Download or read book The Transformation of Great American School Districts written by William Lowe Boyd and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Transformation of Great American School Districts, William Lowe Boyd, Charles Taylor Kerchner, and Mark Blyth argue that urban education reform can best be understood as a long process of institutional change, rather than as a series of failed projects. They examine the core assumptions that underlay the Progressive Era model of public education--apolitical governance, local control, professional hierarchy, and the logic of confidence--and show that recent developments in school governance have challenged virtually all of these assumptions. Drawing on case studies of five urban districts--Philadelphia, Chicago, Washington, D.C., New York, and Los Angeles--they trace the rise of new ideas and trends that are reshaping the institution of public education: mayoral control, shifting civic coalitions, federal and state involvement, standards-based accountability, and the role of educational outsiders in district administration. Although each city has evolved along a different path, the editors argue, the transformation of these districts reflects the auditioning of a new set of underlying ideas and the transition to a new institutional model of public education. "The Transformation of Great American School Districts provides fascinating portraits of the governance changes now occurring in America's major urban school systems, along with a trenchant discussion of the extent to which these changes signal a new direction for American education. The book will make a strong contribution to research on the politics of education in the United States and shows the promise of applying insights from the new institutionalism to research on educational governance." -- Brian Rowan, Burke A. Hinsdale Collegiate Professor in Education and Research Professor, Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan "An important analysis of the evolution of urban education and some provocative ideas about what might be next. Whether your interest is urban schools or American education more generally, you'll learn from this book." -- Andrew J. Rotherham, Co-Director of Education Sector, Member of the Virginia Board of Education, and Author of Eduwonk.com "This cogent collection employs a cultural/historical lens to assess the challenges communities face in their decades-long struggles to transform failing urban school systems. These groundbreaking reflections make a persuasive case for devoting more attention to the political, cultural, and social dimensions of district reinvention--an endeavor that is often treated as a technical challenge alone." -- Warren Simmons, Executive Director, Annenberg Institute for School Reform William Lowe Boyd is Batschelet Chair Professor of Educational Leadership at the Pennsylvania State University and editor of the American Journal of Education. Charles Taylor Kerchner is research professor at Claremont Graduate University. Mark Blyth is associate professor of political science at the Johns Hopkins University and the author of Great Transformations: Economic Ideas and Institutional Change in the Twentieth Century.
Download or read book The Death and Life of the Great American School System written by Diane Ravitch and published by Basic Books (AZ). This book was released on 2010-03-02 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discusses how school choice, misapplied standards of accountability, the No Child Left Behind mandate, and the use of a corporate model have all led to a decline in public education and presents arguments for a return to strong neighborhood schools and quality teaching.
Download or read book Improbable Scholars written by David L. Kirp and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2015 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Improbable Scholars, David L. Kirp challenges the conventional wisdom about public schools and education reform in America through an in-depth look at Union City, New Jersey's high-performing urban school district. In this compelling study, Kirp reveals Union's city's revolutionary secret: running an exemplary school system doesn't demand heroics, just hard and steady work.
