Building the Federal Schoolhouse

Building the Federal Schoolhouse PDF Author: Douglas S. Reed
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199838496
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
Over the past fifty years, the federal government's efforts to reform American public education have transformed U.S. schools from locally-run enterprises into complex systems jointly constructed by federal, state, and local actors. The construction of this federal schoolhouse-an educational system with common national expectations and practices-has fundamentally altered both education politics and the norms governing educational policy at the local level. Building the Federal Schoolhouse examines these issues through an in-depth, fifty-year examination of federal educational policies in the community of Alexandria, Virginia, a wealthy yet socially diverse suburb of Washington, D.C. The epochal social transformations that swept through America in the past half century hit Alexandria with particular force, transforming its Jim Crow school system into a new immigrant gateway district within two generations. Along the way, the school system has struggled to provide quality education for special needs students, and has sought to overcome the legacies of tracking and segregated learning while simultaneously retaining upper-middle class students. Most recently, it has grappled with state and federally imposed accountability measures that seek to boost educational outcomes. All of these policy initiatives have contended with the existing political regime within Alexandria, at times forcing it to a breaking point, and at other times reconstructing it. All the while, the local expectations and governing realities of administrators, parents, politicians, and voters have sharply constrained federal initiatives, limiting their scope when in conflict with local commitments and amplifying them when they align. Through an extensive use of local archives, contemporary accounts, school data, and interviews, Douglas S. Reed not only paints an intimate portrait of the conflicts that the federal schoolhouse's creation has wrought in Alexandria, but also documents the successes of the federal commitment to greater educational opportunity. In so doing, he highlights the complexity of the American education state and the centrality of local regimes and local historical context to federal educational reform efforts.

Building the Federal Schoolhouse

Building the Federal Schoolhouse PDF Author: Douglas S. Reed
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199838496
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 353

Get Book Here

Book Description
Over the past fifty years, the federal government's efforts to reform American public education have transformed U.S. schools from locally-run enterprises into complex systems jointly constructed by federal, state, and local actors. The construction of this federal schoolhouse-an educational system with common national expectations and practices-has fundamentally altered both education politics and the norms governing educational policy at the local level. Building the Federal Schoolhouse examines these issues through an in-depth, fifty-year examination of federal educational policies in the community of Alexandria, Virginia, a wealthy yet socially diverse suburb of Washington, D.C. The epochal social transformations that swept through America in the past half century hit Alexandria with particular force, transforming its Jim Crow school system into a new immigrant gateway district within two generations. Along the way, the school system has struggled to provide quality education for special needs students, and has sought to overcome the legacies of tracking and segregated learning while simultaneously retaining upper-middle class students. Most recently, it has grappled with state and federally imposed accountability measures that seek to boost educational outcomes. All of these policy initiatives have contended with the existing political regime within Alexandria, at times forcing it to a breaking point, and at other times reconstructing it. All the while, the local expectations and governing realities of administrators, parents, politicians, and voters have sharply constrained federal initiatives, limiting their scope when in conflict with local commitments and amplifying them when they align. Through an extensive use of local archives, contemporary accounts, school data, and interviews, Douglas S. Reed not only paints an intimate portrait of the conflicts that the federal schoolhouse's creation has wrought in Alexandria, but also documents the successes of the federal commitment to greater educational opportunity. In so doing, he highlights the complexity of the American education state and the centrality of local regimes and local historical context to federal educational reform efforts.

Building the Federal Schoolhouse

Building the Federal Schoolhouse PDF Author: Douglas S. Reed
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0199838488
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
Creating a truly national school system has, over the past fifty years, reconfigured local expectations and practices in American public education. Through a 50-year examination of Alexandria, Virginia, this book reveals how the 'education state' is nonetheless shaped by the commitments of local political regimes and their leaders and constituents.

Building the Federal Schoolhouse

Building the Federal Schoolhouse PDF Author: Douglas S. Reed
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019021760X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 353

