State Takeovers and Black and Latino Political Empowerment

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Domingo Morel
Keyword(s):  
School Districts ◽  
Racial Minorities ◽  
Descriptive Representation ◽  
Local School District ◽  
Local School ◽  
Political Empowerment ◽  
State Takeovers ◽  
State Centralization ◽  
Black And Latino

How is black and Latino representation affected by state takeovers of local government? Since racial minorities have had a complex history in the struggle between local autonomy and centralized authority, when does state centralization lead to increased political empowerment for racial minorities? Conversely, when does centralized authority negatively affect political empowerment among racial minorities? To answer these questions, the chapter examines how state takeovers of local school districts affect black and Latino descriptive representation on local school boards. Relying on a case study of Newark, New Jersey, and analysis of every state takeover of a local school district, the chapter shows that contrary to conventional wisdom, takeovers and centralization can increase descriptive representation among marginalized populations. On the other hand, the chapter also shows that under other conditions, takeovers are even more disempowering than the scholarship has previously imagined and understood.

Takeover

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Domingo Morel
Keyword(s):  
School Districts ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
State Intervention ◽  
Black Communities ◽  
State Governments ◽  
Local School ◽  
Political Empowerment ◽  
Political Consequences ◽  
State Takeovers

State takeovers of local school districts emerged in the late 1980s. Although many major U.S. cities have experienced state takeovers of their local school districts, we know little about the political causes and consequences of state takeovers. Relying on historical analysis, case studies, and quantitative analysis, the book offers the first systematic study of state takeovers of local school districts. It shows that although the justifications for state takeovers have generally been based on concerns with poor academic performance, questions of race and political power played a critical role in the emergence of state takeovers of local school districts. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the book demonstrates that under certain conditions, state takeovers can help marginalized populations in their efforts to gain political empowerment. However, in most cases, state takeovers have negative political consequences for communities of color, particularly black communities. A central claim of the book is that efforts to strengthen state governments in the 1970s were a response to the rise of black political empowerment in American cities. As states gained greater powers, urban localities became increasingly subjected to state intervention. The emergence of state takeovers of local school districts in the 1980s was a consequence of the increasing authority of state governments.

scholarly journals How Hispanic Should Hispanic-Serving Institutions Be?

2020 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 104-114
Author(s):  
Erin Doran
Keyword(s):  
Graduate Students ◽  
School Districts ◽  
Community Involvement ◽  
Underrepresented Populations ◽  
Local School ◽  
Board Of Regents ◽  
Hispanic Serving ◽  
Minority Serving Institutions ◽  
Important Milestone

The Board of Regents appointed President Thomas to the helm of Nuestra University, a large and urban Hispanic-Serving University. In the first years of his presidency, Nuestra achieved important milestone in its quest to better serve and graduate students from underrepresented populations. However, Thomas’s hiring and presidency has faced critical questions, especially when Thomas’s new strategic plan and plans for community involvement appeared to ignore the demographics both on and off-campus. This case study focuses on the potential implications for Minority-Serving Institutions when their administration does not match the demographics of their major stakeholders (i.e., students, faculty, and local school districts).

A View from Two Cities

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Domingo Morel
Keyword(s):  
Rhode Island ◽  
Black Community ◽  
Economic Effect ◽  
The State ◽  
City Council ◽  
State Takeover ◽  
Political Empowerment ◽  
Local Schools ◽  
State Takeovers

The chapter provides an in-depth examination of state takeovers of the Newark, New Jersey, and Central Falls, Rhode Island, school districts. It begins with an examination of the first five years following the takeover of the Newark schools (1995–2000) from the perspective of the city’s black community and finds that the state takeover of the local schools had a devastating political and economic effect on the city’s black community. Then the chapter focuses on a case study of Central Falls, Rhode Island. Despite representing a significant portion of the city’s population, the Latino community did not have any representation on the school board, on the city council, or in the mayor’s office at the time of the takeover in 1991. The chapter argues that the state takeover of the Central Falls schools helped pave a path to Latino political empowerment in Central Falls.

Why Take Over?

