Schooling the System

Schooling the System
Author: Funké Aladejebi
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
Total Pages: 253
Release: 2021-03-05
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0228007046

In post–World War II Canada, black women’s positions within the teaching profession served as sites of struggle and conflict as the nation worked to address the needs of its diversifying population. From their entry into teachers’ college through their careers in the classroom and administration, black women educators encountered systemic racism and gender barriers at every step. So they worked to change the system. Using oral narratives to tell the story of black access and education in Ontario between the 1940s and the 1980s, Schooling the System provides textured insight into how issues of race, gender, class, geographic origin, and training shaped women’s distinct experiences within the profession. By valuing women’s voices and lived experiences, Funké Aladejebi illustrates that black women, as a diverse group, made vital contributions to the creation and development of anti-racist education in Canada. As cultural mediators within Ontario school systems, these women circumvented subtle and overt forms of racial and social exclusion to create resistive teaching methods that centred black knowledges and traditions. Within their wider communities and activist circles, they fought to change entrenched ideas about what Canadian citizenship should look like. As schools continue to grapple with creating diverse educational programs for all Canadians, Schooling the System is a timely excavation of the meaningful contributions of black women educators who helped create equitable policies and practices in schools and communities.

The State of the System

The State of the System
Author: Paul W. Bennett
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
Total Pages: 270
Release: 2020-09-23
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0228002273

Over the last fifty years, Canada's public schools have been absorbed into a modern education system that functions much like Max Weber's infamous iron cage. Crying out for democratic school-level reform, the system is now a centralized, bureaucratic fortress that, every year, becomes softer on standards for students, less accessible to parents, further out of touch with communities, and surprisingly unresponsive to classroom teachers. Exploring the nature of the Canadian education order in all its dimensions, The State of the System explains how public schools came to be so bureaucratic, confronts the critical issues facing kindergarten to grade 12 public schools in all ten provinces, and addresses the need for systemic reform. Going beyond a diagnosis of the stresses, strains, and ills present in the system, Paul Bennett proposes a bold plan to re-engineer schools on a more human scale as the first step in truly reforming public education. In place of school consolidation and managerialism, one-size-fits-all uniformity, limited school choice, and the "success-for-all" curriculum, Bennett advocates for a new set of priorities: decentralize school governance, deprogram education ministries and school districts, listen to parents and teachers, and revitalize local education democracy. Tackling the thorny issues besetting contemporary school systems in Canada, The State of the System issues a clarion call for more responsive, engaged, and accountable public schools.

The Death and Life of the Great American School System

The Death and Life of the Great American School System
Author: Diane Ravitch
Publisher: Basic Books (AZ)
Total Pages: 298
Release: 2010-03-02
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0465014917

Discusses how school choice, misapplied standards of accountability, the No Child Left Behind mandate, and the use of a corporate model have all led to a decline in public education and presents arguments for a return to strong neighborhood schools and quality teaching.

The Education of Blacks in the South, 1860-1935

The Education of Blacks in the South, 1860-1935
Author: James D. Anderson
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
Total Pages: 383
Release: 2010-01-27
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0807898880

James Anderson critically reinterprets the history of southern black education from Reconstruction to the Great Depression. By placing black schooling within a political, cultural, and economic context, he offers fresh insights into black commitment to education, the peculiar significance of Tuskegee Institute, and the conflicting goals of various philanthropic groups, among other matters. Initially, ex-slaves attempted to create an educational system that would support and extend their emancipation, but their children were pushed into a system of industrial education that presupposed black political and economic subordination. This conception of education and social order--supported by northern industrial philanthropists, some black educators, and most southern school officials--conflicted with the aspirations of ex-slaves and their descendants, resulting at the turn of the century in a bitter national debate over the purposes of black education. Because blacks lacked economic and political power, white elites were able to control the structure and content of black elementary, secondary, normal, and college education during the first third of the twentieth century. Nonetheless, blacks persisted in their struggle to develop an educational system in accordance with their own needs and desires.

