Policy studies for education leaders Exercises Chapter 8

1. Questions and activities for discussion 1.1 Identify three sources in your state that provide information about the activities of the state legislature. Contact them and discuss your findings with your class. 1.2 Contact the SDE in your state and ask what provisions, if any, it makes for the participation of educators in rule making. Discuss your findings with your class. 1.3 Visit a public or university library and list the most useful government documents related to policy formulation and adoption in your state that you can find in the collection. 1.4 Develop a plan for building better relations between your school district or building and area government officials involved in policy formulation and adoption.

2. Case study: The Gadfly As he moved into the last decade of his professional career in a Midwestern state, Superintendent Jack Donato became increasingly disgruntled about education policy trends. Although he was comfortably ensconced in a district with several booming shopping malls and no financial woes, all around him he saw school systems on the verge of bankruptcy and increasing poverty among schoolchildren. Yet, at both the national and state levels, politicians were blaming educators and developing policies to reward high test scores and punish low ones.

Jack launched his first attack about seven years before his retirement, when the state legislature passed an education reform act establishing an interdistrict often enrollment program to improve schools through competition. He worked with the regional section of the state superintendents’ association to created workshops on the new law, inviting legislators, SDE representatives, and out-of-state critics of open enrollment to speak to school administrators about it.

Next, he persuaded another superintendent to file suit against the state with him; they challenged the portion of the law that required every district to send demographic data about students and their test scores to the SDE, alleging a violation of privacy rights. In the state capital, these activities earned Jack the nickname, “the Gadfly,” but Jack didn’t care.

Although the lost his court case, Jack continued his crusade. In order to raise questions about the way political and business leaders had defined education problems, he and his district sponsored a lecture series, inviting national figures such as Gerald Bracey, David Berliner, and Bruce Biddle to speak about alternative perspectives on public education and its problems.

During the year the retired, Jack was distributing information about the legislature’s proposed voucher plan to his teachers and urging them to let legislators know their opinion of it. Of course, the teachers were well aware of Jack’s strong opposition. When the Gadfly retired, the legislature was still considering vouchers, but Jack felt that he had fought the good fight.

Questions: 1. What aspects of Jack’s personal and professional situation permitted him to take strong stands? Describe a more subtle campaign that a differently situated leader might have waged. 2. Describe Jack’s use of coalitions and allies as well as his attempts to influence all three policy formulation and adoption arenas. 3. To what extent did Jack choose the best stage of the policy process for his interventions? How might he have sought to influence the policy process at an earlier stage? 4. What legal and ethical questions might be raised about Jack’s activities?

3. Pro-con debate: Should school services be privatized? YES: Public schools perform many services that have little to do with educating children-food service, janitorial work, transportation, management, and so forth. Everyone knows that the private sector is more efficient than the rigid and bureaucratic public one, so why not just privatize all the noneducational aspects of education?

Let the market work its magic, motivating school service providers and administrators to provide good service at the lowest possible cost. Soon we would see a more businesslike atmosphere and a keener concern for customers and their needs. They would have to be responsive to the market, or they would not survive. Privatization would therefore improve our children’s education and save taxpayers money at the same time.

NO: Most arguments for the privatization of school services and management are based on ideology rather than on evidence. The growing body of research on privatization-especially the privatization of school management-suggests that it neither improves education services nor save money.

The fact is that the private sector is not well suited to carry out some activities, and the provision of universal education is one of them. The reason is clear: Children are not packages to be transported from place to place or cows waiting to be fed. Every aspect of their schooling is potentially educational. Therefore, these services should not be under the control of private corporations whose overriding concern is making a profit.