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Professionalism and Receptivity to Change. - 1 views

www.eric.ed.gov/ED075900.pdf ADMS707 education School states boards
shared by Roger Mancastroppa on 18 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • Roger Mancastroppa on 18 Feb 11
     
    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.
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Consumers and Education Professionals in the Organisation and Administration of Schools... - 0 views

www.eric.ed.gov/ED347657.pdf ADMS707 reform education politics states boards
shared by Roger Mancastroppa on 18 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • Roger Mancastroppa on 18 Feb 11
     
    What we can learn from England - Findings of a longitudinal study that explored the impact of recent educational reforms in England on the nature of the relationship between headteachers and lay school governors. Recent legislation has increased governors' and consumers' power and reduced the power of the "producers" of education. Governors are members of school governing bodies who have volunteered to work with headteachers in school administration. Findings indicate that the governor/headteacher relationship is not a consensual one. Factors inhibiting the development of a partnership include the micropolitical nature of school governance; the emerging organizational cultures of governing bodies; the loose coupling of governing bodies to schools; the differences between heads and governors about power; the complex and ambiguous nature of reform legislation; and cultural factors, such as race, gender, and ethnicity. The question is raised whether community involvement should extend to nonprofessionals taking a key role in educational decision making and policy formation.
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School Administration in the Federal Republic of Germany and Its Implications for the U... - 0 views

www.eric.ed.gov/ED380881.pdf ADMS707 education states boards
shared by Roger Mancastroppa on 18 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • Roger Mancastroppa on 18 Feb 11
     
    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.
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Eurybase - 0 views

eacea.ec.europa.eu/...eurybase_en.php ADMS707 education international Europe governance
shared by Victoria Schnettler on 18 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • Victoria Schnettler on 18 Feb 11
     
    Education systems of all European nations - outlined.
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Besieged: School Boards and the Future of Education Politics - 0 views

books.google.com/books ADMS707 education School boards unions
shared by Victoria Schnettler on 18 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • Victoria Schnettler on 18 Feb 11
     
    Chapter: Teacher Unions and School Board Elections is very interesting when looking at self-interest in the political realm
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School Funding Competition: Education Department Secretary Arne Duncan Announces 10 Win... - 0 views

abcnews.go.com/...story RACE 2 THE TOP Winston ADMS 707
shared by Angela Winston on 18 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • "The creativity and innovation in each of these applications is breathtaking. These states show what is possible when adults come together to do the right thing for children,"
  • Angela Winston on 18 Feb 11
     
    Race to the Top Winners announced for round 2
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The Center for Comprehensive School Reform and Improvement - August 2009 Newsletter - 0 views

www.centerforcsri.org/index.php ADMS707 School Boards
shared by mirabilecp on 18 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • mirabilecp on 18 Feb 11
     
    I found this easy read to provide good background on the history of school boards. It features two of Virginia's school boards (Hopewell and Fairfax).
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Why Students in Some Countries Do Better - 2 views

educationnext.org/tudentsinsomecountriesdobetter ADMS707 reform international governance
shared by Victoria Schnettler on 16 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • Victoria Schnettler on 16 Feb 11
     
    READ THIS - to help in understanding the question posed to us this week!
  • REL N on 18 Feb 11
     
    I really appreciated how the authors delineated at what level each of the functions should reside--e.g. they explained that books should be bought at the intermediate level because States are close enough to the schools to understand the unique needs of the local area but far enough away to avoid collusion. It helped to put things in perspective.
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Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity - 1 views

www.ted.com/...s_schools_kill_creativity.html TED Talks Creative Thinking
shared by Phil Riddle on 17 Feb 11 - Cached
  • Phil Riddle on 17 Feb 11
     
    An older talk, but it still has a lot of implications for education today.
  • REL N on 17 Feb 11
     
    Sir Ken said that in education "mistakes are the worst things you can make." He says that it educates creativity out of the students. I agree although it doesn't really educate the students at all. If you are not allowed to make mistakes it is pretty difficult to learn. :-( Great clip. Thanks for sharing!
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Accountability Lost : Education Next - 0 views

educationnext.org/accountability-lost ADMS707 Niemeyer Boards accountability
shared by REL N on 17 Feb 11 - Cached
    • REL N
      REL N on 17 Feb 11
       
