Challenge to Bureaucracy: The Contemporary Alternative School

Abstract

As a result of a study of forty alternative schools spread across the eastern half of the United States, the author concluded that contemporary alternative schools represent as much a rejection of how conventional public schools are organized as an indictment of teaching methods and curricular offerings in these schools. While educational history records a variety of "alternatives," few of the precursors of recent alternative schools attempted to alter the administrative structure of schooling. Only in the past decade has the modern faith in the bureaucratic management of education been challenged. The author suggests that the "organizational" dimension of contemporary alternative schools might be more significant historically than their radical pedagogical practices or unusual learning opportunities.