How parental and school responses to choice policies reconfigure a rural education market in Victoria,Australia

Market principles now dominate the education and social policies of many Anglophone countries, including Australia, but articulate differentially within specific contexts. Existing historical legacies, local economic and social conditions, and geographical settings interact with federal and state funding and transport policies to shape the nature of regional education markets and the choices families make in a rural school market in Australia. Through two school case studies, this article explores the effects of policy shifts on parental choice and student movement within a regional Victorian community. Informed by policy sociology, the article views the policy as a dynamic, often ad hoc process with contradictory effects. It indicates how an ensemble of federal and state funding and conveyancing policies enable some schools to develop marketing practices that reconstruct the local education market to their advantage through the introduction of transport and flexi-boarding policies. It demonstrates that education markets are not confined to urban settings and that while choice is not a new phenomenon in this rural area, federal and state funding and transport policies have reconfigured local markets and intensified the market work undertaken by schools and parents with, in this instance, unequal effects on the provision of schooling in a rural region.     

21世纪美国高等教育政策改革述评——基于Spellings委员会报告的分析

美国Spellings委员会报告是21世纪美国高等教育改革的重要议案,既为高等教育法案的修订提供了立法基础,也为今后联邦政府高等教育政策改革提供了蓝图。该报告确定了"高等教育机会、可支付性、质量与创新、问责"是高等教育政策改革的四个主题。美国21世纪高等教育政策改革是由联邦政府发挥主导作用,由社会多方代表进行民主商议,然后由政府主要采取立法与拨款形式进行的。它充分尊重各州和高等院校的自主权,对我国高等教育政策改革可以提供有意义的经验借鉴。     

组建联邦大学:俄罗斯区域高等教育均衡发展新路径

21世纪以来,俄罗斯政府和高校基于国际竞争的压力,一直致力于高水平大学建设,先后提出发展创新型大学、组建联邦大学、创建大学综合体等策略,其中联邦大学的组建是俄罗斯实现区域高等教育一体化建设的新模式,它带给我们的启示是:区域高等教育一体化不仅需要良好的政策法律环境,也需要考虑区域间高等教育的均衡发展,同时,构建高校与社会力量合作的有效机制也极为重要。     

Preparing Students for College and Career in the United States: the Effects of Career-Themed Programs of Study on High School Performance

In the United States, education policy calls for every student to graduate from high school prepared for college and a career. National legislation has mandated programs of study (POS), which offer aligned course sequences spanning secondary and postsecondary education, blending standards-based academic and career and technical education (CTE) content and often including work-based learning opportunities. This study examined the effects of these career-themed POS on high school achievement outcomes in the United States. We used structural equations and an instrumental variable approach to test the effects of POS enrollment and participation in CTE course sequences on GPA and graduation. Results indicated that POS enrollment improved students’ probability of graduation by 11.3 % and that each additional CTE credit earned in POS increased their probability of graduation by 4 %. There were non-significant effects for high school GPA. These findings suggest that POS benefited students in terms of retention at no cost to their achievement.     

From Desegregation to Privatization: A Critical Race Policy Analysis of School Choice and Educational Opportunity in North Carolina

ABSTRACT

School choice policies and the movement to privatize education have become the currently preferred school reform methods on both the state and federal levels under the guise they will provide equal educational opportunities and access for all students. The 1954 school desegregation decision in Brown v. Board of Education arguably paved the way for equal educational opportunities, including school choice; however, we contend that the present-day school choice and privatization movements may be a part of a larger social, political, and legal cycle of inequality that has established residence in the American educational system for more than a century. We conduct a critical race theory policy analysis using a framework that has been effective in previous work with examining cyclical inequalities, the convergence-divergence-reclamation cycle (or C-D-R cycle). In this article, we are focusing our analysis on the state of North Carolina due to its complex legal and political history with school desegregation and its recent support for various school choice options and privatizing public education. We assert that the push for school choice and privatizing public education in North Carolina demonstrates a broader, recurring problem in American public schools-–creating progressive education laws and policies appearing to promote educational equity and opportunity and then regressing to policies supporting White privilege while maintaining the status quo of inequitable educational opportunities for historically underserved and minoritized students.     

