scholarly journals Local control in the era of accountability: A case study of Wisconsin preK

2016 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
pp. 60 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Elizabeth Graue ◽  
Bethany Wilinski ◽  
Amato Nocera
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Local Control ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
The United States ◽  
National Standards ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Rational Models ◽  
Accountability Movement ◽  
Teachers And Students

The opposing principles of local control and increased standardization are a prominent tension in the United States’ education system. Since at least the early 1990s, this tension has taken shape around the accountability movement, defined by educational reforms that hold schools, teachers, and students accountable for performance on new standards, assessments, and curricula. While many scholars have examined the manifestations of the current accountability movement, few have looked at this phenomenon within the growing public preK movement. Drawing from interviews with state policymakers and district-level actors, this paper describes how the seemingly contradictory principles of local control and increased state and national standards (what we refer to simply as standardization) are shaping the policy and practice of Wisconsin’s preK system, known as 4K. We argue that rational models of policy making fail to explain the coexistence and blending of the strands of local control and standardization we found in our data, and suggest that Deborah Stone’s (2001) policy paradox provides a better theoretical framework for our findings.

Soundoff: How National Examinations Can Benefit Students and Teachers

1992 ◽  
Vol 85 (8) ◽  
pp. 610-611
Author(s):  
Peter L. Glidden
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
High School ◽  
High School Students ◽  
Education Policy ◽  
The United States ◽  
National Standards ◽  
School Students ◽  
National Examination ◽  
National Examinations ◽  
Teachers And Students

Several reform groups, including the President's Education Policy Advisory Committee and Educate America, are calling for national examinations for high school students. Examination advocates claim the following benefits: the establishment of national standards, increased accountability, and increased motivation for students. Advocates also point out that the United States is the only major industrialized country without some sort of national examination. Critics claim that examinations restrict teachers' creativity; force teachers to teach for the examination; and promote improper comparisons among states, districts, schools, teachers, and students. (See, e.g., DeWitt [1991]).

When public and private narratives diverge

2018 ◽  
pp. 286-298
Author(s):  
Rachel Grob ◽  
Mark Schlesinger
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Patient Experience ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
System Change ◽  
The United States ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
English Speaking

Individuals experience illness and healthcare in diverse ways. Advocates striving to create system change, however, typically simplify representations of patient experience. These ‘crafted’ public narratives better accord with journalists’ ideals of compelling, coherent, attention-grabbing stories. But condensing diverse experiences into univocal narratives has costs: some patients’ voices are silenced, and vital ethical issues are overlooked. This chapter uses a case study of advocacy around newborn screening (NBS) to explore the origins and implications of crafted public narratives. It traces the emergence of a single ‘urgency narrative’ used by advocates to promote expanded screening and compares its impact on media coverage and policy-making across the United States and among five English-speaking nations. It shows that crafted narratives are most influential in countries where NBS policies are set subnationally, since geographic variation both fosters advocates’ search for compelling narratives and makes those narratives more evocative, enhancing their impact on policy-making.

Gendered differences in emigration and mobility perspectives among European researchers working abroad

2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisabeth Scheibelhofer
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Qualitative Study ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
The United States ◽  
Research Strategy ◽  
The Future ◽  
Highly Skilled

This paper focuses on gendered mobilities of highly skilled researchers working abroad. It is based on an empirical qualitative study that explored the mobility aspirations of Austrian scientists who were working in the United States at the time they were interviewed. Supported by a case study, the paper demonstrates how a qualitative research strategy including graphic drawings sketched by the interviewed persons can help us gain a better understanding of the gendered importance of social relations for the future mobility aspirations of scientists working abroad.

‘A Routh O’ Auld Nick-Nackets’ – the antiquarian collection of John Rae

2015 ◽  
Vol 36-37 (1) ◽  
pp. 163-183
Author(s):  
Paul Taylor
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Social Context ◽  
Moral Education ◽  
The United States ◽  
Representative Case ◽  
National Museums ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The University

John Rae, a Scottish antiquarian collector and spirit merchant, played a highly prominent role in the local natural history societies and exhibitions of nineteenth-century Aberdeen. While he modestly described his collection of archaeological lithics and other artefacts, principally drawn from Aberdeenshire but including some items from as far afield as the United States, as a mere ‘routh o’ auld nick-nackets' (abundance of old knick-knacks), a contemporary singled it out as ‘the best known in private hands' (Daily Free Press 4/5/91). After Rae's death, Glasgow Museums, National Museums Scotland, the University of Aberdeen Museum and the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, as well as numerous individual private collectors, purchased items from the collection. Making use of historical and archive materials to explore the individual biography of Rae and his collection, this article examines how Rae's collecting and other antiquarian activities represent and mirror wider developments in both the ‘amateur’ antiquarianism carried out by Rae and his fellow collectors for reasons of self-improvement and moral education, and the ‘professional’ antiquarianism of the museums which purchased his artefacts. Considered in its wider nineteenth-century context, this is a representative case study of the early development of archaeology in the wider intellectual, scientific and social context of the era.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document