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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.

Education and state --- School management and organization --- Law and legislation --- education, student needs, bureaucracy, governance, oversight, school performance, administration, government, testing, academic achievement, learning, common core, assessment, decentralization, responsibility, competition, nonfiction, politics, principals, unions, teachers, charter, reform, portfolio, no child left behind, funding, accountability, civil rights, cafeteria, districts, rural, opening, closing, boards.

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School management --- Secondary education --- United States of America

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A heated debate is raging over our nation's public schools and how they should be reformed, with proposals ranging from imposing national standards to replacing public education altogether with a voucher system for private schools. Combining decades of experience in education, the authors propose an innovative approach to solving the problems of our school system and find a middle ground between these extremes. Reinventing Public Education shows how contracting would radically change the way we operate our schools, while keeping them public and accessible to all, and making them better able to meet standards of achievement and equity. Using public funds, local school boards would select private providers to operate individual schools under formal contracts specifying the type and quality of instruction. In a hands-on, concrete fashion, the authors provide a thorough explanation of the pros and cons of school contracting and how it would work in practice. They show how contracting would free local school boards from operating schools so they can focus on improving educational policy; how it would allow parents to choose the best school for their children; and, finally, how it would ensure that schools are held accountable and academic standards are met. While retaining a strong public role in education, contracting enables schools to be more imaginative, adaptable, and suited to the needs of children and families. In presenting an alternative vision for America's schools, Reinventing Public Education is too important to be ignored.

Performance contracts in education --- Educational change --- Educational accountability --- Privatization in education --- Educational performance contracts --- School management and organization --- Contrats pédagogiques --- Enseignement --- Réforme --- public education, teaching, learning, teachers, students, pedagogy, schools, american, united states of america, usa, transformation, reformation, reformed, national standards, innovation, accessibility, achievement, equity, equality, instruction, contracts, private support, creativity, operations, performance, privatization, new approach, strategies, leadership, politics.

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Supplements research initially described in R-2638 on the six types of interference and four types of cross-subsidy encountered by school districts and schools in implementing multiple categorical programs. A telephone survey revealed both problems in all types of school districts; site studies in 20 schools disclosed at least two types of interference and one type of cross-subsidy in each school. The authors recommend assigning disadvantaged children to regular classrooms rather than to separate categories dictated by the structure of federal grants and requirements. They urge federal and state policymakers to find a way to provide localities with the grant funds that categorical services require, to provide verifiable standards to ensure that these funds are used for the disadvantaged, and to avoid the problems documented in this report. A brief appendix notes some successes.

Federal aid to education

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An integral part of any attempt to restructure a school is the need to create time for the school staff to help design, endorse, and enact that reform. All of these activities must be accomplished in addition to the time demands of the school day. Based on a review of the relevant education and business literature as well as interviews with representatives of over 40 organizations involved in changing schools, this report details the role time plays in successfully planning the strategies and tactics of reform. In addition, the study constructs an inventory of six general approaches supplemented by specific examples of devices that create opportunities for teachers to meet, train, observe, and reflect. Finally, the report recommends steps all the parties to education reform could take to address better the issue of creating adequate time for reform.

Educational change --- School management and organization