Download or read book The Shifting Landscape of the American School District written by David Gamson and published by Peter Lang Incorporated, International Academic Publishers. This book was released on 2018 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Figures and Tables - David A. Gamson and Emily M. Hodge: Preface: Re-examining the American School District - David A. Gamson and Emily M. Hodge: The Relentless Reinvention of the American School District - John L. Rury and Sanae Akaba: The Geo-Spatial Distribution of Educational Attainment: School Districts, Cultural Capital and Inequality in Metropolitan Kansas City, 1960-1980 - Emily M. Hodge: District Consolidation, Detracking, and School Choice: Lessons from the Woodland Hills School District in Western Pennsylvania - Genevieve Siegel-Hawley and Stefani Thachik: Crossing the Line? School District Responses to Demographic Change in the South - Ansley T. Erickson: Fairness, Commitment, and Civic Capacity: The Varied Desegregation Trajectories of Metropolitan School Districts - Emily E. Straus: From the District to the State to the Nation: How a High-needs District became the Testing Ground for Federal High-stakes Accountability Policies - Karen Benjamin: The Limits of Top-Down Versus Bottom-Up Educational Reform During the Great Depression - Norm Fruchter, Toi Sin Arvidsson, Christina Mokhtar, and John Beam: Demographics and Performance in New York City's School Networks: An Initial Inquiry - Tina M. Trujillo, Laura E. Hernández, and René Espinoza Kissell: Enduring Dilemmas in Democratic Urban District Reform: The Oakland Case - Judith Kafka: Institutional Theory and the History of District-level School Reform: A Reintroduction - Contributors

Download or read book From the Courtroom to the Classroom written by Claire E. Smrekar and published by Harvard Education Press. This book was released on 2009-03-01 with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the Courtroom to the Classroom examines recent developments pertaining to school desegregation in the United States. As the editors note, it comes at a time marked by a “general downplaying of race and ethnicity as criteria for the allocation of public resources, as well as a weakening of the political forces that support busing to achieve racial integration.” The book fills a growing need for a full-scale assessment of this recent history and its effect on schools, children, and communities.

Download or read book The Changing Landscape of Work and Family in the American Middle Class written by Elizabeth Rudd and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2008-03-14 with total page 343 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection explores the dynamics of the modern, middle-class American family and its near-constant state of transition. The editors introduce the book by situating it within the context of work, family, and ethnographic research on middle-class families in the United States. Emerging and established scholars contributed chapters based on their original field research, following each chapter with a personal reflection on doing field work. The volume concludes with an original essay by Kathryn Dudley, an anthropologist who has spent decades studying the intersections of work, family, and class in American culture. As a whole, the volume highlights how culture shapes family life amid shifting social and economic landscapes. The authors, working in the fields of anthropology and sociology, observed daily life at workplaces and in homes, interviewing people about their work, their children, and their ideas about what makes a good family. They report on their fieldwork in essays rich with the detail of everyday life, revealing the fascinating diversity of American middle-class families through chapters about gay co-father families, African American stay-at-home mothers, first-time fathers, rural refugees from corporate America, well-off white mothers, Taiwanese immigrant churches, the fetal ultrasound, and more. The Changing Landscape of Work and Family in the American Middle Class is an excellent text for classes in anthropology, sociology, American culture, family studies, work and family, and gender studies.

