scholarly journals From Teacher Improvement to Teacher Turnover: Unintended Consequences of School Reform in Quincy, Massachusetts, 1872–1893

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-31
Author(s):  
Jeremy T. Murphy
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Public Schools ◽  
School Reform ◽  
School System ◽  
Teacher Turnover ◽  
Unintended Consequences ◽  
School Reforms ◽  
Teacher Improvement ◽  
Teacher Labor Market ◽  
Child Centered

Abstract The “Quincy Method” is widely considered a successful nineteenth-century school reform. Pioneered by Francis Parker in Quincy, Massachusetts in 1875, it fostered broad pedagogic change in an ordinary school system, transforming Quincy into a renowned hub of child-centered instruction. This article revisits the reform and explores its interaction with the Massachusetts teacher labor market. In a market characterized by low wages and an oversupply of teachers but few experienced, well-trained ones, teachers used Quincy's reform to obtain higher-paying, higher-status positions while municipalities used it to recruit competent applicants. Both practices jeopardized Quincy's cohesive system. Though the ensuing turnover may have brought progressive pedagogies to the mainstream, departing teachers frequently assumed positions outside public schools or in systems ill-structured to maintain their expertise. Accordingly, the article probes a celebrated reform's unintended consequences and contributes to scholarship on nineteenth-century progressive school reforms and women teachers.

Teachers’ Perspectives on the Learning and Work Environments Under the New Orleans School Reforms

2018 ◽  
Vol 47 (8) ◽  
pp. 502-515 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lindsay Bell Weixler ◽  
Douglas N. Harris ◽  
Nathan Barrett
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
School Reform ◽  
Hurricane Katrina ◽  
New Orleans ◽  
Student Outcomes ◽  
Work Environments ◽  
School Reforms ◽  
School Environments ◽  
Negative Impacts ◽  
Teachers Perspectives

New Orleans schools experienced drastic reforms after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. To examine teachers’ perspectives on these reforms, we surveyed 323 teachers who taught in New Orleans public schools before 2005 and in 2013–2014. Teachers directly compared the learning and work environments and student and teacher outcomes of their current schools to those of their pre-Katrina schools. Returning teachers perceived significant and generally positive changes in learning environments and student outcomes but mixed positive and negative changes in work environments. Despite improvements in school environments, the net result is that teachers became less satisfied with their jobs. These results show that intensive, sustained school reform can lead to significant changes, but these changes can have negative impacts on teachers.

scholarly journals ‘Post-truth’ schooling and marketized education: explaining the decline in Sweden's school quality

2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (5) ◽  
pp. 897-914 ◽  
Author(s):  
Magnus Henrekson ◽  
Johan Wennström
Keyword(s):  
Social Constructivism ◽  
School System ◽  
School Quality ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Grade Inflation ◽  
Small Extent ◽  
School Reforms ◽  
Child Centered ◽  
Constructivist Practices ◽  
Swedish School

AbstractThe Swedish school system suffers from profound problems with teacher recruitment and retention, knowledge decline, and grade inflation. Absenteeism is high, and psychiatric disorders have risen sharply among Swedish pupils. In this pioneering analysis of the consequences of combining institutionalized social constructivism with an extensive marketization of education, we suggest that these problems are to no small extent a result of an unlikely combination of a postmodern view of truth and knowledge, the ensuing pedagogy of child-centered discovery, and market principles. We show how the stipulated view of truth and knowledge and the design of the system impacts on the incentives for the various agents involved: pupils, parents, teachers, principals, school owners, the municipality, the central government, and, ultimately, the general public. Our study implies that caution is necessary for countries that have a tradition of social-constructivist practices in their education systems and are considering implementing or expanding market-based school reforms.

scholarly journals Contending with school reform

Focaal ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 2018 (82) ◽  
pp. 94-108
Author(s):  
Mathilde Lind Gustavussen
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
Charter Schools ◽  
School Reform ◽  
Education Reform ◽  
New Orleans ◽  
School System ◽  
Racial Politics ◽  
The Social ◽  
Neoliberal Policies ◽  
Us Cities

This article presents a study of state-imposed neoliberal education reform and resistance in post-Katrina New Orleans. In Hurricane Katrina’s aftermath, the city’s school system was dramatically reformed with most of its public schools replaced by privately administered “charter schools.” The article examines the social contradictions created by this reform and characterizes how the city’s education activists articulate their resistance to education privatization. Situating the reform within New Orleans’s post-Katrina neoliberal reconfiguration, it analyzes how simultaneous processes of education privatization and racial dispossession have made the reform lack popular legitimacy. The article concludes by considering how the neoliberal policies implemented after the storm were conditioned by race, arguing that racial politics should be considered fundamental, rather than adjacent, to the study of neoliberalization in US cities.

scholarly journals Two Models of Teacher Accountability: Toward an Explanation for the Disappointing Results of Some Market-Based School Reforms

2015 ◽  
Vol 50 (10) ◽  
pp. 1365-1395
Author(s):  
Lenahan O’Connell ◽  
Juita-Elena (Wie) Yusuf
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
School Choice ◽  
School Reform ◽  
School Reforms ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Social ◽  
Full Explanation ◽  
Teacher Work ◽  
Applied Social Science ◽  
And Performance

Accountability is a pivotal concern of applied social science. This article asserts that in many situations a full explanation of the sources of accountability requires the application of concepts from sociology and management science, in addition to those from the market-based approaches inspired by economics. The article describes the market-based approach to accountability exemplified by agency theory, applies it to school reform and derives several predictions about the likely success of market-based approaches to school reform, and documents the lack of evidence supporting the contention that programs for school choice will markedly improve teacher work effort and performance (as measured by student test scores). The social actor approach, rooted in sociological and management theories, is introduced and used to describe the pressures and norms operating in the public schools that foster accountability even in the absence of competition between schools for students. The article concludes with some implications for practice and research on public sector accountability.

