Author: Jane C. Owen
Publisher: R & L Education
ISBN: 9781578864867
Category : Community and school
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
Today, administrators must assume a different mindset if public schools are to remain viable and functional. Changing populations resulting in heterogeneous communities, diversity of community values, and finite resources meeting the infinite desires of a demanding constituency have created the necessity for political acumen on the part of local educational leaders. The primary reason for the upheaval occurring in schools today is not that the instructional element is being neglected, but that the building-level administrators have a woeful lack of proficiency in managing the politics that impact schools. This book gives administrators a better grasp of educational politics at the campus level as the school interacts with the community in which it is embedded. Through theory, application, and personal reflection, The Impact of Politics in Local Education will show administrators how to 'read' the political climate of a community, how to make meaning from the information, and how to proactively manage political issues so that a stable school environment can be maintained.
Author: Michael B. Berkman
Publisher: Georgetown University Press
ISBN: 9781589014206
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 236
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Book Description
The essence of democracy is popular sovereignty. The people rule. In the United States, citizens exercise this right through elected officials who they believe will best represent their own values and interests. But are those interests and values always being followed? Authors Michael B. Berkman and Eric Plutzer provide the first systematic examination of the extent to which the governments closest to the American public—its 10,000-plus local school boards—respond to the wishes of the majority. Ten Thousand Democracies begins with a look at educational reforms from the Progressive era in the late 19th and early 20th centuries through the civil rights movement and ending with Pennsylvania's 2004 tax relief measure. Berkman and Plutzer explore what factors determine education spending levels in school districts, including the effects of public opinion, the nature of local political institutions, and the roles played by special interests. The authors show how board members are selected, how well the boards represent minorities, whether the public can bypass the board through referenda, and how the schools are financed. By providing an innovative statistical portrait that combines public opinion data with Census data for these school districts, the authors answer questions central to democratic control of our schools: how responsive are school boards to their public and when? How powerful are such special interests such as teachers' unions and senior citizens? By using the lens of America's public school districts to examine the workings of democracy, Ten Thousand Democracies offers new insight not only into the forces shaping local education policy but also how democratic institutions may function throughout all levels of government.
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309173957
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 328
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Book Description
Spending on K-12 education across the United States and across local school districts has long been characterized by great disparitiesâ€"disparities that reflect differences in property wealth and tax rates. For more than a quarter-century, reformers have attempted to reduce these differences through court challenges and legislative action. As part of a broad study of education finance, the committee commissioned eight papers examining the history and consequences of school finance reform undertaken in the name of equity and adequacy. This thought-provoking, timely collection of papers explores such topics as: What do the terms "equity" and "adequacy" in school finance really mean? How are these terms relevant to the politics and litigation of school finance reform? What is the impact of court-ordered school finance reform on spending disparities? How do school districts use money from finance reform? What policy options are available to states facing new challenges from court decisions mandating adequacy in school finance? When measuring adequacy, how do you consider differences in student needs and regional costs?
Author: Luther Harmon Zeigler
Publisher: Brooks/Cole
ISBN:
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 296
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Book Description
Author: Frank MacKinnon
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 148758640X
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 260
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Book Description
This book is a strimulating, vigorous study of the public school system by an eminent Canadian political scientist and educator. Dr. Frank MacKinnon examines the roles of politicians, officials, trustees, and others who today wield the power in education, and discusses the effect of their administration on the schools, the teachers, and the curriculum. Dr. MacKinnon advocates strongly taking the politics out of education, and delegating more responsibility and freedom to the schools and to the teachers. Only by this means, he feels, can education become sufficiently effective in a democratic society and in a challenging and uncertain world. The kind of changes to the administration of schools and in the status and functions of teachers required to bring about improvement have long since been made, Dr MacKinnon holds, in other governmental activities and in other professions. The changes he recommends will, he suggests, provide better educational facilities for the country as a whole and better schooling for a larger number of children. Dr. MacKinnon has taught in both high school and university, and, as principal, he has administered every level from grade one to the second year of university including normal school. He has thus dealt with pupils of all ages and experienced a wide range of educational administration. He has served on many educational boards and committees. From this extensive background he draws many telling examples and anecdotes that will strike home. His comments and suggestions, made to provoke discussion and encourage improvement, will be of interest to members of provincial and municipal governments, school boards, administrators and teachers, and all citizens concerned about the education of young people. Although Dr. MacKinnon hits hard he does so not just to break down existing institutions, but because he has strong faith in the capacities of children and teachers. He covets for the latter a place of dignity and respect, and for the former an opportunity to develop individual character and initiative. He is, in fact, a believer in education
Author: Kenneth K. Wong
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 232
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Book Description
