A kinder and gentler report: Turning Points and the Carnegie tradition

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Abstract
This paper is an effort to locate the latest Carnegie report, Turning Points, within the historical tradition of Carnegie initiatives to shape American educational policy in the twentieth century. Carnegie reports have long expressed an educational vision in which US schools act as a socially efficient mechanism for sorting and socializing students for future positions in the existing social and economic structure. They have pursued this goal by promoting a system of education that is highly rationalized, scientifically grounded, and meritocratic. While A Nation Prepared fits this model beautifully, in some ways Turning Points does not. Instead, the latter report proposes a restructured form of middle school which is decentralized, varied in format and content, and focused on promoting cooperative process and convergent outcomes. Yet in spite of these differences, I conclude that the proposed reforms would still fit comfortably within the rationalized structure of American education promoted by more traditional Carnegie reports.

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