Skip to main content

Home/ ADMS707/ Group items tagged control

Rss Feed Group items tagged

Phil Riddle

Researchers fault L.A. Times methods in analysis of Calif. Teachers - 0 views

  •  
    Researchers at the University of Colorado have raised some concerns about the methods used by the economics team hired by the L.A. Times to apply a value-added metric to teachers' test scores. The central debate is over which variables to control for when running a value-added analysis.
Roger Mancastroppa

Pennsylvania School Scraps Segregation Project - 0 views

  •  
    This seems fascinating to me. I'm shocked that they thought this might work. I think it alludes more to the "return to values" of the conservative movement in this country than anything else. To me, this has the feel of a conservative, religious movement that has made its way back into a school division. This reemergence of "older" value systems might simply be a fear response to how out of control our empire has become and the repercussions of the wealth disparity on the domestic front.
  •  
    Definitely...because life is segregated, so why not schools???#$%^
Roger Mancastroppa

School Administration in the Federal Republic of Germany and Its Implications for the U... - 0 views

  •  
    Germans do not use lay governance - This paper presents findings of a study that explored the governance and administration of elementary and secondary schools in Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany. The sample included 12 Bavarian schools--3 each of the following 4 types of schools--elementary (Grundschulen) and secondary (Gymnasien, Realschulen, and Hauptschulen). Data were gathered from interviews with school principals or headmasters and some administrative staff, observation, and document analysis. Findings showed that the selection process for teachers in Germany is much more rigorous than in the United States. Principals are experienced classroom teachers with proven ability who continue to teach. In addition, the entire district apparatus is missing; there are no superintendents, lay boards of education, and so forth. Bavarian schools appear to function extremely well within a framework of fairly tight external control, while enjoying strong professionalism among educators and freedom from the micromanagement that all too often plagues their American counterparts. Findings underscore the need for fundamental and systemic reform in the United States; high student achievement must be preceded by advances in teacher professionalism.
Roger Mancastroppa

Professionalism and Receptivity to Change. - 1 views

  •  
    Deals with the struggle of public service professionals that resist changing the occupational norms that would decrease their power even though it would benefit their clients. To examine the relationship between professionalism and change, data were collected from elementary school principals, local school board members, and lay members of community health planning. Principals were slightly less inclined than school board members to accept change. The least professional of the three groups, community health members, were the most negative about change. The mixed findings may result partially from the spurious relationship between professionalism and change. Two additional variables were introduced to test this hypothesis: amount of "turbulence" or dissatisfaction among clients and diversity of viewpoints within groups. Controlling for the former variable yielded little difference; however, there was a strong positive relationship between diversity of viewpoints and change. Consequently, group consensus is seen as a major variable in predicting acceptance of change.
Tara McDaniel

The anacronism of local school boards - 1 views

  •  
    "The local school board, especially the elected kind, is an anachronism and an outrage. We can no longer pretend it's working well or hide behind the mantra of 'local control of education.' We need to steel ourselves to put this dysfunctional arrangement out of its misery and move on to something that will work for children."
REL N

A Board's Eye View : Education Next - 0 views

  • “Code of Conduct for School Board Members.” This was intended, wrote the superintendent, in recommending the code, “to set standards for how the Board interacts with itself.” Sounded like sex to me. But the preoccupation with board member behavior was the result of the long-standing tension between the democracy represented by elected officials who oversaw the schools and the professionalism of those hired to run them. The superintendent was definitely attempting to tip the balance in favor of the pros. “We will not attempt to exercise individual authority over the district’s operations, staff, or personnel decisions,” read one of the rules he was proposing for us. Another: “We will not express individual judgments about the performance of the superintendent or staff. . . . We recognize the value of the chain of command. When approached by staff, constituents or the public, we will channel all inquiries to the administrator.” I e-mailed the superintendent, “Is this a joke?” He called and laughed lamely.
    • REL N
       
      "... the preoccupation with board member behavior was the result of the long-standing tension between the democracy represented by elected officials who oversaw the schools and the professionalism of those hired to run them."
  • “We should let people know we are looking for quality, of course, but not to the point of advertising outside official channels.”
  • the board never reviewed other major expenditures, such as the installation of a new computer system.
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • I asked the superintendent how a new asphalt parking lot was installed at the Greenport School without board approval–or even a bid or a notice or a need. He informed me that a bid wasn’t necessary for a job worth less than $10,000.
  • no clarification of what any of this meant–or cost. Don’t ask. “Mandated” was the knowing word from veteran board members.
  • almost 16 percent of the children in the school district were disabled, almost double the national average.
  • more than 350, were either “emotionally disturbed,” “learning disabled,” or “speech impaired.” These were the kind of catchall categories that allowed a district to dispose of many problem children–in Hudson those children were mostly black–with expensive baby-sitting.
  • over the next several months as I learned that the district had been running a deficit for several years. In fact, the state comptroller’s office, which oversees the fiscal integrity of all state and local government agencies, had conducted its own audit and found the same thing: “overexpenditure of budgetary appropriations and the overestimation of revenues.” Money was being moved around, from one fund to another, which was also against the rules, the comptroller noted. And when auditors had asked for records, they couldn’t be found.
  • the school board was not where the biggest battles would be won or lost.
  • The teacher union president, normally a regular presence at school board meetings, stopped coming so that he wouldn’t have to answer my questions about what was being done to improve things that his teachers controlled. (He had already stopped responding to my phone calls and letters.)
  • the debate was as much cultural–and racial–as educational,
    • REL N
       
      The author was frustrated that the board refused to discuss the academic mediocrity in the schools and then he realized that "the debate was as much cultural-and racial-as educational,...."
  • “Mandates” and laws sprouted acres of explanatory weeds–most of them unnecessary. No one ever read the original “mandate.”
  • no one seemed to know why the “Parent/Family/Community Involvement Policy” was necessary, but it was assumed that it was required by some Oz-like authority, passed through the policy-writing machinery at some school board association office, and sent to us for our “approval.”
  • No one else on the board expressed any hint of having read it. And I was beginning to discern a pattern: the more written, the less understood.
  •  
    A concerned parent joined the local school board in hopes of improving the academics. After 6 frustrating months he resigned from the board believing that "the school board was not where the biggest battles would be won or lost."
Jonathan Becker

Education Week: 'Curriculum' Definition Raises Red Flags - 1 views

  •  
    Calls for shared curriculum for the common standards have triggered renewed debates about who decides what students learn, and even about varied meanings of the word "curriculum," adding layers of complexity to the job of translating the broad learning goals into classroom teaching.
Georggetta Howie

Paul Stoller: Myth, Politics and the Erosion of the American Dream - 1 views

  •  
    This article fits well with our topic this week. It reviews how the Myths that society accepts is doing away with accessing the American Dream- stability, education and access to wealth. "To paraphrase the words of the late Clifford Geertz, one of the great anthropologists of the 20th century, myths are stories we tell ourselves about ourselves. Powerful narratives based upon fiction -- not fact -- myths shape our perception of the world. They create frameworks for our behavior. They are impervious to logical or factual critique. As such, myths are powerful political tools that the powers-that-be have long used in their attempt to control social behavior."
1 - 8 of 8
Showing 20 items per page