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Elusive Equity: Education Reform in Post Apartheid South Africa | 
 enlarge | Authors: Edward B. Fiske, Helen F. Ladd
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
Category: Book
List Price: $32.95
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Rating:  1 reviews
Sales Rank: 805238
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 269
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 9 x 6 x 1.1
ISBN: 0815728409
Dewey Decimal Number: 379.260968
EAN: 9780815728405
ASIN: 0815728409
Publication Date: July 20, 2004
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Product Description
Elusive Equity chronicles South Africas efforts to fashion a racially equitable state education system from the ashes of apartheid. The policymakers who came to power with Nelson Mandela in 1994 inherited and education system designed to further the racist goals of apartheid. Their massive challenge was to transform that system, which lavished human and financial resources on schools serving white students while systematically starving those serving African, coloured, and Indian learners, into one that would offer quality education to all persons, regardless of their race. Edward Fiske and Helen Ladd describe and evaluate the strategies that South Africa pursued in its quest for racial equity. They draw on previously unpublished data, interviews with key officials, and visits to dozens of schools to describe the changes made in school finance, teacher assignment policies, governance, curriculum, higher education, and other areas. They conclude that the country has made remarkable progress toward equity in the sense of equal treatment of persons of all races. For several reasons, however, the country has been far less successful in promoting equal educational opportunity or educational adequacy. Thus equity has remained elusive. The book is unique in combining the perceptive observations of a skilled education journalist with the analytical skills of an academic policy expert. Richly textured descriptions of how South Africas education reforms have affected schools at the grass-roots level are combined with careful analysis of enrollment, governance, and budget data at the school, provincial, and national levels. The result is a compelling and comprehensive study of South Africas firstdecade of education reform in the post-apartheid period.
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| Customer Reviews:
Elusive Equity August 20, 2004
Walt Gardner (Los Angeles CA (USA))
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
When apartheid was dismantled in 1994, South Africa faced the daunting challenge of establishing a working democracy in a country long divided along rigid racial lines. Perhaps no segment of society was more deeply affected by the metamorphosis than public education.
"Elusive Equity" examines the government's attempts to provide equal opportunity to learn for all children. Through in-depth interviews, unpublished documents, and observations at dozens of schools, Edward B. Fiske and Helen F. Ladd present a balanced analysis of the process.
The authors manage to immerse the reader in a way that is both informative and moving by making use of the same reportorial and research skills that they employed so effectively in "When Schools Compete," still the definitive study of school choice in New Zealand. The result is a book that is indispensable for anyone interested in the education of disadvantaged students anywhere. Despite the obvious historical differences between South Africa and the U.S., Fiske and Ladd draw valuable lessons that are instructive for inner-city schools here.
Walt Gardner taught for twenty-eight years in the Los Angeles Unified School District and was a lecturer at the UCLA Graduate School of Education.
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