Suchergebnisse

While in the past, parent engagement was relatively neglected by school districts and only slightly attended to by scholars, there is a well-funded and fierce battle for the political voices of parents today, especially in low-income communities. Using observational data from school closing hearings in New York City, I argue, first, that the school-closings process pits parent groups and sectors of the community against one another in their similar quests for good schooling. Second, I discuss contradictory orientations toward parent engagement: one based on free market ideology, and another on principles of democratic participation and engaged citizenry. Finally, I argue that parent engagement is becoming a commodity in the larger battle over the direction of public education. Adapted from the source document.

In this brief article, Melissa Kisson offers painful and powerful testimony as a high school student in Brooklyn, bearing witness as her school was declared a "failure" and ultimately closed. A youth organizer and now a college student, Kisson details the demoralization that grows when youth learn that the institution that has served them -- well or not -- has been spray-painted with the stigma of a failing school. She asks why public school districts do not support schools and communities as well as respect the voice and wishes of students, rather than closing the schools down and then opening them for a different group of students. Adapted from the source document.

AbstractFrom 1959 to 1964, Prince Edward County, Virginia, dodged a court desegregation order by refusing to operate public schools. Though the county played an integral role in the national battle over civil rights, scholars and journalists have largely neglected Prince Edward's role in the national drama of race. In 1951, Black high school students went on strike to protest unequal school facilities. This strike led to an NAACP lawsuit that became one of five decided inBrown v. Board of Education. When faced with a final desegregation deadline in 1959, the county put itself in a unique position by becoming the only school district in the U.S. to close its public schools for an extended period of time rather than accept any desegregation. Most White students attended a private, segregated academy; over three-quarters of Black Prince Edward students lost some or all of those years of education. White county leaders believed they were creating a blueprint for defying desegregation in the rural South and perhaps, they hoped, throughout much of the United States. Using archival materials, interviews and secondary accounts, I explain how White county leaders made a public case for the school closings. These leaders' rhetorical strategy was a crucial early draft in the depiction of segregation as a natural state free of racial rancor. The segregationist rhetoric emanating from Prince Edward County was grounded primarily in arguments for privatization, local self-determination, and taxpayers' rights. Such arguments would come to dominate conservative rhetoric nationwide.

What a school means -- City of losses -- Dueling realities -- Mourning -- Conclusion: an open door