Sixties Legacy: A History of the Public Alternative Schools Movement, 1967-2001 / Edition 1

by Richard Neumann

Overview

In the sociocultural turmoil of the late 1960s, a movement emerged to create alternatives to conventional schooling and democratize public education through parental choice in schooling. This first detailed history of the public alternative schools movement reveals its links to progressive education theory and practice, describes the influences of humanistic psychology and Sixties Era radical critique on early alternative educators, and explains the movement’s impact on the educational system. In addition to establishing school choice in the language of public education, the movement produced many examples of schools operating as democratic communities and contributed substantially to the reform idea of school-based management. The movement has also done much to inform educators, parents, and policy-makers of the benefits of small school size on student learning, the quality of human relationships in school, and school life in general. Once considered a marginal collection of small educational experiments, the movement has proven to be an avant-garde force in American education.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780820463544
Publisher:	Peter Lang Inc., International Academic Publishers
Publication date:	10/03/2003
Series:	History of Schools and Schooling , #33
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	280
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

The Author: Richard Neumann is Associate Professor of Teacher Education at San Diego State University. He received his Ph.D. in social and multicultural foundations of education from the University of Colorado, Boulder. He has taught in two public alternative high schools and has published articles on alternative education, student alienation, and school dropouts.

Editorial Reviews

«With the current neo-conservative agenda of state standards and testing rigidifying educational practices, Richard Neumann’s ‘Sixties Legacy: A History of the Public Alternative Schools Movement, 1967-2001’ reminds us of the rebellion against similar practices in the 1950s and early 1960s. This important history provides a wealth of examples of how educators and students have resisted attempts to undermine democratic education and the use of critical thinking and imagination in the classroom.» (Joel Spring, Professor of Teacher Education, New School University)
«This timely, fair, thoughtful, and extremely readable account of public school choice describes the huge impact of a movement for greater public school options, as part of the broader push for justice in the 1960s. This is an important, valuable, and ultimately encouraging book.» (Joe Nathan, Director, Center for School Change, Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota)
«Richard Neumann has written a remarkable book, with extraordinary detail about the free schools and alternative schools of the Sixties and Seventies. It repeatedly generates a ‘he must have been there and been part of it’ feeling. But other sections show him to be a scholar as well – a historian of ideas, and a master of context, rounding out the picture with the sources and inspiration that moved those who launched the new schools.
Anyone who had anything to do with what is now the Sixties legacy should take a look at this book. But so should anyone who’s ever wondered how schools might differ from what we know, and what they might mean to the children and adults who are part of them, and what they can do and be. It is truly a remarkable effort.» (Mary Anne Raywid, University of Hawaii; Professor Emerita, Hofstra University)

From the Publisher