In 1989, Chicago began an experiment with radical decentralization of power and authority. Intertwining extensive narratives and rigorous quantitative analyses, this book tells the story of what happened to Chicagos elementary schools in the first four years of this reform. }In 1989, Chicago began an experiment with radical decentralization of power and authority. This book tells the story of what happened to Chicagos elementary schools in the first four years of this reform. Implicit in this reform is the theory that expanded local democratic participation would stimulate organizational change within schools, which in turn would foster improved teaching and learning. Using this theory as a framework, the authors marshal massive quantitative and qualitative data to examine how the reform actually unfolded at the school level.With longitudinal case study data on 22 schools, survey responses from principals and teachers in 269 schools, and supplementary system-wide administrative data, the authors identify four types of school politics: strong democracy, consolidated principal power, maintenance, and adversarial. In addition, they classify school change efforts as either systemic or unfocused. Bringing these strands together, the authors determine that, in about a third of the schools, expanded local democratic participation served as a strong lever for introducing systemic change focused on improved instruction. Finally, case studies of six actively restructuring schools illustrate how under decentralization the principals role is recast, social support for change can grow, and ideas and information from external sources are brought to bear on school change initiatives. Few studies intertwine so completely extensive narratives and rigorous quantitative analyses. The result is a complex picture of the Chicago reform that joins the politics of local control to school change.This volume is intended for scholars in the fields of urban education, public policy, sociology of education, anthropology of education, and politics of education. Comprehensive and descriptive, it is an engaging text for graduate students and upper-level undergraduates. Local, state, and federal policymakers who are concerned with urban education will find new and insightful material. The book should be on reading lists and in professional development seminars for school principals who want to garner community support for change and for school community leaders who want more responsive local institutions. Finally, educators, administrators, and activists in Chicago will appreciate this detailed analysis of the early years of reform.

The process of understanding a text from the narrator s point of view is crucial for the tasks of interpreting and translating the Bible. If the translator s understanding of a narrative from the narrator s point of view is erroneous, then the whole process of translating the message into another language may also fall into error. This poses Bible translators a difficult challenge: How can we understand the narrator s point of view of the biblical stories which are culturally, geographically, and historically remote from our own? Understanding a text from the narrator s point of view must precede the translation process. In this work Hankore presents an argument for the intended utterance of Genesis 28:10 35:15 before proposing in brief how to translate it. By following this process, Hankore shows that a correct understanding of the concept of the ancient Israelite vow in the framework of a social institution is fundamental to reading and translating Genesis 28:10 35:15, and goes on to show how this same votive framework assist an explanation of the relevance of Genesis 34 to the Jacob story.

Mapping Corporate Education Reform outlines and analyzes the complex relationships between policy actors that define education reform within the current, neoliberal context. Using social network analysis and powerful data visualization tools, the authors identify the problematic roots of these relationships and describe their effects both in the U.S. and abroad. Through a series of case studies, each chapter reveals how powerful actors, from billionaire philanthropists to multinational education corporations, leverage their resources to implement free market mechanisms within public education. By comprehensively connecting the dots of neoliberal education reforms, the authors reveal not only the details of the reforms themselves, but the relationships that enable actors to amass troubling degrees of political power through network governance. A critical analysis of the actors and interests behind education policies, Mapping Corporate Education Reform uncovers the frequently obscured operations of educational governance and offers key insights into education reform at the present moment.