Download or read book The Changing Landscape of School Leadership written by M. Scott Norton and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2015-12-31 with total page 173 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The primary focus of the book is to emphasize the major changes in the leadership responsibilities of the school principal and to underscore the necessity for them to gain new knowledge and skills in order to direct their leadership toward meeting the new changes in school-community goals and objectives. M. Scott Norton emphasizes the fact that contemporary issues and problems must be viewed as symptoms of change. The symptoms represent administrative tasks that must be attacked by implementing the primary reason that the school principal is hired, that of leading on-going change. The leader’s responsibility focuses on school purposes as set forth in a viable school mission statement. The school’s mission statement, that all too often is set forth as a public relations perspective, must instead set forth answers to questions such as, “What is our purpose?” “Why does our school exist?” “What is our reason for being here?” “How do we meet the on-going changes that face us educationally?” The leadership of the school principal “attacks” the symptoms of change by collaborating with the school’s faculty to set forth a mission to which all members can commit. Collaboration infers a unification of members’ commitments toward the primary purposes of the school. Collaboration and opportunities to confer on an on-going basis are established. Although the school principal’s hands are often tied by such factors as lack of resources, underfunded/unfunded mandates, inability to hire and retain highly qualified personnel and constantly changing program requirements related to student testing and teacher performance evaluation, this book places emphasis on the principal’s need to become a visionary change agent in order to “attack” the ever changing symptoms of educational change.

Download or read book Suddenly Diverse written by Erica O. Turner and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2020-02-12 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For the past five years, American public schools have enrolled more students identified as Black, Latinx, American Indian, and Asian than white. At the same time, more than half of US school children now qualify for federally subsidized meals, a marker of poverty. The makeup of schools is rapidly changing, and many districts and school boards are at a loss as to how they can effectively and equitably handle these shifts. Suddenly Diverse is an ethnographic account of two school districts in the Midwest responding to rapidly changing demographics at their schools. It is based on observations and in-depth interviews with school board members and superintendents, as well as staff, community members, and other stakeholders in each district: one serving “Lakeside,” a predominately working class, conservative community and the other serving “Fairview,” a more affluent, liberal community. Erica O. Turner looks at district leaders’ adoption of business-inspired policy tools and the ultimate successes and failures of such responses. Turner’s findings demonstrate that, despite their intentions to promote “diversity” or eliminate “achievement gaps,” district leaders adopted policies and practices that ultimately perpetuated existing inequalities and advanced new forms of racism. While suggesting some ways forward, Suddenly Diverse shows that, without changes to these managerial policies and practices and larger transformations to the whole system, even district leaders’ best efforts will continue to undermine the promise of educational equity and the realization of more robust public schools.

Download or read book From the Factory Model to the Market Model written by Jeanne Marie Powers and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 770 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Reclaiming Local Control through Superintendents School Boards and Community Activism written by Meredith Mountford and published by IAP. This book was released on 2022-09-01 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1987, Jacqueline Danzberger described school boards as the forgotten players. However, things have changed drastically for school boards over the past few years. No longer are school boards the forgotten players in school governance. Instead, school boards often find themselves in the center of controversies stemming from the intrusion of political partisanship into local governance structures which historically, and for the purposes of sustained democratic educational governance, were intentionally intended to be non-partisan elected boards. However, this is where many school boards find themselves today. The chapters in this volume address several key questions school board members are currently facing as they struggle to protect some of our country’s earliest guardrails of democracy; local control of schools. To be sure, school boards are no longer the forgotten players. Implications of this may be wide reaching and therefore deserve room in the current literature on educational governance. Volume II of the Research on the Superintendency series highlights recent research on school boards, local control, governance, and the superintendency. Each chapter is briefly described and the chapters are in a particular order that readers may wish to pay attention to as they enjoy the book. The first three chapters deal with local control in both rural and urban settings. The next two chapters are studies focused mainly on school boards and how their roles have shifted over the years followed by a chapter on the relationship between school boards and their superintendents within a regulatory environment and the level of stress it can bring to board members and superintendents. The final five chapters describe recent superintendent research that is closely linked to school governance or school board policies. We ask readers to juxtapose lessons learned in those five chapters to the role of school boards within the context of those chapters.

