Public schools are functionally provided through structural arrangements such as government funding, but public schools are achieved in substance, in part, through local governance. In this essay, Kathleen Knight Abowitz explains the bifocal nature of achieving public schools; that is, that schools are both subject to the unitary Public compact of constitutional principles as well as to the more local engagements with multiple publics. Knight Abowitz sketches this bifocal nature, exploring both the (...) unitary ideal and its parameters, as well as the less understood forms of multiple, organic publics that come into being in response to localized problems in schools or districts. These publics often fail to realize their potential in the development of increased capacity for enhanced teaching and learning. The essay ultimately points to a practical application: that educational leadership of all types, and with some very specific kinds of habits and skills, is needed to help achieve public schools. (shrink)

R J Royce; Public Schools: private privilege—a reply to Brenda Cohen, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 16, Issue 1, 30 May 2006, Pages 105–113, https.

Postmodernism is a philosophical description that encompasses philosophy, the arts, a period of history, and many other aspects of today’s existence. This dissertation examines the extent to which Indiana public school superintendents use postmodern philosophy as opposed to modern philosophy to inform their practice. This was accomplished by examining eight leadership concepts through the application of questions with decisions related to either modernism or postmodernism. The study described by this dissertation used a quantitative research method assembling data and determining (...) the correlation of operant philosophy by a superintendent with their tenure. (shrink)

In this article, Walter Parker brings structure and agency to the foreground of the current tumult of public schooling in the United States. He focuses on three structures that are serving as rules and resources for creative agency. These are a discourse of derision about failing schools, a broad mobilization of multiculturalism, and an enduring nationalism. Drawing on Anthony Giddens's structuration theory, Parker examines how these discourses figure in redefining school reform, redefining school curricula, and requiring schools (...) once again to serve nationalistic purposes. (shrink)

Financing Public Schools moves beyond the basics of financing public elementary and secondary education to explore the historical, philosophical, and legal underpinnings of a viable public school system. Coverage includes the operational aspects of school finance, including issues regarding teacher salaries and pensions, budgeting for instructional programs, school transportation, and risk management. Diving deeper than other school finance books, the authors explore the political framework within which the schools must function, discuss the privatization of education (...) and its effects on public schools, offer perspectives regarding education as an investment in human capital, and expertly explain complex financial and economic issues. This comprehensive text provides the tools to apply the many and varied fiscal concepts and practices that are essential for aspiring public school administrators who aim to provide responsible stewardship for their students. (shrink)

This article takes up a text that Rancière published shortly after The Ignorant School Master appeared in French, 'École, production, égalité'[School, Production, Equality] (1988), in which he sketched the school as being preeminently the place of equality. In this vein, and opposed to the story of the school as the place where inequality is reproduced and therefore in need of reform, the article wants to recount the story of the school as the invention of a site of equality and as (...) primordially a public space. Inspired by Rancière, we indicate first how the actual (international and national) policy story about the school and the organizational technologies that accompany it install and legitimate profound inequalities, which consequently can no longer be questioned (and become 'invisible'). Second, the article recasts and rethinks different manifestations of equality and of 'public-ness' in school education and, finally, indicates various ways in which these manifestations are neutralized or immunized in actual discourses and educational technologies. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that the material and rhetorical connection between “parental involvement” and motherhood has the effect of making two important features of parental involvement disappear. Both of these features need to be taken into account to think through the positive and negative effects of parental involvement in public schooling. First, parental involvement is labor. In the following section of this paper, I discuss the work of feminist scholars who have brought this to light. Second, parental involvement (...) remains one of the most significant ways in which citizens participate in the public sphere. While education reform projects centered on parental involvement do show some recognition that what parents/mothers do is in fact work, even as they ignore the gendered dimensions of this work and sunnily demand that parents do ever more of it, these projects resist the recognition that parents’/mothers’ involvement is also political. (shrink)

J Martin Stafford; Public Schools, Private Privilege and Common Sense, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 19, Issue 1, 30 May 2006, Pages 137–141, https.

Volume 24, Issue 12, December 2024, Page 6-7.

In this article we aim to open a new line of debate about religion in public schools by focusing on religious ideals. We begin with an elucidation of the concept ‘religious ideals’ and an explanation of the notion of reasonable pluralism, in order to be able to explore the dangers and positive contributions of religious ideals and their pursuit on a liberal democratic society. We draw our examples of religious ideals from Christianity and Islam, because these religions have (...) most adherents in Western liberal democracies that are the focus of this article. The fifth and most important section ‘‘Reasonable pluralism and the inclusion of religious ideals in public secondary schools’’ provides three arguments for our claim that public schools should include religious ideals, namely that they are important to religious people, that they are conducive for the development of pupils into citizens of a liberal democracy, and that the flourishing of pupils as adults is advanced by encountering religious ideals. We also offer a more practical reason: religious ideals can more easily be included within public education than religious dogmas and rules. (shrink)

