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Author: Kathryn A. McDermott
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 232
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Book Description
Most Americans believe that local school districts are the only means by which citizens may exercise control over public education. Kathryn McDermott argues to the contrary that existing local institutions are no longer sufficient for achieving either equity or democratic governance. Not only is local control inequitable, it also fails to live up to its reputation for guaranteeing public participation and citizen influence. Drawing upon democratic theory and the results of field research in New Haven, Connecticut, and three suburbs, McDermott contends that our educational system can be made more democratic by centralizing control over funding while decentralizing most authority over schools to the level of schools themselves while enacting public school choice controlled for racial balance. To many people in Connecticut and elsewhere, the tension between equal opportunity for all students and local control of public education seems impossible to resolve. In 1996, the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled in Sheff v. O'Neill that local control produces unconstitutional segregation of public schools. Nearly all of the state's 169 towns operate their own public schools, and, like the towns they serve, the schools are generally homogeneous with respect to race and socioeconomic class. In the Sheff ruling, the court declared that making school districts coterminous with town lines "is the single most important factor contributing to the present concentration of racial and ethnic minorities in the Hartford public school system." At the same time, the court also acknowledged that the town-based school system "presently furthers the legitimate nonracial interests of permitting considerable local control and accountability in educational matters." In Connecticut and elsewhere, it has often seemed necessary to choose between local control and equity in public education, and local control has almost always won. McDermott argues that rather than seeing local control and equity as conflicting goals, policymakers should regard them as equally important components of democracy in public education. In her view, a truly democratic system of education should both encourage citizen participation in school governance and contribute to the formation and maintenance of a social order in which equality of opportunity prevails over hierarchies of privilege. Centralizing distribution of resources and using controlled choice to end racial isolation would provide greater equality of opportunity, while decentralizing management of schools would expand citizen participation. McDermott's conclusions break new ground in our understanding of local school governance itself and call into question the conventional wisdom about local participation. These findings should interest those who study school governance and reform—especially in an urban setting—as well as policy makers, administrators, teachers, students, and citizens eager to improve their schools.
Author: Kathryn A. McDermott
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 232
Get Book Here
Book Description
Most Americans believe that local school districts are the only means by which citizens may exercise control over public education. Kathryn McDermott argues to the contrary that existing local institutions are no longer sufficient for achieving either equity or democratic governance. Not only is local control inequitable, it also fails to live up to its reputation for guaranteeing public participation and citizen influence. Drawing upon democratic theory and the results of field research in New Haven, Connecticut, and three suburbs, McDermott contends that our educational system can be made more democratic by centralizing control over funding while decentralizing most authority over schools to the level of schools themselves while enacting public school choice controlled for racial balance. To many people in Connecticut and elsewhere, the tension between equal opportunity for all students and local control of public education seems impossible to resolve. In 1996, the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled in Sheff v. O'Neill that local control produces unconstitutional segregation of public schools. Nearly all of the state's 169 towns operate their own public schools, and, like the towns they serve, the schools are generally homogeneous with respect to race and socioeconomic class. In the Sheff ruling, the court declared that making school districts coterminous with town lines "is the single most important factor contributing to the present concentration of racial and ethnic minorities in the Hartford public school system." At the same time, the court also acknowledged that the town-based school system "presently furthers the legitimate nonracial interests of permitting considerable local control and accountability in educational matters." In Connecticut and elsewhere, it has often seemed necessary to choose between local control and equity in public education, and local control has almost always won. McDermott argues that rather than seeing local control and equity as conflicting goals, policymakers should regard them as equally important components of democracy in public education. In her view, a truly democratic system of education should both encourage citizen participation in school governance and contribute to the formation and maintenance of a social order in which equality of opportunity prevails over hierarchies of privilege. Centralizing distribution of resources and using controlled choice to end racial isolation would provide greater equality of opportunity, while decentralizing management of schools would expand citizen participation. McDermott's conclusions break new ground in our understanding of local school governance itself and call into question the conventional wisdom about local participation. These findings should interest those who study school governance and reform—especially in an urban setting—as well as policy makers, administrators, teachers, students, and citizens eager to improve their schools.
Author: Kimberly Jenkins Robinson
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 1479825891
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 390
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Book Description
How the United States can provide equal educational opportunity to every child The United States Supreme Court closed the courthouse door to federal litigation to narrow educational funding and opportunity gaps in schools when it ruled in San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez in 1973 that the Constitution does not guarantee a right to education. Rodriguez pushed reformers back to the state courts where they have had some success in securing reforms to school funding systems through education and equal protection clauses in state constitutions, but far less success in changing the basic structure of school funding in ways that would ensure access to equitable and adequate funding for schools. Given the limitations of state school funding litigation, education reformers continue to seek new avenues to remedy inequitable disparities in educational opportunity and achievement, including recently returning to federal court. This book is the first comprehensive examination of three issues regarding a federal right to education: why federal intervention is needed to close educational opportunity and achievement gaps; the constitutional and statutory legal avenues that could be employed to guarantee a federal right to education; and, the scope of what a federal right to education should guarantee. A Federal Right to Education provides a timely and thoughtful analysis of how the United States could fulfill its unmet promise to provide equal educational opportunity and the American Dream to every child, regardless of race, class, language proficiency, or neighborhood.
