NASDC's Odyssey in Dallas (NC) Women,Class,and School Reform

Abstract

The 1992 award of a New American Schools Development Corporation (NASDC) grant to Gaston County Schools for the design and implementation of the Odyssey Project began a period of intense school reform and community activism in this semirural, working-class White county in North Carolina. The Odyssey Project was to be a comprehensive school restructuring effort that would integrate education with other social services throughout the community. A prolonged and painful battle among school officials, educators, parents, and other stakeholders in the community ended when NASDC withdrew funding from the Odyssey Project before the first anniversary of the award. This article describes and analyzes the role of ordinary women in shaping the course of school reform in their community. The women who mobilized the counter movement to the Odyssey Project framed the debate as the juncture between a national, elite-led reform movement and a locally situated grassroots counter movement protecting children, families, and the larger community's identity. This article offers insights into the interplay of class conflict, regionalism, and gender roles in the processes of local school reform.

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