      Tried to identify confounding variables to increase the likelihood that any changes in voting behavior were due to school performance
  • incumbent school board members won a larger share of the total vote in a precinct when test scores in that precinct improved. We estimate that improvement from the 25th to the 75th percentile of test-score change—that is, moving from a loss of 4 percentile points to a gain of 3.8 percentile points between 1999 and 2000—produced on average an increase of 3 percentage points in an incumbent’s vote share. If precinct test scores dropped from the 75th to the 25th percentile of test-score change, the associated 3-percentage-point decrease in an incumbent’s vote share could substantially erode an incumbent’s margin of victory.
  • percentile scores had increased in the year preceding the election, incumbents won 81 percent of the time in competitive elections; in districts where scores had declined, incumbents won only 69 percent of the time.
  • ...24 more annotations...
  • significant relationship with precinct test scores and the absence of a relationship with district scores suggests that voters were more concerned with school performance within their immediate neighborhood than across the district.
  • all indications of a relationship between school performance and an incumbent school board member’s vote share vanished after the passage of NCLB in 2002.
  • None of these approaches yielded clear evidence of a link between school performance and voter behavior in school board elections.
  • the overwhelming weight of the evidence indicated that school board members were not being judged on improvement or weakening in school test scores.
  • School performance as measured by test scores may have helped determine which candidates sought reelection and which faced a challenger.
  • assess the relationship between test-score trends and incumbents’ decisions to run for reelection, and then to estimate the effect of test-score trends on the probability that an incumbent who runs faces an opponent.
  • incumbents may bow out in anticipation of being held accountable for poor test-score performance by schools in their district.
  • drop from the 75th to the 25th percentile of test-score change, our results lead us to expect that incumbents will be 13 percentage points less likely to run for reelection. In fact, 76 percent of incumbents sought reelection in districts with improving test scores; in districts with falling scores, only 66 percent did.
  • we failed to find any indication that incumbents in 2002 and 2004 based their decisions about running for reelection on student learning trends.
  • In these years, only 30 and 34 percent of articles, respectively, touched on test scores. The decline in media attention leads us to suspect that concerns about student learning trends probably did not stand at the forefront of voters’ or candidates’ thinking in the 2002 and 2004 elections.
  • “The PACT needs to be seen for what it is: a vehicle for politicians to say that they are tough on education (and educators). This may make for good politics, but it makes for bad educational policy.”
  • Reacting to the rising criticisms directed toward PACT, voters may have grown disenchanted with the state’s accountability system and removed test-score performance from among the criteria on which they evaluated school board candidates.
  • if most schools appeared to be average or better, parents may not have been prompted to hold incumbents accountable for poor school performance. Incumbents and potential challengers may also have become less responsive to scores when the testing regimen began to give nearly every school a passing mark.
  • School board elections give the public the leverage to improve their schools. If voters do not cast out incumbents when local school performance is poor, they forfeit that opportunity. As debate continues over components of NCLB, policymakers should consider whether it is realistic to assume voters will in fact use the polls to drive school improvement.
  • analyzed test-score data and election results from 499 races over three election cycles in South Carolina to study whether voters punish and reward incumbent school board members on the basis of changes in student learning, as measured by standardized tests, in district schools
  • According to a 2002 national survey, student achievement ranks second only to financial concerns as school board members’ highest priority.
  • the basic purpose of all school board activities is to facilitate the day-to-day functioning of schools.
  • Neither the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) nor the states impose direct sanctions on members of school boards that oversee large numbers of underperforming schools.
  • impact of school performance on incumbents’ decisions to seek reelection and potential challengers’ decisions to join the race.
  • All but 4 of the state’s 46 counties hold nonpartisan school board elections. Approximately 80 percent of school board members receive some compensation, either a salary, per diem payments, or reimbursement for their expenses. Over 90 percent of South Carolina’s 85 school boards have between 5 and 9 members, while the largest board has 11. And, as is common practice in other states, nearly 9 out of 10 South Carolina school districts hold board elections during the general election in November.
  • the most important difference between South Carolina and most other states when it comes to local school politics is the role played by the state’s teachers unions, which are among the weakest in the country.
  • South Carolina school boards are unlikely to be beholden to the unions, which should make the boards more responsive to the broader public.
  • examine whether voters are more concerned with student performance districtwide or in their local neighborhood, we computed two measures of average school performance to include in our analysis.
  • separate the effect of school performance from the effects of other factors that could reasonably influence an incumbent school board member’s vote share
  • REL N on 17 Feb 11
     
