Using Charter Schools to Alleviate Racial Exclusion in Rural America: An Innovative Idea or a Trojan Horse?

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.     

Revisiting the Task/Achievement Analysis of Teaching in Neo-Liberal Times

In 1975 I published an article on Gilbert Ryle's task/achievement analysis of teaching ( Marshall, 1975 ), arguing that teaching was in Ryle's sense of the distinction a task verb. Philosophers of education were appealing to a distinction between tasks and achievements in their discussions of teaching, but they were often also appealing to Ryle's work on the analysis of task and achievement verbs. Many philosophers of education misunderstood Ryle's distinction as teaching was often claimed to be a term with both an achievement sense and a task sense. In terms of Ryle's distinction a verb could not have both a task and an achievement sense.
  It will be argued that in recent (neo-liberal) discussions of education, teaching is treated more as an achievement verb than as a task verb, contrary to my original claim that teaching was a task verb. 'Teaching' then would appear to have changed its meaning. If that is so, it is a function of altered approaches to teaching (and its teaching in Teacher Education), whereby unless something of value has been added then the teaching was not successful, or appropriate.     

Goals or horizons—the conundrum of progression in English: or a possible way of understanding formative assessment in English

This article examines how the principles of formative assessment might be applied to the curriculum subject of English. It takes as its starting point the problematic nature of progression in the subject and suggests that it may be better to understand progression as heading towards a horizon rather than a clearly defined goal. The article argues this by exploring the potential constraints of what might be considered goal models of progression and contrasts these with the affordances offered by those approaches that view progression as towards a horizon. In particular it suggests that, in order to understand how to progress, pupils need to acquire the guild subject knowledge of their teachers by being apprenticed into the same community of interpreters. The article situates this discussion within wider concerns about how teachers scaffold and regulate the learning process for their pupils.     

Organizational Learning: A Perspective from the Choice and Pattern of Sequential Modes of Foreign Market Entry

This study examines the choice, pattern, and timing of sequential modes of entry among multinational corporations investing in China. Specifically, we examine how earlier choices of entry modes influence decisions ahout subsequent modes of entry in a targeted host country. Six hypotheses are developed and tested using a longitudinal sample of 228 Fortune Global 500 firms that have had multiple entries in China between 1979 and 1996. The results provide supportive evidence of our hypotheses. Specifically, firms employed entry modes reflecting low commitment in early stages that were gradually escalated to higher commitment in subsequent decisions. This is consistent with the “incremental in vestment” approach that underlies traditional and contemporary theories and research in market entry decisions. An analysis of entry mode choices over time reveals different learning patterns: the logic of incremental investments (i.e., the escalation of low to high resource commitments); the logic of the “catch‐up” follower (i.e., relatively heavy commitment at later stages); and the logic of stable, consistent investments (i.e., the continuation of the same entry mode throughout the time period. There is moderate but inconclusive support for country of origin as a moderating factor. The implications of this study for theory and practice are discussed, as well as its limitations.