A Critical Analysis of Bringing Equity Back: Research for a New Era in American Educational Policy

how the focus in education reform has changed from equity to excellence. Between the 1960s and the present, “the balance has shifted from concerns for group access to individual merit; from equity to quality; from entitlement to choice” (Petrovich, 2005, p.7). Each article isolates one reform strategy and examines it through one or more studies, many of them quantitative. The book is divided in half: four articles analyze to what extent “equity ” reforms have persisted over the years, and consider how their current state does or does not contribute to excellence. Five others look at “excellence ” strategies and interrogate their effects on educational equity. This book paints a gloomy picture of promising equity strategies traded for excellence reforms that not onl