Author: James Tooley
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781598133387
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 432
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Book Description
"Almost overnight a virus has brought into question America's nearly 200-year-old government-run K-12 school-system-and prompted an urgent search for alternatives. But where should we turn to find them? Enter James Tooley's Really Good Schools. A distinguished scholar of education and the world's foremost expert on private, low-cost innovative education, Tooley takes readers to some of the world's most impoverished communities located in some of the world's most dangerous places-including India and such war-torn countries as Sierra Leone, Liberia, and South Sudan. There, in places where education "experts" fear to tread, Tooley finds thriving private schools that government, multinational NGOs, and even international charity officials deny exist. Why? Because the very existence of low-cost, high-quality private schools shatters the prevailing myth in the U.S., U.K., and western Europe that, absent government, affordable, high-quality schools for the poor could not exist. But they do. And they are ubiquitous and in high demand. Founded by unheralded, local educational entrepreneurs, these schools are proving that self-organized education is not just possible but flourishing-often enrolling far more students than "free" government schools do at prices within reach of even the most impoverished families"--
Author: A. Patrick Huff
Publisher: AuthorHouse
ISBN: 149696859X
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 167
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Book Description
The Takeover of Public Education in America: The Agenda to Control Information and Knowledge Through the Accountability System is an informative and insightful look into the mechanism that controls school systems today. It provides a look back into the history of how the system developed into what we have today and peels the curtain back to reveal what is crippling the schools across the country. Testimony is given from education professionals and parents who have lost their community schools to the devastating impact of No Child Left Behind mandates and its accountability system. Find out why teachers and school administrators stay in a constant state of preparation for the next round of testing. Discover the effects of failing to meet standards, and see the heavy hand of national policy take away jobs and deprive students of attending their neighborhood school. Become aware of who is benefiting from the current state of public education. Billions of dollars are at stake as corporations position themselves to make huge profits as public schools struggle to gain acceptable ratings and companies are called upon to rescue the children from a failing school. Learn what must be done if the teachers, counselors, administrators, and parents are to have any chance of reclaiming sovereignty over their profession and the schools their children attend. Finally, learn how technology and testing have served to limit a childs education through the agenda to control information and knowledge.
Author: R. Shep Melnick
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
ISBN: 0815732406
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 337
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Book Description
One civil rights-era law has reshaped American society—and contributed to the country's ongoing culture wars Few laws have had such far-reaching impact as Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. Intended to give girls and women greater access to sports programs and other courses of study in schools and colleges, the law has since been used by judges and agencies to expand a wide range of antidiscrimination policies—most recently the Obama administration’s 2016 mandates on sexual harassment and transgender rights. In this comprehensive review of how Title IX has been implemented, Boston College political science professor R. Shep Melnick analyzes how interpretations of "equal educational opportunity" have changed over the years. In terms accessible to non-lawyers, Melnick examines how Title IX has become a central part of legal and political campaigns to correct gender stereotypes, not only in academic settings but in society at large. Title IX thus has become a major factor in America's culture wars—and almost certainly will remain so for years to come.
Author: Joy Pullmann
Publisher: Encounter Books
ISBN: 1594038821
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 226
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Book Description
Most Americans had no idea what Common Core was in 2013, according to polls. But it had been creeping into schools nationwide over the previous three years, and children were feeling its effects. They cried over math homework so mystifying their parents could not help them, even in elementary school. They read motley assortments of “informational text” instead of classic literature. They dreaded the high-stakes tests, in unfamiliar formats, that were increasingly controlling their classrooms. How did this latest and most sweeping “reform” of American education come in mostly under the radar? Joy Pullmann started tugging on a thread of reports from worried parents and frustrated teachers, and it led to a big tangle of history and politics, intrigue and arrogance. She unwound it to discover how a cabal of private foundation honchos and unelected public officials cooked up a set of rules for what American children must learn in core K–12 classes, and how the Obama administration pressured states to adopt them. Thus a federalized education scheme took root, despite legal prohibitions against federal involvement in curriculum. Common Core and its testing regime were touted as “an absolute game-changer in public education,” yet the evidence so far suggests that kids are actually learning less under it. Why, then, was such a costly and disruptive agenda imposed on the nation’s schools? Who benefits? And how can citizens regain local self-governance in education, so their children’s minds will be fed a more nourishing intellectual diet and be protected from the experiments of emboldened bureaucrats? The Education Invasion offers answers and remedies.
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: Fred Francis Beach
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 196
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Book Description
Author: Gary DeMar
Publisher: American Vision
ISBN: 0915815648
Category : Christian education
Languages : en
Pages : 151
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Book Description
Author: Elizabeth Todd-Breland
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 1469646595
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 343
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Book Description
In 2012, Chicago's school year began with the city's first teachers' strike in a quarter century and ended with the largest mass closure of public schools in U.S. history. On one side, a union leader and veteran black woman educator drew upon organizing strategies from black and Latinx communities to demand increased school resources. On the other side, the mayor, backed by the Obama administration, argued that only corporate-style education reform could set the struggling school system aright. The stark differences in positions resonated nationally, challenging the long-standing alliance between teachers' unions and the Democratic Party. Elizabeth Todd-Breland recovers the hidden history underlying this battle. She tells the story of black education reformers' community-based strategies to improve education beginning during the 1960s, as support for desegregation transformed into community control, experimental schooling models that pre-dated charter schools, and black teachers' challenges to a newly assertive teachers' union. This book reveals how these strategies collided with the burgeoning neoliberal educational apparatus during the late twentieth century, laying bare ruptures and enduring tensions between the politics of black achievement, urban inequality, and U.S. democracy.
