Books by Maurice R. Berube

In a landmark contribution to the education literature, Berube examines the political activities of the two teachers' unions--the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers AFL-CIO (AFT) during the last three decades.

Each of these individuals caused a major paradigm shift in American education with their intellectual influence, and each, in their unique contribution indelibly shaped education for the better. Each educator represents one aspect of that most American of educational philosophies: Progressive Education.

Maurice Berube examines the political matrix of intellectual and cultural America. The essays range from the rise of the postmodern intellectual to a modernist appreciation of the spiritual quality of Jackson Pollock. The author claims that human endeavour is rooted in a politics of culture.

The role of the president of the United States in regard to education changed significantly following the end of World War II. As the U.S. economy became more sophisticated and the country emerged as the dominant technological and world power, the demand for an educated work force increased. In this work, Maurice R. Berube offers the first comprehensive analysis of the involvement of American presidents in educational policy, tracing the efforts of administrations from Washington to Bush, and chronicling the national and international pressures to shape educational policies that have characterized the post-World War II era.Berube's work takes the form of a policy study as he analyzes presidential programs in education, the reasons for their implementation, and their correlation to national educational outcomes. Beginning with the birth of the presidency, he examines successful programs that had a considerable impact and less successful efforts that were significant either ideologically or as forerunners of future policies. The constitutional constraints of the president's role in education are explored, as well as recent developments including the corporate presidency and the rhetorical presidency. Among the other issues addressed are education and the economy and the federal and state constitutions' views of a right to education. This work will be a unique and valuable resource for students of presidential history, the politics of education, and contemporary issues in education, as well as an important addition to public and academic library collections.

Maurice Berube, a New York educational consultant, surveys the urban universities' public policies - community relations, minority admissions, urban and black studies programs - while promoting the schools' possible larger social role. Regrettably, this well-written work has not been well thought out. Nowhere does Berube define the "urban America" he says constitutes the home for a majority of Americans; in actuality, only 15.6% of the population lives in cities of more than 500,000 persons, those to which he refers most often. The stress, in fact, is on a few large cities' circumstances, with New York City (CUNY and Columbia) the overwhelming favorite. A second, less severe problem is the work's historical superficiality; apart from a pedestrian recounting of the impact of the 1862 Land Grant College Act, Berube writes of the 1960s and 1970s. He fails to note, for example, that earlier in this century such reform-minded scholars as Robert Parks and Charles Merriam strove unavailingly to convert the University of Chicago into the incubator for advances in social work that Berube would have every urban school be. No significant distinction is drawn, moreover, between privately- and publicly-supported institutions, or between the four-year school and the community college. On its own limited terms, however, the book clearly summarizes current local (chiefly New York) debates over open admission, affirmative action, and the like. (Kirkus Reviews)

?In a well-researched study of the relationship between urban poverty and quality of education, the author has compared approaches to effective education among the urban poor in the United States, and students in Cuba.... His detailed discussion of the Cuban Literacy Campaign and of effective inner-city U.S. schools underscores the necessity of translating techniques that make the few succeed into strategies to benefit the many. Highly recommended.?-Library Journal

Berube analyzes the three great educational reform movements in the United States. He shows how they have been shaped by outside societal forces: Progressive Education was an offshoot of the Progressive Movement; Equity Reform sought to complete the unfinished agenda of Progressive Education in educating the poor.