Public School Governance Research Articles

The Political Dynamics of Mayoral Engagement in Public Education

Hill, P. T., & Celio, M. B. (1998). Fixing urban schools. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press. Howell, W. (Ed.). (2005). Besieged: School boards and the future of education politics. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press. Kirst, M. W. (2002). Mayoral influence, new regimes, and public school governance. Philadelphia: Consortium for Policy Research in Education. Kirst, M., & Bulkley, K. (2003). Mayoral takeover: The different directions taken in different cities. In J. Cibulka & W. Boyd (Eds.), A race against time: The crisis in urban schooling. Westport, CT: Praeger. Kirst, M. W., & Wirt, F. (2005). The political dynamics of American education. Berkeley, CA: McCutchan. National League of Cities. (2002). Improving public schools: Action kit for municipal leaders. Washington, DC: Author. Smith, H. (2005). Using community assets to build an “education system.” Voices in Urban Education Reform, 7, 25–35. Stone, C., Henig, J., Jones, B., & Pierannunzi, C. (2001). Building civic capacity: The politics of reforming urban schools. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas. Tyack, D. (1974). The one best system: A history of American urban education. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Usdan, M. D. (1994, January 1). The relationship between school boards and general purpose government. Phi Delta Kappan, 75, 374–378. Wong, K. K. (2005). The political dynamics of mayoral engagement in public education. Unpublished paper, Brown University. Wong, K. K., & Shen, F. (2003a). Big city mayors and school governance reform: The case of school district takeover. Peabody Journal of Education, 78, 5–32. Wong, K. K., & Shen, F. (2003b). Measuring the effectiveness of city and state takeover as a school reform strategy. Peabody Journal of Education, 78, 89–119.

Dubious Sovereignty: Federal Conditions of Aid and the No Child Left Behind Act

The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) represents the greatest extension to date of Federal authority over public school governance. In NCLB, Congress used its conditional spending power to push states and localities into enacting particular kinds of testing and accountability policies. This article places NCLB in the context of Congress's generally increasing willingness to exert itself via conditions attached to federal financial aid. It also analyzes the implications of NCLB for federalism and intergovernmental relationships in education governance.

Does school board turnover matter? Revisiting critical variables in the Dissatisfaction Theory of American democracy

The frequent turnover of school board members in the US represents a concern for many educational practitioners who worry about the discontinuity of leadership, leading to negative impacts on students and staff. School board member turnover is also a key variable in studies of democratic theories of public school governance. Using descriptive and comparative quantitative methods, through a survey of 176 school superintendents in Washington State, USA, data were collected on why school board members retire and resign. The purpose of the study was to rank the reasons given for school board turnover, delineate between political and apolitical turnover, and compare turnover results by district size and rate of superintendent turnover. Results indicated that in 807 school board turnovers from 1993–2000, 73% were apolitical turnover, with politically‐motivated turnover and defeat increasing with district enrollment. Generally, superintendent turnover increased as politically‐motivated school board turnover increased and districts grew in enrollment. However, superintendent turnover was highest in schools of 0–500 enrollment, despite the lowest rate of politically‐motivated school board turnover, and lowest in schools of 5000–9999 enrollment with nearly the highest rate of politically‐motivated school board turnover and defeat. The study concluded that unique contextual factors have a major impact on results in school governance studies and are difficult to measure with traditional quantitative methods and analysis.

Characteristics of health professions schools, public school systems, and community-based organizations in successful partnerships to increase the numbers of underrepresented minority students entering health professions education.

To identify characteristics of health professions schools, public schools, and community-based organizations in successful partnerships to increase the number of underrepresented minority students entering health professions. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the W. K. Kellogg Foundation funded the Health Professions Partnership Initiative program developed from Project 3000 by 2000 of the Association of American Medical Colleges. Semi-structured interviews were completed with awardees and representatives of the funding agencies, the national program office, and the national advisory committee between the fall of 2000 and the summer of 2002. Site visits were conducted at ten sites, with representatives of partner institutions, teachers, parents, and children. Characteristics that supported and hindered development of successful partnerships were identified using an iterative qualitative approach. Successful partnerships included professional schools that had a commitment to community service. Successful leaders could work in both cultures of the professional and public schools. Attitudes of respect and listening to the needs of partners were essential. Public school governance supported innovation. Happenstance and convergence of interests played significant roles in partnership development. The most telling statement was "We did it, together." This study identifies characteristics associated with smoothly working partnerships, and barriers to successful program development. Successful partnerships can form the basis on which educational interventions are built. The study is limited by the definition of success used, and its focus on one funded program. The authors were unable to identify outcomes in terms of numbers of children influenced by programs or instances in which lasting changes in health professions schools had occurred.

