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A Letter from
the President
Educating Immigrant
Students
The Lost (and
Found) Voters of Hurricane Katrina
At the Heart of South Africa, a Constitution
and a Court
A Timeless University
Trains Teachers for a New Era
Philanthropy Now:
Diversity and Creativity for Changing Times
Recent Events
Recent Books
Foundation
Roundup
The Back Page
Also in this issue:
Help for Beginning
Teachers
A Footnote to
History
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#9: Fall 2004
#8: Spring 2004
#7: Fall 2003
#6: Spring 2003
#5: Fall 2002
#4: Spring 2002
#3: Fall 2001
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School Reform, Corporate Style
Chicago 1880 – 2000
by Dorothy Shipps
University Press of Kansa
“Although Chicago made school reform history in
the twentieth century, the performance of the system’s large majority
of black, Latino and low-income students has not met reformers’
expectations. This failure lies at the heart of a question facing urban
school systems across the nation: Why, despite a century of reform, have
city schools failed to become what their citizens want?”
A Carnegie Corporation scholar in the education department of Teachers
College at Columbia University, author Dorothy Shipps was managing director
of the Consortium on Chicago School Research from 1996 to 1999. It was
during this period that she became convinced “nothing is more important
for educators than to master the politics of urban schooling,” and
“urban school politics is fundamentally about power.” In other
words, it’s not really about the students.
The book’s chapters trace the development of the modern
school system from its formative stage, beginning in the 19th century,
through racial upheaval and political sea changes to the recent reform
movements Shipps sees as yielding demonstrably poor results. How could
so many powerful, civic-minded corporate activists have achieved so little,
she asks? The author’s careful research reveals why political reform
agendas fail to affect the teacher-student relationships at the heart
of performance improvements. For this reason, the lessons of Chicago can,
and should, have far-reaching affects.
Immigration’s New Frontiers
edited by Greg Anrig, Jr. and Tova Andrea Wang
The Century Foundation Press
“For all of the passion that the debate over comprehensive
immigration reform has aroused, just about everyone agrees that the status
quo is a mess.”
Before 1995, about three-fourths of the nation’s immigrants
settled in just six states: California, Texas, Illinois, Florida, New
York and New Jersey. In the decade since, influx into these states has
dropped by a third, while twenty-two other states have experienced extremely
rapid growth in their immigrant populations. In these “new destination”
states, most immigrants are recent arrivals with limited English and low
incomes. To find out how governments there have responded to burgeoning
immigrant populations, the nonpartisan Century Foundation commissioned
papers that would help readers interested in immigration reform understand
the extent to which absence of a functional federal system has impacted
other levels of government in five key states.
With grant support from Carnegie Corporation, social policy
experts Greg Anrig, Jr. and Tova Andrea Wang compiled these papers into
Immigration’s New Frontiers. While each narrative presented
is unique, the experiences of North Carolina, Iowa, Georgia, Minnesota
and Nebraska share three overriding themes: (1) All the states initially
showed a willingness to accommodate new immigrants; (2) Over time, all
the states developed a more ambivalent attitude that tended to discourage
acceptance of immigrants into mainstream society; (3) None of the states
managed to find effective solutions to major public policy challenges
posed by undocumented immigration. Indeed, if there is to be a workable
solution, the editors conclude, “the federal government will have
to provide it.”
Foreign Aid: Diplomacy, Development, Domestic
Politics
by Carol Lancaster
The University of Chicago Press
Why is aid given? Today, a half century into foreign aid’s
existence, it is a familiar and expected element in relations between
states. But the reasons for aid remain cloudy, author Carol Lancaster
contends, because it is “difficult to grasp fully the welter of
events and how important apparently small or hidden details can be. “We
need to understand not only the domestic politics of aid-giving countries,
but the interests competing for influence over aid’s purposes and
the manner in which governments manage their aid, to name just a few of
many factors.
A Carnegie Scholar with decades of experience in U.S. government
aid agencies, Lancaster provides case studies of five major donor countries—the
United States, Japan, France, Germany and Denmark—focusing on aid’s
myriad purposes and its evolution over time. While diplomatic and developmental
goals play a prominent role, humanitarian relief, commerce, culture and
promotion of democracy have also been in the mix, she points out. The
author is confident that “aid is with us to stay,” but she
warns that if the public cannot see how increased aid has accelerated
development in a country, weakening support may pose “the most serious
threat to the future of foreign aid.”
The Essentials of Global Politics
by Richard Langhorne
Hodder Arnold Publishing
Under-standing globalization is important, says Richard Langhorne,
because it is drastically changing the way we live our personal lives
and the institutions on which we depend. Yet the term globalization is
so widely used that its meaning has become obscured. This straightforward
overview of global politics explains how, over the past two centuries,
the interests and actions of the peoples, organizations and institutions
of our world have become more closely entwined and integrated, and it
traces the ways technological advances, changing values, political priorities
and social mores have affected this growing interdependence.
