scholarly journals A study on enlarged school districts and community management based on public schools in agricultural and mountainous areas

2011 ◽  
Vol 30 (Special_Issue) ◽  
pp. 267-272
Author(s):  
Fumitsugu KOBAYASHI ◽  
Naoko SAIO
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
School Districts ◽  
Community Management ◽  
Mountainous Areas

Unification and Its Discontents

2016 ◽  
Vol 93 (2) ◽  
pp. 4-16
Author(s):  
Brian Kovalesky
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
School District ◽  
Los Angeles ◽  
School Districts ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Los Angeles County ◽  
The State ◽  
White Working Class ◽  
City Schools

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, during the height of protests and actions by civil rights activists around de facto school segregation in the Los Angeles area, the residents of a group of small cities just southeast of the City of Los Angeles fought to break away from the Los Angeles City Schools and create a new, independent school district—one that would help preserve racially segregated schools in the area. The “Four Cities” coalition was comprised of residents of the majority white, working-class cities of Vernon, Maywood, Huntington Park, and Bell—all of which had joined the Los Angeles City Schools in the 1920s and 1930s rather than continue to operate local districts. The coalition later expanded to include residents of the cities of South Gate, Cudahy, and some unincorporated areas of Los Angeles County, although Vernon was eventually excluded. The Four Cities coalition petitioned for the new district in response to a planned merger of the Los Angeles City Schools—until this time comprised of separate elementary and high school districts—into the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). The coalition's strategy was to utilize a provision of the district unification process that allowed citizens to petition for reconfiguration or redrawing of boundaries. Unification was encouraged by the California State Board of Education and legislature in order to combine the administrative functions of separate primary and secondary school districts—the dominant model up to this time—to better serve the state's rapidly growing population of children and their educational needs, and was being deliberated in communities across the state and throughout Los Angeles County. The debates at the time over school district unification in the Greater Los Angeles area, like the one over the Four Cities proposal, were inextricably tied to larger issues, such as taxation, control of community institutions, the size and role of state and county government, and racial segregation. At the same time that civil rights activists in the area and the state government alike were articulating a vision of public schools that was more inclusive and demanded larger-scale, consolidated administration, the unification process reveals an often-overlooked grassroots activism among residents of the majority white, working-class cities surrounding Los Angeles that put forward a vision of exclusionary, smaller-scale school districts based on notions of local control and what they termed “community identity.”

Whose money matters in public education: A “public” good that parents purchase

2021 ◽  
pp. 147821032110343
Author(s):  
Eunju Kang
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
Public Education ◽  
School Districts ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
New York State ◽  
Federal State ◽  
Education Funding ◽  
Funding Policy ◽  
State And Local

Instead of asking whether money matters, this paper questions whose money matters in public education. Previous literature on education funding uses an aggregate expenditure per pupil to measure the relationship between education funding and academic performance. Federalism creates mainly three levels of funding sources: federal, state, and local governments. Examining New York State school districts, most equitably funded across school districts among the 50 states, this paper shows that neither federal nor state funds are positively correlated with graduation rates. Only local revenues for school districts indicate a strong positive impact. Parents’ money matters. This finding contributes to a contentious discourse on education funding policy in the governments, courts, and academia with respect to education funding and inequality in American public schools.

Teacher Layoffs: An Empirical Illustration of Seniority versus Measures of Effectiveness

2011 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 439-454 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donald Boyd ◽  
Hamilton Lankford ◽  
Susanna Loeb ◽  
James Wyckoff
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Public Schools ◽  
School Districts ◽  
Teacher Effectiveness ◽  
District Leaders ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
School District Leaders ◽  
Alternative Approaches ◽  
Teacher Layoffs ◽  
Measures Of Effectiveness

School districts are confronting difficult choices in the aftermath of the financial crisis. Today, the financial imbalance in many school districts is so large that there may be few alternatives to teacher layoffs. In nearly all school districts, layoffs are currently determined by some version of teacher seniority. Yet, alternative approaches to personnel reductions may substantially reduce the harm to students from staff reductions relative to layoffs based on seniority. As a result, many school district leaders and other policy makers are raising important questions about whether~other criteria, such as measures of teacher effectiveness, should inform layoffs. This policy brief, a quick look at some aspects of the debate, illustrates the differences in New York City public schools that would result if layoffs were determined by seniority in comparison to a measure of teacher effectiveness.

scholarly journals Integrating Schools by Family Income: A Promising Education Reform or Unattainable Dream?

2003 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 3
Author(s):  
Robin Kane
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
School Districts ◽  
Education Reform ◽  
Family Income ◽  
Racial Segregation ◽  
Equity In Education ◽  
Income Levels ◽  
Concentrated Poverty ◽  
Key Policy ◽  
Reform Debate

Integrating public schools by family income is a relatively new proposal in the education reform debate. To enhance equity in education, advocates have sought approaches that will not meet the judicial resistance that race has met when used to integrate schools. This paper provides a review of the proposal to integrate public schools by family income. It examines research on achievement by students of all income levels in schools with concentrated poverty, trends in racial segregation, and the case in support of plans to balance schools by family income. The paper also provides a summary of the plans in place in two school districts, the response of key policy players to these plans, and the possible challenges to wider implementation.

Do charter schools alleviate the negative effect of teacher turnover?

