Critique of the Citizen Participation Movement in Education

1977 ◽  
Vol 159 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marilyn Gittell
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
Citizen Participation ◽  
York City ◽  
Governance Structure ◽  
Educational Institutions ◽  
Community Control ◽  
Bargaining Process ◽  
School Budgets ◽  
Adequate Provision

The demand for community participation in education has resulted in many school systems adopting some form of decentralization. In many cases, this “participation” has been illusory. The decentralization which occurred did not result in increased decision making power being allocated to the community, but rather in merely physically decentralizing the existing school bureaucracy. The current situation in New York City provides a number of insights into what can be expected as school budgets are cut as a result of fewer resources and decreases in school enrollments. The community school boards, which had no input into the collective bargaining process, are now pitted against the professional educational establishment — the Board of Education and the United Federation of Teachers. Both in New York City and elsewhere, those who control the school bureaucracy have excluded the community from playing a significant role in the policy-making process. The governance structure of American education must be changed so that the community will have greater control over its educational institutions. Properly instituted, community control is an instrument of social change. If adequate provision is made for the technical resources to carry out this new role, citizen participation has the potential for providing new insights into our concepts of professionalism and our general theories of educational expertise.

Neighborhood Activism in Planning for New York City, 1945-1975

2017 ◽  
Vol 46 (6) ◽  
pp. 1261-1289
Author(s):  
Marci Reaven
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Citizen Participation ◽  
York City ◽  
City Planning ◽  
Social Innovation ◽  
Democratic Action ◽  
Cumulative Process ◽  
The Times

The practice of city planning in New York City was transformed in the decades after World War II. At the start of this period, the system was characterized by little citizen involvement and no transparency. By the mid-1970s, citizens had become accepted participants in land-use decision-making, and formal procedures for involving citizens in planning had been written into local law. This article explores how this turning point in citizen participation came about by focusing on the Cooper Square Committee—an ambitious practitioner of neighborhood activism on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Setting the Committee’s quest in the participatory context of the times uncovers a groundswell of voluntary groups who used the city’s neighborhoods as forums for democratic action. Along with government actors, planning professionals, and civic and social agencies, such groups contributed to the transformation in planning, which developed not by premeditated campaign but by a cumulative process of public problem-solving and social innovation.

scholarly journals My Development as a Composer

ICONI ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 126-143
Author(s):  
Hubert S. Howe ◽  
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
York City ◽  
Educational Institutions ◽  
Musical Style

In this article author recounts how he became a composer, who were his teachers, what educational institutions he studied in, where he worked, how he developed his individual musical style and his ideas about music, and also describes what these ideas are. He also describes the context of living and working in New York City and the musical organizations he has worked with and for from the late 1960s to the present.

Is a Plea Really a Bargain? An Analysis of Plea and Trial Dispositions in New York City

2017 ◽  
Vol 64 (7) ◽  
pp. 856-887 ◽  
Author(s):  
Besiki L. Kutateladze ◽  
Victoria Z. Lawson
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
York City ◽  
Plea Bargaining ◽  
Bargaining Process ◽  
Factors Influencing ◽  
Common Notion ◽  
Trial Outcomes ◽  
The Common ◽  
Foregone Conclusion

The study challenges the common notion that plea bargaining is necessarily beneficial to defendants. It examines the factors influencing the likelihood of taking a misdemeanor case to trial, and the probability of acquittal upon reaching trial. Defendants charged with more serious crimes, persons crimes, crimes with victims, and represented by private attorneys were more likely to go to trial than to be pleaded out. By contrast, very few factors influenced trial outcomes, and the effect of race was fairly weak. Perhaps most important is the finding that two in five cases going to trial resulted in acquittal, showing that guilt is not a foregone conclusion which may provide leverage to defendants in the plea-bargaining process.

Community Participation and Teacher Bargaining: A Clash of Interests?

1976 ◽  
Vol 158 (3) ◽  
pp. 48-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth W. Haskins ◽  
Charles W. Cheng
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
Collective Bargaining ◽  
Citizen Participation ◽  
Teacher Unions ◽  
Community Control ◽  
Urban Centers ◽  
Basic Premise ◽  
Power Base ◽  
Parent Union

The basic premise of our discussion is that collective bargaining in education constitutes an exclusionary process when it comes to direct citizen participation. This exclusionary structure came into direct conflict with the movement for community control which was based on broad-range inclusionary process. First, there will be a review of two developments in the evolution of collective bargaining. Attention will concentrate on teacher organization and community alliances that existed in some urban centers prior to teacher unions becoming a power base in educational politics. An analysis then will be offered detailing how the demands of teacher unions and the movement for community control led to the erosion of parent/union cooperation. Second, an account of parent discontent with the present bargaining structure will be cited. Thirdly, to concretely illustrate the exclusionary nature of bargaining and the troubling issues being negotiated which are of general citizen concern, a brief analysis will be made of the 1975 teacher/board strike settlements in New York City and Boston. Finally, based on our first-hand experience with negotiations and a review of the evidence, we shall conclude by arguing for a radical alternative to the prevailing negotiations structure.

scholarly journals The Disposition of Felony Arrests

1981 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 407-462 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hans Zeisel
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
York City ◽  
Plea Bargaining ◽  
Bargaining Process ◽  
First Time ◽  
Final Disposition

While we know a great deal about the disposition of felony arrests that reach the trial stage, we know little about the details of the dispositions reached without trial. And yet, this latter category forms as a rule over 90 percent, in New York City 98 percent, of all dispositions. Basing his analysis on a study done in the early 1970s, the author describes and presents data on the various stages in the process from arrest to final disposition through plea bargaining, trial, or dismissal of the case. For the first time, this usually opaque disposition pattern prior to trial emerges in the clarity of 23 graphs that illustrate the analysis. Of particular interest are some new insights into the mechanism of the plea bargaining process.

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