Public Schools in Marketized Environments: Shifting Incentives and Unintended Consequences of Competition‐Based Educational Reforms

2005 ◽  
Vol 111 (4) ◽  
pp. 464-486 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Lubienski
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
Unintended Consequences ◽  
Educational Reforms

Making Africa Legible

2016 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 61-78
Author(s):  
Caitlyn Bolton
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
Generation Gap ◽  
Educational Reforms ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
African Languages ◽  
Language Standardization ◽  
Children And Parents ◽  
British Colonial ◽  
European Colonialism ◽  
Local Languages

European colonialism and missionization in Africa initiated a massive orthographic shift across the continent, as local languages that had been written for centuries in Arabic letters were forcibly re-written in Roman orthography through language standardization reforms and the introduction of colonial public schools. Using early missionary grammars promoting the “conversion of Africa from the East,” British colonial standardization policies and educational reforms, as well as petitions and newspaper editorials by the local Swahilispeaking community, I trace the story of the Romanization of Swahili in Zanzibar, the site chosen as the standard Swahili dialect. While the Romanization of African languages such as Swahili was part of a project of making Africa legible to Europeans during the colonial era, the resulting generation gap as children and parents read different letters made Africa more illegible to Africans themselves.

Performance-Based Staff Layoffs in the Public Schools: Implementation and Outcomes

1980 ◽  
Vol 50 (2) ◽  
pp. 214-233 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Moore Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
School Districts ◽  
Unintended Consequences ◽  
Performance Criteria ◽  
Local School ◽  
The Public ◽  
Teacher Layoffs

In response to declining school enrollments, some local school districts are using performance criteria to determine the order of teacher layoffs. In this article, Susan Moore Johnson reviews efforts to implement such practices in four local school districts. The findings of the study indicate that performance-based layoff policies are not easily translated into practice. Furthermore, interviews with principals in these districts suggest that the unintended consequences of performance-based layoff practices may limit their educational worth.

Unintended Consequences of Nevada’s Ninety-Percent Prevailing Wage Rule

2020 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 166-185 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin Duncan ◽  
Jeffrey Waddoups
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
Policy Change ◽  
Unintended Consequences ◽  
Wage Policy ◽  
Construction Costs ◽  
Clark County ◽  
Wage Rates ◽  
Prevailing Wage ◽  
Before And After ◽  
The Cost

In 2015, the State of Nevada reduced prevailing wage rates on education-related construction to 90 percent of the applicable rate for other state-funded construction. The examination of projects built for Clark County School District between 2009 and 2108 indicates that Nevada’s wage policy has no statistically significant effect on school construction costs or bid competition, taking into consideration bids placed before and after the 2015 policy change. However, prevailing wage reductions on education projects motivated union contractors to pursue other opportunities as Nevada’s building industry expanded after 2015. Reduced participation in district bidding by union contractors contributed to a 25-percent overall decrease in bid competition and a 20-percent increase in bid costs following the 2015 policy change. While the goal of the 90-percent prevailing wage rule was to reduce the cost of building public schools, unforeseen consequences contributed to decreased bid competition and increased construction costs.

scholarly journals The Decline and Persistence of the Old Boy: Private Schools and Elite Recruitment 1897 to 2016

2017 ◽  
Vol 82 (6) ◽  
pp. 1139-1166 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aaron Reeves ◽  
Sam Friedman ◽  
Charles Rahal ◽  
Magne Flemmen
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
Labor Force ◽  
Private Schools ◽  
Educational Reforms ◽  
Biographical Data ◽  
Elite Schools ◽  
Elite Recruitment ◽  
Elite Formation ◽  
Over Time ◽  
Propulsive Power

We draw on 120 years of biographical data ( N = 120,764) contained within Who’s Who—a unique catalogue of the British elite—to explore the changing relationship between elite schools and elite recruitment. We find that the propulsive power of Britain’s public schools has diminished significantly over time. This is driven in part by the wane of military and religious elites, and the rise of women in the labor force. However, the most dramatic declines followed key educational reforms that increased access to the credentials needed to access elite trajectories, while also standardizing and differentiating them. Notwithstanding these changes, public schools remain extraordinarily powerful channels of elite formation. Even today, the alumni of the nine Clarendon schools are 94 times more likely to reach the British elite than are those who attended any other school. Alumni of elite schools also retain a striking capacity to enter the elite even without passing through other prestigious institutions, such as Oxford, Cambridge, or private members clubs. Our analysis not only points to the dogged persistence of the “old boy,” but also underlines the theoretical importance of reviving and refining the study of elite recruitment.

scholarly journals The Decline and Persistence of the Old Boy: Private Schools and Elite Recruitment 1897 to 2016

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aaron Reeves
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
Labor Force ◽  
Private Schools ◽  
Educational Reforms ◽  
Biographical Data ◽  
Elite Schools ◽  
Elite Recruitment ◽  
Elite Formation ◽  
Over Time ◽  
Propulsive Power

We draw on 120 years of biographical data (N = 120,764) contained within Who’s Who—a unique catalogue of the British elite—to explore the changing relationship between elite schools and elite recruitment. We find that the propulsive power of Britain’s public schools has diminished significantly over time. This is driven in part by the wane of military and religious elites, and the rise of women in the labor force. However, the most dramatic declines followed key educational reforms that increased access to the credentials needed to access elite trajectories, while also standardizing and differentiating them. Notwithstanding these changes, public schools remain extraordinarily powerful channels of elite formation. Even today, the alumni of the nine Clarendon schools are 94 times more likely to reach the British elite than are those who attended any other school. Alumni of elite schools also retain a striking capacity to enter the elite even without passing through other prestigious institutions, such as Oxford, Cambridge, or private members clubs. Our analysis not only points to the dogged persistence of the “old boy,” but also underlines the theoretical importance of reviving and refining the study of elite recruitment.

