School Reform Efforts: Here Today, Gone Tomorrow? Educator Perspectives on the Rapid Life Cycle of School Reforms

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Doss ◽  
Goke Akinniranye
2018 ◽  
Vol 100 (4) ◽  
pp. 31-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frederick M. Hess ◽  
Michael Q. McShane

Drawing upon their new edited volume of essays looking back on the school reforms of the Bush and Obama years, the authors explain just how few of those reforms went according to plan. Some of the unexpected outcomes were positive, they note, pointing to the improvement of school data systems and the bipartisan compromise that put an end to No Child Left Behind. Some of them were negative, such as a public backlash against achievement testing in general and the implementation of the Common Core in particular. And all of them should lead reformers to question their own certainty about how their policy ideas will play out.


2018 ◽  
Vol 47 (8) ◽  
pp. 502-515 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lindsay Bell Weixler ◽  
Douglas N. Harris ◽  
Nathan Barrett

New Orleans schools experienced drastic reforms after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. To examine teachers’ perspectives on these reforms, we surveyed 323 teachers who taught in New Orleans public schools before 2005 and in 2013–2014. Teachers directly compared the learning and work environments and student and teacher outcomes of their current schools to those of their pre-Katrina schools. Returning teachers perceived significant and generally positive changes in learning environments and student outcomes but mixed positive and negative changes in work environments. Despite improvements in school environments, the net result is that teachers became less satisfied with their jobs. These results show that intensive, sustained school reform can lead to significant changes, but these changes can have negative impacts on teachers.


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-69
Author(s):  
Angelo Gaudio

This article deals with the role played by Giovanni Gozzer in opposition to the secondary school reform in Italy during the second half of the Seventies. Drawing on the arguments of the international debate, which he knew in great detail, he defended the ongoing middle school reforms of 1962 but opposed the proposals for the secondary school reforms, considering them to be promoted principally by the communist party which even seemed to succeed in holding sway over the left-wing reformist Christian democrats.  


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-31
Author(s):  
Jeremy T. Murphy

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.


2003 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 347-373 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Camburn ◽  
Brian Rowan ◽  
James E. Taylor

This is a study of distributed leadership in the context of elementary schools' adoption of comprehensive school reforms (CSR). Most CSRs are designed to configure school leadership by defining formal roles, and we hypothesized that such programs activate those roles by defining expectations for and socializing (e.g., through professional development) role incumbents. Configuration and activation were further hypothesized to influence the performance of leadership functions in schools. Using data from a study of three of the most widely adopted CSR models, support was found for the configuration and activation hypotheses. Leadership configuration in CSR schools differed from that of nonCSR schools in part because of the addition of model-specific roles. Model participation was also related to the performance of leadership functions as principals in CSR schools and CSR-related role incumbents were found to provide significant amounts of instructional leadership. Further support for the activation hypothesis is suggested by positive relationships between leaders' professional development experiences and their performance of instructional leadership.


2015 ◽  
Vol 50 (10) ◽  
pp. 1365-1395
Author(s):  
Lenahan O’Connell ◽  
Juita-Elena (Wie) Yusuf

Accountability is a pivotal concern of applied social science. This article asserts that in many situations a full explanation of the sources of accountability requires the application of concepts from sociology and management science, in addition to those from the market-based approaches inspired by economics. The article describes the market-based approach to accountability exemplified by agency theory, applies it to school reform and derives several predictions about the likely success of market-based approaches to school reform, and documents the lack of evidence supporting the contention that programs for school choice will markedly improve teacher work effort and performance (as measured by student test scores). The social actor approach, rooted in sociological and management theories, is introduced and used to describe the pressures and norms operating in the public schools that foster accountability even in the absence of competition between schools for students. The article concludes with some implications for practice and research on public sector accountability.


Author(s):  
Betty Ruth Jones ◽  
Steve Chi-Tang Pan

INTRODUCTION: Schistosomiasis has been described as “one of the most devastating diseases of mankind, second only to malaria in its deleterious effects on the social and economic development of populations in many warm areas of the world.” The disease is worldwide and is probably spreading faster and becoming more intense than the overall research efforts designed to provide the basis for countering it. Moreover, there are indications that the development of water resources and the demands for increasing cultivation and food in developing countries may prevent adequate control of the disease and thus the number of infections are increasing.Our knowledge of the basic biology of the parasites causing the disease is far from adequate. Such knowledge is essential if we are to develop a rational approach to the effective control of human schistosomiasis. The miracidium is the first infective stage in the complex life cycle of schistosomes. The future of the entire life cycle depends on the capacity and ability of this organism to locate and enter a suitable snail host for further development, Little is known about the nervous system of the miracidium of Schistosoma mansoni and of other trematodes. Studies indicate that miracidia contain a well developed and complex nervous system that may aid the larvae in locating and entering a susceptible snail host (Wilson, 1970; Brooker, 1972; Chernin, 1974; Pan, 1980; Mehlhorn, 1988; and Jones, 1987-1988).


Author(s):  
Randolph W. Taylor ◽  
Henrie Treadwell

The plasma membrane of the Slime Mold, Physarum polycephalum, process unique morphological distinctions at different stages of the life cycle. Investigations of the plasma membrane of P. polycephalum, particularly, the arrangements of the intramembranous particles has provided useful information concerning possible changes occurring in higher organisms. In this report Freeze-fracture-etched techniques were used to investigate 3 hours post-fusion of the macroplasmodia stage of the P. polycephalum plasma membrane.Microplasmodia of Physarum polycephalum (M3C), axenically maintained, were collected in mid-expotential growth phase by centrifugation. Aliquots of microplasmodia were spread in 3 cm circles with a wide mouth pipette onto sterile filter paper which was supported on a wire screen contained in a petri dish. The cells were starved for 2 hrs at 24°C. After starvation, the cells were feed semidefined medium supplemented with hemin and incubated at 24°C. Three hours after incubation, samples were collected randomly from the petri plates, placed in plancettes and frozen with a propane-nitrogen jet freezer.


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