< Prev		CONTENTS		Source		Next >

Defining Public Schools and Understanding Their Shifting Terrain

Some of the major trends reshaping schooling today entail school choice programs, for-profit management of public charter schools, and shifting school governance, including increasing federal role in education, growing influences of corporations, instituting mayoral control, or using a portfolio management model to oversee schools. In this chapter I will look more closely at each of these trends and their impact on how public schools are defined and how they operate. I identify five elements of functionally public schools and use them as a foil to assess the practices and implications of these new schools and management techniques. I begin to critique the new trends to highlight how they may jeopardize our ability to develop skilled citizens who participate in democracy in significant ways and may risk the health of our future democracy in general, expanding this critique in detail in chapter four. The possibility of a no longer deeply viable democracy lends not only credence, but also urgency, to my larger argument that we’ve reached a pivotal moment that necessitates action to support schools and the democracy that they enable and enact.

Source

< Prev		CONTENTS		Source		Next >

Defining Public Schools
Public schools, like the publics Knight Abowitz has described, also have real (descriptive) and ideal (normative) aspects. They have descriptive attributes of form, which include being funded by taxpayer dollars and being open to all students in a community without stipulation. While there is much to...
(American public education and the responsibility of its citizens : supporting democracy in the age of accountability)
Must school officials have probable cause before searching a student in a public school?
No, the U.S. Supreme Court in New Jersey v. T.L.O. (1985) ruled that the probable-cause requirement in public schools was too stringent and would hamper the mainte When is it okay to conduct a search of private property? Do the police always need a search warrant? (iStock) nance of order...
(The handy law answer book)
Development of Free and Public Schools Through the Progressive Era
The Creation of Free Public School Systems, 1840–1860 We begin with the states' creation of free school systems in the 1840s, building upon local efforts. Traditional educational historians argued that the fountainhead of our public schools was the district school in small-town colonial New...
(The Dynamics of Opportunity in America)
The Creation of Free Public School Systems, 1840–1860
We begin with the states' creation of free school systems in the 1840s, building upon local efforts. Traditional educational historians argued that the fountainhead of our public schools was the district school in small-town colonial New England. But that claim is inflated as some New England towns did...
(The Dynamics of Opportunity in America)
Public School: The Obligation to Make Science Accessible to the Public
In a nutshell, advocates of the public school argue that science needs to be accessible for a wider audience. The basic assumption herein is that the social web and Web 2.0 technologies allow scientists, on the one hand, to open up the research process and, on the other, to prepare the product of their...
(Opening Science)
The Changing Nature of Public Schools and Their Influences
Many people would not have predicted that public schools, a seeming mainstay in American life, would be dramatically changing in the early twenty- first century or that public support for them would be in significant decline. In some districts, such as the Recovery School District in New Orleans, traditional...
(American public education and the responsibility of its citizens : supporting democracy in the age of accountability)
Accountability, the Public, and Public Schools
To make my case that citizens have a responsibility to support public schools, I will initially describe democracy and explain its connection to schools. And insofar as my call is in response to the current accountability crisis, I first take a closer look at accountability as an aspect of contemporary...
(American public education and the responsibility of its citizens : supporting democracy in the age of accountability)
Public Schools as a Public Good
Schools find themselves enmeshed in the difficult position of serving both collective ends and legitimate private ends, such as obtaining knowledge that secures an economically viable vocation. This situation is nothing new, but rather has been overtly addressed for centuries, including by Thomas Jefferson...
(American public education and the responsibility of its citizens : supporting democracy in the age of accountability)
Democratic Aspects of Public Schools
To build a case for a citizen’s responsibility to act on behalf of public schools as a central institution and site of democracy, I turn in this section to describing the democratic contributions of functionally public schools, thereby suggesting a rationale for why they are worthy of protection and...
(American public education and the responsibility of its citizens : supporting democracy in the age of accountability)