Get Book Here

Book Description
Over the past fifty years, the federal government's efforts to reform American public education have transformed U.S. schools from locally-run enterprises into complex systems jointly constructed by federal, state, and local actors. The construction of this federal schoolhouse-an educational system with common national expectations and practices-has fundamentally altered both education politics and the norms governing educational policy at the local level. Building the Federal Schoolhouse examines these issues through an in-depth, fifty-year examination of federal educational policies in the community of Alexandria, Virginia, a wealthy yet socially diverse suburb of Washington, D.C. The epochal social transformations that swept through America in the past half century hit Alexandria with particular force, transforming its Jim Crow school system into a new immigrant gateway district within two generations. Along the way, the school system has struggled to provide quality education for special needs students, and has sought to overcome the legacies of tracking and segregated learning while simultaneously retaining upper-middle class students. Most recently, it has grappled with state and federally imposed accountability measures that seek to boost educational outcomes. All of these policy initiatives have contended with the existing political regime within Alexandria, at times forcing it to a breaking point, and at other times reconstructing it. All the while, the local expectations and governing realities of administrators, parents, politicians, and voters have sharply constrained federal initiatives, limiting their scope when in conflict with local commitments and amplifying them when they align. Through an extensive use of local archives, contemporary accounts, school data, and interviews, Douglas S. Reed not only paints an intimate portrait of the conflicts that the federal schoolhouse's creation has wrought in Alexandria, but also documents the successes of the federal commitment to greater educational opportunity. In so doing, he highlights the complexity of the American education state and the centrality of local regimes and local historical context to federal educational reform efforts.

Schoolhouse Burning

Schoolhouse Burning PDF Author: Derek W. Black
Publisher: PublicAffairs
ISBN: 1541774388
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 294

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Book Description
The full-scale assault on public education threatens not just public education but American democracy itself. Public education as we know it is in trouble. Derek W. Black, a legal scholar and tenacious advocate, shows how major democratic and constitutional developments are intimately linked to the expansion of public education throughout American history. Schoolhouse Burningis grounded in pathbreaking, original research into how the nation, in its infancy, built itself around public education and, following the Civil War, enshrined education as a constitutional right that forever changed the trajectory of our democracy. Public education, alongside the right to vote, was the cornerstone of the recovery of the war-torn nation. Today's current schooling trends -- the declining commitment to properly fund public education and the well-financed political agenda to expand vouchers and charter schools -- present a major assault on the democratic norms that public education represents and risk undermining one of the unique accomplishments of American society.

A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door

A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door PDF Author: Jack Schneider
Publisher: The New Press
ISBN: 1620978121
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 153

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Book Description
A trenchant analysis of how public education is being destroyed in overt and deceptive ways—and how to fight back In the “vigorous, well-informed” (Kirkus Reviews) A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door, the co-hosts of the popular education podcast Have You Heard expose the potent network of conservative elected officials, advocacy groups, funders, and think tanks that are pushing a radical vision to do away with public education. “Cut[ing] through the rhetorical fog surrounding a host of free-market reforms and innovations” (Mike Rose), Jack Schneider and Jennifer Berkshire lay bare the dogma of privatization and reveal how it fits into the current context of right-wing political movements. A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door “goes above and beyond the typical explanations” (SchoolPolicy.org), giving readers an up-close look at the policies—school vouchers, the war on teachers’ unions, tax credit scholarships, virtual schools, and more—driving the movement’s agenda. Called “well-researched, carefully argued, and alarming” by Library Journal, this smart, essential book has already incited a public reckoning on behalf of the millions of families served by the American educational system—and many more who stand to suffer from its unmaking. “Just as with good sci-fi,” according to Jacobin, “the authors make a compelling case that, based on our current trajectory, a nightmare future is closer than we think.”

The Schoolhouse Gate

The Schoolhouse Gate PDF Author: Justin Driver
Publisher: Pantheon
ISBN: 1101871660
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 578

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Book Description
A Washington Post Notable Book of the Year A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice An award-winning constitutional law scholar at the University of Chicago (who clerked for Judge Merrick B. Garland, Justice Stephen Breyer, and Justice Sandra Day O’Connor) gives us an engaging and alarming book that aims to vindicate the rights of public school stu­dents, which have so often been undermined by the Supreme Court in recent decades. Judicial decisions assessing the constitutional rights of students in the nation’s public schools have consistently generated bitter controversy. From racial segregation to un­authorized immigration, from antiwar protests to compul­sory flag salutes, from economic inequality to teacher-led prayer—these are but a few of the cultural anxieties dividing American society that the Supreme Court has addressed in elementary and secondary schools. The Schoolhouse Gate gives a fresh, lucid, and provocative account of the historic legal battles waged over education and illuminates contemporary disputes that continue to fracture the nation. Justin Driver maintains that since the 1970s the Supreme Court has regularly abdicated its responsibility for protecting students’ constitutional rights and risked trans­forming public schools into Constitution-free zones. Students deriving lessons about citizenship from the Court’s decisions in recent decades would conclude that the following actions taken by educators pass constitutional muster: inflicting severe corporal punishment on students without any proce­dural protections, searching students and their possessions without probable cause in bids to uncover violations of school rules, random drug testing of students who are not suspected of wrongdoing, and suppressing student speech for the view­point it espouses. Taking their cue from such decisions, lower courts have upheld a wide array of dubious school actions, including degrading strip searches, repressive dress codes, draconian “zero tolerance” disciplinary policies, and severe restrictions on off-campus speech. Driver surveys this legal landscape with eloquence, highlights the gripping personal narratives behind landmark clashes, and warns that the repeated failure to honor students’ rights threatens our basic constitutional order. This magiste­rial book will make it impossible to view American schools—or America itself—in the same way again.

