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Here, in this essay from New York Times bestselling historian and novelist Thomas Fleming, is the vibrant and moving story of America's chaplains - from the war to gain independence from Great Britain to the struggle against Communism in Korea and Vietnam to recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq

"Discusses socialism as a political system, and details the history of socialist governments throughout the world"--Provided by publisher

Offers an alternative to the enlightened liberalism espoused by thinkers as different as Kant, Mill, Rand and Rawls. Fleming advocated a return to premodern traditions, such as those in the texts of Aristotle, the Talmud, and the folk wisdom in ancient Greek literature, for a solution to ethical predicaments

Schools have come 10 be acknowledged as escape-valves for those wishing to overcome the social and economic circumstances of their birth. From the beginnings of public education in Canada and the United States, educational promoters saw schooling as a way of providing social justice and economic stability as well as means of instruction in literacy and computation. Recent educational policy in Canada and the United States assumes equality of access results in equal opportunity. Since sociological findings offer li 11le support for the notion at schooling causes equality. The educational assumption of Canada and the United States is highly arguable. Unfortunately, the schools cannot ensure equality of outcome. Despite a public policy which has opened access to educational institutions. The distribution of social wealth has changed little.

A recent Globe and Mail editorial observed: "The trouble with school boards as they exist . . . is that they are somewhat accountable in theory, but barely accountable in practice." Voicing what has become common sentiment within government, and some public quarters, the editorial continued: "All residents may vote for the school board, but hardly any do; these large and barely visible institutions start to look like a little like taxation without representation." The editor's comments, which reflect a simmering public unease about school costs and the accountability of school governance institutions, have not gone unheeded by politicians. Since the early 1990s, provincial governments across Canada have been restructuring school governance systems within their respective jurisdictions. Commenting on this restructuring movement, the Canadian Teachers Federation has accurately observed: "The drastic reduction in the number of units of local government for education has been one of the most dramatic of all changes in Canada's pattern of government. And yet, it has occurred and is continuing with relatively little public concern or debate." Although these initiatives to reduce the numbers of local school boards and, in one province, to eliminate them entirely, are of relatively recent origin, they are certainly not new in their intentions. They simply represent the latest form of a larger century-old movement to reorganize public school governance at local levels and to make boards and their administrative systems more efficient. But it is not the history of school consolidation in Canada that this paper wishes to address--that has been treated elsewhere. Rather, the purpose of this paper is to examine the character of developments in the restructuring movement now underway in Canada. The following discussion is divided into three parts. The first part reviews the broad historical context in education and government which has given rise to the restructuring movement. The second examines the main forms, features, and traits of restructuring initiatives as they are now presenting themselves in provinces from the Atlantic to the Pacific. More specifically, it describes the particular provincial conditions that have produced these organizational changes, the agendas and objectives associated with them, the planning and implementation strategies governments have adopted, and outcomes achieved to date.The third part of the discussion is more analytical than descriptive in character. It explores several of the central ideas underlying provincial restructuring efforts, the agendas and implications of restructuring largely unstated in official documents, or what might otherwise be described as restructuring's "sub-text." Attention here is directed toward examining why senior governments have selected school district consolidation, euphemistically known as "restructuring," as the principal instrument for such reform, given that government commands various other legislative and policy tools to bring about efficiency and change. In addition, it suggests why other strategies or approaches have not been chosen. What is it about school district consolidation that has made it so fashionable in the 1990s as a way of demonstrating government's commitment to efficiency and reform' Understanding such questions constitutes an important part of understanding the real character and meaning of current restructuring exercises.

The quarter of a century between 1972 and 1996 witnessed the end of the Imperial Age of school administration in British Columbia. The historical pattern of strong central control which had directed the course of provincial schooling for a century was beginning to unravel even before the 1960s were over, prompted in part by a malaise inside educational government and by new forces in and outside schools. Although provincial authorities entered the 1970s still confident in their capacity to control and direct public education, the Ministry of Education found itself before the decade ended, like Napoleon's army retreating from Moscow, bewildered by an unfamiliar landscape and harried on all sides by adversaries who seemed to materialize from nowhere, each with its own special brief for provincial schools. By the 1980s, the province's education bureaucracy, once the dominant and solitary voice in school affairs, was obliged to compete on the public policy stage with a chorus of others eager to contest the province's right to speak on behalf of children. By the mid-1990s, the rising power of the teachers' Federation, increasing parental and public demands for participation in educational decisions, and the Ministry of Education's ambiguity about its own purpose had all served, in various ways, to reduce the province's leadership in public education. ; Le quart de siècle compris entre les années 1972 et 1996 témoigne de la fin de l'époque « impériale » de l'administration scolaire en Colombie-Britannique. Le modèle historique de l'autorité centrale forte, qui avait caractérisé la direction des programmes scolaires de la province depuis un siècle, avait commencé à s'effriter avant même la fin des années 1960, sous l'effet conjugué d'un malaise existant chez les autorités scolaires et de la présence de forces nouvelles tant à l'intérieur qu'à l'extérieur des écoles. Bien que les autorités provinciales entamèrent les années 1970 confiantes en leur capacité à contrôler et à diriger l'instruction publique, le ministre de l'Éducation se retrouva lui-même, avant la fin de la décennie, dans une situation analogue à la retraite des armées napoléoniennes devant Moscou : dérouté par un environnement inconnu et harcelé de tous côtés par des adversaires qui semblaient surgir de nulle part, chacun présentant son propre projet pour les écoles de la province. Vers les années 1980, l'administration scolaire provinciale, qui était auparavant la voix dominante et unique en matière scolaire, fut forcée à rivaliser avec une armée de groupes, impatients de contester le droit de la province de parler au nom des From Educational Government to the Government of Education 211 enfants. Au milieu des années 1990, le force montante de la Fédération des enseignants, les demandes croissantes des parents et de la population ainsi que les objectifs ambigus du ministre de l'Éducation avaient, de différentes manières, contribué à réduire l'autorité de la province dans le domaine de l'instruction publique.

A rejoinder to Elias Jose Palti's "Is There a Telos Right?" (1996 [see abstract 9801312]), which comments on an article in Telos by Fleming (1995 [see abstract 9611496]), argues that the latter addresses several discrete issues that add up to a simple affirmation of a people's right to make decisions for themselves & a repudiation of the elitist despotism of the federal courts. Palti's construal of this statement as an expression of opposition to immigration from Mexico, a desire to maintain an ethnic status quo, & an explicitly racist theory of ethnic hierarchy is refuted. It is contended that one may insist on the people's right to make choices without approving of those choices or referring a particular ethnic type of status quo. Palti is accused of thinking that he knows better than those who disagree with him & of being willing to impose his judgment on others; this stance is compared to that of many federal judges whose unilateral actions set the conditions for CA's Proposition 187 in the first place. D. M. Smith

Compares Athenian (Greece), US, & French democracies on three grounds: persistence of tradition, treatment of religion & property, & adherence to federalism. Both Athenian & US democracies were formed over two centuries of change, while the French model resulted from a short ten-year struggle. Freedom of religion was preserved in the Athenian & US models, but the Jacobins destroyed it in France. The free market largely ruled in the US & Athens, but confiscation & redistribution of property were the central economic policies of revolutionary France. Under federalism, Athens & the US profited from decentralization, but France carried the burden of a centralized government. Although free of the burdens of centralization evident in France, today the US faces a crisis between the will of the majority & the elites who turn their backs on the key elements of a functioning democracy by subverting the will of the majority. J. Cowie