge had played a role in the decision, and, if so, how that role had played out. Finally, when respondents were asked whether they were familiar with any of 20 phrases representing research examples, respondents who recognized a phrase were asked about the knowledge it represented and whether they or others planned to use or were already using that knowledge in their school. When asked about research knowledge they volunteered, more than three-fourth of the principals described applications for these examples. When asked about a policy-relevant event that had recently taken place in their schools, roughly half explained how that event had been influenced by research knowledge. And when asked about the 20 research topics, more than half the principals provided details of applications for one or more of those topics. However, it should be noted that not all principals reported applications of research knowledge. Some principal reported more applications than others. And respondents who reported more applications tended to also report reading more professional books and exhibited other qualities associated with scholarly interests. The investigators had originally assumed that because principals play a central role in making policy decisions for their schools, they would also be major players in applying research knowledge. However, the evidence presented suggests that this assumption may be only partly correct. When respondents spoke about the research knowledge they volunteered they did describe major roles for themselves. But when they spoke about decision-making events involving research knowledge use, they often spoke about other actors, including authorities representing the state or school system, or other professionals, primarily teachers. Another significant result of this part of the study suggests that applications of research knowledge use are likely to take various forms and to involve many different research topics. Respondents mentioned many applications such as new types of classroom processes, innovations in staff development, student assistance programs, procedures for encouraging teachers, and techniques for classroom supervision. Regarding the role research knowledge plays in affecting school-level policy, the evidence advanced in this chapter suggests that some research knowledge is applied directly to policy decisions. However, in other cases, especially when asked about major uses of research knowledge, respondents frequently stressed what they had learned personally from that knowledge and how that personal knowledge may have been used. Generally, the finding suggest that Australian principals seem to be slightly more thoughtful than American principals. Australian principals reported significantly more propositional and slightly more nonpropositional applications for volunteered examples of research knowledge and they were more likely to say that research knowledge initiated the decision-making event they described. The major exception to this generalization appeared for the 20 research topics where American principals demonstrated greater familiarity with those topics. If there is perhaps greater thoughtfulness among the Australian principals, a likely explanation is suggested. Australian principals work fewer hours per week than do American principals. Chapter Nine, Findings, Conclusion, and Implications. This chapter contains an unusually well crafted summary of the main findings and conclusions drawn from the study. (After scanning chapters one, two and three, a reader pressed for time could skip to this chapter to get a cogent overview of the entire study.) The following statements repeat or paraphrase the major findings, which are, of course, described in much greater detail in the chapter. Regarding the ways the school principals acquire knowledge about research: Most principals are frequently exposed to sources where research knowledge is regularly displayed and discussed. Most principals learn about research knowledge from the sources to which they are exposed. Most principals hold positive opinions about research on education; few think it is valueless or are hostile to its use. Most principals are rarely concerned about supposed flaws; rather they are more concerned with problems with transmission and use of research knowledge. Most principals find it easy to provide examples of useful research knowledge. The typical respondent volunteered examples from four to eight different research traditions. Most principals are familiar with a surprising range of research topics that are latent in their thinking. The typical respondent recognized about half of 20 topics presented to them. Most principals serve in schools where research knowledge has an impact on policy decisions and educational practice. Biddle and Saha note that, “Taken together, the above seven conclusions suggest that much of what has been written about the supposedly unique problems of educational research and its lack of impact should be challenged.” (p. 225) The authors then review findings concerning secondary sources and depth of knowledge: Most principals are not regularly exposed to primary sources; rather the bulk of the sources are secondary. Most principals retain memory of details about salient research examples that are appropriate for a user population. Most respondents could explain the implications of the research they cited clearly. Roughly 90 percent provided precise details about information sources for at least one research tradition they had chosen to talk about. [However] most principals do not retain details about knowledge of the kind that are more useful for researchers or scholars concerned with creating and interpreting research knowledge. Most principals retain fewer details for research knowledge examples that are latent in their thinking than for those examples that are salient for them. Biddle and Saha observe: “Yes, principals depend largely on secondary sources for acquiring research knowledge, and this means that they are often exposed to versions of that knowledge that are incomplete and may be biased.