社会公平视野下美国联邦政府教师教育改革政策的社会学分析

面对教育改革面临的诸多社会挑战,包括新冠疫情对美国教师队伍的冲击以及美国中小学教师队伍离职率高、缺乏多样性等问题,美国联邦政府将教师教育改革纳入其“重建更好”一揽子改革计划的重要组成部分。“公平”价值转向、从“缺陷”到“优势”的政策话语转变和弗雷泽三维社会公正理论构成了美国联邦政府教师改革政策的重要理论基础。美国联邦政府采取的教师教育改革措施主要包括:修改大学和高等教育的教师教育援助计划;实施“培植你自己”教师教育项目;完善一年制教师驻校培养模式;加大对少数族裔学校的资助力度;提高教师工资与专业发展水平。美国联邦政府的教师教育改革凸显了社会公平与多元种族和谐相处的政策价值导向,其政策机制体现了联邦政府协调角色的不断增强和市场化教师教育改革方式的适度消退。     

面向21世纪的美国高中教育改革探析

21世纪的美国社会对教育提出了更高的要求,为了应对知识经济和国际竞争带来的挑战,美国联邦政府和各州推动高中教育不断改革,通过提高学业标准等举措促进高中教育质量的提高,帮助高中生为中学后教育和职业生涯做好准备。     

Achievement Outcomes Among High School Graduates in College and Career Readiness Programs of Study

This study investigated the relationships between completing the high school portion of a college- and career-preparatory program of study and high school achievement outcomes in a large urban district in the West. Programs of study are secondary-to-postsecondary educational programs mandated by the federal legislation (Perkins IV) governing career and technical education (CTE) in the United States. At graduation, 49.5% of students in the sample who began a program of study had completed their programs. Using multiple regression models, we compared graduates who completed a program of study (hereafter POS completers) to graduates who completed a number of CTE courses in a specific occupational area (CTE concentrators), and to graduates who may have taken a CTE course or two during high school but were neither POS completers nor CTE concentrators (All Others). POS completers were more likely to (a) have a higher overall GPA, (b) have a higher CTE GPA, and (c) earn more STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) credits than All Other students. Compared with CTE concentrators, POS completers were more likely to (a) have a higher overall GPA and (b) earn more STEM credits. Qualitative data describe contextual elements of programs of study as offered in West District that could explain these results. Study results suggest that districts should consider implementing career-themed programs such as programs of study that enhance their existing college- and career-readiness initiatives. We also call for further study of the postsecondary and labor market outcomes associated with programs of study in order to generate a clearer picture of their potential to increase academic and technical achievement and promote successful student transitions to higher education and the workplace.     

Managing conduct: a comparative policy analysis of safe schools policies in Toronto,Canada and Buffalo,USA

Public school districts in Buffalo, USA and Toronto, Canada reviewed their safe schools policies in 2008. Revised Codes of Conduct are compared to earlier versions and each other, and a conceptual policy web is used to understand how local, state/provincial, national, and international influences affect local safe school policies. The comparison demonstrates that while influenced by international beliefs about unsafe schools and youth violence, affected by local social, economic, and historical contexts, and constrained by state/provincial and federal policies, local school districts are nevertheless able to exercise some agency. The study also highlights the importance of Ontario's Human Rights Commission as a policy actor, and suggests zero tolerance for non‐serious incidents may be practised in Buffalo schools. This finding and the continued practice of excluding students from schools in both districts as a discipline approach casts doubt on the sincerity of governments' commitments to evidence‐based policy in education at all levels. Contributions of the conceptual policy web for policy analysis are discussed.     

Living and Learning at the Intersection: Student Homelessness and Complex Policy Environments

In urban districts, homeless and highly mobile students are an important contributor to achievement disparities—and their numbers are rising. To date there has been little inquiry into how broader education and housing policies shape the schooling experiences of homeless and highly mobile families. Using semi-structured interviews with 132 key community stakeholders (parents, school social workers, other school staff, and community/service personnel) in one urban area, this study explored how families living at the policy intersection of the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act and federal rehousing policies, such as the HEARTH Act, experience the schooling process. These policies have important impacts on students; the McKinney-Vento Act provides them with a range of supports while recent federal policies such as the HEARTH Act are shifting where and how they are living. Taking a policy perspective and drawing insights from Lin’s network theory of social capital, the findings suggest that these policies both independently and concomitantly shape families’ life opportunities. Implications for schools, communities, and scholars are addressed.     

