Search Results

Three Red Herrings

Harry Brighouse

in School Choice and Social Justice

Examines, and refutes, three a priori arguments against school choice: the argument from commodification, the argument from democracy, and the argument from the common good. It argues that markets ... More

Examines, and refutes, three a priori arguments against school choice: the argument from commodification, the argument from democracy, and the argument from the common good. It argues that markets are inevitably involved in the delivery of educational services, and that although democracy is valuable its value does not justify the level of local control many critics of vouchers favour. It argues that a defensible notion of the common good cannot do the work required to ground a theory of justice for education, and is therefore not immediately pertinent to the evaluation of school reform.Less

Redefining State Responsibility in Education

in School, Society, & State: A New Education to Govern Modern America, 1890 – 1940

During the National Education Association's Department of Superintendence meeting in 1918 to discuss “centralizing tendencies in educational administration,” Payson Smith, state superintendent of ... More

During the National Education Association's Department of Superintendence meeting in 1918 to discuss “centralizing tendencies in educational administration,” Payson Smith, state superintendent of Massachusetts, called for a stronger state government role to safeguard equal opportunity by addressing inequities wrought by social, economic, and demographic changes. Many of those who attended the meeting agreed with his call for expanded state responsibility, but others were not as enthusiastic. This chapter focuses on the expansion of the state government role in education and explores public debates over state and federal aid, the growth of state administration, and the complex ways that states negotiated with and utilized local control. It first looks at state government promotion of local schooling before World War I before turning to equal educational opportunity and the nation-state interest in schooling during the war. The chapter also considers postwar state school administration and argues that the state role in schooling from 1890 to 1940 was one of expansive legal authority and steadily growing involvement by state boards of education, state superintendents and departments of education, state legislatures, and state courts.Less

The Meaning of Local Control

Campbell F. Scribner

in The Fight for Local Control: Schools, Suburbs, and American Democracy

This chapter explains local control in the context of suburbanization, conservative politics, and school reform, and demonstrates how the confluence of these issues changed practices of municipal ... More

This chapter explains local control in the context of suburbanization, conservative politics, and school reform, and demonstrates how the confluence of these issues changed practices of municipal government. Local autonomy had almost no legal basis before the 1890s, when a handful of states added home rule amendments to their constitutions, and even then it was primarily used to empower cities at the expense of suburban and rural areas. It was the rise of mass suburbanization between the 1910s and the 1950s that prompted calls to protect small-town government, with attendant rights of zoning, tax collection, and geographical integrity. Conceived in opposition to political machines and profligate spending, the notion of local control became popular with a variety of interest groups, especially rural and suburban conservatives, for whom localism preserved existing systems of political power and smoothed over potential areas of division.Less

The Exurban Exchange

Campbell F. Scribner

in The Fight for Local Control: Schools, Suburbs, and American Democracy

This chapter discusses the impact of suburbanization on rural school districts and looks at the invocation of local control to oppose court-ordered busing for racial desegregation. The history of ... More

This chapter discusses the impact of suburbanization on rural school districts and looks at the invocation of local control to oppose court-ordered busing for racial desegregation. The history of metropolitan busing in Wisconsin offers a particularly clear example of conservatives' conflation of rural and suburban school policy. Although the Wisconsin (Rural) Schools Association failed to stop the consolidation of rural districts during the 1950s, a decade later it gained popularity among suburbanites in Oshkosh, Green Bay, and Milwaukee with its pledge “to oppose the relentless disruption of our present school system.” When Milwaukee tried to install a race-based busing program in 1975, the Brookfield city council insisted that if “suburban home rule” were not preserved, villages and school districts in adjacent counties would be “consolidated, attached, dismembered, or reduced” at the whim of urban politicians.Less

Redefining Parents’ Rights

Campbell F. Scribner

in The Fight for Local Control: Schools, Suburbs, and American Democracy

This chapter discusses how campaigns for local control of curriculum surged nationwide in the late 1970s. Conservatives often championed both the rights of school boards and those of individual ... More