    Details about research on the impact school performance has on how people vote for school board members. The authors conclude "If voters do not cast out incumbents when local school performance is poor, they forfeit that opportunity. As debate continues over components of NCLB, policymakers should consider whether it is realistic to assume voters will in fact use the polls to drive school improvement."
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A Board's Eye View : Education Next - 0 views

educationnext.org/aboardseyeview ADMS707 Niemeyer Boards reform
shared by REL N on 17 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • “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
      REL N on 17 Feb 11
       
      "... 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
      REL N on 17 Feb 11
       
      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.
  • REL N on 17 Feb 11
     
    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."
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Advancing Student Achievement Through Labor-Management Collaboration | U.S. Department ... - 0 views

www.ed.gov/...labor-management-collaboration ADMS707 Niemeyer Boards
shared by REL N on 17 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • teachers, we should look at multiple measures of effectiveness, including student achievement. I encourage you to survey your colleagues and develop a system that works for you.
  • school boards should be evaluated as well
  • we need a system where school boards also get the meaningful feedback they need from their partners, not just voters
  • REL N on 17 Feb 11
     
    One of the suggestion that Duncan made in his remarks is that school boards should be evaluated by means other than just elections.
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Mixed Results on Wake County's Busing Policy - 0 views

blogs.edweek.org/...results_on_wake_countys_b.html Wake County Busing Equity Neighborhood Schools
shared by Phil Riddle on 17 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • Phil Riddle on 17 Feb 11
     
    I was under the impression that Wake County had completely ended it's busing policies, but apparently important elements of the plan could be maintained. A lot of school districts across the nation will be watching.
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Obama Unveils Education Research Initiative Modeled on DARPA - 0 views

www.edweek.org/...21arpa-ed.h30.html Education Technology Military
shared by Phil Riddle on 17 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • Phil Riddle on 17 Feb 11
     
    This initiative provides funding for applying technological innovations developed by the military to the world of education. There are certainly some ethical issues raised here, but I don't think we have to worry about an Ender's Game scenario.
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The State of State U.S. History Standards 2011 - 1 views

www.edexcellence.net/...the-state-of-state-us.html ADMS707 states SOL Standards
shared by REL N on 16 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • REL N on 16 Feb 11
     
    Virginia received a "C" for its K-12 state standards for US history. Even DC outperformed us... they received an "A-"
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The Michelle Rhee You Don't Know - 0 views

www.huffingtonpost.com/...ee-you-dont-know_b_822045.html ADMS707 education reform Michelle Rhee
shared by Victoria Schnettler on 16 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • Victoria Schnettler on 16 Feb 11
     
    A more personal view of a very influential educational reformer...sheds a little more light on the authenticity of Michelle Rhee.
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Chicago Public Schools: Students: 'When Will We Ever Be Good Enough?' - 0 views

www.huffingtonpost.com/...schools-students_b_822444.html ADMS707 education reform school Chicago student protests
shared by Victoria Schnettler on 16 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • Victoria Schnettler on 16 Feb 11
     
    Students are rallying against false information about their school system and looking for politicians to take them seriously and invest in them.
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Obama Still Increasing Education Spending in New Budget - 0 views

www.huffingtonpost.com/...education-budget_n_823735.html ADMS707 federal Obama spending education
shared by Victoria Schnettler on 16 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • Victoria Schnettler on 16 Feb 11
     
    Seems Obama is serious about education even though the government is threatening a shut down over budgetary issues.
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School suspends teacher who blogged that kids are whiny - 2 views

news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-20031512-71.html ADMS707
shared by Tara McDaniel on 16 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • Tara McDaniel on 16 Feb 11
     
    Can you believe this?!
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NAEP and the Common Core Standards - Brookings Institution - 0 views

www.brookings.edu/...0111_naep_loveless.aspx ADMS707 Niemeyer CoreStandards NAEP
shared by REL N on 16 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • REL N on 16 Feb 11
     
    Advanced release of a Brown Center (Brookings Institution) report on the Common Core Standards.
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