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A Democratic Constitution for Public Education (Paperback)
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America’s education system faces a stark dilemma: it needs governmental oversight, rules and regulations, but it also needs to be adaptable enough to address student needs and the many different problems that can arise at any given school—something that large educational bureaucracies are notoriously bad at. Paul Hill and Ashley Jochim offer here a solution that is brilliant for its simplicity and distinctly American sensibility: our public education system needs a constitution. Adapting the tried-and-true framework of our forefathers to the specific governance of education, they show that the answer has been part of our political DNA all along.
Most reformers focus on who should control education, but Hill and Jochim show that who governs is less important than determining what powers they have. They propose a Civic Education Council—a democratic body subject to checks and balances that would define the boundaries of its purview as well as each school’s particular freedoms. They show how such a system would prevent regulations meant to satisfy special interests and shift the focus to the real task at hand: improving school performance. Laying out the implications of such a system for parents, students, teachers, unions, state and federal governments, and courts, they offer a vision of educational governance that stays true to—and draws on the strengths of—one of the greatest democratic tools we have ever created.
Most reformers focus on who should control education, but Hill and Jochim show that who governs is less important than determining what powers they have. They propose a Civic Education Council—a democratic body subject to checks and balances that would define the boundaries of its purview as well as each school’s particular freedoms. They show how such a system would prevent regulations meant to satisfy special interests and shift the focus to the real task at hand: improving school performance. Laying out the implications of such a system for parents, students, teachers, unions, state and federal governments, and courts, they offer a vision of educational governance that stays true to—and draws on the strengths of—one of the greatest democratic tools we have ever created.
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- Book formatPaperback
- Fiction/nonfictionNon-Fiction
- GenreTextbooks
- Publication dateNovember, 2014
- Pages152
- Edition1
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Constitutional Governance is the product of twenty years’ work on one question: Can schools be both subject to public oversight and effective? This question stems from consistent findings that regulations intended to improve schools instead prevented problem-solving and adaptation to students’ needs and educators’ abilities. So how do we design public oversight that does not drive out school problem-solving, adaptation to natural variations in student needs and interests, and the freedom to innovate? Hill and Jochim start from the assumption that governance can be rationalized so that it increases the degree to which educators can focus on student learning and continuous improvement, not regulation and politics.
How to fix educational governance in the US is not a new question, of course. Many proposals have been tried, but each contains the seeds of its own limitations—excesses of totally unregulated voucher schools leading to re-regulation, mayoral takeover regimes weakened by mayors’ political problems or term limits, and state legislators’ growing resistance to an aggressive state recovery district. Hill and Jochim propose a new “constitutional” vision of governance that fundamentally alters the missions and powers that local school boards and other levels of government can exercise. It also shows how a rethinking of governance can lead to a more flexible, adaptive, and performance-driven educational system.
How to fix educational governance in the US is not a new question, of course. Many proposals have been tried, but each contains the seeds of its own limitations—excesses of totally unregulated voucher schools leading to re-regulation, mayoral takeover regimes weakened by mayors’ political problems or term limits, and state legislators’ growing resistance to an aggressive state recovery district. Hill and Jochim propose a new “constitutional” vision of governance that fundamentally alters the missions and powers that local school boards and other levels of government can exercise. It also shows how a rethinking of governance can lead to a more flexible, adaptive, and performance-driven educational system.
America’s education system faces a stark dilemma: it needs governmental oversight, rules and regulations, but it also needs to be adaptable enough to address student needs and the many different problems that can arise at any given school—something that large educational bureaucracies are notoriously bad at. Paul Hill and Ashley Jochim offer here a solution that is brilliant for its simplicity and distinctly American sensibility: our public education system needs a constitution. Adapting the tried-and-true framework of our forefathers to the specific governance of education, they show that the answer has been part of our political DNA all along.
Most reformers focus on who should control education, but Hill and Jochim show that who governs is less important than determining what powers they have. They propose a Civic Education Council—a democratic body subject to checks and balances that would define the boundaries of its purview as well as each school’s particular freedoms. They show how such a system would prevent regulations meant to satisfy special interests and shift the focus to the real task at hand: improving school performance. Laying out the implications of such a system for parents, students, teachers, unions, state and federal governments, and courts, they offer a vision of educational governance that stays true to—and draws on the strengths of—one of the greatest democratic tools we have ever created.
Most reformers focus on who should control education, but Hill and Jochim show that who governs is less important than determining what powers they have. They propose a Civic Education Council—a democratic body subject to checks and balances that would define the boundaries of its purview as well as each school’s particular freedoms. They show how such a system would prevent regulations meant to satisfy special interests and shift the focus to the real task at hand: improving school performance. Laying out the implications of such a system for parents, students, teachers, unions, state and federal governments, and courts, they offer a vision of educational governance that stays true to—and draws on the strengths of—one of the greatest democratic tools we have ever created.
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Book format
Paperback
Fiction/nonfiction
Non-Fiction
Genre
Textbooks
Publication date
November, 2014
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