"Changing Classes tells the story of a small, poor, ethnically mixed school district in Michigan's rust belt, a community in turmoil over the announced closing of a nearby auto assembly plant. As teachers and administrators began to find ways to make schooling more relevant to working-class children, two large-scale school reform initiatives swept into town: the governor's "marketplace" reforms and the National Science Foundation's "State Systemic Initiative." All this is set against the backdrop of the transformation to a global, post-Fordist economy. The result is an account of the complex linkages at work as society structures the development of children to adulthood."--Jacket.