This chapter discusses how campaigns for local control of curriculum surged nationwide in the late 1970s. Conservatives often championed both the rights of school boards and those of individual parents, combining two seemingly contradictory interpretations of local control—one based on the principle of majority rule and the other on minority rights. These positions began to diverge during the late 1970s as courts limited the ability of local majorities to determine curriculum and strengthened the rights of individual parents, students, and teachers. The legal shift decoupled not only conflicting notions of democracy but the conservative movement's “radical” and “respectable” segments as well.Less

Social Justice

Eric T. Freyfogle

in Our Oldest Task: Making Sense of Our Place in Nature

This chapter continues the effort to construct an overall normative frame for distinguishing land use from land abuse. It takes up elements of social justice, defined more broadly than typically done ... More

This chapter continues the effort to construct an overall normative frame for distinguishing land use from land abuse. It takes up elements of social justice, defined more broadly than typically done in discussions of environmental justice. Social justice includes how we share the good parts of nature as well as environmental bads. It considers how actions (including consumption) by some people adversely affect others, effects that should register in moral assessments. And it contends that good land use requires the support and engagement of local people and that injustice occurs when local people are powerless to control key decisions about their landscapes. This critique extends to private property, a morally complex institution that vests power over nature in the hands of individual owners. Particularly with climate change humans must share the earth fairly and make room for one another taking into account variations in the productivity of landscapes. The chapter challenges common understandings of environmental racism as sometimes too focused on the racism (social justice) aspect and insufficiently attentive to ecological degradation. It ends by challenging the tendency to blend environmental goals with social justice goals into a single goal that can allow economic development to justify continuing degradation. Less

A Past Lost

Campbell F. Scribner

in The Fight for Local Control: Schools, Suburbs, and American Democracy

This concluding chapter argues that the misfortune of rural schools speaks to the declining population and political influence of rural communities in general, but it also suggests new possibilities ... More

This concluding chapter argues that the misfortune of rural schools speaks to the declining population and political influence of rural communities in general, but it also suggests new possibilities for a usable past. For as conservatives shift their attention from local control to school choice—and as suburbanites ignore the outlying communities with whom they once identified—they discard a valuable legacy of democratic participation, a cause with the potential to unite rural and urban areas as well as teachers and taxpayers. Rural teachers may have an important role to play in contemporary politics, not because their concerns are distinct from those of urban teachers but because conservative policies have hurt the communities in which both groups work.Less

A Case of an Electronics Firm and the Involvement of the Church

Neethi P.

in Globalization Lived Locally: A Labour Geography Perspective

This chapter is a case study of a prominent electronics manufacturer in Kerala. It illuminates an approach to labour studies which focuses on ‘local labour control regimes’. This approach provides an ... More

This chapter is a case study of a prominent electronics manufacturer in Kerala. It illuminates an approach to labour studies which focuses on ‘local labour control regimes’. This approach provides an entry point to theorize the processes and operations of the localized system of power at various scales. This is followed by an examination of day-to-day resistance paths crafted by the workers. Building on the theoretical base of local labour control regimes, empirical evidence from the case study reveals that local labour markets develop their own forms of labour control and worker response patterns. These are not always clearly visible and may require something more than superficial enquiry to bring their salient features into view. In this case, the Church, an actor that has been for long a very influential player in the development experience in Kerala, is shown to play an unexpected role in local labour control regimes.Less

The Municipal Police

Malcolm Anderson

in In Thrall to Political Change: Police and Gendarmerie in France

This chapter deals with controversies involving the municipal police in France since 1870. It begins with an overview of issues concerning national or local control of municipal policing. This is ... More

This chapter deals with controversies involving the municipal police in France since 1870. It begins with an overview of issues concerning national or local control of municipal policing. This is followed by a discussion on the distinction between municipal police and national police. The chapter then considers the revival of the municipal police from 1970 following its ‘disappearance’ after 1945. It also examines the virtues of the municipal police compared with the national police.Less

