ABSTRACT
During the mid-to-late 1980s, the educational reform movement that had commenced around 1980 began to change form and texture. Up to that time, reform initiatives were informed by the belief that schooling could be improved if standards were raised, more effective prescriptions and regulations written, and educators, from the boardroom to the classroom, asked to do more. As the prevailing assumptions underlying the excellence movement came under attack, a new belief system began to take root-one that would grow to support what has become known as the restructuring movement. Central to this perspective on school improvement are the following assumptions about reform: educational problems are attributable more to the failure of the system of schooling than to the shortcomings of individual educators; empowerment (of students, teachers, and parents) is a more effective tool than prescription; and bottom-up, schoolbased solution strategies will lead to more satisfying results than will top-down, mandated ones.
