RETHINKING PROGRESSIVE SCHOOL-REFORM - ORGANIZATIONAL DYNAMICS AND EDUCATIONAL-CHANGE

A successful explanation of the causes of school reform in the Progres sive Era must account for the apparently paradoxical fact that the ref orms adopted in all American cities were similar while the political p rocesses that resulted in reform varied dramatically among cities. In this article we develop a new model of Progressive school reform based on recent work in institutionalist theory. We also present the findin gs from preliminary empirical tests of the model, which provide strong support for an institutionalist account and considerably weaker suppo rt for political explanations of reform.