Author(s): |
Koyama, Jill P. |
Source: |
Educational Policy, v26 n6 p870-891 Nov 2012 |
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Pub Date: |
2012-11-00 |
Pub Type(s): |
Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative |
Peer Reviewed: |
Yes |
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Descriptors:
Public Schools; Educational Policy; Educational Finance; Sanctions; City Government; Federal Legislation; Standards; Accountability; Ethnography; Classification; High Achievement; Policy Analysis; Academic Failure
Abstract:
This article ethnographically examines the paradoxical situation in which one high-achieving New York City public school is "constructed" as failing when No Child Left Behind (NCLB) assessments are miscalculated. Drawing upon actor-network theory (ANT)--a perspective that aims to explain how people, their ideas, and the material objects they produce assemble together in dynamic collective activity to attend to a particular issues--this work reveals how those in the school join with a for-profit educational support business, district administrations, and city officials to construct, encounter, and confront the situations created by the miscalculations. What unfolds over the three years after the school is incorrectly labeled as failing is shown to bean example of what is possible, if not probably when accountability-laden, sanctions-drive, and calculation-focused policies, such as NCLB, gain favor. By exploring the gaps between policy texts, policy aims, and their effects, this ANT analysis offers educational practitioners and researchers a way to interrogate and understand the endurance of policies, like NLCB, which show questionable efficacy over time. (Contains 6 notes.)
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Pub Date: |
2012-09-19 |
Pub Type(s): |
Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive |
Peer Reviewed: |
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Descriptors:
Academic Achievement; Standardized Tests; Unions; Educational Change; Labor Relations; Urban Schools; Presidents; State Legislation; Teacher Strikes; Class Size; Politics of Education; Time Factors (Learning); Public Officials; City Government; Job Layoff; Teacher Selection; School Closing
Abstract:
A strike last week by some 29,000 teachers in Chicago pushed long-simmering tensions over deeply divisive school improvement ideas--including changes in teacher evaluation and the takeover or closure of underperforming schools--into the national spotlight. A framework for a tentative agreement emerged last Friday, and the union's house of delegates was scheduled to meet this past weekend to vet a draft and vote on whether to call off the strike. Details of the agreement were still trickling out, but it appeared likely that the Chicago district had offered to restore some elements of a hiring preference for laid-off teachers, to slow the implementation of a new teacher-evaluation system, and to allow limited appeals under that system. Students are expected to be back in school at the beginning of this week. About 350,000 students in the district, the nation's third largest, were affected by the walkout. In Chicago's case, one such complication has been the volatile relationship between two powerful city players: (1) Mayor Rahm Emanuel, the famously combative former chief of staff for President Barack Obama; and (2) Karen Lewis, the equally outspoken president of the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU). The two have squabbled for months over Mr. Emanuel's desire to lengthen the school day, which was until recently among the shortest in urban school districts. The strike also raised delicate political questions for the White House during the tense run-up to Election Day. As in 2008, Mr. Obama is counting on the support of teachers, but his own education agenda has pushed for many of the reform ideas contested at the bargaining table. Such divisions were on display last week, as educators, clothed in CTU red, picketed in front of their schools after the walkout began on Sept. 10. Many motorists honked in support as they drove by. In the afternoon, thousands of the teachers flooded the city's downtown Loop area to attend rallies. Picketers stationed a giant, inflatable rat outside the school district's headquarters. They held up signs protesting large class sizes, too much standardized testing, and the perceived capitulation by Democrats to the education agenda of influential foundations and interest groups. But above all, the teachers took aim at their city's mayor, a testament to their frustration with his leadership of the schools, which the mayor controls under authority granted by a 1995 state law. The Chicago district has a history of contentious labor relations, but the strike was the first by the city's teachers in 25 years.