Mayoral Influence, New Regimes, and Public School Governance

Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of EducationVolume 102, Issue 1 p. 196-218 Mayoral Influence, New Regimes, and Public School Governance MICHAEL W. KIRST, MICHAEL W. KIRST Michael W. Kirst is Professor of Education in the School of Education at Stanford University.Search for more papers by this author MICHAEL W. KIRST, MICHAEL W. KIRST Michael W. Kirst is Professor of Education in the School of Education at Stanford University.Search for more papers by this author First published: 04 April 2005 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-7984.2003.tb00023.xCitations: 3 This paper was originally published as a Consortium for Policy Research in Education report in May, 2002. AboutPDF ToolsExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Citing Literature Volume102, Issue1April 2003Pages 196-218 RelatedInformation

Mayoral Influence, New Regimes, and Public School Governance

Mayoral Influence, New Regimes, and Public School Governance

Public-Private Symbiosis in Nashville Special Education

The conventional historiography describing a strict public-private divide in United States schooling is misleading. The standard story claims that public schooling was a fuzzy concept 200 years ago; the division between public and private education for children thus developed largely over the nineteenth century. In the early nineteenth century, public funds went to many private schools and even large private systems, such as the New York Public School Society. In some instances, public funds went to parochial education, either explicitly or as part of an arrangement to allow for diverse religious instruction using public funds. However, the nineteenth century witnessed growing division between public and private, largely excluding religious education (or at least non-Protestant religious education). By the end of the nineteenth century, the standard educational historiography suggests, public schools meant public in several senses: funded from the public coffers, open to the public in general, and controlled by a public, democratically controlled process. Tacit in that definition was a relatively rigid dividing line between public and private school organizations. Historians know that this implicit definition of “public” omits key facts. First, the governance of public schools became less tied to electoral politics during the Progressive Era. Public schooling in nineteenth-century cities generally meant large school boards, intimately connected with urban political machines. By the 1920s, many city school systems had smaller boards in a more corporate-like structure. The consolidation of small rural school districts in the first half of the twentieth century completed this removal of school governance from more local politics. A second problem with the definition above is unequal access to quality education (however defined). Historically, the acceptance of all students was true only in a limited sense, either in access to schools at all (with the exclusion of many children with disabilities) or, more generally, to the resources and curriculum involved in the best public schooling of the early twentieth century (as with racial segregation).

The New Jersey Constitution and the 1875 "Thorough and Efficient" Education Amendment

The "Thorough and Efficient" education amendment of the New Jersey Constitution has held center stage for more than twenty-five years as the state has struggled to define responsibility for the maintenance, funding, and governance of public schools. Adopted in 1875 in an effort to update the 1844 Constitution, the "Thorough and Efficient" provision endured as part of the 1947 Constitution. Supreme Court decisions in this area, particularly Robinson v. Cahill (1972-1976) and Abbott v. Burke (1985-1998), have focused attention on this amendment and elicited various responses from New Jersey's governors and legislators. These officials have tried to address judicial directives to provide a "thorough and efficient" education for all children.3 A review of the early history of state support for education in New Jersey and the later passage of the education amendment can help provide a useful and enlightening context in which to examine the contemporary implications of this provision.

Restructuring Public Schools for Internal Democratic Governance: a circular approach

ABSTRACT Ackoff's circular structure has been successfully utilised to combine hierarchy and democracy in various industries. This paper argues that this structure is the most appropriate democratic structure for the internal governance of public schools. It concludes that a circularity of power relations between administrators and teachers would create genuinely empowering teacher participation, improve co‐ordination, foster teacher self‐actualisation and expressiveness, alleviate teacher shortages, help attract high quality persons to teaching careers, ensure appropriate (service oriented) teacher supervision, and increase the number of successful school improvement projects.

自由研究論文アメリカにおける教員組合と公教育統治 -教員団体交渉の考案を中心として-

自由研究論文アメリカにおける教員組合と公教育統治 -教員団体交渉の考案を中心として-