Vanishing School Boards

Since Nation at Risk, NCLB and RTT, the once thought sacred institution of school boards as catalysts to ensure local control of schools is being redefined and are under heavy attack. Increasingly, school boards are disappearing from the discussion of promoting student achievement and their role as educational decision-makers have significantly declined. The aims of public education are gradually being federalized and privatized. In Vanishing School Boards, author Patrick Rice give various reasons for the descent of school boards, reasons why school boards are vital, the importance of board training and how the superintendent can assist the board in their mission of delivering a quality education to all students.

Since Nation at Risk, NCLB and RTT, the once thought sacred institution of school boards as catalysts to ensure local control of schools is being redefined and are under heavy attack. Increasingly, school boards are disappearing from the discussion of promoting student achievement and their role as educational decision-makers have significantly declined. The aims of public education are gradually being federalized and privatized. In Vanishing School Boards, author Patrick Rice give various reasons for the descent of school boards, reasons why school boards are vital, the importance of board training and how the superintendent can assist the board in their mission of delivering a quality education to all students.

This is a thought-provoking book on the black-white academic achievement gap in Chicago’s predominantly black communities of color and what highly effective school boards can do to change it. In this book, the reader will be powerfully enlightened by a civil and human rights debate that calls for effective leadership in our schools, beginning with effective school boards. The primary agenda of effective school boards is raising student achievement performance levels and engaging the school district community to attain that goal. These instructive analyses of effective school board leadership builds on the research and wisdom of great leaders. Simultaneously, it develops a breath of fresh air for school reformers who seek to implement a new model and escape the insanity and pathology inherent in school board dysfunctions and violations of our civil and human rights which prevents progress in Chicago’s south suburban communities of color. In both highs and lows of awesome moments, as educational reform leaders and school board members, we are in a strategic leadership position to help school boards carry out their essential responsibilities for creating equity and excellence in public education. In doing so, highly effective school leaders can team with our school board leaders to lead our school district communities in preparing all students to succeed in a rapidly changing global society. School board members doing the same things over and over again and then expecting different results in academic outcomes is the definition for insanity. Education is freedom. In an era of mass educational apartheid with its consequent mass incarceration of blacks that has surpassed the enforced chattel bondage of slavery’s peak numbers in 1860, this book addresses a subject that is critically essential, timely, and in need of immediate attention for the security, success, and ultimate survival of black America. As the problems of the academic under-achievement gap is addressed in this book, it is also essential that school boards, educators, and community and national leaders accept reality, to view the problem in its true perspective, to contemplate it as it is, in providing essential solutions toward removing limiting and limited school boards’ dysfunctions, obstructions, and other barriers to academic achievement in effective school board leadership. Supporting educational excellence will thereby produce more African American scholars in mathematics, science, and in many other disciplines. This book will provide information and focus on some key action areas that successful school boards in America and around the world have focused their attention on: Vision, Standards, Assessment, Resource Alignment, Climate, Collaboration, and Continuous Academic Improvement.

Equity, from the Boardroom to the Classroom discusses the need for districts to become Professional Learning Organizations (PLOs) which links the board’s role to Professional Learning Communities. In order to promote equity, it is vital that school boards build a culture in which all stakeholders contribute individually and collectively to accomplish district objectives. To foster a collaborative culture, boards must display “thermostat leadership” as opposed to “thermometer leadership.” “Thermostat leadership” is practiced when the board is actively involved in setting, maintaining, or adjusting district culture in order to ensure alignment with district priorities which PLOs promote. Comparatively, “thermometer leadership” is used when a board governs by a laissez-faire approach and seeks to mandate a specificculture without becomingly actively involved. The latter approach enable boards to be misinformed about its strategic initiatives. Research is clear: No school reform aimed at improving student learning will be successful without strong leadership and support from the school board. PLOs are a must for districts that desire to build a positive culture and seek to increase student achievement by way of a systemic process grounded in collaboration. Without leadership, support, and collaboration led by the school board, it is doubtful that any school reform will be successful regardless of how effective the reform may appear to be.

Over the last fifty years, Canada's public schools have been absorbed into a modern education system that functions much like Max Weber's infamous iron cage. Crying out for democratic school-level reform, the system is now a centralized, bureaucratic fortress that, every year, becomes softer on standards for students, less accessible to parents, further out of touch with communities, and surprisingly unresponsive to classroom teachers. Exploring the nature of the Canadian education order in all its dimensions, The State of the System explains how public schools came to be so bureaucratic, confronts the critical issues facing kindergarten to grade 12 public schools in all ten provinces, and addresses the need for systemic reform. Going beyond a diagnosis of the stresses, strains, and ills present in the system, Paul Bennett proposes a bold plan to re-engineer schools on a more human scale as the first step in truly reforming public education. In place of school consolidation and managerialism, one-size-fits-all uniformity, limited school choice, and the "success-for-all" curriculum, Bennett advocates for a new set of priorities: decentralize school governance, deprogram education ministries and school districts, listen to parents and teachers, and revitalize local education democracy. Tackling the thorny issues besetting contemporary school systems in Canada, The State of the System issues a clarion call for more responsive, engaged, and accountable public schools.

School boards are fighting for their survival. Almost everything that they do is subject to regulations handed down from city councils, state boards of education, legislatures, and courts. As recent mayoral and state takeovers in such cities as Baltimore, Chicago, and New York make abundantly clear, school boards that do not fulfill the expectations of other political players may be stripped of what few independent powers they still retain. Teachers unions exert growing influence over board decision-making processes. And with the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act, the federal government has aggressively inserted itself into matters of local education governance. B esieged is the first full-length volume in many years to systematically examine the politics that surround school boards. A group of highly renowned scholars, relying on both careful case studies and quantitative analyses, examine how school boards fare when they interact with their political superiors, teachers unions, and the public. For the most part, the picture that emerges is sobering: while school boards perform certain administrative functions quite well, the political pressures they face undermine their capacity to institute the wide-ranging school reforms that many voters and local leaders are currently demanding.

Once home to over 60 flourishing villages, Middlesex County, in the heart of southwestern Ontario, has a rich history just waiting to be discovered. Anthropologist and local history enthusiast Jennifer Grainger has, through extensive research and much personal exploration, produced a valuable document chronicling the "rise and fall" of these pioneering settlements, truly the foundation of all that exist in the area today. Nostalgia buffs, armchair adventurers, genealogists and curious daytrippers alike will welcome the arrival of this timely publication with its many fascinating stories and countless visual reminders of the past.