Problems facing school superintendents and school board presidents of large school districts

Superintendents and school board presidents from the 100 largest school districts in the nation were surveyed to determine the major problems confronting these education leaders. Both superintendents and school board presidents were in agreement on most concerns, including the top three major problems. They are in complete agreement that finance and related worries are the most important problems they face. The survey identified several critical variables, including the superintendents' age, gender, and experience; the school board presidents' gender and experience; and the school districts' size, geographical region, metropolitan setting, and ethnic student profile.     

“重返八十年代”的成绩与问题

“重返八十年代”是近年来中国当代文学研究中的一个热点。文章认为“重返八十年代”的原因主要有两个：一是构建80年代文学与政治之间的复杂关系,消除80年代文学与50—70年代文学之间的简单对立,进而建立当代文学的整体性话语系统;二是通过将80年代“问题化”,打破已经被人们视为常识的自80年代以来一直支配当代文学研究的思维模式。“重返八十年代”的成绩主要是揭示了当代文学史叙述中的“八十年代”意识,“再现”了那些被“遗失和扭曲”的文学现场。“重返八十年代”的问题主要表现在三个方面：1．“打捞”历史的做法难以实现揭示80年代文学“政治性”的目的;2．被“打捞”上来的历史及其“政治性”有可能对另外的历史及其“文学性”产生新的压抑;3．“重返八十年代”研究依然带有“二元对立”的思维倾向。     

7 Urban politics and state school finance in the 1980s 1

This chapter examines the effects of the major policy and political trends in lower education during the 1980s. Specifically, it assesses the programmatic and fiscal effects of the Reagan administration's fiscal federalism, the excellence agenda and the emerging state activism on urban school districts. The focus is on California as an illustrative case study, as the state represents an inchoate national trend toward fiscal centralization. The chapter argues that centralization has created a new politics of school finance. Not only do schools compete for funding with higher education, health, welfare, criminal justice and transportation, but students also compete with teachers over categorical funding. The chapter concludes that policies of categorical funding have changed dramatically. While symbolically they are rooted in equity, in reality they represent a new political spoils system.

     

Preparing secondary school teachers for 1980

Evolution, not revolution, indicated for teacher education. Within functional limits diversity breeds innovation.     

Marketing diversity: selling school districts in a racialized marketplace

Schools in the US and across the globe are increasingly engaged in marketing practices to attract and retain students and families. This study examines why and how administrators and school board members in two public school systems in the US seek to market their schools. Using in-depth case studies, a socio-cultural approach to policy, and critical race perspectives, I trace administrators’ and school board members’ logics about marketing, and specifically their emphasis on marketing the racial ‘diversity’ of their students. I find that despite differences in economic circumstances and community orientations to racial inclusion, leaders in these two competitive, under-resourced, and demographically changing school districts target upper- and middle-class White families, draw on discourses of global cosmopolitanism, and commodify racial diversity as a competitive advantage for upper- and middle-class White families that leaders believe do not see inherent value in students of color. This attempt to use racial diversity as a ‘selling point,’ varies in its particularities in each district–one district acknowledges and emphasizes how all students may gain from interracial and intercultural interactions and knowledge while the other district leverages abstract notions of diversity, removed from actual children of color – a consequence, in part, of district leaders’ uniquely racialized marketplaces. I conclude with a discussion of the implications of these findings.     

Strategic interaction among public school districts: Evidence on spatial interdependence in school inputs

This paper provides evidence on strategic interaction among public school districts in Massachusetts. The open enrollment program in Massachusetts is unique in testing the strategic competition thesis because it allows students to attend public schools located outside their home district. For each student who transfers out, funds are deducted from the sending district's local aid distribution and added to the receiving district's local aid. Thus, school districts no longer have the assurance of a ready supply of students and funding, instead they have to compete with neighboring districts, and enact strategies that will help retain as well as attract more students. A spatial econometric framework is applied to disentangle the correlation due to strategic interaction from the one that is simply due to spatially correlated error shocks. The results show that public school districts respond positively to the expenditure decisions of neighboring districts, thereby acting strategically when setting their own spending levels.     

IQ and achievement: 1930s to 1980s

One hundred thirty-eight fifth-grade students from three upstate New York school districts were administered a 1930s version of the Pintner General Ability Tests: Verbal Series. Scores from this test were compared and correlated with scores from current IQ and achievement tests. The Pintner means were similar to those of the current IQ tests; the correlations of the Pintner with the other tests were of the same order as those typically reported among contemporary measures; and item difficulty, as indicated by rank order, appeared similar for the current sample and the 1930s norm groups. The findings are discussed with reference to research that has shown sharp increases in IQs of Americans since the 1930s and questions concerning changes in mental ability measures.