Education Policy and Black Teachers: Perspectives on Race, Policy, and Teacher Diversity

2019 ◽  
Vol 71 (4) ◽  
pp. 449-463
Author(s):  
Terrenda White ◽  
Brian Woodward ◽  
DaVonna Graham ◽  
H. Richard Milner ◽  
Tyrone C. Howard

This article examines interview responses from prominent education researchers who were asked to consider the role of major educational policies in the underrepresentation of Black teachers in public schools. Participants considered policies related to accountability and market reforms including testing, school choice and charter schools, and alternative teacher education. Although participants agreed that Black teachers contribute greatly to academic achievement for students, their views differed about whether or how policies undermine the presence of Black teachers in schools. We offer conceptual distinctions between participants’ views, including those who described policy as having a mixed impact on Black teachers, those who described policy as having an unintended but harmful impact, and those who described policy as playing a tacit role in systemic marginalization of Black teachers and as a form of institutional racism. We find benefit in all participants’ views and offer suggestions for initiatives that seek to strengthen workforce diversity.

2018 ◽  
Vol 100 (3) ◽  
pp. 5-7
Author(s):  
Teresa Preston

This exploration of Phi Delta Kappan’s archives shows how the magazine has covered questions related to the purposes, governance, and funding of the public schools. Articles have discussed the role of schools in a democratic society, how schools should relate to the public, whether public funds should be diverted to private and religious schools, and whether charter schools and other vehicles for school choice are beneficial to families and schools.


2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (6) ◽  
pp. 74
Author(s):  
Dr. Julie Hentges ◽  
Dr. Doug D. Thomas

<p>Charter schools are a controversial, but vibrant, component of the current educational landscape, now serving over 3.1 million students in approximately 6900 schools across the United States.  A unique aspect of this movement has been the establishment of alternative authorizers, and specifically universities, to approve and provide oversight to these public schools.  Campus leaders and policy makers must consider numerous variables regarding a university’s involvement with charter schools.  What are the implications of school choice on university policies and practices? Should universities be “authorizers”, granting charters to schools in direct competition with the traditional public school system? Can universities provide the required “oversight” mandated by the charter school laws, as well as providing “support” for the schools? What opportunities for partnerships and practicum experiences exist?  The article provides an overview of issues that arise with public charter schools authorized by universities.  With 18 years of experiences as a public university on the forefront of enabling charter legislation and the “sponsorship” of inner-city public charter schools, the authors provide a historical perspective of the role of universities within the school choice movement, including oversight roles and supportive programs within the unique and growing phenomenon of school choice. </p>


2021 ◽  
Vol 103 (1) ◽  
pp. 6-7
Author(s):  
Teresa Preston

In this monthly column, Kappan managing editor Teresa Preston explores how the magazine has covered the questions and controversies about school choice. Although many authors across the decades objected to the use of vouchers to pay private school tuition, those same authors lent support to the idea of choice among public schools. Advocates of public school choice have endorsed various models for providing choices, from alternative schools, to magnet schools, to charter schools.


2002 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 145-158 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natalie Lacireno-Paquet ◽  
Thomas T. Holyoke ◽  
Michele Moser ◽  
Jeffrey R. Henig

Proponents of school choice present market-based competition as a means of leveling disparities between race, class and performance in public school systems. Opponents see school choice as threatening to exacerbate this problem because competition for students will pressure individual schools into targeting students with the highest performance and the least encumbered with personal and social disadvantages. We suggest that some charter schools, by background and affiliation, are likely to be more market-oriented in their behavior than others, and test the proposition that market-oriented charter schools engage in cream-skimming while others disproportionately serve highly disadvantaged students. Comparing student composition in market-oriented charter schools, nonmarket-oriented charter schools, and traditional public schools in Washington, DC, we find little evidence that market-oriented charters are focusing on an elite clientele, but they are less likely than the other two types of schools to serve some high need populations. Rather than skimming the cream off the top of the potential student population, market-oriented charter schools may be “cropping off” service to students whose language or special education needs make them more costly to educate.


