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Jigsaw Group: Gaztambide-Fernandez, Smarick&Roso, Ford&Shober,…

- - - - “Students at elite boarding schools have a dazzling array of opportunities available to explore various interests, take on unique pursuits, and find a niche in which to demonstrate their talents and passions. This part of the promise that these schools make their students and what attracts many students to the schools in the first place.” (Gatztambide- Fernandez, 2009, p. 1101)
        
        “What makes elite boarding schools scholastically elite is also the whole range of opportunities in areas like athletics, the arts, and extracurricular activities. These schools do not typically subsume athletic and artistic opportunities as extracurricular activities.” (Gatztambide- Fernandez, 2009, p. 1103)
        
        Elite boarding schools usually have several academic departments, including classical and modem languages-from Latin and Greek to Spanish, Russian, and Chinese-mathematics, science and technology, religion, history, anthropology, economics, and psychology, to name a few. In admissions materials, the academic program is often described as, and compared to, four-year colleges, and a review of course catalogues reveals offerings that would be the envy of any small liberal arts college.” (Gaztambide-Fernandez, 2009, p. 1102)
        
        “To satisfy these goals, elite boarding schools offer sophisticated courses of study, and students are able to choose from a wide range of offerings in a diversity of disciplines. Once accepted to an elite boarding school, students embrace-albeit to varying degrees-the expectation of engaging rigorously and being “the best of the best”. (Gatztambide- Fernandez, 2009, p. 1101-1102)
        
        “In admissions materials, the academic program is often described as, and compared to, four-year colleges, and a review of course catalogues reveals offerings that would be the envy of any small liberal arts college.” (Gatztambide- Fernandez, 2009, p. 1102)
    - - "The questions of how and why elite boarding schools developed in the United States and of their historical antecedents, both in the United States and in Britain, have seldom been considered by education historians (Sizer, 1964a). Here I draw heavily on the historical work of three scholars, Theodore Sizer, James McLachlan, and Steven Levine, all of whom provide historical accounts of how elite boarding schools emerged and evolved in the United States. Sizer offers a history of the academies, the institutional precursor of independent schools in the United States, which developed rapidly in the first half of 18th century only to decline even more quickly after 1850. McLachlan's (1970) history of American boarding schools is a detailed account of how these schools developed and expanded, offering substantial detail on the social dynamics and the people involved in the spread of American boarding schools."
      - "Profound belief in the human capacity for "betterment" and, more important, that such betterment could be accomplished through organized and institutionalized schooling" (Gaztambide-Fernandez, 2009, pg 1105)
    - - The students in these schools are a select and minimal fraction of roughly 0.10% of the overall student population, and although they are becoming increasingly diverse, more than two-thirds of the students come from families that can afford the high price tag (National Association of Independent Schools [NAIS], 2004).” (Gaztambide-Fernández, 2009, p. 1093)
        
        This quotation is significant to the article because it explains who the research found in this article is about. Only .10% of the overall student population attends the “elite” schools which is a very tiny fraction of the population. This can be seen as an explanation as to why the topic of elite schooling is not well defined or researched as it only accounts for the minimal population. This also says that those who attend these schools come from very wealthy families. This is another reason that the attendance rate of these schools is so small.
      - "The American public if not entirely familiar with the image of the elite boarding school." (Gaztambide-Fernández, 2009, p. 1093)
        
        Divvy Group: #3 Smarick
        
        The Rise of Catholic Education
        
        Early 1800s, catholics comprised only about 3% of America's population. (Smack, 2011, p. 114)
        
        "They grew rapidly and enrolled significant numbers of the nation’s Children; consequently, in the decades before the Civil War, there were still only about 200 Catholic schools nationwide." (Smarick, 2011, p. 115)
        
        Nearly all of the approximately 17 million immigrants who entered the United States between 1850 and 1900 came from Europe, and many from predominantly Catholic countries like Italy and Ireland. By the turn of the 20th century, America had become 16% Catholic. (Smarick, 2011, p. 116)
        
        1 more item...
        
        Why Catholic Schools Matter
        
        : Scholarly evidence has accumulated showing that Catholic schools have not only excellent academic results overall, but also a peculiar ability to help disadvantaged students.” (Smarick, 2011, p.120)
        
        Unlike public schools, catholic schools get disadvantaged kids to achieve. Catholic schools actually narrow the achievement gap with higher test scores and achievements.
        
