Paul T. Hill examines the real-world factors that can complicate, delay, and in some instances interfere with the positive cause-and-effect relationships identified by the theories behind school choice. He explains why schools of choice haven't yet achieved a broader appeal and suggests more realistic expectations about timing and a more complete understanding of what must be done to make choice work.
Every year, in one out of three big cities, the school superintendent leaves his or her job, sending local community leaders back to square one. Cleveland, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C., are struggling to recreate their failed school systems, and many more cities are likely to follow. City leaders need more than new superintendents. They need stable reform strategies strong enough to move an entrenched system. Unfortunately, it is not clear where they can turn for help. Education experts are deeply divided about whether teacher retraining or new standards are enough to reform a struggling city system, or whether more fundamental changes, such as family choice and family-run schools, are needed. Based on new research, this book identifies the essential elements of reform strategies that can transform school performance in big cities beset by poverty, social instability, racial isolation, and labor unrest. It also suggests ways that local leaders can assemble the necessary funding and political support to make such strategies work.
This study focuses on governance of K-12 public schools. Governance - the work of institutions that set the rules under which schools must operate - can protect children and prevent misuse of public funds, but it can also prevent teachers and principals from doing their best for children. There are proposals to simplify governance changing by giving control to mayors, eliminating elected school boards, or eliminating local oversight entirely. This book approaches governance from a new angle: who governs is less important than what powers government has.
Mayoral takeovers of big city public education systems are desperation measures. After decades of decline in school quality, something must be done to make sure city children learn enough to function as adults in American society. But how can city leaders make a real difference? This book, a sequel to Fixing Urban Schools (Brookings, 1998), is a practical guide for mayors, civic leaders, school board members, and involved citizens. Based on case studies of city reform initiatives in Boston, Memphis, New York City District #2, San Antonio, San Francisco, and Seattle, the book provides practical guidance on how to formulate a plan bold enough to work and how to deal with political opposition to change. It concludes that mayors and private sector leaders must stay engaged in education reform by creating new public-private institutions to support high quality schools.
Deficient urban schooling remains one of America's most pressing--and stubborn--public policy problems. This important new book details and evaluates a radical and promising new approach to K-12 education reform. Strife and Progress explains for a broad audience the ""portfolio strategy"" for providing urban education--its rationale, implementation, and results. Under the portfolio strategy, cities use anything that works, indifferent to whether schools are run by the public district or private entities. It combines traditional modes of schooling with newer methods, including chartering and experimentation with schools making innovative use of people and technology. Urban districts try to make themselves magnets for new talent, recruiting educators and career switchers looking to make a difference for poor children. The portfolio strategy creates interesting new bedfellows: people who think that government should oversee public education align with those advocating choice, competition, and entrepreneurship. It cuts across political lines and engages city governments and civic assets (e.g., philanthropies, businesses, universities) much more deeply than earlier reform initiatives. New York and New Orleans were portfolio pioneers, but the idea has spread rapidly to cities as far-flung as Los Angeles, Denver, and Chicago. Results have been mixed overall but generally positive in places that implemented the strategy most aggressively. Reform leaders such as New York's Joel Klein have been overly optimistic, however, assuming that the strategy's merits would be so obvious that careful assessment would be unnecessary. Serious policy evaluation is still needed.
Bringing change to our public school system is hard, and the current system of education governance creates barriers that can make that reform even harder. Here six authorities in public education discuss how local philanthropies can overcome them even if school districts cannot. Making School Reform Work identifies new institutions that can be created by foundations and civic groups to remedy deficiencies in local school governance, formulate bold reforms, and guarantee implementation. These institutions include incubators for starting new schools, independent data analysis centers, public-private partnerships for recruitment and training of school leaders, and new ways of funding and managing school facilities. The contributors are Sarah Brooks (Carleton College), Michael DeArmond (University of Washington), Marguerite Roza (University of Washington), and Abigail Winger (Milwaukee consultant).
This study examines an issue that is emmbedded in the process of education reform: the need to create time for school staff to participate in developing a vision, setting goals and formulating plans.
This review of the furious national debate over school choice examines the benefits of choice for children, families, and schools—and shows how properly designed choice programs can prevent the harmful outcomes opponents fear.
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