Author(s):  
Jeffrey W. Snyder ◽  
Sarah Reckhow

In recent decades, education governance has seen many important shifts that influence how education services are provided to students. This chapter introduces three of the most pronounced changes. First, the formal actors responsible for education have shifted from an environment most centered on local school boards to one where city, state, and federal politicians have more responsibility and influence over education. Second, due to policies enabling vouchers, charter schools, and cyber schools, public funding for education is now distributed to a wider array of school types beyond traditional brick-and-mortar public schools. Third, the role of outside private money from philanthropies has increased over time, and the organizational form favored by these donors may be changing in ways that limit the amount of transparency required of these funders. Cumulatively, these changes have eroded the traditionally insulated and localized character of education governance, making education more similar to other areas of U.S. policymaking.


Author(s):  
Belinda M. Cambre

Publicly funded alternatives to traditional public schools have taken place in the form of charter schools and, most recently, cyber charter schools. Cyber charter schools are fully online K-12 public schools and they “look” like traditional schools since students learn traditional subjects and are still subject to the same public accountability measures as their traditional brick and mortar counterparts. This chapter examines cyber charter schools in practice and summarizes the most controversial issues surrounding this form of school choice. Issues such as the legality of cyber charters under state charter laws; the allocation of per pupil funding; the use of for-profit companies in school management; ensuring access to cyber charters; and fulfilling state mandates top the list of salient issues with respect to cyber charter schools.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 239-276
Author(s):  
Michael Gilraine ◽  
Uros Petronijevic ◽  
John D. Singleton

While school choice may enhance competition, incentives for public schools to raise productivity may be muted if public education is imperfectly substitutable with alternatives. This paper estimates the aggregate effect of charter school expansion on education quality while accounting for the horizontal differentiation of charter programs. Our research design leverages variation following the removal of North Carolina’s statewide cap to compare test score changes for students who lived near entering charters to those farther away. We find learning gains that are driven by public schools responding to increased competition from non-horizontally differentiated charter schools, even before those charters actually open. (JEL H75, I21, I28)


2017 ◽  
Vol 27 (5) ◽  
pp. 675-700 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ayana Kee Campoli

In U.S. public schools, the shortage of teachers of African descent specifically, and teachers of color more generally, is a worsening problem that has severe, detrimental effects on students. This shortage of Black teachers is driven in part by high turnover, much of which is precipitated by the poor working conditions in their schools. In this study, I analyze data from a sample of approximately 1,600 Black teachers who participated in the Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS, 2007–2008). My findings about the role of supportive principals have implications for how state departments of education should use Every Student Succeeds Act funds.


2020 ◽  
Vol 94 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-64
Author(s):  
Jaren R. Haber

Research shows charter schools are more segregated by race and class than are traditional public schools. I investigate an underexamined mechanism for this segregation: Charter schools project identities corresponding to parents’ race- and class-specific parenting styles and educational values. I use computational text analysis to detect the emphasis on inquiry-based learning in the websites of all charter schools operating in 2015–16. I then estimate mixed linear regression models to test the relationships between ideological emphasis and school- and district-level poverty and ethnicity. I thereby transcend methodological problems in scholarship on charter school identities by collecting contemporary, populationwide data and by blending text analysis with hypothesis testing. Findings suggest charter school identities are both race and class specific, outlining a new mechanism by which school choice may consolidate parents by race and class—and paving the way for behavioral and longitudinal studies. This project contributes to literatures on school choice and educational stratification.


2019 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 375-399
Author(s):  
Huriya Jabbar ◽  
Andrene Castro ◽  
Emily Germain

Informal and institutional barriers may limit teacher movement between charter schools and traditional public schools (TPSs). However, we know little about how teachers choose schools in areas with a robust charter school sector. This study uses qualitative data from 123 teachers to examine teachers’ job decisions in three cities with varying charter densities: San Antonio, Detroit, and New Orleans. Our findings illuminate different types of segmentation and factors that facilitate and limit mobility between sectors. We find that structural policies within each sector can create barriers to mobility across charter schools and TPSs and that teachers’ ideological beliefs and values serve as informal, personal barriers that reinforce divides between sectors. This study offers implications for policy in districts with school choice.


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