This book investigates the interrelationship between educational reforms and pedagogical and
technological innovations as well as the implications of this relationship for the quality of
human capital. By analyzing recent educational reforms in Russia and the US the authors shed
new light on how these reforms may help or hinder innovations such as the introduction of
computer technologies into classrooms new methods of teacher evaluation constructivist
teaching methods and governance in public schools.Taking labor economics as a useful lens for
conceptualizing the diffusion of innovation in the first part of the book the authors analyze
book how certain power arrangements can block educational innovations in schools. In the second
part they examine recent educational reforms in the US and Russia. The final part presents a
vision of the next generation of educational reforms which may enable innovation diffusion
rather than hamper it.