Reinventing America's Schools

Reinventing America's Schools
Author: David Osborne
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 433
Release: 2017-09-05
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1632869918

From David Osborne, the author of Reinventing Government--a biting analysis of the failure of America's public schools and a comprehensive plan for revitalizing American education. In Reinventing America's Schools, David Osborne, one of the world's foremost experts on public sector reform, offers a comprehensive analysis of the charter school movements and presents a theory that will do for American schools what his New York Times bestseller Reinventing Government did for public governance in 1992. In 2005, when Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, the city got an unexpected opportunity to recreate their school system from scratch. The state's Recovery School District (RSD), created to turn around failing schools, gradually transformed all of its New Orleans schools into charter schools, and the results are shaking the very foundations of American education. Test scores, school performance scores, graduation and dropout rates, ACT scores, college-going rates, and independent studies all tell the same story: the city's RSD schools have tripled their effectiveness in eight years. Now other cities are following suit, with state governments reinventing failing schools in Newark, Camden, Memphis, Denver, Indianapolis, Cleveland, and Oakland. In this book, Osborne uses compelling stories from cities like New Orleans and lays out the history and possible future of public education. Ultimately, he uses his extensive research to argue that in today's world, we should treat every public school like a charter school and grant them autonomy, accountability, diversity of school designs, and parental choice.

The Case against Education

The Case against Education
Author: Bryan Caplan
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 518
Release: 2019-08-20
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0691201439

Why we need to stop wasting public funds on education Despite being immensely popular—and immensely lucrative—education is grossly overrated. Now with a new afterword by Bryan Caplan, this explosive book argues that the primary function of education is not to enhance students' skills but to signal the qualities of a good employee. Learn why students hunt for easy As only to forget most of what they learn after the final exam, why decades of growing access to education have not resulted in better jobs for average workers, how employers reward workers for costly schooling they rarely ever use, and why cutting education spending is the best remedy. Romantic notions about education being "good for the soul" must yield to careful research and common sense—The Case against Education points the way.

Black Lives Matter at School

Black Lives Matter at School
Author: Denisha Jones
Publisher: Haymarket Books
Total Pages: 309
Release: 2020-12-01
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1642595306

This inspiring collection of accounts from educators and students is “an essential resource for all those seeking to build an antiracist school system” (Ibram X. Kendi). Since 2016, the Black Lives Matter at School movement has carved a new path for racial justice in education. A growing coalition of educators, students, parents and others have established an annual week of action during the first week of February. This anthology shares vital lessons that have been learned through this important work. In this volume, Bettina Love makes a powerful case for abolitionist teaching, Brian Jones looks at the historical context of the ongoing struggle for racial justice in education, and prominent teacher union leaders discuss the importance of anti-racism in their unions. Black Lives Matter at School includes essays, interviews, poems, resolutions, and more from participants across the country who have been building the movement on the ground.

The Urban School System of the Future

The Urban School System of the Future
Author: Andy Smarick
Publisher: R&L Education
Total Pages: 198
Release: 2012-10-12
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1607094789

For more than two generations, the traditional urban school system—the district—has utterly failed to do its job: prepare its students for a lifetime of success. Millions and millions of boys and girls have suffered the grievous consequences. The district is irreparably broken. For the sake of today’s and tomorrow’s inner-city kids, it must be replaced. The Urban School System of the Future argues that vastly better results can be realized through the creation of a new type of organization that properly manages a city’s portfolio of schools using the revolutionary principles of chartering. It will ensure that new schools are regularly created, that great schools are expanded and replicated, that persistently failing schools are closed, and that families have access to an array of high-quality options. This new entity will focus exclusively on school performance, meaning, among other things, our cities can thoughtfully integrate their traditional public, charter public, and private schools into a single, high-functioning k-12 system. For decades, the district has produced the most heartbreaking results for already at-risk kids. The Urban School System of the Future explains how we can finally turn the tide and create dynamic, responsive, high-performing, self-improving urban school systems that fulfill the promise of public education.

The School Revolution

The School Revolution
Author: Ron Paul
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Total Pages: 167
Release: 2013-09-17
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1455577162

Twelve-term Texas Congressman, Presidential candidate, and #1 New York Times bestselling author Ron Paul returns with a highly provocative treatise about how we need to fundamentally change the way we think about America's broken education system in order to fix it. Whether or not you have children, you know that education is vital to the prosperity and future of our society. Yet our current system simply doesn't work. Parents feel increasingly powerless, and nearly half of Americans give our schools a grade of "C". Now, in his new book, Ron Paul attacks the problem head-on and provides a focused solution that centers on strong support for home schooling and the application of free market principles to the American education system. Examining the history of education in this country, Dr. Paul identifies where we've gone wrong, what we can do about it, and how we can change the way we think about education in order to provide a brighter future for Americans.