“Homeschooling Is Our Protest:” Educational Liberation for African American Homeschooling Families in Philadelphia,PA

As increasing numbers of researchers, parents, and youth are rethinking the traditional school system as the default educational option in the United States, homeschooling is not only growing in size but also in philosophical scope and demographic diversity. African Americans particularly have been one of the steadiest-growing homeschooling demographics. Among the few ethnographic accounts of black homeschooling families, youth perceptions tend to be overlooked. This article builds upon scholarship exploring racial injustices in education with new qualitative research: observations and interviews with 15 African American homeschooling families living in Philadelphia. This research reveals a variety of motivations undergirding African American families’ homeschooling decisions and perspectives, including commentary from youth homeschoolers. Previous research has critiqued homeschooling as a neoliberal exercise in privatization that entrenches the social reproduction of inequality, or operates as a destabilizing threat to public interest. Yet, findings from this study complicate these assessments by examining the ways African American homeschoolers enmesh themselves within educational reform conversations, some viewing homeschooling as a form of political protest.     

Authoring Student Voices on College Preparedness: A Case Study

African American students continue to attend college at much lower rates than their white, Asian, and Latino counterparts. Although researchers have examined this issue from a multitude of vantage points, the voices of students—particularly students of color—have been limited in this research. Using a counter-storytelling narrative approach, this study examines what urban African American high school students identify as the critical factors affecting their educational trajectory and college-going prospects. Findings from the current study reveal that students identified inadequate resources, tracking, lack of AP courses, and poor teachers as factors that influenced their high school to college transition. This study provides much needed insight into the discourse on school reform from the most important constituent in schools—the students.     

从"一州两市"到联邦计划:美国公立教育券简述

美国自1989年威斯康星州通过了全美第一个真正意义上的教育凭证计划以来,逐步形成了"一州两市"为主导的公立教育券格局。2004年,联邦教育券计划获得通过,这是美国教育券史上的一个飞跃。但是,美国公立教育券的推行依旧困难重重。教育券能否改善学业成绩、教育券的"公助私学"以及教育公平等问题仍是争论的焦点和进一步推行的阻力所在。     

Pedagogies of experience: a case of the African American male teacher

Numerous scholars have illustrated how African American teachers’ past experiences provide them a philosophical vision committed to teaching for social and educational change for African American students. This article draws from this body of work by looking at the diverse ways five African American male teachers used their past experiences to shape their vision for working with African American male students. However, this article also extends this body of work by illustrating that while the teachers in this study had similar commitments to working with African American males, their varied life experiences and social locations provided them different sources of practical and philosophical knowledge. These findings illustrate the diversity of experiences these teachers drew from, thus troubling the common sense discourses that essentialize African American male teachers as one-dimensional monolithic role models.     

Race and School Vouchers: Legal,Historical, and Political Contexts

This article investigates legal and political issues as they relate to school vouchers serving students of color. Specifically, we draw on the empirical, historical, and legal research to examine whether school vouchers will create a more equitable system of education for poor students of color. First, we present a history of vouchers, including how they were used to support segregation. We then discuss how vouchers as a broad opportunity for educational equity for poor children (of color) might present particular challenges in light of, first, the race-neutral approach in contemporary case law and state statutes and, second, the relatively small percentage of U.S. children taking advantage of such programs. Finally, we present empirical results regarding African American families’ support and use of vouchers and a discussion of the racial politics of school vouchers. We argue that unless voucher programs and proponents address race directly, operate on a larger scale, and attend to the broader social justice issues facing urban communities, it will be difficult for such policies to support the greater good for African American children or society as a whole.     

“I Never Knew There Were So Many Books About Us” Parents and Children Reading and Responding to African American Children’s Literature Together

The purpose of this study was to examine how the social practices of African American families—with children in grades K-2—changed as a result of participating in a family literacy program utilizing African American children’s literature. The families were exposed, through a series of workshops, to an abundance of children’s literature written by and about African Americans. Data sources included pre and post interviews conducted with parents, parental reading logs, and a reflective journal kept by the researcher. Findings suggested that parents increased the amount of time reading aloud to their children, passed along the information that they learned about African American children’s literature to family, friends, and co-workers, and began seeking out and developing an appreciation for quality African American children’s literature. This study was unique in that it involved collaboration between a public university, a local church, an African American sorority, and an innovative teacher recruitment initiative designed to increase the number of Black, male elementary school teachers.     

Parental practices and educational achievement: social class,race, and habitus

A large, nationally representative database of American elementary school students was used to quantitatively assess the complex ways in which race intersects with social class, affecting parenting strategies that in turn produce various educational outcomes among children. The determinants and consequences of parental practices associated with middle‐class families – what Lareau terms ‘concerted cultivation’ – among White and African American students were examined. The findings reveal that cultural differences in child‐rearing occur along class, race, and gender boundaries.     

教育券在高等教育领域实施刍议

教育券制度是一种教育投资体制的创新。透过对国外一些国家高等教育的教育券制度实施状况的分析,提出基于教育券的高等教育运行机制的基本模式,以期为我国高等教育经费制度的改革提供借鉴。     

美国教育券政策选择的两难困境、原因及启示

美国教育券政策面临的主要困境是不同政策群体在教育券政策目标认同、政策合法性和政策可行性上存在严重分歧。而根源在于不同政策理念的抵牾、不同利益集团的角力、三权分立政治体制的掣肘以及教育券政策自身局限性限制。美国的案例为我们确定教育券政策目标取向、选择什么样的政策方式和手段提供了借鉴。     

浅析教育券的公平与效率

教育券是对政府直接举办公立学校的传统教育体制的改革性尝试,它使政府、学校、学生及学生家长三方共同参与其中,从而不仅能使学校在竞争中提高办学质量,政府教育投资的效率得到提高,而且也体现了受教育的公平性.然而,教育券所产生的公平和效率仍是有限的,应用于中国实际必须注意"因地制宜".     

