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1.
This article examines the ways that the charter school movement is experienced and negotiated by educators who entered the profession through Teach For America (TFA). TFA’s impact has been significant in the larger educational trend towards market-based reforms and, in particular, the charter school movement. Analyzed through a critical theory lens that focuses on issues of power and on the ways individuals interact amid larger (and often distal) structural forces, the experiences of TFA corps members are situated within the larger changing context of education. Amid contested, fractured, and complex narratives about charter school reform, TFA’s idea of “relentless pursuit” shaped participants’ conceptions and actions around charter schools.  相似文献   

2.
ABSTRACT

To date, there is a paucity of research that examines differences between charter schools that operate in suburban and nonsuburban contexts. This article examines whether students in suburban charter schools perform better or worse than their counterparts in traditional public schools or students in urban charter schools. Boasting the largest and most diverse charter school population in the United States, California offers a fertile urban-suburban context for the study of geographically differentiated charter school impacts and, thus, serves as the focus of our study. The student achievement data (2009–2010, 2010–2011 and 2011–2012 school years) for this study come from the California Department of Education. Using propensity score matching and virtual control records, our findings show that suburban charter schools do not improve academic achievement relative to the matched comparison group of traditional public schools. Suburban charter schools (namely, charters in high-income areas) are largely ineffective and appear to leave their students’ achievement unchanged or diminished. This study adds to the existing literature by examining the effects of charter schools on the neighborhoods in which they operate. Methodologically, another important contribution of this study is that it supplements traditional selection criteria for suburban charters (NCES classification) with census-based neighborhood factors. Finally, this study provides evidence of the broader implications of school choice policies in a suburban setting.  相似文献   

3.
A substantial body of research has shown how white, middle-class parents in urban school districts use school choice as a tool to pursue educational advantages for their children. The purpose of this qualitative research was to examine the debate over neighborhood schools and school choice among a diverse group of parents in a gentrifying, yet highly diverse New York City neighborhood that I call “Prospect Point.” My central focus was studying a parent advocacy group that supports neighborhood schools. Findings show that about one third of families living in Prospect Point choose to send their children to charter or gifted and talented (G&T) schools located outside of the neighborhood. Given this outflow of parents and resources via school choice, most of the gentrifier parents in the sample who opted in to the local schools viewed their choice as a politically charged decision, and they credited the parent advocacy group as having influenced it. As a group, they rejected the consumer model of school choice, which they believed put the local schools at a disadvantage and was the norm for their racial/ethnic and socioeconomic demographic. Opt-in parents in this context recognized their privilege, and their children’s privilege, in the school-choice process and actively sought to diminish it through their choice to opt in. This research has important implications for the transformative role that parent mobilization can play in the future of diverse, high-quality public education and our democratic society.  相似文献   

4.
ABSTRACT

Despite Indiana’s school choice landscape – including private school vouchers, tax-credit scholarships, inter-district and intra-district enrollment, magnet schools, and charter schools – not all Indiana communities have reasonable access to options outside of their traditional public schools. This research explores what lack-of-reasonable access differences – defined as greater than a 30-minute one-way drive time to a choice school – exist by locale, with a focus on rural communities. Geospatial analysis is used to identify “school choice deserts” lacking multi-sector schooling options in various communities. These deserts tend to exist wholly or mostly in rural areas, although Indiana students in grades K–8 exhibit greater access levels to non-traditional schools than those in high school.  相似文献   

5.
ABSTRACT

Chronic absenteeism in K-12 schools is strongly associated with critical educational outcomes such as student achievement and graduation. Yet, the causes of chronic absenteeism are complex, with environmental, family/individual, and school factors all affecting the likelihood of a student attending school regularly. This exploratory study examines whether school organizational effectiveness has the potential to moderate external influences on chronic absenteeism. Using school-level scores from the 5Essentials surveys, we find that, in traditional public schools, schools that are organized for effectiveness have lower rates of chronic absenteeism, while controlling for student demographics and grade level. In particular, schools with higher scores for “involved families” have lower chronic absenteeism. While charter schools in Detroit have significantly lower rates of chronic absenteeism than traditional public schools, we did not find an association between organizational effectiveness and chronic absenteeism in charter schools. This suggests that student sorting by school type may produce variation in chronic absenteeism rates that is not moderated by school actions. These findings have important implications for practice and policy, as educators seek to reduce chronic absenteeism in response to pressures from high-stakes accountability systems.  相似文献   