From schools advertising McDonald's, Nike, and Shell oil to military generals appointed as superintendents; from corporate CEOs hailed as education experts to students suspended for wearing Pepsi tee shirts on Coke day; Collateral Damage sifts through a wide range of incidents to reveal how the rising corporatization of public schools needs to be understood as a part of a broader attack on the public sector. Uniquely, Collateral Damage considers the privatization of public education in relation (...) to both globalization and local struggles over curriculum, schools, and culture. (shrink)

The study aims to identify the degree of possession of government school principals in the Karbala Governorate Education Directorate of artificial intelligence applications. The descriptive analytical approach was used. To achieve the study objectives, a questionnaire which contained (34) items was developed, divided into five dimensions. The study community was (114) male and female principals. The study sample consisted of (94) male and female managers, and the sample was selected randomly. The results of the study showed that the degree of (...) possession of government school principals in the Karbala Governorate Education Directorate of artificial intelligence applications was average. The results of the study also showed that there were no statistically significant differences at the significance level (α=0.05) attributed to the study variables (gender, academic qualification, experience in artificial intelligence techniques). In light of the study results, the researchers recommended several recommendations, most notably: paying attention to training courses in the field of information and communications technology, especially in the subject of artificial intelligence, by organizing meetings and workshops with the aim of raising awareness among individuals and society about the importance of artificial intelligence, encouraging the Iraqi Ministry of Education to its teaching staff and providing them with incentives to employ artificial intelligence applications in their administrative and educational work, introducing artificial intelligence applications into curricula and courses and paying attention to them, and providing specialized teaching staff in this field. (shrink)

Using the pooled 1998–2000 GSS data, this study examines what kinds of parents tend to select non‐public schools for their children, a question that is fundamental but lacks direct, adequate answers in the literature. The results of logistic regression analysis show that religion, socio‐economic status, age, nativity, number of children and region play significant roles in parental choice of religious schools, but race, gender, urban residence and family composition make no difference. Parental socio‐economic status is a key (...) factor in determining their choice of non‐religious private schools. Currently, no significant differences in demographic, religious, socio‐economic and family‐structure characteristics can be detected with regard to which parents are more likely to home‐school their children. Implications of the findings are considered. (shrink)

The question of public aid for non-public schools deserves thorough and objective discussion. Here is a study of policy and practice and a pro-aid evaluation.

Plurality implies a public sphere in which different worldviews (e.g. Secular Humanist, Christian, Jewish, Muslim and others) coexist respecting each other. Banning the presence of one or several of them from the public sphere is questionable in principle, and divisive in practice.

This paper reflects on the establishment of an Ethics Education Programme for school pupils aged between five and sixteen years who opt out of Catholic Religious Education in Malta. It needs to be seen in the light of the changing demography of Malta and the increasing secularisation of the country, as well as to the growing racism, islamophobia and rejection of the Other to be found all over Europe. We question if the Ethics Education Programme, in its commitment to ‘totalising’ (...) western ideals of rationality, autonomy, and universal values, is itself rooted in discomfort with the Other and constitutes a form of ethical violence. The work of Emmanuel Levinas on Otherness, sameness and violence is central to this paper. (shrink)

Globally, the COVID-19 pandemic is triggering a public health emergency and crisis on a large scale, with far-reaching effects and severe damage to all aspects of politics, economy, cultural and social life, and health. Consecutive outbreaks over the past nearly 2 years of “living with COVID-19” have forced most schools to physically close, resulting in the largest educational disruption in human history. In turbulent times of the COVID-19 crisis, school leaders are facing numerous major challenges germane to school (...) governance and leadership. The key objective of the study is to fully explore the prospective challenges principals are encountering in public schools in times of COVID-19. To fulfill the research purpose, a systematic literature review was carried out to investigate the leadership challenges. As a result, a total of 24 challenges were explored through SLR approach. Frequency analysis approach was initially applied to figure out the most significant challenges. Accordingly, seven challenges were found statistically significant as showing frequency ≥ 50 each. Irrevocably, the study works as a contribution to K-12 school leadership by providing guidance for current and future leaders in crisis based on practical investigation, experiences, and recommendations. Policy makers can leverage these findings to make necessary adjustments to school policy to better prepare school leaders for crisis. Additionally, the findings of the current study are believed to have profound implications for future research. These findings expand our current understanding on school leadership in time of crisis that needs further investigation. Subsequent studies can quantitatively and/or qualitatively validate these leadership challenges findings regarding a particular school context. (shrink)

Drawing on positioning theory this study investigates how Somali diaspora mothers actively struggle to be recognized by teachers in Danish public schools as equitable partners in their children’s education. The study takes into account the historically and politically constituted conditions for positioning work and argues that these mothers navigate skillfully in these conditions explicitly positioning themselves as both ‘supportive assistants’ and ‘responsible parents’. However, the analysis shows that these mothers have narratives of unjust treatment of both themselves and (...) their children in schools, but the struggle to be recognized as equitable partners inhibits their possibilities of taking up the position of ‘advocate for their child’. They are thereby drawn into a position of ‘passive complacency’. Additionally the article argues for a more encompassing understanding of positioning theory that takes into account the constituted conditions as well as embodied and material aspects of constitutive here-and-now negotiations. (shrink)

