Community Run Schools?

[Guest guest]

Please accept my obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada!

 

Periodically, there is discussion of "community-run" schools. I hope the

attached file and information herein will be helpful in this regard.

 

Attached please find 4 models of parent-school relationships

("ParentSchoolConnection.pdf). These are somewhat theoretical models. When

people talk of a community school, they generally have in mind that they (an

individual or family) will control the school--and, unfortunately, most want

such authority with little or no responsibility.

 

The closest description in the attached file to a community school is the

Partnership model. According to the researchers, if one desires to come to the

Partnership level, the best idea is to have a plan to *gradually* move from

Protective model to School-to-Home Transmission model, to Curriculum Enrichment

Model, to Partnership Model.

 

All concerned should be aware, however, that a fully and complete partnership

model with *all* parents is virtually unknown. Some very small homeschooling

cooperatives accomplish this, but in general, most teachers and administrators

do not wish to be simply a hired servant of all the collective parents, which

is generally what parents have in mind when they suggest models like this. Nor

would most teachers and educational administrators want to be a paid servant of

a totally parent-run board. Even in public school systems run by a board,

individual teachers have a tremendous amount of autonomy. In fact, anyone truly

inclined to be a teacher will have a brahminical tendency for independence.

Often, it seems, parents want a top teacher, who is a brahmana, and at the same

time a submissive sudra. Such a combination is doubtful.

 

The real partnership model is one of great mutual respect, and mutual

responsibility. Generally, some parents (and teachers!) will be willing to do

what it takes to make this model work, and others will not.

 

In this regard, I submit the following book and three articles for further

reference. A summary is also given here.

 

Excellent book (a classic) about organizations:

Mintzberg, Henry "Structure in Fives: Designing Effective Organizations"

Prentice Hall, 1992 ISBN: 013855479X

 

Of most interest in regards to this discussion is chapter five. Whenever

organizations try to be managed by direct democracy (everyone has an equal and

direct say in control/management) the organization quickly returns to a very

centralized form of control.

 

The chapter is about centralization and de-centralization, or to what extent

power rests in the hands of one person. Organizations de-centralize because one

person cannot know everything, more people with power means a quicker response

time, and de-centralization gives a stimulus for motivation to all who have

power.

 

The process of power is isn the following steps:

information--advice--choice--authorization--execution--action

 

Information, advice, execution, and action are informal power. Choice and

authorization are formal power. Power is most centralized when one person

controls all these steps. It is most decentralized when the top person only has

control over "choice."

 

Whoever provides the initial information upon which everything else rests has a

lot of power. Therefore...

 

Power for a decision process tends to rest at the level where the necessary

information can best be accumulated. Examples:

An individual because of position

Analysis because they develop systems of standarization

Experts because of their knowledge

Everyone because of their membership (strongly and almost inevitably leads back

to centralization when this is the case)

 

Three good research articles about how attempts at school Partnership models

often result simply in maintaining the status quo:

 

(1) Carlson, Dennis "The Politics of Educational Policy: Urban School Reform in

Unsettling Times" in Educational Policy, volume 7, issue 2, 1993

 

Abstract for article #1: This article argues that in relatively stable

political periods a unifying policy discourse prevails in the state--what the

author calls the hegemonic (that means keeping the people who are presently in

power, in power, along with their values, etc.) policy discourse--that

represents the worldview and interests of the dominant political coalition.

This policy discourse may remain basically unchanged until it is challenged by

counterhegemonic discourse based on new organizing principles and associated

with the rise of a new political coalition and social movement. This general

conceptual framework is applied to an analysis of urban school reform over the

past several decades. The article indicates that throughout this period a

hegemonic conservative discourse has constructed urban school reform issues

around a "basic skills" model of the curriculum and suggest how basic skills

reforms have participated in the structuring of class, race, and gender

inequalities. After critiquing conservative approaches to managing the urban

school crisis, the article discusses some possible organizing principles for a

counterhegemonic, democratic-progressive policy discourse. In this regard, it

examines the contributions but also the limitations of recent liberal discourse

in education, especially its concerns for higher-order thinking skills,

equality of opportunity, and teacher professionalism. The article concludes by

discussing the relevance of notions of workplace democratization and critical

literacy and pedagogy.

 

(2) Scheurich, James Joseph and Imber, Michael, "Educational Reforms Can

Reproduce Societal Inequities: A Case Study" in Educational Administration

Quarterly, Vol 27, number 3 (August 1991) pp. 297-320

 

Abstract for article #2: Although critical theorists (that means people who

analyze everything by class struggle and power domination, etc.) in educational

administration have recently contended that administrative practices play an

important role in the reproduction of societal inequities, lille research has

been done to show how this actually occurs in schools. This article addresses

that lack by reporting a case study illustrating how one school district's

reform efforts replicate the unequal distribution of knowledge, power, and

resources by race and class that often occurs in society. the article begins

with a critical discussion of the three dominant paradigms in educational

organization change theory--functionalism, culturalism, and critical

theory--and ends with practical suggestions about how the school district could

have more equitably proceeded with its reform efforts.

 

(3) Malen, Betty and Ogawa, Rodney T. "Professional-Patron Influence on

Site-Based Governance Councils: A Confounding Case Study" in Educational

Evaluation and Policy Analysis, Vol 10, Number 4, Winter 1988, pp 251-270

 

Abstract for article #3: Case studies of site-based governance councils in Salt

Lake City, Utah, provided the basis for testing whether building-based councils

with broad jurisdiction, formal policymaking authority, parity protections, and

training provisions actually enable teachers and parents to exert substaintial

influence on school policy. Despite the esistence of these highly favorable

arrangements, teachers and parents did not wield significant influence on

significant issues in these decision arenas. Other factors, notably the

composition of the councils, the relative power and role orientations of

principals and professionals, norms of prpriety and civility, the nature of

district oversight and support, a congenial culture, and stable environment

intervened to transform policymaking bodies into auxiliary units, convert

teacher-parent parity to principal-professional control, and maintain rather

than alter the influence relationships typically and traditionally found in

schools. The implications of this research for those who advocate site-based

governance as a potent reform strategy are discussed.

 

Unfortunately, none of the above articles are available electronically so I

cannot send a copy unless I scan in the entire article. :-(

 

Hope all this is helpful.

 

Your servant, Urmila devi dasi