Download or read book The Transformation of Great American School Districts written by William Lowe Boyd and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Transformation of Great American School Districts, William Lowe Boyd, Charles Taylor Kerchner, and Mark Blyth argue that urban education reform can best be understood as a long process of institutional change, rather than as a series of failed projects. They examine the core assumptions that underlay the Progressive Era model of public education--apolitical governance, local control, professional hierarchy, and the logic of confidence--and show that recent developments in school governance have challenged virtually all of these assumptions. Drawing on case studies of five urban districts--Philadelphia, Chicago, Washington, D.C., New York, and Los Angeles--they trace the rise of new ideas and trends that are reshaping the institution of public education: mayoral control, shifting civic coalitions, federal and state involvement, standards-based accountability, and the role of educational outsiders in district administration. Although each city has evolved along a different path, the editors argue, the transformation of these districts reflects the auditioning of a new set of underlying ideas and the transition to a new institutional model of public education. "The Transformation of Great American School Districts provides fascinating portraits of the governance changes now occurring in America's major urban school systems, along with a trenchant discussion of the extent to which these changes signal a new direction for American education. The book will make a strong contribution to research on the politics of education in the United States and shows the promise of applying insights from the new institutionalism to research on educational governance." -- Brian Rowan, Burke A. Hinsdale Collegiate Professor in Education and Research Professor, Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan "An important analysis of the evolution of urban education and some provocative ideas about what might be next. Whether your interest is urban schools or American education more generally, you'll learn from this book." -- Andrew J. Rotherham, Co-Director of Education Sector, Member of the Virginia Board of Education, and Author of Eduwonk.com "This cogent collection employs a cultural/historical lens to assess the challenges communities face in their decades-long struggles to transform failing urban school systems. These groundbreaking reflections make a persuasive case for devoting more attention to the political, cultural, and social dimensions of district reinvention--an endeavor that is often treated as a technical challenge alone." -- Warren Simmons, Executive Director, Annenberg Institute for School Reform William Lowe Boyd is Batschelet Chair Professor of Educational Leadership at the Pennsylvania State University and editor of the American Journal of Education. Charles Taylor Kerchner is research professor at Claremont Graduate University. Mark Blyth is associate professor of political science at the Johns Hopkins University and the author of Great Transformations: Economic Ideas and Institutional Change in the Twentieth Century.
Download or read book Making the Grade written by William A. Fischel and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2009-11-15 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A significant factor for many people deciding where to live is the quality of the local school district, with superior schools creating a price premium for housing. The result is a “race to the top,” as all school districts attempt to improve their performance in order to attract homebuyers. Given the importance of school districts to the daily lives of children and families, it is surprising that their evolution has not received much attention. In this provocative book, William Fischel argues that the historical development of school districts reflects Americans’ desire to make their communities attractive to outsiders. The result has been a standardized, interchangeable system of education not overly demanding for either students or teachers, one that involved parents and local voters in its governance and finance. Innovative in its focus on bottom-up processes generated by individual behaviors rather than top-down decisions by bureaucrats, Making the Grade provides a new perspective on education reform that emphasizes how public schools form the basis for the localized social capital in American towns and cities.
Download or read book Slaying Goliath written by Diane Ravitch and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2020-01-21 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From one of the foremost authorities on education in the United States, Slaying Goliath is an impassioned, inspiring look at the ways in which parents, teachers, and activists are successfully fighting back to defeat the forces that are trying to privatize America’s public schools. Diane Ravitch writes of a true grassroots movement sweeping the country, from cities and towns across America, a movement dedicated to protecting public schools from those who are funding privatization and who believe that America’s schools should be run like businesses and that children should be treated like customers or products. Slaying Goliath is about the power of democracy, about the dangers of plutocracy, and about the potential of ordinary people—armed like David with only a slingshot of ideas, energy, and dedication—to prevail against those who are trying to divert funding away from our historic system of democratically governed, nonsectarian public schools. Among the lessons learned from the global pandemic of 2020 is the importance of our public schools and their teachers and the fact that distance learning can never replace human interaction, the pesonal connection between teachers and students.