Rural Muscle

Alan Mikhail

in Under Osman's Tree: The Ottoman Empire, Egypt, and Environmental History

From the Ottoman conquest of Egypt in 1517 until the second half of the eighteenth century, Egyptian farmers initiated and oversaw the construction and repair of small-scale irrigation and other ... More

From the Ottoman conquest of Egypt in 1517 until the second half of the eighteenth century, Egyptian farmers initiated and oversaw the construction and repair of small-scale irrigation and other infrastructural works in their local environments. They controlled how and when their labor was used. At the end of the eighteenth century, rural labor in Egypt dramatically changed. It became coerced, required the large-scale movement of peasant laborers, resulted in enormous environmental manipulation, and was often deadly. This chapter explains this massive sea change in environmental labor in Egypt. It makes clear how and why forced labor, deleterious environmental exploitation, extractive economics, and population movements emerged at the end of the eighteenth century and how they have come to characterize the relationship between work and the environment in rural Egypt from that period until today.Less

Local Activism and Accountability Politics

Douglas S. Reed

in Building the Federal Schoolhouse: Localism and the American Education State

Chapter 7 examines the origins and reception of accountability policies and politics in Alexandria, beginning in the 1990s with the effort to shift from a School Board appointed by the Alexandria ... More

Chapter 7 examines the origins and reception of accountability policies and politics in Alexandria, beginning in the 1990s with the effort to shift from a School Board appointed by the Alexandria City Council to an elected one. This campaign stemmed from increasing frustration with Alexandria’s schools and growing calls for a more “accountable” school board. These changing priorities emerged at roughly the same time Virginia was revising its statewide accountability framework, the Virginia Standards of Learning (SOL), which represented both an incursion into local control and a national model for other states. Fresh off a campaign to impose electoral accountability on Alexandria schools, the local school leadership in Alexandria, led by Superintendent Herbert Berg, endorsed the accountability model with enthusiasm, unlike many school districts across Northern Virginia,. The local acceptance of Virginia’s accountability model stemmed from the concerted efforts of local activists to impose a norm of accountability on Alexandria’s schools and students alike.Less

The Self-Governed Neighborhood

Emily Talen

in Neighborhood

This chapter focuses on the issue of neighborhood self-governance, including the pros and cons of self-determination and local control. Strong, self-regulated neighborhoods fit well within a ... More

This chapter focuses on the issue of neighborhood self-governance, including the pros and cons of self-determination and local control. Strong, self-regulated neighborhoods fit well within a self-help narrative about residents taking control of their own destinies. But the downside, as the debates reveal, is the loss of power and the potential for insularity, which can further deplete power. At the same time, higher-level authorities are often resistant to relinquishing control, putting added stress on the ability of neighborhoods to self-manage. With a stronger sense of neighborhood, the debate can be resolved through better connection to wider political networks as well as better application of innovative budgeting and governance procedures that are already in place but not widely in use. Resolution of the self-determination debate, then, capitalizes on existing procedures, regulations, and governing authority that exist at the neighborhood level but have not been activated by an explicit understanding of neighborhood.Less

The Path to Pelican Bay: The Origins of the Supermax Prison in the Shadow of the Law, 1982–1989

Keramet Reiter

in Caging Borders and Carceral States: Incarcerations, Immigration Detentions, and Resistance

The chapter showcases California’s prison bureaucracy where correctional bureaucrats pioneered the development of the “supermax” high-level-security prison, or “prisons within prisons.” Drawing on ... More

The chapter showcases California’s prison bureaucracy where correctional bureaucrats pioneered the development of the “supermax” high-level-security prison, or “prisons within prisons.” Drawing on forty oral history interviews with prison administrators, lawyers, prison architects, and reformers, the chapter demonstrates how correctional bureaucrats initiated solutions to address local problems without political scrutiny. By focusing on local control through correctional bureaucrats, the chapter argues that bureaucrats acted as more than policy implementers but as “policy initiators” who reacted to fears over mounting prison uprisings, gang strife and racial violence, and prisoners’ rights lawsuits by redesigning the prison scheme to arrive at their “solution” of architectural cell isolation. In contrast to the top-down federal narrative of mass incarceration, this chapter reveals that correctional bureaucrats had near total control when advocating for the holistic redesign of the entire prison system within a supermax framework. Correctional bureaucrats thus remapped California’s prison system around a supermax framework with very little political and judicial intent, oversight, or scrutiny.Less