2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karlerik Naslund ◽  
Branco Ponomariov
Keyword(s):  
Student Achievement ◽  
Public Schools ◽  
School Districts ◽  
Charter Schools ◽  
Teacher Turnover ◽  
Public School Districts ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Labor Practices ◽  
Negative Effect ◽  
Using Data

Using data on charter and public school districts in Texas, we test the hypothesis that the labor practices in charter schools, in particular their ability to easily dismiss poorly performing teachers, diminishes the negative effect of teacher turnover on student achievement and graduation rates in comparison to public schools. We find some support for this hypothesis, and discuss implications for theory and practice.

School Districts Stumbled on Data Privacy

2012 ◽  
pp. 12-15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Irene Chen
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
School Districts ◽  
Middle Schools ◽  
Social Security ◽  
Private Information ◽  
Web Site ◽  
Data Privacy ◽  
Personal Information ◽  
Personal Data ◽  
Short Period

The story describes how three school institutes are grappling with the loss of private information, each through a unique set of circumstances. Pasadena City Public Schools discovered that it had sold several computers containing the names and Social Security numbers of employees as surplus. Stephens Public Schools learned that personal information about students at one of its middle schools was lost when a bag containing a thumb drive was stolen. Also, Woodlands Public Schools accidentally exposed employee personal data on a public Web site for a short period of time. How should each of the institutes react?

Performance-Based Staff Layoffs in the Public Schools: Implementation and Outcomes

1980 ◽  
Vol 50 (2) ◽  
pp. 214-233 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Moore Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
School Districts ◽  
Unintended Consequences ◽  
Performance Criteria ◽  
Local School ◽  
The Public ◽  
Teacher Layoffs

In response to declining school enrollments, some local school districts are using performance criteria to determine the order of teacher layoffs. In this article, Susan Moore Johnson reviews efforts to implement such practices in four local school districts. The findings of the study indicate that performance-based layoff policies are not easily translated into practice. Furthermore, interviews with principals in these districts suggest that the unintended consequences of performance-based layoff practices may limit their educational worth.

scholarly journals Socioeconomic Disparities in Vape Shop Density and Proximity to Public Schools in the Conterminous United States, 2018

2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (1_suppl) ◽  
pp. 9S-17S ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Dilip Venugopal ◽  
Aura Lee Morse ◽  
Cindy Tworek ◽  
Hoshing Wan Chang
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
African American ◽  
Public Schools ◽  
School Districts ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Nearest Neighbor ◽  
Health Impacts ◽  
District Administrators ◽  
Statistical Relationships ◽  
Vape Shops

We conducted an environmental justice assessment examining the distribution of specialty vape shops in relation to where minority and low-income youth live and attend school. We collated and examined the density of vape shops in public school districts in 2018 throughout the conterminous United States using geographic information systems. We calculated the proximity of vape shops to public middle and high schools through nearest neighbor analysis in QGIS software. We examined the statistical relationships between the density of vape shops in school districts, and proximity to schools, with the proportion of racial/ethnic minorities and those living in poverty. We found that vape shops are more densely distributed, and are in closer proximity to schools, in school districts with higher proportions of Asian and Black or African American populations. However, vape shops were further away from schools in school districts with higher proportions of the population in poverty. The proximity and higher density of vape shops in relationship to schools in Asian and Black or African American communities may result in disproportionate health impacts due to greater access and exposure to vape products and advertisements. Our results may help school district administrators prioritize and target efforts to curb youth vaping (e.g., health education curricula) in these school districts with high density and closer proximity of vape shops to schools. Policy efforts, such as local ordinances restricting the promotion and sale of vaping products close to schools, could help prevent disproportionate human and environmental health impacts to minorities.

Structure of Domination, Organizational Culture and the Facilitation of Feelings in the Partnership

1987 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 330-334
Author(s):  
Devendra Bhagat
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Culture ◽  
Public Schools ◽  
School Districts ◽  
College Of Education ◽  
Governing Board ◽  
Naturalistic Inquiry ◽  
The Public ◽  
Controlling Behavior ◽  
Positive Feelings ◽  
The Cost

Creating partnerships between school districts and universities are seen as a way to attain educational renewal. One such partnership exists between the BYU College of Education and the public schools in Central Utah. Following the naturalistic inquiry technique, this study attempted to evaluate the partnership participants' feelings and the extent to which the organization affected those feelings. The study showed that there is an undue need for control of others by members of the Governing Board of the Partnership, manifested in a structure of domination, at the cost of positive feelings and the mutual goodwill of partners. Besides being incongruent with partnership philosophy, this controlling behavior has created a sense of lack of care by the organization. The article suggests ways to resolve this problem.

Defining Public Schools and Understanding Their Shifting Terrain

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah M. Stitzlein
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
Public Education ◽  
School Districts ◽  
Portfolio Management ◽  
Education Management ◽  
For Profit ◽  
Form And Function ◽  
School Practice ◽  
And Function

Chapter three illustrates the essential role of public schools in a vibrant democracy. I define what public schools are, identifying five key elements essential to their form and function. My discussion of the shifting nature of democracy, schools, and citizenship reveals that it is worthwhile to refocus our attention on these elements of public schools now as some are being compromised or eclipsed within the latest forms of school practice and governance. I detail the changing landscape of public schools in recent years by looking at particular recent transformations to the governance and practice of public education. These changes include aspects of schools choice, vouchers, for-profit education management, loss of local control, mayoral oversight of schools, recovery school districts, portfolio management models, and corporate influences. I also describe how citizens’ relationships with schools have changed and how citizens themselves have changed, especially under the influence of neoliberalism.

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