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Domingo Morel
Keyword(s):  
School Districts ◽  
Students Of Color ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
State Level ◽  
Original Data ◽  
Black Communities ◽  
Local School ◽  
Data Set ◽  
State Takeovers

Why do states take over local school districts? Additionally, why are Republicans—usually the champions of local control and decentralization—leading the efforts to take over local school districts? Finally, why do state takeovers disproportionally affect black communities? Relying on historical analysis and an original data set of nearly 1,000 school districts, the chapter argues that although concerns about academic performance are the main public justification for a state takeover, politics was a major factor in the emergence of state takeovers. Since school politics was a source of political mobilization for black communities, it became a central point of contention between conservatives at the state level and black political leadership at the local level. The conservative response was to promote a conservative education logic that has professed a concern with the education of black students and other students of color while investing in the political failure of their communities.

Toward an Understanding of Public School Politics

1959 ◽  
Vol 53 (4) ◽  
pp. 1032-1051 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas H. Eliot
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
School Districts ◽  
Chief Executive ◽  
City Government ◽  
Business Manager ◽  
Local School District ◽  
Local School ◽  
Executive Authority ◽  
The People ◽  
The City

Mounting concern over the aims and achievements of American public schools emphasizes the need for continuing analysis of how the schools are run and who runs them. The general theory is simple enough: schools are objects of local control, the people of a local school district exercise that control through an elected school board, and the board appoints a superintendent to act as the chief executive of the district. There are variations from this pattern—in some places school boards are appointed rather than elected, in others the school system is formally a part of the city government, and in a few districts other officials, such as a business manager or building superintendent, share the top executive authority—but it is by far the most common arrangement among the nation's approximately 50,000 school districts.

Navigating the policy directive of child autonomy in universal pre-kindergarten practice

2018 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 282-293 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Michael Luna ◽  
Leslee J Grey
Keyword(s):  
Study Data ◽  
Local School District ◽  
Local School ◽  
District Policy ◽  
Child Autonomy ◽  
Context Specific ◽  
Embodied Practice ◽  
Case Study Data ◽  
Shed Light

Drawing on case-study data, this inquiry explores the lived experiences of four universal pre-kindergarten teachers to address the question: How do practitioners narratively interpret a local school district policy directive of child autonomy, use their professional capacities to reconstruct the directive to address diverse students’ needs, and then implement or instruct their reconfigurations of autonomy in context-specific ways? By examining the tensions between policy and locally embodied practice, teachers’ voices shed light on professional struggles within large universal pre-kindergarten programs, and offer possibilities for reconceptualizing and enacting policy directives at the community level.

Public School Voice Clinics, Part I

1984 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-57
Author(s):  
Sandra Q. Miller ◽  
Charles L. Madison
Keyword(s):  
Public School ◽  
School District ◽  
Voice Disorders ◽  
Urban School ◽  
Urban School District ◽  
Local School District ◽  
Local School ◽  
Perceived Need ◽  
The Voice ◽  
Voice Problem

The purpose of this article is to show how one urban school district dealt with a perceived need to improve its effectiveness in diagnosing and treating voice disorders. The local school district established semiannual voice clinics. Students aged 5-18 were referred, screened, and selected for the clinics if they appeared to have a chronic voice problem. The specific procedures used in setting up the voice clinics and the subsequent changes made over a 10-year period are presented.

scholarly journals The more concentrated, the better represented? The geographical concentration of immigrants and their descriptive representation in the German mixed-member system

2018 ◽  
Vol 40 (5) ◽  
pp. 643-658 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucas Geese ◽  
Diana Schacht
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Minorities ◽  
Descriptive Representation ◽  
Electoral Rules ◽  
Geographical Concentration

Does the geographical concentration of ethnic minorities influence their descriptive representation in closed-list systems? Counterintuitive to the idea that single-member district electoral rules are necessary for minorities’ geographical representation, we argue that, in closed-list systems, parties are incentivised to allocate promising list positions to those minority candidates who are based in geographical areas where minorities concentrate. Empirically, we provide a case study of the list positions of dual candidates of immigrant origin running in the German mixed-member system in 2013. Results show a relationship between the list positions of candidates of immigrant origin and geographical concentrations of immigrant-origin residents.

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