Tinkering toward Utopia or Force Under Pressure

Tinkering toward Utopia: A Century of Public School Reform

Author: David B Tyack

For over a century, Americans have translated their cultural anxieties and hopes into dramatic demands for educational reform. Although policy talk has sounded a millennial tone, the actual reforms have been gradual and incremental. Tinkering toward Utopia documents the dynamic tension between Americans' faith in education as a panacea and the moderate pace of change in educational practices.

In this book, David Tyack and Larry Cuban explore some basic questions about the nature of educational reform. Why have Americans come to believe that schooling has regressed? Have educational reforms occurred in cycles, and if so, why? Why has it been so difficult to change the basic institutional patterns of schooling? What actually happened when reformers tried to "reinvent" schooling?

Tyack and Cuban argue that the ahistorical nature of most current reform proposals magnifies defects and understates the difficulty of changing the system. Policy talk has alternated between lamentation and overconfidence. The authors suggest that reformers today need to focus on ways to help teachers improve instruction from the inside out instead of decreeing change by remote control, and that reformers must also keep in mind the democratic purposes that guide public education.

See also: Complete Curry Cookbook or Big Book of Potluck

Force Under Pressure: Why Cops Live and Why They Die

Author: Laurence N Blum

Lawrence Blum describes the sources of danger, injuries, and victory to police officers in a down-to-earth, readable style. Blum's main point is that there are missing "ingredients" in the training and socialization of police officers. In his book, these ingredients include techniques and tools to condition the officer's decision-making and concentration during conditions of emergency; internal controls necessary to maintain the will to survive; and aids that will prevent officers being defeated by any threat. Blum offers tools to help police officers cope with unanticipated or rapidly changing encounters.