6.
ABSTRACT

Racial segregation has remained a lasting legacy of rural schools in southern states. Our article explains a case where community leaders created a diverse charter school to change its historical practice of an isolated White private school and isolated African American public schools. We scan documents and literature related to this integration strategy to surface key themes when using rural charter schools to alter patterns of school segregation. First, we explain pressing issues in rural schools. Second, we describe how segregation and inequality have evolved in the South. Third, we explain research showing how charter schools maintain patterns of school segregation, but with exceptions and nuances in certain contexts. Fourth, we consider the benefits and tensions surrounding one rural charter school that offers an integrated educational program. Benefits range from societal to individual as the school fosters an environment where students are exposed to diverse educational experiences. Tensions include shifting power and funding dynamics and the possibility of using a good example to shepherd in less effective charter models elsewhere.  相似文献   

7.
ABSTRACT

Reforms using market-style mechanisms of parental choice and competition between schools are intended to leverage change by compelling schools to diversify options and increase effectiveness. Yet, some research challenges those assumptions, suggesting that schools in competitive climates are more likely to focus on image management to attract a more desirable student intake than to engage in substantive innovations to improve student outcomes. This analysis examines school responses to competition in two local education markets representing a mix of public (including charter) and private school types. School promotional signals to consumers are studied in order to understand school perceptions and responses to underlying competitive incentive structures-incentives that reformers intended to encourage programmatic improvement and diversification of options along a horizontal axis of diverse consumer preferences. A review of marketing materials demonstrates that many schools are instead adopting marketing strategies designed to attract “better” students-often from schools considered to be successful, rather than from the failing schools reformers had targeted. These patterns of vertical differentiation suggest that schools may be acting in ways that reflect contradictory incentives shaping how schools engage the marketplace.  相似文献   

8.
Abstract

This qualitative study focuses on how early career charter school teachers (n?=?20) in schools utilizing a “no excuses” discipline approach describe their interactions with students. Using positioning theory as an analytic tool, we explore how teachers engage the language of no excuses discipline and associated behaviors to position their students as passive beings unaware of “what is best for them” and potential deviants needing oversight. In this way, relationships were largely described as focused on control and compliance. The findings raise questions about how no excuses systems shape teachers’ understandings of care for their students as well as how teacher-student relationships develop.  相似文献   

9.
ABSTRACT

This article unpacks the decision to decharter a successful urban middle school serving African American students, especially focusing on parental choice in a school caught between two urban reform initiatives: charter schooling and state takeovers of urban districts. Originally chartered by a university, DeCharter became a “school of choice” in an urban district. Though inclusion of all stakeholders motivated charter school decision-making, the decision to decharter excluded them. Working out the intricacies of “choice” and the influences of the policies on stakeholders' interpretations of dechartering illustrates the complexities of parental choice in urban districts and the unintended effects of reform initiatives.  相似文献   

10.
Effective educational leadership is essential for the success of schools and ultimately student achievement. The impact of school leadership may be even more pronounced in charter schools. Due to current and unprecedented growth, unique design, and complexities of political, financial, and governance issues they face, there is a need for more highly qualified charter school leaders and perhaps even “differently” prepared leaders. In this qualitative study, the authors documented the characteristics and skills of two successful, sustained charter school leaders who retrospectively described their evolved and evolving roles over twenty five years. Each transformed high-poverty, low-performing schools with at-risk populations and led with vision, passion, and a relentless desire to positively influence their organizations and ultimately improve student success in their communities. Although many of their skills and characteristics fall within existing theories, such as situational leadership, transformational leadership, and distributive leadership, they embodied a level of dedication and commitment to the original communities in which they founded charters lasting over a quarter of a century. The findings suggest that founding a charter school and seeing it through to success over time may more closely resemble missionary work than traditional school leadership.  相似文献   