Download or read book From the Courtroom to the Classroom written by Claire Smrekar and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the Courtroom to the Classroom examines recent developments pertaining to school desegregation in the United States. As the editors note, it comes at a time marked by a "general downplaying of race and ethnicity as criteria for the allocation of public resources, as well as a weakening of the political forces that support busing to achieve racial integration." The book fills a growing need for a full-scale assessment of this recent history and its effect on schools, children, and communities. "From the Courtroom to the Classroom deepens our insights about the causes of racial isolation and the associated difficulty of achieving excellence in schools across society. It reviews and illuminates options for public policy and private behavior but offers no easy answers. It helps us respect the past, understand the present, and imagine possible futures. It presses us to clarify and fulfill our generation's responsibility for this part of the journey away form racial isolation and toward racial justice, social equality, and academic excellence." -- From the forward by Ronald F. Ferguson, faculty cochair and director of the Achievement Gap Initiative, Harvard University "This book offers important assessments of recent school desegregation strategies and asks whether they have fulfilled the constitutional requirement to 'establish justice' and 'promote the general welfare.' It is an important contribution to our assessment of the ongoing legacy of Brown v. Board of Education, which many scholars feel was the most significant U.S. Supreme Court case of the twentieth century." -- Charles V. Willie, Charles W. Eliot Professor of Education, Emeritus, Graduate School of Education, Harvard University "In an era of unitary status, 'color-blind' school-choice policy, and a Supreme Court with four justices who argue that the creation of racially diverse schools is not a compelling state interest, we need more than ever the insights into separate and unequal schools found in From the Courtroom to the Classroom." -- Amy Stuart Wells, professor, Department of Sociology and Education, Teachers College, Columbia University Claire E. Smrekar is an associate professor of public policy and education at Peabody College, Vanderbilt University and an investigator with the National Center on School Choice. Her work involves qualitative research studies related to the social context of education and public policy, with specific reference to the impact of desegregation plans and choice policy on families, schools, and neighborhoods. Ellen B. Goldring is professor of education policy and leadership at Peabody College, Vanderbilt University, and is an investigator with the National Center on School Choice and The Learning Sciences Institute. Goldring's research focuses on improving schools, with particular attention to educational leadership, and access and equity in schools of choice.

Download or read book 23 Myths about the History of American Schools written by Sherman Dorn and published by Teachers College Press. This book was released on 2024 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this fascinating collection, some of the foremost historians of education--including Barbara Beatty, Larry Cuban, Linda Eisenmann, Yoon K. Pak, John L. Rury, and Jonathan Zimmerman--debunk commonly held myths about American schooling. Each short, readable chapter focuses on one myth, explaining what the real history is and how it helped shape education today. Contributors take on a host of tall tales, including the supposed agrarian origins of summer vacation; exaggerated stories of declining student behavior and academic performance; persistent claims that some people are born to be teachers; idealistic notions that the 1954 Brown decision ended segregation in American schools; misleading beliefs that classrooms operate in ways designed to fit the industrial era; and more. 23 Myths About the History of American Schools will awaken the inner history nerd of everyone who ever asked, "How did we get this irrational school system?" It will affirm the truth that its readers are as entitled to think critically about schooling as anyone else. Book Features: Examines how the history of American education has been distorted and misrepresented, either intentionally or unintentionally. Provides important stories that can help guide discussion about the future of education. Anticipates what local and state politicians are likely to say (and misstate) about schooling. Provides engaging chapters that highlight why real history is important and more fascinating than the myths. Accessible to a wide range of readers from undergraduates to career educators.

Download or read book Challenging the One Best System written by Katrina E. Bulkley and published by Harvard Education Press. This book was released on 2021-02-04 with total page 375 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Challenging the One Best System, a team of leading education scholars offers a rich comparative analysis of the set of urban education governance reforms collectively known as the “portfolio management model.” They investigate the degree to which this model—a system of schools operating under different types of governance and with different degrees of autonomy—challenges the standard structure of district governance famously characterized by David Tyack as “the one best system.” The authors examine the design and enactment of the portfolio management model in three major cities: New Orleans, Los Angeles, and Denver. They identify the five interlocking mechanisms at the core of the model—planning and oversight, choice, autonomy, human capital, and school supports—and show how these are implemented differently in each city. Using rich qualitative data from extensive interviews, the authors trace the internal tensions and tradeoffs that characterize these systems and highlight the influence of historical and contextual factors as well. Most importantly, they question whether the portfolio management model represents a fundamental restructuring of education governance or more incremental change, and whether it points in the direction of meaningful improvement in school practices. Drawing on a rigorous, multimethod study, Challenging the One Best System represents a significant contribution to our understanding of system-level change in education.

