Labor market frictions and production efficiency in public schools

State-specific licensing policies and pension plans create mobility costs for educators who cross state lines. We empirically test whether these costs affect production in schools – a hypothesis that follows directly from economic theory on labor frictions – using geocoded data on school locations and state boundaries. We find that achievement is lower in mathematics, and to a lesser extent in reading, at schools that are more exposed to state boundaries. A detailed investigation of the selection of schools into boundary regions yields no indication of systematic differences between boundary and non-boundary schools along other measured dimensions. Moreover, we show that cross-district labor frictions do not explain state boundary effects. Our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that mobility frictions in educator labor markets near state boundaries lower student achievement.     

The responsibility for the public schools 1

Collaboration between a metropolitan university's college of education and urban and suburban school districts is described via an initiative to support dissemination of effective elementary practices across 7 districts. The effort focused on the creation of 4 booklets that described best practices as identified through the research-based literature. Parent involvement, literacy instruction, multiage classrooms, and brain-based learning were the areas targeted for attention. Two conferences to share the information were also a part of the plan for dissemination. Trust and camaraderie evolved as faculty members, teachers, and administrators worked together to create a product and share it with their colleagues.     

Labor market choices and teacher reform: Policy options for the public schools of the twenty-first century

Case studies of the teacher labor market in the United States reveal that “first wave” teacher reforms of the 1980s will have little positive impact on the career choices of teachers and former teachers as well on the talented college students whom policymakers wish to attract to teaching. While “second wave” reforms offer much promise in solving present teacher quality problems, these reforms may go for naught if policymakers ignore the anachronistic teacher selection processes presently used by public schools. New policies not only must address the motivations and actions of labor market decisionmakers, but also must address the underlying tension between the first and second waves of teacher reform.     

Competition and the quality of public schools

A growing body of empirical research has provided provocative evidence that competition from private schools improves student achievement in neighboring public schools. However, this uniform conclusion has been based on fundamentally different empirical specifications. This study examines the importance of these different specifications by presenting new evidence on the relationship between public school quality and competition from private schools. This evidence is based on a unique data set that contains consistently defined high school graduation rates for the unified school districts in 18 states. The results indicate that empirical strategies which rely exclusively on ordinary least-squares (OLS) can lead to misleading inferences because of omitted variables bias and the simultaneous determination of the demand for private schools and public school quality. Nonetheless, two-stage least-squares (2SLS) estimates indicate that competition from private schools does have a positive and statistically significant impact on the high school graduation rates of neighboring public schools.     

Printing in the public schools

An important hallmark of American teacher education has been its integral role in 4-year or comprehensive colleges and universities for the past 100 years. In more than 1,100 colleges in the United States, teacher education is offered as one of many baccalaureate or graduate-level programs. The preparation of elementary and secondary and special and vocational teachers is offered as an integral part of comprehensive or university-based programs. Today that situation is threatened by a number of factors that are separating teacher education from its traditional place in American higher education. These factors include (a) the inability of campus-based teacher education programs to keep pace with the accelerating demands and expectations of policymakers, (b) alternative preparation programs that are proliferating and gaining credibility, (c) resource constraints that are pervasive and real, (d) teacher shortage conditions that demand a response, (e) new forms of professional development that invite separation from university Inservice Education of Teachers (INSET) courses, (f) widespread development of professional development schools (PDSs), and (g) a commitment to assess teacher candidates separate from and outside the university. Without responses to these factors, Ed Schools are likely to see this separation accelerate and could experience the relocation of teacher education off the campus and to a variety of other providers. Preserving the unique role that teacher education plays as an essential part of American higher education is a major challenge. The factors just cited are reinforced by a host of public policy and academic initiatives that are causing teacher education to be dispersed and deinstitutionalized and "reembedded in other sites and spaces" (Hargreaves, 1995, p. 7). Reinforcing this relocation are the efforts of college faculty and Ed School "reformers" who are creating 100% field-based programs or recentering teacher education in PDSs. Those new field- or school-based entities enforce the idea of embedding teacher education in entities away from and often separate from universities. A hostile fiscal and policy environment adds to the potential for relocation and poses significant consequences for Ed School faculty in the United States.     

The public schools as a work environment

This study examined the perceptions of elementary and secondary school teachers, and school board members, of the school as a work environment. The Work Environment Preferencess Scale, an instrument based on Weber's components of bureaucratic organizations, was administered to all the teachers and board members of a small Maine school district. Board members, then secondary teachers, preferred bureaucratic organization and principles. Implications for education are discussed.     

