Reinventing Education

In the Next Century Schools Program, originated by the RJR Nabisco Foundation in the 1980s when Gerstner was CEO of RJR, corporations and schools collaborate to produce excellence in education, thereby serving their mutual needs. In telling the experiences of 43 schools across the country--in Oregon, Texas, California, Maine, etc.--that have received grants totaling $30 million from the program, Gerstner, now chairman of IBM, and his colleagues, specialists in education research, describe resourceful teachers, principals and parents who believe they can ``overcome the stifling culture of the education bureaucracy and create new learning environments which will produce more qualified students.'' That public schools can be reformed by personal leadership and goal-setting is the thrust of this report that admits a few failures. While technology plays a big role in many reform strategies covered in these pages, the design of this major education program also offers a wide variety of initiatives, such as lengthened school days, double periods and seminars on literature and staffs trained in ``total quality management'' (TQM). (Apr.)