Download or read book Reign of Error written by Diane Ravitch and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2013-09-17 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From one of the foremost authorities on education in the United States, former U.S. assistant secretary of education, “whistle-blower extraordinaire” (The Wall Street Journal), author of the best-selling The Death and Life of the Great American School System (“Important and riveting”—Library Journal), The Language Police (“Impassioned . . . Fiercely argued . . . Every bit as alarming as it is illuminating”—The New York Times), and other notable books on education history and policy—an incisive, comprehensive look at today’s American school system that argues against those who claim it is broken and beyond repair; an impassioned but reasoned call to stop the privatization movement that is draining students and funding from our public schools. In Reign of Error, Diane Ravitch argues that the crisis in American education is not a crisis of academic achievement but a concerted effort to destroy public schools in this country. She makes clear that, contrary to the claims being made, public school test scores and graduation rates are the highest they’ve ever been, and dropout rates are at their lowest point. She argues that federal programs such as George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind and Barack Obama’s Race to the Top set unreasonable targets for American students, punish schools, and result in teachers being fired if their students underperform, unfairly branding those educators as failures. She warns that major foundations, individual billionaires, and Wall Street hedge fund managers are encouraging the privatization of public education, some for idealistic reasons, others for profit. Many who work with equity funds are eyeing public education as an emerging market for investors. Reign of Error begins where The Death and Life of the Great American School System left off, providing a deeper argument against privatization and for public education, and in a chapter-by-chapter breakdown, putting forth a plan for what can be done to preserve and improve it. She makes clear what is right about U.S. education, how policy makers are failing to address the root causes of educational failure, and how we can fix it. For Ravitch, public school education is about knowledge, about learning, about developing character, and about creating citizens for our society. It’s about helping to inspire independent thinkers, not just honing job skills or preparing people for college. Public school education is essential to our democracy, and its aim, since the founding of this country, has been to educate citizens who will help carry democracy into the future.
Download or read book Reinventing America s Schools written by David Osborne and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2017-09-05 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From David Osborne, the author of Reinventing Government--a biting analysis of the failure of America's public schools and a comprehensive plan for revitalizing American education. In Reinventing America's Schools, David Osborne, one of the world's foremost experts on public sector reform, offers a comprehensive analysis of the charter school movements and presents a theory that will do for American schools what his New York Times bestseller Reinventing Government did for public governance in 1992. In 2005, when Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, the city got an unexpected opportunity to recreate their school system from scratch. The state's Recovery School District (RSD), created to turn around failing schools, gradually transformed all of its New Orleans schools into charter schools, and the results are shaking the very foundations of American education. Test scores, school performance scores, graduation and dropout rates, ACT scores, college-going rates, and independent studies all tell the same story: the city's RSD schools have tripled their effectiveness in eight years. Now other cities are following suit, with state governments reinventing failing schools in Newark, Camden, Memphis, Denver, Indianapolis, Cleveland, and Oakland. In this book, Osborne uses compelling stories from cities like New Orleans and lays out the history and possible future of public education. Ultimately, he uses his extensive research to argue that in today's world, we should treat every public school like a charter school and grant them autonomy, accountability, diversity of school designs, and parental choice.
Download or read book Street Data written by Shane Safir and published by Corwin. This book was released on 2021-02-12 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Radically reimagine our ways of being, learning, and doing Education can be transformed if we eradicate our fixation on big data like standardized test scores as the supreme measure of equity and learning. Instead of the focus being on "fixing" and "filling" academic gaps, we must envision and rebuild the system from the student up—with classrooms, schools and systems built around students’ brilliance, cultural wealth, and intellectual potential. Street data reminds us that what is measurable is not the same as what is valuable and that data can be humanizing, liberatory and healing. By breaking down street data fundamentals: what it is, how to gather it, and how it can complement other forms of data to guide a school or district’s equity journey, Safir and Dugan offer an actionable framework for school transformation. Written for educators and policymakers, this book · Offers fresh ideas and innovative tools to apply immediately · Provides an asset-based model to help educators look for what’s right in our students and communities instead of seeking what’s wrong · Explores a different application of data, from its capacity to help us diagnose root causes of inequity, to its potential to transform learning, and its power to reshape adult culture Now is the time to take an antiracist stance, interrogate our assumptions about knowledge, measurement, and what really matters when it comes to educating young people.
Download or read book It s the Classroom Stupid written by Kalman R. Hettleman and published by R&L Education. This book was released on 2010-01-16 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents a bold, unconventional plan to rescue our nation's schoolchildren from a failing public education system. The plan reflects the author's rare fusion of on-the-ground experience as school board member, public administrator and political activist and exhaustive policy research. The causes of failure, Hettleman shows, lie in obsolete ideas and false certainties that are ingrained in a trinity of dominant misbeliefs. First, that educators can be entrusted on their own to do what it takes to reform our schools. Second, that we need to retreat from the landmark federal No Child Left Behind Act and restore more local control. And third, that politics must be kept out of public education.