自由选择与教育公正--米尔顿·弗里德曼教育凭单计划述评

教育凭单计划是美国著名经济学家米尔顿·弗里德曼于二十世纪七十年代末提出的旨在弥补公立学校教育制度弊端的革新方案 ,对美国八九十年代以来的教育改革具有重大影响     

The Study of Bureaucracy in Urban Education: Bill Boyd on the Organizational Dynamics of Large-City School Systems

Educating American Africans boys has been a mixture of political rhetoric, educational pedagogy, and historical neglect. Although American African educators have produced several models for effectively educating Black boys, most of them are dismissed as too “radical” by White researchers who have little understanding or experience in observing these models in action. A brief review of educational approaches involving American African boys concludes that “epistemological racism” inhibits understanding how cultural differences influence learning among American African boys. The warrior method is one such model and is presented as just one alternative to traditional methods of educating Black boys.     

教育券制度对基础教育体制的影响

教育券是由美国经济学家米尔顿.弗里德曼于20世纪50年代首先提出,后传入我国,并在浙江长兴、湖北监利得到实行。本文主要通过对浙江长兴和湖北监利教育体制实行教育券制度改革进行考察,提出教育券对我国基础教育体制改革的积极影响,并提出现阶段在我国实施教育券制度还需要注意的几个问题。     

Early Head Start and African American families: Impacts and mechanisms of child outcomes

Persistent disparities exist between African American children and their European American counterparts across developmental domains. Early childhood intervention may serve to promote more positive outcomes among African American children. The current study examined whether and how the Early Head Start (EHS) program benefited African American children at the end of the program, when they were 36 months of age, as well as the parenting these children experienced and how this affected their developmental outcomes. The data show a wide and strong pattern of impacts of EHS for African American children and families. Path analysis yielded findings that suggested a direct effect of EHS on specific child outcomes and parenting processes within this group of African American families. Parental supportiveness and cognitive stimulation emerged as important direct influences on African American children's outcomes and as pathways through which Early Head Start benefits these children. These findings are discussed in the context of early childhood intervention practice.     

弗里德曼的教育券思想与浙江长兴的教育券实践

本首先对弗里德曼的教育券思想做一全面系统的介绍，并指出目前的研究对于该思想认识的几点不足之处。在此基础上从实施的背景、实施的模式、产生的影响三个方面对比我国长兴实行的教育券制度与弗里德曼所倡导的教育券制度之间的不同之处，从而说明长兴实行的教育券制度不是照搬照抄美国的教育券制度，而是立足于中国实际的、“洋为中用”的教育券制度。     

The impact of school choice and public policy on segregation: Evidence from Chile

Advocates argue that vouchers can make improved educational opportunity available to disadvantaged students. Critics contend that vouchers increase the risk of stratification. Researchers have found that Chile's voucher program has lead to increased socioeconomic school segregation. What has been overlooked, however, is segregation between schools within a sector and variation within private for-profit and non-profit school sectors. I find that public schools are more likely to serve disadvantaged students than private voucher schools. I also find that disadvantaged students are more segregated among private voucher schools than among public schools. While between and within sector segregation levels vary across private voucher school types, the differences are not always consistent with theory. The data also suggest that policies can either mitigate or exacerbate the stratifying effects of educational vouchers.     

美国大学课程成绩评定方法及其技术支撑

采用实例分析的方法,讨论美国大学课程成绩评定方式,并着重研究支持其实施的技术手段。以期以国际化的教育视野、课程质量标准和教学技术,推动中国大学课程成绩评定方式的变革,进而推动整个人才培养体系的改革。     

中国教育券本土化转向:实践变通与反思

教育券自在中国实践以来,理论界和实践界产生了不同的看法。"湖北监利变法"、长兴教育券等实践表明,我国教育券的实践在变通,即偏离原初意义上的"弗里德曼"式教育券,日益走向以"教育公平、社会效益、政治价值"为目标导向的变通发展道路。其"本土化"变通主要体现在扶持薄弱学校、资助贫困家庭学生以及支持中等职业教育的发展等方面。     

A Review of the Empirical Research on Private School Choice

Parents in the United States have had the legal right to choose the school their child attends for a long time. Traditionally, parental school choice took the form of families moving to a neighborhood with good public schools or self-financing private schooling. Contemporary education policies allow parents in many areas to choose from among public schools in neighboring districts, public magnet schools, public charter schools, private schools through the use of a voucher or tax-credit scholarship, virtual schools, or even homeschooling. The newest form of school choice is education savings accounts (ESAs), which make a portion of the funds that a state spends on children in public schools available to their parents in spending accounts that they can use to customize their children's education. Opponents claim that expanding private school choice yields no additional benefits to participants and generates significant harms to the students “left behind” in traditional public schools. A review of the empirical research on private school choice finds evidence that private school choice delivers some benefits to participating students—particularly in the area of educational attainment—and tends to help, albeit to a limited degree, the achievement of students who remain in public schools.