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 The Changing Landscape of Education Reform written by and published by Aspatore Books. This book was released on 2008 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Changing Landscape of Education Reform is an authoritative, insiders perspective on the strategic thinking behind developing measurable standards and effective instruction in our nations schools. Featuring educational leaders from across the country, this book provides a broad yet comprehensive overview of the challenges unique to working in the field of education at the government level, whether as a state superintendent, regional administrator, board of education director, or educational organization executive. From establishing community involvement in schools and advocating for adequate and equitable levels of funding to addressing achievement gaps and creating an accountability system for students, teachers, and schools, these leaders articulate the finer points of federal education policymaking and argue for change. The authors also discuss how No Child Left Behind and other key education legislation has affected the national education system both positively and negatively. The different niches represented and the breadth of perspectives presented enable readers to get inside some of the great minds in education today, as these experts explore our educational systems need for improvement and offer possible solutions.

Download or read book Shifting Ground written by Bonnie. COSTELLO and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-06-30 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Just as the look of the American landscape has changed since the nineteenth century, so has our idea of landscape. Here Bonnie Costello reads six twentieth-century American poets who have reflected and shaped this transformation and in the process renovated landscape by drawing new images from the natural world and creating new forms for imagining the earth and our relation to it.

Download or read book Intellectual Freedom Stories from a Shifting Landscape written by Valerie Nye and published by American Library Association. This book was released on 2020-04-21 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: These stories provide a rich platform for debate and introspection by sharing real-world examples that library staff, administrators, board members, and students can consider and discuss.

Download or read book Creating the Suburban School Advantage written by John L. Rury and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2020-04-15 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Creating the Suburban School Advantage explains how American suburban school districts gained a competitive edge over their urban counterparts. John L. Rury provides a national overview of the process, focusing on the period between 1950 and 1980, and presents a detailed study of metropolitan Kansas City, a region representative of trends elsewhere. While big-city districts once were widely seen as superior and attracted families seeking the best educational opportunities for their children, suburban school systems grew rapidly in the post–World War II era as middle-class and more affluent families moved to those communities. As Rury relates, at the same time, economically dislocated African Americans migrated from the South to center-city neighborhoods, testing the capacity of urban institutions. As demographic trends drove this urban-suburban divide, a suburban ethos of localism contributed to the socioeconomic exclusion that became a hallmark of outlying school systems. School districts located wholly or partly within the municipal boundaries of Kansas City, Missouri, make for revealing cases that illuminate our understanding of these national patterns. As Rury demonstrates, struggles to achieve greater educational equity and desegregation in urban centers contributed to so-called white flight and what Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan considered to be a crisis of urban education in 1965. Despite the often valiant efforts made to serve inner city children and bolster urban school districts, this exodus, Rury cogently argues, created a new metropolitan educational hierarchy—a mirror image of the urban-centric model that had prevailed before World War II. The stubborn perception that suburban schools are superior, based on test scores and budgets, has persisted into the twenty-first century and instantiates today's metropolitan landscape of social, economic, and educational inequality.

Download or read book Changing American Education written by Kathryn M. Borman and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 1994-04-12 with total page 444 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines social changes affecting education; amplifies case studies of school change; and analyzes the gap between the rhetoric and reality of educational reform.

Download or read book New Perspectives on the History of the Twentieth Century American High School written by Kyle P. Steele and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-11-07 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The growth of the American high school that occurred in the twentieth century is among the most remarkable educational, social, and cultural phenomena of the twentieth century. The history of education, however, has often reduced the institution to its educational function alone, thus missing its significantly broader importance. As a corrective, this collection of essays serves four ends: as an introduction to the history of the high school; as a reevaluation of the power of narratives that privilege the perspective of school leaders and the curriculum; as a glimpse into the worlds created by students and their communities; and, most critically, as a means of sparking conversations about where we might look next for stories worth telling.