Download or read book Leadership in America s Best Urban Schools written by Joseph F. Johnson, Jr. and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2017-02-03 with total page 171 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Leadership in America’s Best Urban Schools describes and demystifies the qualities that successful leaders rely on to make a difference at all levels of urban school leadership. Grounded in research, this volume reveals the multiple challenges that real urban elementary, middle, and high schools face as well as the catalysts for improvement. This insightful resource explores the critical leadership characteristics found in high-performing urban schools and gives leaders the tools to move their schools to higher levels of achievement for all students—but especially for those who are low-income, English-language learners, and from various racial and ethnic backgrounds. In shining a light on the essential qualities for exceptional leadership at all levels of urban schools, this book is a valuable guide for all educators and administrators to nurture, influence, support, and sustain excellence and equity at their schools.
Download or read book The Education We Need for a Future We Can t Predict written by Thomas Hatch and published by Corwin Press. This book was released on 2021-01-19 with total page 181 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Improve Schools and Transform Education In order for educational systems to change, we must reevaluate deep-seated beliefs about learning, teaching, schooling, and race that perpetuate inequitable opportunities and outcomes. Hatch, Corson, and Gerth van den Berg challenge the narrative when it comes to the "grammar of schooling"--or the conventional structures, practices, and beliefs that define educational experiences for so many children—to cast a new vision of what school could be. The book addresses current systemic problems and solutions as it: Highlights global examples of successful school change Describes strategies that improve educational opportunities and performance Explores promising approaches in developing new learning opportunities Outlines conditions for supporting wide-scale educational improvement This provocative book approaches education reform by highlighting what works, while also demonstrating what can be accomplished if we redefine conventional schools. We can make the schools we have more efficient, more effective, and more equitable, all while creating powerful opportunities to support all aspects of students’ development. "You won’t find a better book on system change in education than this one. We learn why schools don’t change; how they can improve; what it takes to change a system; and, in the final analysis, the possibilities of system change. Above all, The Education We Need renders complexity into clarity as the writing is so clear and compelling. A powerful read on a topic of utmost importance." ~Michael Fullan, Professor Emeritus, OISE/Universtiy of Toronto "I cannot recommend this book highly enough – Tom tackles long-standing and emerging educational issues in new ways with an impressive understanding of the challenging complexities, but also feasible possibilities, for ensuring excellence and equity for all students." ~Carol Campbell, Associate Professor, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto
Download or read book Ideas and Politics in Social Science Research written by Daniel Beland and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2010-12-10 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Writing about ideas, John Maynard Keynes noted that they are "more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else." One would expect, therefore, that political science--a discipline that focuses specifically on the nature of power--would have a healthy respect for the role of ideas. However, for a variety of reasons--not least of which is the influence of rational choice theory, which presumes that individuals are self-maximizing rational actors--this is not the case, and the literature on the topic is fairly thin. As the stellar cast of contributors to this volume show, ideas are in fact powerful shapers of political and social life. In Ideas and Politics in Social Science Research, Daniel Béland and Robert Henry Cox have gathered leading scholars from a variety of subdisciplines in political science and sociology to provide a general overview of the theoretical, empirical, and methodological issues raised by social science research on ideas and politics. Throughout, they hone in on three central questions. What is the theoretical basis for studying ideas in politics? What are the best methods? What sort of empirical puzzles can be solved by examining ideas and related phenomena such as discourse, policy paradigms, and framing processes? In sum, this is a state-of-the-art academic work on both the role of ideas in politics and the analytical utility that derives from studying them.