11.
This study explores the ways in which school-imposed labeling in a “no-excuses” charter school that was explicitly designed for the purpose of benefiting Black students, impacts teachers’ perceptions of Black male students who were labeled as being high risk or struggling academically, and how these students perceive their own schooling experiences. A conceptual framework with the history of how and why Black masculinity is constructed as deviant and different in the context of U.S. schools, as well as the impact of labeling on Black male students’ learning and self-esteem are detailed. While centering the labeled-students’ experiences, we examine the interactions between key stakeholders (i.e., labeled-students, teachers/administrators, and non-labeled students) at the charter school and overall the findings speak clearly to how language of deficit and pathology impacted Black male students’ schooling experiences as they negotiate racial stigma as racialized bodies at a “no-excuses” public charter school.  相似文献   

12.
In this essay, Terri Wilson puts the argument developed by Kathleen Knight Abowitz that charter schools could be considered as counterpublic spaces into interaction with empirical research that explores patterns of voluntary self‐segregation in charter schools. Wilson returns to the theoretical tension between Jürgen Habermas and Nancy Fraser over the inclusivity of the public sphere. Wilson argues that Fraser's concept of counterpublic space rests on an oversimplification of Habermas's concept of the public sphere and, further, that justifying school choice through Fraser's “multiplicity of publics” offers few resources for questioning the increasing segregation of schools. According to Wilson, Habermas's normative project—and his concept of “idealization,” in particular—offers both an answer to Fraser's critique and a better application of “the public sphere” to the issue of school choice. Wilson concludes by considering how Habermas's understanding of the public sphere as a normative ideal might serve as a useful resource for evaluating the public‐ness of charter school reform.  相似文献   

13.
ABSTRACT

Fifteen years ago charter schools were considered a radical addition to the public education landscape. Today they present a viable educational choice in 40 states and the District of Columbia. Much has been written about charter schools, their purpose, effectiveness, and future. However, to date, much of the dialogue has focused on ideology and methodology resulting in a discussion framed as “charter vs. noncharter.” Overlooked have been the more substantive issues that would provide a more accurate framework for studying charter schools. We propose that the education policy and research communities need to identify the critical variables in the charter schools sector that affect both student outcomes and education policy. One such major variable is the legal status of a charter school, that is, its identity as a local education agency (LEA) or as part of an existing LEA and the charter school's linkage to other parts of the public education system that flows from that identity. Differentiating charter schools according to their legal status will allow stakeholders to categorize these schools in a manner that succinctly captures critical differences. doi:10.1300/J467v01n03_11  相似文献   

14.
An emerging body of research has explored “supply side” questions of school choice, or how schools and systems shape enrollment through locational decisions, recruitment, and marketing. This study focuses on how school websites market and communicate the distinct missions of charter schools to prospective families. Through a critical discourse analysis (CDA) of 55 elementary charter school websites in one demographically diverse metropolitan area, we explore how school websites operate as discursive texts that signal the potential “fit” between particular schools and particular families. Guided by a critical discourse analysis framework, we emphasize how websites (a) employ implicit discourses of race, culture, and diversity; (b) draw on different meanings of academic achievement, and (c) emphasize different ideologies of individualized learning. We argue that websites act as one mechanism that contributes to the segmentation and differentiation of an emerging local marketplace of school options.  相似文献   

15.
ABSTRACT

In a radical school choice reform in 1992, Sweden’s education system was opened to private competition from independent for-profit and non-profit schools funded by vouchers. Competition was expected to produce higher-quality education at lower cost, in both independent and public schools. This two-pronged study first examines to what extent the consequences of this reform deviate from the predicted results. It demonstrates increasing discrepancies between absolute test results and grades, suggesting grade inflation. Secondly, the study investigates whether the school choice reform was institutionally secured against school competition based on phenomena that are unrelated with educational quality, such as grading. It reveals that the architects of the school choice reform overemphasized the potential positive implications of market reforms and, therefore, did not deem it necessary to establish appropriate rules and institutions for school competition. Instead, grading and curriculum reforms had unintended consequences such as grade inflation and similar forms of school competition in dimensions other than school quality. The analysis of how the objective of raising the quality in Sweden’s schools through competition and choice was inadvertently undermined contains practical lessons for policymakers with regard to the use of privatization and co-production both in schools and in other fields.  相似文献   