¼most of the knowledge details they command would appear to be those needed to make efficient use of that knowledge in their schools.” (p. 227) Regarding breadth of research knowledge and its effects: Most principals are in regularly contact with many types of information sources that provide access to research knowledge. Most principals retain various examples of salient research knowledge that cover different responsibilities. When asked to nominate examples of useful research the typical respondent came up with four to eight examples. [Moreover,] most principals retain knowledge of research covering many topics that are latent in their thinking. When asked about 20 preselected topics, most principals recognized five to fifteen of these topics. Most principals serve in schools where research knowledge affects policy and practice for many different types of events. Biddle and Saha state” “These results suggest that the typical principal has at least some familiarity with a broad range of research knowledge topics. These principals are generalist when it comes to research knowledge and should not be expected to have the same command of details for specific research topics that we would expect to find among investigators or scholars whose work specialized on these issues.” (p.228) Regarding forms of research knowledge utilization: Most principals do assimilate and ponder the implications of research knowledge that may (or may not) be directly and immediately applied. Most principals also believe that research knowledge is used directly in their schools, particularly to affect professional colleagues and target persons. In some cases, principals play key leadership roles when research knowledge is used directly, while in other complex event histories key roles are played by others, particularly authorities and other professionals in the school. Opinions about Innovations: Most principals favor educational innovations, an active role for themselves in the process, and shared decisions concerning the innovations. Most principals’ opinions about innovations are not tied closely to their opinions about research knowledge in any simple way. Conclusions about national differences among principals: Australian principals are more likely to learn about research knowledge through face-to-face contact; Americans are more dependent on secondary sources. Australian principals are more likely to be thoughtful about research knowledge and its applications than are American principals. (American principals work longer hours and they depend more on secondary sources.) [However,] American principals retain more details about and examples of research knowledge in their thinking than do Australian principals. (Perhaps because more American principals are exposed to postgraduate courses.) (It should be noted that the interview samples were evidently too small to generate many clear findings about differences among principals in urban, suburban or rural schools, or among levels or types of schools.) General effects of environment and experience: Principals who read professional books more often favor use of research knowledge, know more about that knowledge, and are more likely to serve in schools where that knowledge is used. Principals who have higher levels of professional education and who desire a university position more often know about examples of salient research knowledge and are more likely to serve in schools where that knowledge is used. Principals who attend religious services frequently are less likely to know about the auxiliary details of research knowledge Several conclusions are also drawn about effects of environment and experience that appear in one country but not the other. Reviewer Commentary The Untested Accusationis an extraordinary contribution to our understanding of how school principals in the United State and Australia acquire, evaluate, and think about knowledge derived from educational research, and how that knowledge is used to influence policies and practices in schools. Although the data examined in the study are now more than a decade old, we know from other studies of information search and use behavior of educational information users, including school principals, that patterns of information search and use tend to be highly stable. Therefore, there is good reason to believe that most of the general findings, if not all the details, from this study are likely to as true today as when the interviews were conducted. The one remarkable exception is that the Internet was not a prominent source in 1991 and 1992. It surely would be an important source today. One might also ask whether we can generalize safely from a sample 81 principals in one state (Missouri) to the entire United States or from a sample of just 39 principals in the ACT and the state of South Australia to all of Australia. We know from 1990 Census data that school age children in Missouri were less ethnically diverse and that there were proportionately fewer limited English speakers than for the entire U.S. However, it seems quite unlikely that these small demographic differences would have much, if any, bearing on the variables considered in this study. Perhaps more troubling might be the size of the samples. They are certainly useful for an in-depth exploration. But generalization to the entire populations of school principals in the United States and Australia may be problematic. These quibbles aside, this study represents a major contribution to our understanding of how research knowledge is acquired, evaluated and used by school principals. The study was carefully designed and conducted. The data were thoughtfully analyzed and reported. Bruce Biddle and Larry Saha deserve our commendation for persisting with such dedication to make their findings available in this book length report. References Anderson, D. S. & Biddle, B. J. (Eds.) (1991). Knowledge for policy: Improving education through research. London: Falmer Press. Biddle, B. J., Saha, L. J., & Anderson, D. S. (1993). Research knowledge and educational policy. (Award Number R117E00111-90) [Final Project Report submitted to the Office of Educational Research and Improvement]. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Education. Saha, L. J., Biddle, B .J. & Anderson, D. S. (1995). Attitudes towards education research and policy making among American and Australian principals. International Journal of Educational Research, 23(2), 113-126. Saha, L. J. & Biddle, B. J. (1998). Forskning betydelsefull főr rektorer. Pedagogiska Magasinet, 2(98), 6‑11. Saha, L. J. & Keeves, J. P. (Eds.) (1990). Schooling and society in Australia: Sociological perspectives. Canberra, Australia: Pergamon Press/ANU Press. About the Reviewer Paul D. Hood WestEd 300 Lakeside Drive, 18th Floor Oakland, CA 94612-3534 Paul Hood is Director of Planning at WestEd. His doctorate is in social psychology. Since joining the Far West Laboratory in 1966, now WestEd, he has directed several R&D programs concerned with development of dissemination support systems, and development and evaluation of products and systems to enhance communication and effective use of educational R&D information and products by school personnel. He has also conducted surveys of information users, policy research, and syntheses of evaluation studies of R&D use.