Community Engagement for Better Schools, 1st ed. 2020 Guaranteeing Accountability, Representativeness and Equality

In the United States, government participation in education has traditionally involved guaranteeing public access, public funding, and public governance to achieve accountability, representativeness and equality. This volume discusses the role of broad regimes of local community actors to promote school improvement through greater civic engagement. Taking a historical perspective, this text examines the relationship between government at the federal, state, and local level and local actors both inside the traditional education regime and those stakeholders outside the schools including parents, non-profit organizations, and businesses. It then drills deeper into the role of state legislatures and finally local leadership both inside and outside the schools to promote change, focusing on efforts that include parental choice through tax incentives, charter schools, magnet schools, and school vouchers to achieve accountability, representativeness and equality.

The text examines the perceptions and relationships of various actors in urban education reform in numerous cities across the country with special attention dedicated to Chicago, Illinois, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin to offer a deeper understanding of the barriers to and opportunities for fostering greater civic capacity and engagement in urban education reform, as well as developing inclusive educational policy.

Attention is also given to accountability and measuring success, traditionally defined by high stakes testing which fails to consider non-classroom factors within the community that contribute to student performance.  An alternative approach is offered driven by a wholistic accounting of various factors that contribute to school success centered around third-party inspections and accreditation.

Providing insight into school reform at the local level, this book will be useful to researchers and students interested in public policy, education policy, urban governance, intergovernmental relations, and educational leadership, as well as teaching professionals, administrators, and local government officials.

Chapter 1: Government as Provider of Education Services.- Chapter 2: The Urban Regime and City Schools: Building Change.- Chapter 3: Community Engagement and the Education Regime.- Chapter 4: Good Schools for Good Development: Race, Class, and Housing.- Chapter 5: First and Second Order Change.- Chapter 6: A Chronology of school reform.- Chapter 7: The Rise of School Choice: Leaving No Child Behind so Every Student Succeeds.- Chapter 8: Building a Competitive System.- Chapter 9: Arguments Against Choice.- Chapter 10: Chicago and Corporate led Reform.- Chapter 11: Milwaukee and Parental Choice.- Chapter 12: Perceptions of Stakeholders in School Reform.- Chapter 13: Redefining Accountability.- Chapter 14: Creating a Market for Education.- Index.

Michael Guo-Brennan is an Assistant Professor of public administration in the Department of Political Science at Troy University in Alabama (US).

Discusses the role of local communities and civic engagement in school improvement in the US

Examines education policy at the federal, state, and local levels

Analyzes the school choice movement and competition between schools