Conclusion

Margaret Moore

in A Political Theory of Territory

This chapter summarizes the central argument of the book, and emphasizes the practical need for a theory of territory, as conflict over land is likely to increase. It also argues that conflict is ... More

This chapter summarizes the central argument of the book, and emphasizes the practical need for a theory of territory, as conflict over land is likely to increase. It also argues that conflict is exacerbated by the lack of consensus on the normative importance of land and the appropriate relationship between land, the state and people.Less

Implementation Challenges

Robin Detterman, Jenny Ventura, Lihi Rosenthal, and Ken Berrick

in Unconditional Education: Supporting Schools to Serve All Students

By now you are likely aware that unconditional education (UE) is a practice of optimization. That is, the aim is to provide just the right amount of intervention to get the job done, but never ... More

By now you are likely aware that unconditional education (UE) is a practice of optimization. That is, the aim is to provide just the right amount of intervention to get the job done, but never unnecessary excess. Chapter 1 introduced the key principles that drive UE: efficiency, intentional relationship building, cross-sector responsibility, and local decision-making. Much of the rest of this book has addressed what happens in schools when these principles are absent. However, in reviewing early UE implementation pitfalls, most, if not all, missteps can be traced back to an overzealous application of these principles without adequate consideration for a just-right approach. This chapter will explore these common missteps and trace the surprising ways in which an over-application of the principles of UE can unintentionally replicate the very practices of exclusion it was designed to address. The previous chapters have proposed that healthy and trusting relationships play a central role when it comes to both personal and organizational learning. While the cultivation of relationships takes time, once established, the presence of relational trust can accelerate efforts. In schools highly impacted by trauma, an initial investment in relationship building is in fact a prerequisite for any successful transformation to take hold. The work of creating trauma-informed schools necessitates that we acknowledge these experiences and create plans to address the vicarious trauma often felt by school staff themselves. In some cases, even this is not enough. Organizational trauma—in which interactions within the entire building or district itself evidence the weight of working in resource-strapped environments—is common in public schools. It is often the case that years of unhealthy competition, inadequate funding, and failed initiatives and promises have overwhelmed an organization’s protective structures and rendered it less resilient for the hard work required to bring about the exact change the organization needs in order to heal and thrive (Vickers & Kouzmin, 2001). Not all public schools operate as traumatized systems, yet the conditions within many schools, particularly those serving a high percentage of students who belong to systematically oppressed groups, are most vulnerable. Less

Are You a Territorial Judge or a Territorial Lawyer?

Jeffrey S. Sutton

in Who Decides?: States as Laboratories of Constitutional Experimentation

This chapter looks at a later phase of state court history, one that necessarily concerns a different group of state courts but ultimately relates to all of them. Unlike the states that first entered ... More

This chapter looks at a later phase of state court history, one that necessarily concerns a different group of state courts but ultimately relates to all of them. Unlike the states that first entered the Union, most of the other states experienced a different pre-statehood status, usually as a territory of the United States. That status and the political experiences that went with it fed populist and distrust-of-government attitudes that fueled the growth of judicial elections, and helped to lay the political groundwork for popular constitutional initiatives that began in the early 1900s. Just as judicial elections were primarily a phenomenon of the states that began as territories, so the same would be true of popular initiatives. Why, the chapter asks, did the local-control preferences that prompted the territories to seek statehood not carry over into lasting local-control preferences in interpreting their own constitutions? The chapter promotes the use of the federal and state courts in judicial review, particularly when it comes to difficult-to-define American constitutional rights.Less