This book examines the fundamental role of politics in funding our public schools and fills a conceptual imbalance in the current literature in school finance and educational policy. Unlike those who are primarily concerned about cost efficiency, Kenneth Wong specifies how resources are allocated for what purposes at different levels of the government. In contrast to those who focus on litigation as a way to reduce funding gaps, he underscores institutional stalemate and the lack of political will to act as important factors that affect legislative deadlock in school finance reform. Wong defines how politics has sustained various types of "rules" that affect the allocation of resources at the federal, state, and local level. While these rules have been remarkably stable over the past twenty to thirty years, they have often worked at cross-purposes by fragmenting policy and constraining the education process at schools with the greatest needs. Wong's examination is shaped by several questions. How do these rules come about? What role does politics play in retention of the rules? Do the federal, state, and local governments espouse different policies? In what ways do these policies operate at cross-purposes? How do they affect educational opportunities? Do the policies cohere in ways that promote better and more equitable student outcomes? Wong concludes that the five types of entrenched rules for resource allocation are rooted in existing governance arrangements and seemingly impervious to partisan shifts, interest group pressures, and constitutional challenge. And because these rules foster policy fragmentation and embody initiatives out of step with the performance-based reform agenda of the 1990s, the outlook for positive change in public education is uncertain unless fairly radical approaches are employed. Wong also analyzes four allocative reform models, two based on the assumption that existing political structures are unlikely to change and two that seek to empower actors at the school level. The two models for systemwide restructuring, aimed at intergovernmental coordination and/or integrated governance, would seek to clarify responsibilities for public education among federal, state, and local authorities-above all, integrating political and educational accountability. The other two models identified by Wong shift control from state and district to the school, one based on local leadership and the other based on market forces. In discussing the guiding principles of the four models, Wong takes care to identify both the potential and limitations of each. Written with a broad policy audience in mind, Wong's book should appeal to professionals interested in the politics of educational reform and to teachers of courses dealing with educational policy and administration and intergovernmental relations.
Author: William G. Howell
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 0815797699
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 366
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Book Description
School boards are fighting for their survival. Almost everything that they do is subject to regulations handed down from city councils, state boards of education, legislatures, and courts. As recent mayoral and state takeovers in such cities as Baltimore, Chicago, and New York make abundantly clear, school boards that do not fulfill the expectations of other political players may be stripped of what few independent powers they still retain. Teachers unions exert growing influence over board decision-making processes. And with the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act, the federal government has aggressively inserted itself into matters of local education governance. B esieged is the first full-length volume in many years to systematically examine the politics that surround school boards. A group of highly renowned scholars, relying on both careful case studies and quantitative analyses, examine how school boards fare when they interact with their political superiors, teachers unions, and the public. For the most part, the picture that emerges is sobering: while school boards perform certain administrative functions quite well, the political pressures they face undermine their capacity to institute the wide-ranging school reforms that many voters and local leaders are currently demanding.
Author: David B. Magleby
Publisher: Longman Publishing Group
ISBN: 9780205746637
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
This is the most authoritative text for state and local politics. "State and Local Politics: Government by the People "continually sets the standards for other state and local politics texts by anticipating instructors' and students' needs. Known for its esteemed author team who treat each new edition as a fresh challenge, "State and Local Politics: Government by the People" is the perfect text for the educator who wants students to understand how America's state and local political systems work.
Author: Helene Ärlestig
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030387593
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 433
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Book Description
This book describes and analyses the organisation, functions and development of national educational authorities and agencies and the influence they have on local schools in 20 countries around the world. It examines the governing chain in the respective countries from both a theoretical and descriptive perspective. It does so against the background of the stability and rigour of the governing chains having been challenged, with some researchers considering the chain to be broken. However, the view that comes to the fore in this book is that the chain is still present and contains both vertical implementation structures and intervening spaces for policy interpretation. How schools become successful is important for the individual students as well as the local community and the national state. A vast quantity of research has looked at what happens in schools and classrooms. At the same time, national governance and politics as well as local prerequisites are known to exert influence on schools and their results to a high degree. Societal priorities, problems and traditions provide variety in how governance is executed. This book provides an international overview of the similarities and differences between educational agencies and how their work influences schools.
Author: Richard D. Tomko
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1475872127
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 149
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Book Description
Educational administrators are faced with making decisions daily that affect the operations of their district, building, or organization. Nearly all these decisions are based on the needs and influence of local stakeholders and constituent groups. Calling a Snow Day: How Local Politics Influence School Decisions is a tool to help leaders in education identify, understand, and maneuver around all obstacles that would influence decisions based on the needs of the constituent and stakeholder group and not just the system as a whole. These decisions, which impact the stakeholders of an educational system, can be influenced by a political landscape that can be both beneficial and detrimental to the progress that the administrator is looking to make in consideration of their tenure in the district.