This article takes up a text that Rancière published shortly after The Ignorant School Master appeared in French, ‘École, production, égalité’[School, Production, Equality] (1988), in which he sketched the school as being preeminently the place of equality. In this vein, and opposed to the story of the school as the place where inequality is reproduced and therefore in need of reform, the article wants to recount the story of the school as the invention of a site of equality and as (...) primordially a public space. Inspired by Rancière, we indicate first how the actual (international and national) policy story about the school and the organizational technologies that accompany it install and legitimate profound inequalities, which consequently can no longer be questioned (and become ‘invisible’). Second, the article recasts and rethinks different manifestations of equality and of ‘public‐ness’ in school education and, finally, indicates various ways in which these manifestations are neutralized or immunized in actual discourses and educational technologies. (shrink)

Some children living with life-shortening medical conditions may wish to attend school without the threat of having resuscitation attempted in the event of cardiopulmonary arrest on the school premises. Despite recent attention to in-school do-not-attempt-resuscitation (DNAR) orders, no assessment of state laws or school policies has yet been made. We therefore sought to survey a national sample of prominent school districts and situate their policies in the context of relevant state laws. Most (80%) school districts sampled did not have policies, (...) regulations, or protocols for dealing with student DNARs. A similar majority (76%) either would not honor student DNARs or were uncertain about whether they could. Frequent contradictions between school policies and state laws also exist. Consequently, children living with life-shortening conditions who have DNARs may not have these orders honored if cardiopulmonary arrest were to occur on school premises. Coordinated efforts are needed to harmonize school district, state, and federal approaches in order to support children and families' right to have important medical decisions honored. (shrink)

In this paper, John Tillson defends an approach to deciding the aims and content of public schooling from the critique of Public Reason Liberalism. The approach that he defends is an unrestricted pairing of the Epistemic Criterion and of the Momentousness Criterion. On the Epistemic Criterion, public schooling should align students' credence with credibility. On the Momentousness Criterion, public schooling ought to include content that it is costly for children to lack the correct view about, where (...) they are otherwise unlikely to have it. Public Reason Liberals seek to restrict both the Epistemic and Momentousness Criteria to within a range that is acceptable to politically reasonable citizens. In response, Tillson argues, first, that the considerations that encourage Public Reason Liberalism instead motivate unrestricted versions of the Epistemic and Momentousness Criteria; and, second, that Public Reason Liberalism faces a dilemma, that it either entails absurd consequences or must undermine itself in addressing these. (shrink)

In this essay David Labaree examines the tension between two competing visions of the purposes of education that have shaped American public schools. From one perspective, we have seen schooling as a way to preserve and promote public aims, such as keeping the faith, shoring up the republic, or promoting economic growth. From the other perspective, we have seen schooling as a way to advance the interests of individual educational consumers in the pursuit of social access and (...) social advantage. In the first half of the essay Labaree shows the evolution of the public vision over time, from an emphasis on religious aims to political ones to economic ones and, finally, to an embrace of individual opportunity. In the second half, he shows how the consumerist vision of schooling has not only come to dominate in the rhetoric of school reform but also in shaping the structure of the school system. (shrink)

The study aimed to comprehensively overview the experiences encountered by public school employees during the recruitment, selection, and placement (RSP) process within the DepEd Bohol Division. Employing a qualitative-descriptive research design, the researchers utilized a phenomenological approach to delve deeply into these experiences, shedding light on the nuances and intricacies of the division's RSP process. As Lambert et al. (2013) described, qualitative- descriptive studies aim to provide a comprehensive and detailed summary of specific events experienced by individuals or groups (...) in everyday terms. To achieve this, Colaizzi's (1978) data analysis method was applied, meticulously gathering, transcribing, and analyzing recorded participant responses. The rigorous analysis revealed that an overwhelming 81% of the participants recognized significant challenges within the current RSP system of the division, underscoring the pressing need for a renewed approach to address these identified challenges. This highlighted the necessity for an RSP policy that is responsive and innovative, tailored to meet the evolving needs and expectations of applicants, schools, and the division. By implementing improvements to the RSP process, a more efficient and timely filling of vacated and newly available positions is anticipated, contributing to the seamless functioning of the educational system and ultimately enhancing the prospects of success. (shrink)

In this paper I will deal with the question of the religious education in the public schools in Romania, from the point of view of the relationship between Church and State. My quantitative and qualitative analysis of the bills concerning religious education, the way in which law has been applied and some of the consequences of this application wants to circumscribe the meaning of some concepts such as religious liberty and the new religious forms. The basic consequence of (...) this I hope will be the redefining of the notion of public space and of the role played by religion with its characteristic aspects: the relationship between state and religious organizations. This will clearly show the essential bond between two main aspects of religious liberty: the formal aspect - legal and institutional - and the informal aspect – an aspect connected to the personal and social attitudes regarding the new forms of religious behaviour. (shrink)