“The Equitable Powers of the Judge”: The Conflict Between No Child Left Behind and Court-Ordered Desegregation in Richmond County,Georgia

This article consists of a case study and policy analysis of a conflict between two federal mandates that arose during the initial implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act in 2002 in a southern school system, Richmond County, Georgia. The first part of the article documents the conflict, drawing on primary source documents and interviews with the school superintendent and school board attorney. A U.S. District court judge ruled that the 1972 court order that had mandated county-wide school desegregation was in conflict with No Child Left Behind's public school transfer policy and granted the county a one-year delay so that the school system could study the policy's likely effects. The U.S. Department of Education's response to the judge's ruling instigated a situation that led to a federal-local political disagreement, whose origins and resolution are described. In the article's second section, the author places these events into broader historical perspective, arguing that they reveal how federal policy in elementary and secondary education has shifted during the intervening decades since the Elementary and Secondary Education Act's enactment in 1965. The case highlights the changing federal-district relationship, the equitable implementation of the No Child Left Behind public school choice provision, and the nature of federal authority in education policy, and how it is currently being exercised by the Bush administration.     

Globalisation, Language and Education: A Comparative Study of the United States and Tanzania

Educational language choice has been one of the most provocative issues of the 20th century and continues to be a dominant issue at the turn of the new millennium. Efforts to naturalize English as the only suitable language for post primary school education persist in many African countries, including Tanzania. In the United States the campaign for "English only" in the schools is gaining momentum, despite the increasing multilingual population in the schools. Focusing on Tanzania and the United States, this article examines the fallacy of a monolingual, English only, policy in education. It examines the ethos surrounding the debate about the language of instruction, and considers some of the detrimental effects upon students of attempting to impose a monolingual policy. Finally, the paper suggests possible roles of educators and researchers in fostering international understanding of educational language issues as one aspect of the quest for global peace and social justice in the 21st century.     

The Other Canadian 'Mosaic'-'race' equity education in Ontario and British Columbia

While the influence of multicultural and anti-racist education has declined significantly in England and Wales since the late 1980s (as a result of the continuing impact of New Right thinking on education policy), this has not occurred in other countries. For example, in Canada successive federal administrations-irrespective of political hue-have remained firmly committed to Pierre Trudeau's (1971) pluralistic notion of the Canadian 'mosaic' and continued to endorse educational and social policies to promote 'race' and ethnic equality. Despite this, regional devolution has ensured that the responses to these federal initiatives at the provincial level have been varied and that developments in practice have been uneven. In this paper, we draw upon ethnographic data in an attempt to provide a sociological account of these regional differences. Focusing on the perspectives of a sample of 42 'active players' in the field of race equity education (i.e. teachers and youth workers, academics, university administrators, school board officials, equity officers, provincial government officials, consultants, grass-roots activists and representatives of various pressure groups), we compare and contrast the developments in theory, policy and practice in two Canadian provinces: Ontario and British Columbia. Throughout the paper, we underline the importance of grounded research, focusing on the part played by local political and historical conditions in both shaping and modifying the articulation and effects of federal policy.     

On ‘Politics,Markets, and American Schools‘

This paper traces the trajectory of New Labour education policy since the formation of the first New Labour government in 1997. During that time the policy discourse has moved from a position of individualized school improvement through competition, to one where there is an emphasis on ‘partnership’ and ‘collaboration’ as key mechanisms for improvement. We note, however, that ‘specialism’, ‘diversity’ and ‘choice’ are still key components of policy and that ‘partnership’ often denotes a deficit model, with more successful schools supporting (or in some cases taking over) less successful ones. Although there are the beginnings of a recognition that social class and social deprivation are factors which make achievement at school more problematic, generally New Labour policy has not attempted to alleviate the tendency to social polarization which has emerged as a result of school choice policies.     