16.
Abstract

The population of English language learners (ELLs) and the number of charter school students have both increased rapidly over the past two decades, but no existing research has examined the role that charter school authorizers play to ensure that ELLs have equitable access to charter schools and that those schools implement research-based programs for ELLs. To fill this gap, our exploratory qualitative study employed a multiple-case case study approach to examine how 10 diverse authorizers considered ELLs in their authorizing practices. Guided by Honig’s (2006) three Ps framework (people, places, and practices), we examined how authorizing practices were shaped by external factors, the agency of the actors within the authorizing office, and by the local context in which the authorizer was situated. Overall we found that ELL-related authorizing practices varied widely across the sample, as some authorizers integrated ELLs into their practices, while others paid little explicit attention to ELLs. In terms of place, contextual factors at the state, district, and authorizer levels contributed to the variation. Within the people component of the framework, the commitment of authorizing staff members to improve access and quality for ELLs in charter schools was an important factor, as was the authorizer’s access to ELL-related expertise. We conclude by outlining implications for research, practice, and policy.  相似文献   

17.
This article concerns gendered dimensions of parental involvement in two US charter schools. Drawing on the narratives of parents who have founded charter schools, and on conversations with school administrators and parents in the main public school district, it presents an analysis of the way parent-teacher interactions are being reframed in the context of school choice. The author argues that in a context in which parents are being asked both to produce and consume new educational programs, parents-practically speaking, mothers-who involve themselves in organizing charter schools run the risk of being seen as stepping out of their roles as consumers and caregivers. The implications of mothers' involvement in charter schools for parent-teacher interactions and for the trajectory of school reform are explored.  相似文献   

18.
ABSTRACT

Cities in the United States and across the world have experienced gentrification at the same time as school choice policies have become more popular. This research examines the relationship between gentrification and charter schooling, seeking to understand how together they affect demographic composition of schools across Washington, DC. This study uses geographic information systems (GIS) mapping and statistical techniques to show that gentrified neighborhoods are more likely to have charter schools. Additionally, the demographic compositions of charter schools and traditional public schools differ depending on the gentrification classification of the census tract in which the schools are located. While a handful of diverse charter schools exist in gentrified neighborhoods and some diverse public schools exist in traditionally affluent neighborhoods, schools in Washington, DC remain racially and economically isolated overall.  相似文献   

19.
The question that drives this article is why some school districts decide to open up charter schools and others do not. Several answers are plausible: (a) entrepreneurial initiative, (b) structural explanations, and (c) spatial competition. We use data for the state of Wisconsin derived from extensive case studies of 19 charter schools and quantitative data on Wisconsin school district from state files and the U.S. Department of Education common core databases. We find evidence to support all three explanations for why districts “go charter.” First, in almost every school and district we visited for case studies, at the heart of either the district or the charter school, and often both, there were entrepreneurial administrators, school board members, teachers, or parents. Our evidence was anecdotal but very consistent across 19 case studies. Second, there are two general sets of structural characteristics that were shown to be quantitatively correlated with becoming a charter district. The first set comprised resource characteristics (size, federal revenue, and available seats); the second set comprised indicators of unmet students needs (the percentage of students eligible for free lunch). Finally, we argue and believe we provide significant evidence that competition is also a motivation for going charter. We posit that open enrollment and charter schools are working together to enhance the flows of students from homeschooling, private schools, dropouts, and other public school districts into charter school districts. Thus using several different indicators and models, estimating both which districts become charter districts and the flow and net gain directly from open enrollment, there is no question that charter schools are increasing competition for students in Wisconsin.  相似文献   

20.
This paper examines conceptions of governance and freedom embedded within a new school autonomy policy in Queensland (Australia). Drawing on interview data from case study research, it foregrounds the practices of two school leaders from a secondary school in regional Queensland. It considers how such conceptions foster an entrepreneurial leadership of competition and compliance but also how they create space for something other than these dominant performative priorities. The paper’s theoretical contribution responds to calls for more nuanced accounts of entrepreneurial leadership to better understand how current performative demands are impacting on school leaders amid increasingly autonomised education systems.  相似文献   

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