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.

scholarly journals The impact of teacher attitudes and beliefs about large-scale assessment on the use of provincial data for instructional change

2016 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
pp. 109 ◽  
Author(s):  
Derek T. Copp
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
School Improvement ◽  
Teacher Attitudes ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Unintended Consequences ◽  
Instructional Change ◽  
Assessment Data ◽  
Large Scale Assessment ◽  
Scale Assessment ◽  
The Impact

In the quest to improve measured educational outcomes national governments across the OECD and beyond have instituted large-scale assessment (LSA) policies in their public schools. Controversy almost universally follows the implementation of such testing, related to such topics as: a) the uncertain quality of the tests themselves as psychometrics measures; b) the uses to which the data can and should be put; c) the unintended consequences of test-preparation activities and resulting score inflation; and d) the effects of high-stakes tests on students. Debates of this nature naturally involve and impact the attitudes and opinions of teachers related to their collection and use of these data. This paper examines the impact of these attitudes using both the qualitative and quantitative data from a large-scale research study on Canadian provincial assessment. Data were collected from nation-wide teacher surveys as well as interviews with teachers, administrators and district-level staff. Results show that teacher attitudes about these assessments are strongly correlated to classroom-level instructional change. Three attitudinal factors have significant effects on teaching (to) the provincial curricula, yet none significantly affects the use of less constructive instructional strategies also known as ‘teaching to the test.’ Specifically, the belief that large-scale assessment data have more appropriate uses and the belief that these data could lead to school improvement were significant factors in facilitating change. The implications of these findings are profound in that large-scale assessment policy cannot succeed even by its own standards without more buy in from teaching professionals.

scholarly journals Making Africa Legible

2016 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 61-78
Author(s):  
Caitlyn Bolton
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
Generation Gap ◽  
Educational Reforms ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
African Languages ◽  
Language Standardization ◽  
Children And Parents ◽  
British Colonial ◽  
European Colonialism ◽  
Local Languages

European colonialism and missionization in Africa initiated a massive orthographic shift across the continent, as local languages that had been written for centuries in Arabic letters were forcibly re-written in Roman orthography through language standardization reforms and the introduction of colonial public schools. Using early missionary grammars promoting the “conversion of Africa from the East,” British colonial standardization policies and educational reforms, as well as petitions and newspaper editorials by the local Swahilispeaking community, I trace the story of the Romanization of Swahili in Zanzibar, the site chosen as the standard Swahili dialect. While the Romanization of African languages such as Swahili was part of a project of making Africa legible to Europeans during the colonial era, the resulting generation gap as children and parents read different letters made Africa more illegible to Africans themselves.

Assessing the efficiency of secondary schools in Chile: a data envelopment analysis

2016 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 306-328 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Andres Munoz ◽  
Juan Pablo Queupil
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
Data Envelopment Analysis ◽  
Secondary Schools ◽  
Student Performance ◽  
Educational Resources ◽  
Educational Reforms ◽  
Data Envelopment ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Over Time

Purpose The purpose of this paper was to evaluate the efficiency of secondary education schools in Chile. Since the early 1980s, several educational reforms have been passed with the main objective of improving the quality, equity and efficiency of the Chilean education system. This has initiated a debate about the efficient use of public educational resources. In response, this study provides insights into identifying the most efficient types of schools based on a set of different inputs and outputs. Design/methodology/approach This quantitative research study used data envelopment analysis (DEA), which estimates a single index of efficiency to identify schools performing at superior levels compared to other schools with similar characteristics. Two sets of models are created for evaluating efficiency. The first set of analyses provides a longitudinal efficiency comparison based on student performance on two national standardized tests as outputs, and the second model incorporates socioeconomic characteristics of students attending different schools as inputs in the efficiency estimation. Findings Based on the longitudinal models, it was found that private schools are more efficient and more consistent in maintaining their efficiency over time than other types of schools. In addition, when accounting for socioeconomic factors, publicly subsidized schools were more efficient than public schools. Practical implications The Chilean parliament is currently discussing new educational reforms that focus on more efficient use of educational resources to improve educational quality and equity. The results provided in this study generate useful evidence for policymakers and other stakeholders regarding school efficiency and the appropriate allocation of public resources to support diverse students served by different types of secondary educational institutions. Social implications Education is a key factor affecting social mobility and socioeconomic improvement of societies. Schools are called upon to improve their performance to promote these social goals. Accordingly, more novel forms of research on efficiency are necessary to assess how well schools are transforming their inputs into performance outputs. Originality/value This study provides a longitudinal analysis of educational efficiency using DEA with a national data set of Chilean schools to evaluate how consistent the schools are in maintaining their levels of efficiency over time. In addition, one DEA model accounts for a social “vulnerability” index at the student level to better understand how efficiently secondary schools use their resources. The insights gained provide data-driven answers to support more informed educational decision-making and policy processes in Chile.

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