Using maps, charts and timelines to clarify difficult concepts,
Langhorne, a Carnegie Scholar, covers the processes and consequences of
globalization, the threats of conflict and terrorism as well as environmental
and humanitarian disasters. He identifies the most influential actors
on the global stage and clarifies the role of governments, civil organizations,
markets and industries. And he asks: how are the irreversible consequences
of the process of globalization to be made fair and broadly beneficial
to the global community? While this critical question is beginning to
be understood, he says, a plausible answer is not yet in sight.
Financing the 2004 Election
edited by David B. Magleby, Anthony Corrado and Kelly D. Patterson
Brookings Institution Press
“The federal election of 2004 centered on the contest
for the presidency,” David B. Magleby reminds readers in the opening
chapter of Financing the 2004 Election, due to “the intensity
of feeling for and against the incumbent president, George W. Bush. These
sentiments ran deep and motivated people to contribute to candidates,
party committees and interest groups.” Add to that the “war
on terror” and the lingering doubts about the disputed outcome of
the 2000 presidential election, and it’s understandable that the
2004 election would break new ground in terms of the sums donated, and
the sources.
How money was raised, spent and regulated in the 2004 federal
election was also novel due to the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA)
of 2002. Considered the most important piece of campaign finance legislation
in nearly three decades, the legislation aimed to end the undue influence
of soft money—stemming the funding surge from corporations, unions
and wealthy individuals that had reached nearly $500 million in the past
two election cycles. In nine instructive chapters, each written by an
authority on money and politics, this book (written with research support
from Carnegie Corporation) explores the changing landscape of campaign
finance and outlines how individuals and interest groups found new ways
to influence outcomes in 2004, continuing the inexorable rise in the costs
of campaigns.
Memoirs of Nikita Khrushchev
Volume 2: Reformer
edited by Sergei Khrush-chev
The Pennsylvania State University Press
While many Americans remember Khrushchev only as a Cold War
bête noir, readers of his memoirs will form a more nuanced opinion.
In Volume 2: Reformer, which covers the period from 1945 to 1956, the
one-time Soviet Premier thinks back on the famine and devastation following
World War II, through Stalin’s death to the struggle for power within
the Communist Party.
These were dreadful times, for the most part, and Khrushchev’s
recollections reveal the incompatibility between humanity and party policy.
For instance: “I received letters from collective-farm chairmen
that were simply heart-rending,” he recounts of the early post-war
days. “ ‘So, Comrade Khrushchev …we have handed over
everything and now have nothing left. We are sure that the party will
come to our aid.’ …I knew of course he was deluding himself.”
There are detailed descriptions of struggle and progress, from agricultural
production to the space program, as well as political developments and
behind-the-scenes machinations. There are also eye-opening descriptions
of the family life of Joseph Stalin, the story behind the trumped-up “Doctor’s
Plot” and Khrushchev’s views on the intelligentsia. Perhaps
the most unexpected feature of this book, which was funded in part by
Carnegie Corporation, is the translation of notebooks written by Khrushchev’s
wife, Communist Party official and propagandist Nina Petrovna, found by
her daughters after she died.
Volume 1: Commissar 1918 – 1945 can be found
in its entirety online at Google book search.
Why Not Parties in Russia?
by Henry E. Hale
Cambridge University Press
If the existence of political parties is inevitable and essential
to electoral competition as many theorists claim, why does Russia remain
nonpartisan more than fifteen years after Gorbachev introduced his democratizing
reforms? The problem, according to political scientist and author Henry
E. Hale, is that theories of party development only examine countries
where political parties already exist—which creates a false sense
of their inevitability and ignores the role of independent politicians.
Hale’s extensive research in the former Soviet Union,
supported largely by Carnegie Corporation, examines the puzzle of stalled
party development beginning with Russia’s first multiparty parliamentary
elections in 1993. A number of surprising facts emerge: Russian voters
recognize what parties stand for, for example, and party activists are
ideologues who loyally vote the party line. The weakness of parties can
best be explained by the laws of supply and demand, he contends; parties
are producers of goods and services and candidates are consumers. According
to market theory, the strength of political parties depends on the balance
between them and other kinds of political organizations. Parties will
dominate only when they learn how to outsell the competition.
Russian Foreign Policy in the 21st Century
& the Shadow of the Past
edited by Robert Legvold
Columbia University Press
What light can history shed on the present, com-plex re-la-tion-ship
between Russia and the world? Focusing on the underlying patterns that
have marked four centuries of Russian foreign policy and that persist
today, eight leading historians and political scientists explore such
topics as the impact of the loss of empire, longstanding approaches to
national security and the effect of globalization over time. This unique
collection, written with support from Carnegie Corpo-ra-tion, reveals
how Russia’s approach to the outside world has evolved and helps
pinpoint changes needed to allow the still unsettled land to take its
place in the larger international setting.
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