日本教育反贫困的政策逻辑与实践路径

儿童贫困是世界各国面临的共同难题.日本自2013年起先后制定了《儿童贫困对策推进法》与《儿童贫困对策大纲》,建立了以教育为先、四位一体的综合政策体系,旨在通过教育赋能消除贫困代际传递.政策重点在于扩大学前教育及高中阶段教育机会,采用服务支持与现金支持结合的形式,政府主导、社会力量参与保障政策资源.纵向完善了贯穿学前教育...     

Education,employment and school religious denomination in Scotland in the 1950s

Newly available survey data allow the investigation of the educational and employment opportunities open to Roman Catholics in Scotland in the mid-20th century. Previous research has shown that Catholic disadvantage in education and the labour market in the early 20th century had weakened or vanished by the end of the century, and that the main change in that respect had come with the advent of comprehensive secondary schooling in the 1960s. However, the extension of Catholic secondary schooling started in the 1920s. The data used here allow an investigation of whether the Catholic disadvantage was mitigated by these earlier reforms, and thus allow an assessment of whether a selective school system was able to overcome an important dimension of social disadvantage. The data come from a cohort study of a representative sample of people born in 1936 (first surveyed in 1947 and followed up annually to 1963). Evidence is available on social background, on cognitive ability measured at age 11, on secondary school courses, on educational achievement after leaving school, and on social-class status at age 27. The conclusions are that the continued social disadvantage of Catholics was not due to any aspect of the school education which they had received.     

Public education matters: Reclaiming public education for the common good in a global era

This article argues that public education needs to be reclaimed to fulfill its role as a “democratising force” to address social and economic inequality and to respect and recognise diversity and difference. By analysing historical developments in federal policy, funding and economic contexts a case is developed to demonstrate that the role of the state has been dismantled and the public nature of education has been reduced. The factors responsible are articulated and discussed with particular reference to the impact of neo-liberal policy, the “marketisation” of education and new public management. Measures such as those taken by Education Queensland that support the development of school leaders and teachers to engage in research, development and critical debate are supported. International examples of how systems have revitalised and supported the public nature of education are discussed. These include more intelligent accountability systems that respect the professionalism of teachers and collaborative curriculum development strategies that engage with all, including those who are least powerful such as the students.     

The end of modernist approaches to school funding policy in Australia: a new rationale for funding with inclusive implications for all Australian schools?

The Australian Senate Employment, Workplace Relations and Education References Committee has been asked to examine the principles of Commonwealth Funding for schools, with particular emphasis on how these principles apply in meeting the current future needs of government and non‐government schools and whether they ensure efficiency in the allocation of school funding. The Committee will also investigate accountability arrangements including and through the Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs. This paper provides a critical discourse analysis of recent developments, tracking two themes: the construction of ‘efficiency and effectiveness’ in the allocation of school funding in Australia, and the impact of such a construction on a discourse of inclusive education for all schools in Australia. Through this analysis, it is argued that the current enquiry creates an opportunity for a substantial shift in focus — from funding government and non‐government schools in relation to government schools, to both government and non‐government schools — within a framework of presumptive equality and inclusion. It is also argued that extant policy, removing the substantial Catholic sector from its hitherto hybridized and separate funding position and bringing government and non‐government schools into sector‐specific funding competition with each other, realigns and rearticulates federal involvement in school funding policy areas that have been the traditional preserve of state governments and territories. In the process, responsibility for instilling and supporting inclusive educational practices is currently solely that of the states and territories where, in many cases, funding as well as inclusive education policies and programmes have been determined at local levels. The endorsement by the federal government of new principles in funding, as proposed here, linked with renewed requirements in relation to school access and participation, creates a space that potentially enables new strategies for inclusive education to be conjoined with funding allocation policy in Australian schools, to the economic and social benefits of all schools as well as the polity.     

美国联邦大学生资助政策的转变及其影响

美国联邦大学生资助政策是联邦高等教育政策的重要组成部分,学生资助政策扩大了高等教育入学机会,促进了高等教育的发展,提高了美国的国民素质和生产力。联邦学生资助政策在实践中不断进行适时地调整和变革,随着财政资助项目的变化,少数民族学生丧失了大学的信心吗？由于债务因素,改变了学生的学术计划吗？这些变化对本科教育质量意味着什么？本文试图探究美国联邦学生资助政策的转变对大学生入学和学习,以及教育质量的影响。