37 APRIL 2003 The Agony of School Reform: Race, Class, and the Elusive Search for Social Justice litical commitments of its change propo- nents. Some of these commitments provide the backdrop for the ideological interests that subvert social justice in education. Education and Democratic Theory and The Color School Reform provide a good pair for undertaking a critical study of school reform. They share common char- acteristics. First, both books represent an interdisciplinary approach to school re- form. Fields is an emeritus professor of po- litical science working with a philosopher of education, Feinberg. Henig et al. are political science scholars concerned with urban school reform (see also Henig, 2001; Stone et al., 2001). These collaborations suggest that research on educational change that cuts across traditional boundaries strengthens scholars’ ability to research per- sistent problems through intellectual part- nerships. Second, both books represent empirical studies that are theoretically grounded. The first is an ethnographic analysis of a site-based reform in Ed City, with the authors engaging models of de- mocracy from Rousseau to Sartre; the sec- ond is an ambitious study of the impact of reform on race relations in four Black-led cities—Washington, DC, Atlanta, Balti- more, and Detroit—mobilizing a frame- work they call “civic capacity.” Contrary to what researchers may expect, the fact that Blacks have reached positions of city lead- ership is not by itself sufficient to raise the educational achievement of Black students. Third, as already mentioned, both books confront the political aspects of reform, what I have called its ideological dimen- sions. I will review the books thematically. This review integrates them under the themes they share with respect to the cen- trality of power and ideology in education. Race and Class Relations as Foci of Reform When scholars debate the social relations responsible for educational inequality, the Education and Democratic Theory: Find- ing a Place for Community Participation in Public School Reform. A. Belden Fields and Walter Feinberg. Albany: SUNY Press, 2001. 148 pp., $18.95 (paper). ISBN 0-7914- 5000-7. The Color of School Reform: Race, Poli- tics, and the Challenge of Urban Educa- tion. J. Henig, R. Hula, M. Orr, and D. Pedescleaux. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Uni- versity Press, 2001. 301 pp., $21.95 (paper). ISBN 0-691-08897-7. In today’s climate of national standards, the debate over school reform writes a new chapter. Holding schools accountable to certain measures of educational improve- ment, the aim is to ensure that students from minorities to Whites, rich to poor, and boys to girls are provided with learning experiences leading to measurable improve- ments in learning outcomes. Educational scholars may be tempted to corroborate Kliebard’s (1995) classic study of the strug- gle for the American curriculum, includ- ing the school of social efficiency. Central to the doctrine of efficiency is the break- down and standardization of knowledge into discrete parts not only to control the learning process but also to make evalua- tion of learning outcomes more precise and positive. When decades of efficiency failed to level the playing field, school re- form in the 1980s took on a structural character whereby change in school orga- nization was perceived to ameliorate the persistent problem of uneven student de- velopment between social groups. Oakes’ (1985) early work suggested that tracking studies offered empirical evidence on the deleterious effects of differential education on Black, Latino, and working class stu- dents; detracking efforts were soon con- sidered. When restructuring failed, Gitlin and Margonis (1995) were able to cite the turn toward “reculturation” or the second wave of reform attentive to the problem of belief systems and meanings that under- gird school practices and that remain long after structures have changed. Now that we have rounded the corner of the 21st century, one senses a third wave of school reform that turns its gaze toward the prob- lem of ideology. For these reasons, it is timely that Fields and Feinberg’s Education and Dem- ocratic Theory and Henig, Hula, Orr, and Pedescleaux’s The Color School Reform enter the debate on school reform in a man- ner that makes the struggle over power cen- tral to research on educational change. The turn toward ideology, or more simply the problem of domination, signals a concern not only with restructuring school organi- zation and addressing cultural systems but with relations of power that have material consequences (Leonardo, in press a). When struggles over ideology are sidestepped in favor of more technocratic and culture- based approaches, these authors suggest that broader, institutional arrangements around race and class remain unchallenged. The consequences of neglecting ideology include the predictable failure to explain why minority, especially Black and Latino, students do not seem to benefit from many, if not most, school reform programs. Fields and Feinberg, and Henig et al. encourage a deeper engagement with the ideological di- mensions of schooling and any attempt to procure change. Without this critical ele- ment, reform becomes limited in its ability to explain stubborn disparities in student achievement, let alone systemic change. With it, reform sheds light on the political “embeddedness” of schooling and the po- Book Reviews Book Reviews Reviewed by Zeus Leonardo