A comprehensive analysis of the astonishing changes that elevated the Chicago public school system from one of the worst in the nation to one of the most improved. How a City Learned to Improve Its Schools tells the story of the extraordinary thirty-year school reform effort that changed the landscape of public education in Chicago. Acclaimed educational researcher Anthony S. Bryk joins five coauthors directly involved in Chicago’s education reform efforts, Sharon Greenberg, Albert Bertani, Penny Sebring, Steven E. Tozer, and Timothy Knowles, to illuminate the many factors that led to this transformation of the Chicago Public Schools. Beginning in 1987, Bryk and colleagues lay out the civic context for reform, outlining the systemic challenges such as segregation, institutional racism, and income and resource disparities that reformers grappled with as well as the social conflicts they faced. Next, they describe how fundamental changes occurred at every level of schooling: enhancing classroom instruction; organizing more engaged and effective local school communities; strengthening the preparation, recruitment, and support of teachers and school leaders; and sustaining an ambitious evidence-based campaign to keep the public informed on the progress of key reform initiatives and the challenges still ahead. The power of this capacity building is validated by unprecedented increases in benchmarks such as graduation rates and college matriculation. This riveting account introduces key actors within the schools, city government, and business community, and the partnerships they forged. It also reveals the surprising yet essential role of Chicago's innovative information infrastructure in aligning disparate initiatives. In making clear how elements such as advocacy, civic capacity, improvement research, and strong democracy contributed to large-scale progress in the system's 600-plus schools, the book highlights the greater lessons that the Chicago story offers for system improvement overall.

"Goldring and Berends provide practical and strategic counsel on what data should be collected, how data can be productively analyzed, and who should be involved. Their book positions this advice deftly in research on leadership and organizational change. As school leaders confront the challenges of meeting the needs of all students through continuous school improvement, they will find this book an essential resource." —Willis D. Hawley, Professor of Education and Public Policy University of Maryland A comprehensive, practical guide to using data effectively for school improvement! For any educator focused on enhancing student outcomes and schoolwide performance results, knowing how to collect appropriate data isn′t necessarily enough. Understanding how to analyze and use data as a pathway to improvement is the key. This comprehensive, hands-on guidebook discusses the essential statistical and assessment information that principals need to know, what types of data to look at, how to analyze the information, and how to use what they′ve learned to make critical choices for teaching and learning. Full of examples and recommendations, this book illustrates proactive strategies for collecting data and generating change while focusing on other measures of learning and school organization, including data about professional development, allocation of resources, family involvement, and community standards. Part of the Leadership for Learning series, this resource: Provides leaders with support in developing and sustaining schoolwide capacity for continuous improvement Links data-based decision making with accountability issues and shared mission and goals Includes numerous examples and cases, a glossary, school improvement template, sample forms, and data tools Leading With Data demonstrates how administrators can apply knowledgeable analysis of meaningful data for continuous, sustainable, and significant school improvement.

This brief, interpretive history of American schooling focuses on the evolving relationship between education and social change. Like its predecessors, this new edition investigates the impact of social forces such as industrialization, urbanization, immigration and cultural conflict on the development of schools and other educational institutions. It also examines the various ways that schools have contributed to social change, particularly in enhancing the status and accomplishments of certain social groups and not others. Detailed accounts of the experiences of women and minority groups in American history consider how their lives have been affected by education. Changes in this new edition include the following: A more thorough treatment of key concepts such as globalization, human capital, social capital, and cultural capital. Enhanced attention to issues of diversity throughout. Greater thematic coherence as a result of dividing chapter 6 into two chapters, the first focusing on the postwar period and emphasizing the themes of equity and social justice and the second focusing on human capital in education, highlighting the standards movement, federal policy changes and neo-liberal reform. A revision of several focal point discussions for greater clarity and thematic releance. Update discussions of recent changes in educational politics, finance and policy, especially the troubles presently facing No Child Left Behind (NCLB).

