Formation of the Rand Change Agent Study: The Pursuit of School Reform for Social Equity

Abstract

This paper focuses on the formation of the Rand Change Agent Study, characterizes it as the pursuit of school reform for “social equity” and attempts to demonstrate anew its significance.

First, the paper finds that “social equity” was among the main motivations for the Rand Change Agent Study. It was clear in the earliest report that the Rand Change Agent Study was motivated by criticism of “Colemanism”. The pursuit of “social equity” was also central to the “progressive agenda” of “open education”.

Second, there are differences between the views of the Rand Change Agent Study and those of the North Dakota Study Group regarding the decline of “open education”. The characteristics of the Rand Change Agent Study are clear—it studied the “implementation” of educational policy and created the concept of “mutual adaptation” through its formation, and continued to focus on the development of school reform for “open education” as a process of “implementation” in the midst of social changes that created the “progressive renaissance” and “backlash” against “sixties values”. The Rand Change Agent Study was an attempt to clarify how the “mainstream” could continue to move toward the “promised land” beyond the limitations of its experience with the concept of “mutual adaptation”.