Paradigm Lost

Book excerpt: In Paradigm Lost, Spady explores the important changes in culture, instruction, school calendars and school agenda that school leaders must make to prepare students for the next millennium despite the fact that the current system of schooling leads to institutional inertia that counters the very changes we most need to make. Spady's big-picture view refutes the wisdom of adhering to a system of schooling—a paradigm—based on a bureaucratic-age culture, industrial-age delivery system, agricultural-age calendar and feudal-age agenda. Spady then explains how school leaders can overcome this inertia by working with staff and community members to adopt a new paradigm of schooling based on a locally developed vision of the future and what students will need to succeed in that future.