Feds in the Classroom

Feds in the Classroom PDF Author: Neal P. McCluskey
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 9780742548589
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
The federal government is deeply entrenched in American public education and virtually dictates what can be taught to students. Why? At what cost? And what are the benefits to public school students? To public schools? The author challenges the constitutionality of the feds in the classroom and reminds readers that public education has, until recently, been the function of state and local governments.

On Equal Terms

On Equal Terms PDF Author: Douglas S. Reed
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 069122773X
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 259

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Book Description
Since Brown v. Board of Education and the desegregation battles of the 1960s and 1970s, the legal pursuit of educational opportunity in the United States has been framed largely around race. But for nearly thirty years now, a less-noticed but controversial legal campaign has been afoot to equalize or improve the resources of poorly funded schools. This book examines both the consequences of efforts to use state constitutional provisions to reduce the "resource segregation" of American schools and the politics of the opposition to these decisions. On Equal Terms compares the relative success of school finance lawsuits to the project of school desegregation and explores how race and class present sharply different obstacles to courts. Since a 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision that effectively deferred to the states in the matter of educational equity, about a third of state judiciaries have mandated reform of state-level educational funding systems. Douglas Reed analyzes both the rhetoric of reform and the varying effects of these controversial decisions while critiquing the courts' failure to more clearly define educational equity. Well-written with keen insight throughout, the book concludes with an intriguing policy proposal that acknowledges obstacles to such efforts. This proposal aims to enhance education by fostering racial and economic integration locally. Setting the stage for a more coherent debate on this controversial issue and expanding our understanding of constitutional design, On Equal Terms will have far-reaching implications for law, public policy, politics, and not least, the future of American education.

Using Research Evidence in Education

Using Research Evidence in Education PDF Author: Kara S. Finnigan
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 331904690X
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
This book includes a set of rigorous and accessible studies on the topic of “research evidence” from a variety of levels and educational vantage points. It also provides the reader with thoughtful commentaries from leading thinkers in the field. The complex process of acquiring, interpreting, and using research evidence makes for a rich and under examined area in educational research, practice and policymaking. Policy makers, practitioners and scholars are in need of additional knowledge and practical steps in terms of the uptake of evidence into practice. In addition, sharpening understanding in terms of the ways in which research evidence is shaped or adapted at different educational levels (school, district, state, federal) as well the factors that support or constrain the acquisition and use of research evidence is of immediate use. While professional support for evidence-based practice in schools has never been stronger, credible research has found only weak large-scale effects. This book provides us with key insights about the nature of this problem and a comprehensive approach to its solution; it is a major step toward realizing the considerable potential for school improvement of reciprocal working relationships among policy, practice and research communities. Ken Leithwood, Emeritus Professor, OISE/University of Toronto The problem of scant research use at school sites is old, but the federal to classroom level scope of this book is unique. The authors' analysis of the current status leads to despair, but they provide a clear and compelling path forward. Michael Kirst, Professor Emeritus, Stanford University; President, California State Board of Education. We have come a long way since the linear "Research, Dissemination, Utilization" models of knowledge use of the 1970s and 80s. Each chapter in this book lays out new directions for understanding how individuals, relationships and systems advance or impede the movement of new ideas into policy/practice. Taken together, they redefine knowledge use as a dynamic process that affects and is affected by specific characteristics of the social structures in which is occurs. It is a "must read" both for those interested in educational change and organizational theory. Karen Seashore Louis, Regents Professor, University of Minnesota

You Need a Schoolhouse

You Need a Schoolhouse PDF Author: Stephanie Deutsch
Publisher: Northwestern University Press
ISBN: 0810127903
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 249

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Book Description
Discusses the friendship between Booker T. Wahington, founder of the Tuskegee Institute, and Julius Rosenwald, president of Sears, Roebuck and Company and how, through their friendship, they were able to build five thousand schools for African Americans in the Southern states.