For generations, visitors, journalists, and social scientists alike have asserted that Chicago is the quintessentially American city. Indeed, the introduction to "The New Chicago" reminds us that to know America, you must know Chicago. The contributors boldly announce the demise of the city of broad shoulders and the transformation of its physical, social, cultural, and economic institutions into a new Chicago. In this wide-ranging book, twenty scholars, journalists, and activists, relying on data from the 2000 census and many years of direct experience with the city, identify five converging forces in American urbanization which are reshaping this storied metropolis. The twenty-six essays included here analyze Chicago by way of globalization and its impact on the contemporary city; economic restructuring; the evolution of machine-style politics into managerial politics; physical transformations of the central city and its suburbs; and race relations in a multicultural era. In elaborating on the effects of these broad forces, contributors detail the role of eight significant racial, ethnic, and immigrant communities in shaping the character of the new Chicago and present ten case studies of innovative governmental, grassroots, and civic action. Multifaceted and authoritative, "The New Chicago" offers an important and unique portrait of an emergent and new Windy City.

School improvement has become a dominant feature of educational reform in many countries. The pressure upon schools to improve performance has resulted in a wide-range of improvement programmes and initiatives which can provide both inspiration and advice to everyone involved in school improvement. This book draws together the most effective school improvement projects from around the world in one comprehensive text, including detailed comparative analysis of a wide variety of initiatives. Drawing on examples from the UK, the USA, Canada, South Africa and Australia this book gives both an international snapshot and a coherent synthesis of initiatives that have given achievable results.

From one of the foremost authorities on education in the United States, former U.S. assistant secretary of education, “whistle-blower extraordinaire” (The Wall Street Journal), author of the best-selling The Death and Life of the Great American School System (“Important and riveting”—Library Journal), The Language Police (“Impassioned . . . Fiercely argued . . . Every bit as alarming as it is illuminating”—The New York Times), and other notable books on education history and policy—an incisive, comprehensive look at today’s American school system that argues against those who claim it is broken and beyond repair; an impassioned but reasoned call to stop the privatization movement that is draining students and funding from our public schools. ​In Reign of Error, Diane Ravitch argues that the crisis in American education is not a crisis of academic achievement but a concerted effort to destroy public schools in this country. She makes clear that, contrary to the claims being made, public school test scores and graduation rates are the highest they’ve ever been, and dropout rates are at their lowest point. ​She argues that federal programs such as George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind and Barack Obama’s Race to the Top set unreasonable targets for American students, punish schools, and result in teachers being fired if their students underperform, unfairly branding those educators as failures. She warns that major foundations, individual billionaires, and Wall Street hedge fund managers are encouraging the privatization of public education, some for idealistic reasons, others for profit. Many who work with equity funds are eyeing public education as an emerging market for investors. ​Reign of Error begins where The Death and Life of the Great American School System left off, providing a deeper argument against privatization and for public education, and in a chapter-by-chapter breakdown, putting forth a plan for what can be done to preserve and improve it. She makes clear what is right about U.S. education, how policy makers are failing to address the root causes of educational failure, and how we can fix it. ​For Ravitch, public school education is about knowledge, about learning, about developing character, and about creating citizens for our society. It’s about helping to inspire independent thinkers, not just honing job skills or preparing people for college. Public school education is essential to our democracy, and its aim, since the founding of this country, has been to educate citizens who will help carry democracy into the future.

The International Handbook of Leadership for Learning brings together chapters by distinguished authors from thirty-one countries in nine different regions of the world. The handbook contains nine sections that provide regional overviews; a consideration of theoretical and contextual aspects; system and policy approaches that promote leadership for learning with a focus on educating school leaders for learning and the role of the leader in supporting learning. It also considers the challenge of educating current leaders for this new perspective, and how leaders themselves can develop leadership for learning in others and in their organisations, especially in diverse contexts and situations. The final chapter considers what we now know about leadership for learning and looks at ways this might be further improved in the future. The book provides the reader with an understanding of the rich contextual nature of learning in schools and the role of school leaders and leadership development in promoting this. It concludes that the preposition ‘for’ between the two readily known and understood terms of ‘leadership’ and ‘learning’ changes everything as it foregrounds learning and complexifies, rather than simplifies, what that word may mean. Whereas common terms such as ‘instructional leadership’ reduce learning to ‘outcomes’, leadership for learning embraces a much wider, developmental view of learning.