MAKING EDUCATIONAL-REFORM - HARD TIMES IN DETROIT 1988-1995

This article examines education reform in Detroit, employing data from over 75 semistructured elite interviews. The research explores the ap parent collapse of a local education reform effort in Detroit despite broad dissatisfaction with the current education system. Both collabor ative and competitive approaches to reform are investigated through a regime framework Reformers who implemented change were removed from of fice and yet a business school compact, neighborhood-based empowerment schools, and schools of choice remain as a legacy. This indicates tha t although short-term political support for change in Detroit did coll apse, some long-term institutional impact of the reform remains.