scholarly journals Reformy szkolne w pierwszej połowie XIX wieku

2019 ◽  
pp. 71-81
Author(s):  
Lidia Pawelec
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Social Consequences ◽  
School Reforms ◽  
Comprehensive Description ◽  
Russian Part ◽  
Present Text

The present text outlines the school reforms carried out in the first half of the nineteenth century. As the timeframe suggests, these reforms were launched and implemented by the then authorities of the Duchy of Warsaw and the Russian authorities administering the Russian part of partitioned Poland. The author attempts to indicate the most important goals and assumptions of thereforms as well as their immediate educational and social consequences. The text is far from being a comprehensive description of the problem but rather serves as an introduction to the substance of the issue under investigation and its political and economic conditioning.

Green Schools: Strengthening Our Economy by Investing in Our Children

2009 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 255-257
Author(s):  
John M. Weekes
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
Teacher Turnover ◽  
Energy Use ◽  
The United States ◽  
School Design ◽  
Percent Reduction ◽  
Green Schools ◽  
History Of ◽  
American Schools ◽  
Student Absenteeism

An architect looks at the history of school design and construction in the United States, which by 2008 had approximately 97,000 public schools holding 54.3 million students and five million teachers. About 73 percent of the schools were built prior to 1969. A study has shown that Green Schools can produce a 30–50 percent reduction in energy use, 35 percent reduction in carbon dioxide, a 40 percent reduction in water use, and cut 70 percent in solid waste. Further, student absenteeism and teacher turnover were reduced and productivity increased three percent. If all American schools were Green, the country would save nearly $1 trillion in the next 10 years.

Ambition, the Canon, and the Arnolds

1998 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 443-462
Author(s):  
Dorothy Mermin
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Elementary Schools ◽  
Public Schools ◽  
English Poetry ◽  
Literary Canon ◽  
Professional Careers ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Professional Educator ◽  
Cultural Efficacy ◽  
English Speaking

The idea of a literary canon is inextricably connected in English-speaking countries with the Arnolds: Thomas Arnold, headmaster of Rugby, who was credited with revivifying the classical curriculum while recreating the great public schools, and his eldest son, Matthew, the most influential nineteenth-century spokesman for the moral, spiritual, social, and cultural efficacy of a canon widened to include English poetry and available, at least in theory, to every literate English person. Like his father, Matthew Arnold was a professional educator: he earned his living as an inspector of schools, mostly elementary schools for the poor. For both Arnolds, the canon is the curriculum at the heart of the pedagogical enterprise; and the grand, almost mystical power they attached to it spilled over onto the pedagogue. Their professional careers entailed considerable sacrifice of worldly ambition, but the power of pedagogy as they conceived it became their object and their reward.

Do charter schools alleviate the negative effect of teacher turnover?

2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karlerik Naslund ◽  
Branco Ponomariov
Keyword(s):  
Student Achievement ◽  
Public Schools ◽  
School Districts ◽  
Charter Schools ◽  
Teacher Turnover ◽  
Public School Districts ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Labor Practices ◽  
Negative Effect ◽  
Using Data

Using data on charter and public school districts in Texas, we test the hypothesis that the labor practices in charter schools, in particular their ability to easily dismiss poorly performing teachers, diminishes the negative effect of teacher turnover on student achievement and graduation rates in comparison to public schools. We find some support for this hypothesis, and discuss implications for theory and practice.

They Schools: Culturally Relevant Pedagogy under Siege

2017 ◽  
Vol 119 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Camika Royal ◽  
Simone Gibson
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
Cultural Competence ◽  
School Reform ◽  
Culturally Relevant Pedagogy ◽  
School Environment ◽  
Culturally Relevant ◽  
Caste System ◽  
Academic Excellence ◽  
Sociopolitical Consciousness ◽  
Relevant Pedagogy

Background/Context Culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP) represents educators who work toward academic excellence, cultural competence, and sociopolitical awareness. Although some profess to embrace CRP, many educators neglect sociopolitical consciousness. Socio-politically unconscious and/or racially dysconscious educators cannot engage their students in sociopolitical consciousness. For a multitude of reasons, including neoliberal school reform, educators may reduce CRP to cultural celebration, trivialization, essentializing, substituting cultural for political analysis, or other compromised pedagogies. Purpose In this article, we argue that neoliberal school reform models employing hyperaccountability and hyperstandardization, replete with their demands on educators of conformity and silence, obfuscate teachers as thinkers, disempowering the efforts of culturally relevant educators and making high test scores the sole focus of schooling. We also argue that CRP is even more needed now, especially its focuses on cultural competence and sociopolitical consciousness, given the recent highly publicized murders of Black youth (e.g., Freddie Gray, Jordan Davis, Trayvon Martin, and Renisha McBride). Setting and Population This article explores CRP in Philadelphia's public schools before and after the state takeover in 2001 and the proliferation of hyperstandardization, hyperaccountability, and neoliberal school reform. Research Design: This article is conceptual. It uses the historical narratives of Black educators to support the conceptual argument. Conclusion Though it is a professional gamble, it is possible to be a culturally relevant educator within the hyperstandardized, hyperaccountable neoliberal school environment. Such educators must be highly skilled masters of their craft, strategic, and subversive, adhering to all tenets of CRP and mandated curricula. This tension could affect educators’ professional standing, income, and job security. However, neglecting emancipatory pedagogies under the joint siege of hyperaccountability, hyperstandardization, and neoliberal school reform reifies the American racial, cultural, and socioeconomic caste system, and it does so through our schools. Unless educators risk subversively employing CRP, students from historically marginalized communities will continue to appear as standardized failures.

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