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Pub Date: |
2012-06-00 |
Pub Type(s): |
Journal Articles; Reports - Research |
Peer Reviewed: |
Yes |
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Descriptors:
City Government; Aging (Individuals); Transportation; Housing; Adoption (Ideas); Innovation; Advocacy; Mixed Methods Research
Abstract:
Purpose of the study: To examine the characteristics associated with city government adoption of community design, housing, and transportation innovations that could benefit older adults. Design and methods: A mixed-methods study with quantitative data collected via online surveys from 62 city planners combined with qualitative data collected via telephone interviews with a subsample of 18 survey respondents. Results: Results indicate that advocacy is an effective strategy to encourage city government adoption of these innovations. Percent of the population with a disability was positively associated, whereas percent of the population aged 65 and older was not associated or negatively associated, with innovation adoption in the regression models. Qualitative interviews suggest that younger individuals with disabilities are more active in local advocacy efforts. Implications: Results suggest that successful advocacy strategies for local government adoption include facilitating the involvement of older residents, targeting key decision makers within government, emphasizing the financial benefits to the city, and focusing on cities whose aging residents are vulnerable to disease and disability.
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Pub Date: |
2012-00-00 |
Pub Type(s): |
Guides - Non-Classroom |
Peer Reviewed: |
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Descriptors:
After School Programs; Change Strategies; Educational Strategies; City Government; Outreach Programs; Disadvantaged Youth; Youth Opportunities; Youth Programs; Delivery Systems; Systems Building; Educational Quality; Relevance (Education); Career Readiness; College Readiness; Late Adolescents; Guidelines
Abstract:
A wide body of research shows that consistent participation in high-quality afterschool and summer programs, also called out-of-school time or OST, provides substantial benefits to children and youth and their communities. Youth are more prone to engage in juvenile delinquency, substance abuse and other risky behaviors after 3:00 p.m. if there are few positive OST programs available. Municipal leaders are also well aware of the impact of high school dropout rates on crime and unemployment, and are increasingly supporting out-of-school learning opportunities as a strategy for promoting school and career success. This strategy guide provides cities with guidance on how to create enriching, relevant and supportive OST environments for middle and high school youth that will help put them on a path to success. The guide outlines key strategies that show the most promise for maximizing scarce local resources for the benefit of older youth, coupled with city examples from small, midsized and large cities. The practices described in the guide draw upon research on the unique developmental needs of middle and high school aged youth and what seems to work best in recruitment and retention of these youth. Ideas are presented for creating citywide "infrastructure" to help ensure that older youth not only attend OST programs, but do so at high rates of participation in order to maximize gains. Many of the ideas require little or no additional spending, but instead encourage creative use of partnerships and policies to achieve positive results for older youth. (Contains 8 resources and 17 footnotes.)
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Author(s): |
Wong, Kenneth K. |
Source: |
Educational Management Administration & Leadership, v39 n4 p486-500 Jul 2011 |
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Pub Date: |
2011-07-00 |
Pub Type(s): |
Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative |
Peer Reviewed: |
Yes |
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Descriptors:
Urban Schools; Governance; Models; Boards of Education; Accountability; Public Officials; City Government; State Government; Politics of Education; School Districts; Educational Change
Abstract:
In response to public pressure, urban districts in the USA have initiated reforms that aim at redrawing the boundaries between the school system and other major local institutions. More specifically, this article focuses on two emerging reform strategies. We will examine an emerging model of governance that enables big-city mayors to establish authority over the school system, a significant departure from the dominant practice of district governance under an independently elected school board. Mayors in New York, Chicago, Boston and Washington DC, among others, have taken control over the school system with the authority to appoint the school board and/or the superintendent. Further, this article examines a reform strategy that allows for a closer working partnership between public schools and outside providers. This "diverse provider" strategy significantly shifts power from traditionally powerful stakeholders (such as organized teachers' union) by enabling non-profit and for-profit organizations to manage schools and other services. To illustrate the design and implementation of this type of reform, we will discuss the experience in Chicago (a mayor-led district) and Philadelphia (a district jointly governed by the governor and the mayor). In short, mayoral accountability and the diverse provider model constitute the latest reconfigurations in urban school governance in the USA. (Contains 3 notes.)
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