Download or read book School Transformation written by Wayne Jennings and published by . This book was released on 2018-02 with total page 454 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This guide to school transformation sends a wake-up call about the out-moded current school system. As educator and advocate during a sixty-year career, Wayne B. Jennings, PhD, writes in this revolutionary new text that our educational system remains stuck in the past. Jennings argues that the system should skip Band-Aid reforms and go for a full reboot! Jennings captures critical aspects of change. In School Transformation, he advances: · understanding the true purpose of education, · realizing we live in a new era, · seeing the fundamental flaws in the system, · bringing schools into the twenty-first century, · preparing students for an unknown future, · examining recent efforts to reform the system, · taking specific steps for transformation, and · considering examples of transformed schools. Jennings' experience as a teacher, principal, school board member, and university facility member energized him to start eight schools during his career. He believes community members, teachers, and students can respond to educational challenges and transform their schools. He describes specific steps and processes to follow and provides examples of transformed schools. He believes that transformed schools will make school an exciting, enriching experience for an entire generation of independent, innovative thinkers.
Download or read book Follow the Money written by Sarah Reckhow and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013-01-17 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Some of the nation's wealthiest philanthropies, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Walton Family Foundation, and the Broad Foundation have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in education reform. With vast wealth and a political agenda, these foundations have helped to reshape the reform landscape in urban education. In Follow the Money, Sarah Reckhow shows where and how foundation investment in education is occurring and presents in-depth analysis of the effects of these investments within the two largest urban districts in the United States: New York City and Los Angeles. In New York City, centralized political control and the use of private resources have enabled rapid implementation of reform proposals. Yet this potent combination of top-down authority and outside funding also poses serious questions about transparency, responsiveness, and democratic accountability in New York. Furthermore, the sustainability of reform policies is closely linked to the political fortunes of the current mayor and his chosen school leader. While the media has highlighted the efforts of drastic reformers and dominating leaders such as Joel Klein in New York City and Michelle Rhee in Washington, D.C., a slower, but possibly more transformative, set of reforms have been taking place in Los Angeles. These reforms were also funded and shaped by major foundations, but they work from the bottom up, through charter school operators managing networks of schools. This strategy has built grassroots political momentum and demand for reform in Los Angeles that is unmatched in New York City and other districts with mayoral control. Reckhow's study of Los Angeles's education system shows how democratically responsive urban school reform could occur-pairing foundation investment with broad grassroots involvement. Bringing a sharp analytical eye and a wealth of evidence to one of the most politicized issues of our day, Follow the Money will reshape our thinking about educational reform in America.
Download or read book Transforming School Culture written by Anthony Muhammad and published by Solution Tree Press. This book was released on 2009-11-01 with total page 151 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Busy administrators will appreciate this quick read packed with immediate, accessible strategies. This book provides the framework for understanding dynamic relationships within a school culture and ensuring a positive environment that supports the changes necessary to improve learning for all students. The author explores many aspects of human behavior, social conditions, and history to reveal best practices for building healthy school cultures.
Download or read book New York and Los Angeles written by David Halle and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013-05-07 with total page 617 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides in-depth comparative studies of the two largest cities and metropolitan areas in the United States: New York City and Los Angeles. The chapters, written by leading experts and based upon the most current information available from the Census and other sources, discuss and explicitly compare politics, economic prospects and the financial crisis, and a host of social issues. Reform movements in education, ethnic politics, budget stringency, strategies to deal with crime, the development and political context of infrastructure, rising inequality, immigration and immigrant communities, the segregation of the poor and minorities and the new segregation of the economic elite, environmental impacts and attempts to deal with them, the image of both cities and regions in the movies, architectural trends, and the differential impact and response to the financial crisis, including foreclosure patterns, are all examined in this volume. This comparative framework reveals that old paradigms such as urban "decline" or "resurgence" are inadequate for grasping the new challenges and complexities facing America's two major global cities. Each is responding in sometimes similar and different ways to the challenges brought on by two events that defined the last decade: the attack of 9/11 and its aftermath, and the continuing effects of the financial crisis. How all of these events, institutions, and trends play out in the New York and Los Angeles regions is important not only for the two cities, but also as a harbinger for other U.S. cities, the entire nation, and cities worldwide. New York and Los Angeles provides an essential guide for understanding the many forces that determine the future of our cities.
