Education Reform and the Limits of Policy

Education Reform and the Limits of Policy
Author: Michael Addonizio
Publisher: W.E. Upjohn Institute
Total Pages: 311
Release: 2012
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0880993871

While there is no doubt that an abundance of newly enacted education policies abounds across the state and across the nation, more fundamental questions remain. What is the nature of these reforms? What do they hope to accomplish? How successful have they been? In this book, we attempt to provide some answers to these questions by examining a major set of education policy reforms undertaken in Michigan and across the country over the past 20 or more years. These innovations include finance reform, state assessment of student performance, a series of school accountability measures, charter schools, schools of choice, and, for Detroit, a bevy of oft-conflicting policies and reform efforts that have belabored but seldom helped its public schools. In the pages that follow, we examine the decidedly mixed outcomes and effects of this large array of reform policies and programs. Each chapter addresses a specific policy area, outlining reform activity across the nation with an emphasis on Michigan's efforts as well as on one or two states that led these changes.

A Michigan School Money Primer for Policymakers, School Officials, Media and Residents

A Michigan School Money Primer for Policymakers, School Officials, Media and Residents
Author: Ryan S. Olson
Publisher:
Total Pages: 196
Release: 2007
Genre: Education
ISBN:

The system that finances Michigan's schools from kindergarten through 12th grade is a perennial topic of conversation among policymakers, parents, taxpayers and voters. A constructive discussion of this issue, however, requires a sound knowledge of the financial workings of Michigan's elementary and secondary school system. This knowledge is precisely what the authors have attempted to provide. While the Mackinac Center for Public Policy has developed numerous policy recommendations over the years, this primer is exclusively informational. This primer addresses the following: (1) how revenues are raised for Michigan's elementary and secondary public school system; (2) how money is distributed to education programs and school districts once it is collected by various taxing authorities; and (3) how districts budget monies to be spent on the various activities involved in operating schools and other educational programming. This book is arranged in four sections. The first--and the shortest--is "A Brief Overview of the Structure of Michigan's Public School System," which defines a few basic terms and sketches the main local, state and federal agencies involved in financing Michigan's public school system. This overview should help readers unfamiliar with Michigan's public school structure navigate the remainder of the book. The second, third and fourth sections are considerably longer than the first and cover the three areas: tax revenues, distribution of revenues and financial management of those revenues by school districts. Appended are: (1) U.S. Department of Education Spending in Michigan; (2) Summary of "Durant" Court Decisions; and (3) Guide to a New School Finance Electronic Module. An index is included. (Contains 29 graphs, 238 footnotes, and 410 endnotes, footnotes.) [This paper was written with the assistance of Glenda Rader, Darcy Marusich, Alison Taylor, Steve Zakem, John Schwartz, Thomas Moline, Charles Pisoni, Gary Start, Paul Soma, Tim Yeadon, Mary Ann Cleary, Douglas Newcombe, Vicki Duso, Clark Volz, Howard Heideman, Paul Brown, Phil Boone, Patrick Dillon, Jayne Klein, and Dianne Easterling.].

Engineering in K-12 Education

Engineering in K-12 Education
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 595
Release: 2009-09-08
Genre: Education
ISBN: 030914471X

Engineering education in K-12 classrooms is a small but growing phenomenon that may have implications for engineering and also for the other STEM subjects-science, technology, and mathematics. Specifically, engineering education may improve student learning and achievement in science and mathematics, increase awareness of engineering and the work of engineers, boost youth interest in pursuing engineering as a career, and increase the technological literacy of all students. The teaching of STEM subjects in U.S. schools must be improved in order to retain U.S. competitiveness in the global economy and to develop a workforce with the knowledge and skills to address technical and technological issues. Engineering in K-12 Education reviews the scope and impact of engineering education today and makes several recommendations to address curriculum, policy, and funding issues. The book also analyzes a number of K-12 engineering curricula in depth and discusses what is known from the cognitive sciences about how children learn engineering-related concepts and skills. Engineering in K-12 Education will serve as a reference for science, technology, engineering, and math educators, policy makers, employers, and others concerned about the development of the country's technical workforce. The book will also prove useful to educational researchers, cognitive scientists, advocates for greater public understanding of engineering, and those working to boost technological and scientific literacy.

Reinventing Public Education

Reinventing Public Education
Author: Paul Hill
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 280
Release: 2009-02-15
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0226336530

A heated debate is raging over our nation’s public schools and how they should be reformed, with proposals ranging from imposing national standards to replacing public education altogether with a voucher system for private schools. Combining decades of experience in education, the authors propose an innovative approach to solving the problems of our school system and find a middle ground between these extremes. Reinventing Public Education shows how contracting would radically change the way we operate our schools, while keeping them public and accessible to all, and making them better able to meet standards of achievement and equity. Using public funds, local school boards would select private providers to operate individual schools under formal contracts specifying the type and quality of instruction. In a hands-on, concrete fashion, the authors provide a thorough explanation of the pros and cons of school contracting and how it would work in practice. They show how contracting would free local school boards from operating schools so they can focus on improving educational policy; how it would allow parents to choose the best school for their children; and, finally, how it would ensure that schools are held accountable and academic standards are met. While retaining a strong public role in education, contracting enables schools to be more imaginative, adaptable, and suited to the needs of children and families. In presenting an alternative vision for America’s schools, Reinventing Public Education is too important to be ignored.

Strike for the Common Good

Strike for the Common Good
Author: Rebecca Kolins Givan
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Total Pages: 287
Release: 2020-10-08
Genre: Education
ISBN: 047212840X

In February 2018, 35,000 public school educators and staff walked off the job in West Virginia. More than 100,000 teachers in other states—both right-to-work states, like West Virginia, and those with a unionized workforce—followed them over the next year. From Arizona, Kentucky, and Oklahoma to Colorado and California, teachers announced to state legislators that not only their abysmal wages but the deplorable conditions of their work and the increasingly straitened circumstances of public education were unacceptable. These recent teacher walkouts affirm public education as a crucial public benefit and understand the rampant disinvestment in public education not simply as a local issue affecting teacher paychecks but also as a danger to communities and to democracy. Strike for the Common Good gathers together original essays, written by teachers involved in strikes nationwide, by students and parents who have supported them, by journalists who have covered these strikes in depth, and by outside analysts (academic and otherwise). Together, the essays consider the place of these strikes in the broader landscape of recent labor organizing and battles over public education, and attend to the largely female workforce and, often, largely non-white student population of America’s schools.