Denominational schools and public schooling

The author argues that the critical question in determining whether denominational schools should receive public funding is: Does the school provide an education in accordance with publicly accepted criteria for that concept and in accordance with the dominant values in society? A public system of schooling has itsraison d'être in the need to provide a common understanding. This is not incompatible with acceptance of private schools, nor, despiteprima facie oddity, is there anything incoherent about the idea of providing state funding for private schools. So far as denominational schools go, therefore, the conclusion is that they are deserving of state support provided that they do not promote values and beliefs antithetical to the larger community, and, specifically, that they do not engage in the anti-educational practice of indoctrination.     

The press, public knowledge and the grant maintained schools policy

This article examines as a critical case how newspapers reported the grant maintained schools policy. It argues that claims that press reporting of educational issues is frequently unfair are only partially substantiated. The quality press is more likely to be internally inconsistent and contradictory in its reportage of education policy and, on occasion, to inhibit debate through discourses of omision.     

Urban schools and the changing metropolitan labor market

Industrial change and the resultant restructuring of employment opportunity ongoing in the nation's largest cities are seriously weakening traditional ladders of urban social advancement. Jobs at the high end of the skill spectrum are growing far more rapidly in these cities than those held by persons lacking a high school degree. Education remains one of the most important policy levers for redressing the growing mismatch between available jobs and the skills of resident workers. The problem is compounded, however, because so many who lack essential skills are concentrated in the least prosperous cities in which entry-level jobs are in relative decline and resources with which to fund school improvements are in short supply. The upskilling of jobs must be met by the upschooling of the labor force. This objective will require a concerted effort to bring the public schools and institutions of higher education together into new forms of metropolitan partnership.     

The Labour party and the public schools: A conflict of principles

Abstract

The promotion of ‘Global Citizenship’ (GC) has emerged as a goal of schooling in many countries, symbolising a shift away from national towards more global conceptions of citizenship. It currently incorporates a proliferation of approaches and terminologies, mirroring both the diverse conceptions of its nature and the socio-politico contexts within which it is appropriated. This paper seeks to clarify this ambiguity by constructing a typology to identify and distinguish the diverse conceptions of GC. The typology is based on two general forms of GC: cosmopolitan based and advocacy based. The former incorporates four distinct conceptions of GC – namely, the political, moral, economic and cultural; the latter incorporates four other conceptions – namely, the social, critical, environmental and spiritual. Subsequently, we briefly illustrate how the typology can be used to evaluate the critical features of a curriculum plan designed to promote GC in England. The typology provides a novel and powerful means to analyse the key features of the very diverse range of educational policies and programmes that promote GC.     

The impact of charter schools on the efficiency of traditional public schools: Evidence from Michigan

This paper examines the competitive effects of charter schools on the efficiency of traditional public schools. The analysis utilizes a statewide school-level longitudinal dataset of Michigan schools from 1994 to 2004. Fixed effect and two alternative estimation methods are employed. Overall, the results suggest that charter competition had a negative impact on student achievement and school efficiency in Michigan's traditional public schools. The effect is small or negligible in the short run, but becomes more substantial in the long run.     

Instructional systems design and public schools

A great deal has been written in the last several years about the use or lack of use of instructional systems design (ISD) in public schools. The general discussion has revolved around why ISD has not been accepted by public schools; why instructional design experts have not been hired by public school systems; and primarily what an educational technologist can do to change the situation. The focus of most discussions by educational technologists is: how can schools and teachers alter their practice to benefit from ISD? In this article, we maintain that one reason why ISD has not been adopted in schools is that there may not be a fit between the philosophies, needs, resources, and constraints of schools and the benefits of adopting ISD. We also argue that for ISD to have a significant influence in public schools, it must be accepted by teachers. The general question we ask in this paper is this: are we attempting to redesign schools and classrooms to accommodate our technologies with insufficient attention to the perceived needs of clients and to the consequences of adopting ISD? Our approach to answering this question was to search the literature to uncover perceived inconsistencies between ISD theory and practice on the one hand and teacher needs, wants, and practices on the other.     

Instructional systems design and public schools

This article is a reply to the commentary of Shrock and Higgins, which appears elsewhere in this issue. The original article by Martin and Clemente that sparked the discussion appeared inEducational Technology Research and Development, Volume 38, Number 2 (pp. 61–75).