        "Catholic schools’ rejection of the 20th-century trend toward making secondary schools more vocational," (Smarick, 2001, p.121)
        
        "and their commitment to the classic college-preparatory curriculum." (Smarick, 2001, p.121)
        
        "it is because these schools are staffed by adults who believe unquestioningly that all children can and must learn, regardless of income, status, or race." (Smarick, 2001, p.121)
        
        "Equally important is these adults’ sense of responsibility and their determination to improve the lives of their students." (Smarick, 2001, p.121)
        
        "They likely recall memorization, recitation, a tightly ordered school day, lectures on diligence, and, most of all, discipline." (Smarick, 2001, p.121)
        
        “other researchers reported similar results, finding that Catholic schools were somehow able “simultaneously to achieve relatively high levels of student learning [and] distribute this learning more equitably with regard to race and class than in the public sector.” (Smarick, 2011, p. 121)
        
        Road to Perdition
        
        The swiftness of Catholic schools’ rise in the first half of the 20th century makes more remarkable what followed: their even faster decline in the decades after.
        
        ♣ “Massive demographic shifts also played a part. With more resources at their disposal than their parents or grandparents had, blue-collar, middle-class families—often Catholic—were able to leave the cities for homes in America’s growing suburbs.” (Smarick, 2001, 117).
        
        “Finally, expenses were on the rise. Thousands of urban Catholic schools were constructed before the turn of the 20th century; by the 1960s, they were aging and in need of repair.” (Smarick, 2001, 117)
        
        Religious Charters
        
        The troubled schools would not close: Instead, they would convert into secular public charter schools.
        
        Take away the ideals and personal convictions motivating the founders and employees of these schools, and it’s easy to see how mediocrity would move in.
        
        Obstacles to Reform
        
        If Catholic education is to lift future generations of Americans out of poverty, however, it must overcome two major and immediate obstacles. The first is of Catholic schools’ own making: slowness to change and resistance to reform. (Smarick, 2011, p.124)
        
        “Catholic schools are still bound to the same staid organizational frame- work developed generations ago. These systems are typically led by aging career Catholic educators lacking significant experience in any other field.” (Smarick, 2011, p. 123)
        
        “The second key obstacle — one that will likely prove more difficult to resolve — is the exclusion of Catholic schools from government funding.” (Smarick, 2011, p. 124)
        
        “Much of the unease about government support for faith-based schools is rooted in the concern that their highest priority is religious proselytization." (Smarick, 2011, p. 124)
        
        "What has failed to permeate the debate, however, is that while Catholic schools originally developed to serve and protect Catholic children and to advance the faith, many inner-city Catholic schools now serve predominantly non-Catholic, poor, minority students.” (Smarick, 2011, p. 124)
        
        “Among them, an unofficial creed has slowly emerged: “We don’t serve these students because they are Catholic, we serve them because we are Catholic.” (Smarick, 2011, p. 125)
        
        “Regardless of one’s position on public support for religiously affiliated entities, it is difficult not to acknowledge that these schools are fully engaged in the noble vocation of public service, civil rights, and social justice.” (Smarick, 2011, p. 125)
        
        Evolution, Not Revolution
        
        “What is needed now, then, is for a big-city Catholic bishop to acknowledge that chartering and Catholic education are a natural fit.” (Smarick, 2001, 129).
        
        … This faith-based charter compromise could lead to a renewed urban school system—one based on equitable funding, more diverse options, parental choice, and comprehensive transparency and accountability. It is also probably the most practical way to rescue an institution that has played an enormous role in America’s history, and that continues to help millions of children achieve the American Dream”(Smarick, 2011, p.129,130)
        
        Increasingly, the line between “religious private” and “secular charter” is blurring.”
    - - “In their efforts to work against the presumption of elitism, elite boarding schools work hard to claim that the demographics of their student bodies are more inclusive than they actually are, a practice that has been documented at elite liberal arts colleges as well (Stevens, 2007).” (Gaztambide-Fernández, 2009, p. 1109)
        
        This quotation is significant as it addresses the desire to break stereotyping about any one particular elite school. There has been a shift in the population since the 1970s from a white dominant student body to a more diverse one. The financial need of this population is 30% on scholarship while 70% of students are able to afford the tuition.
      - “In the past four decades, elite boarding schools have spent a great deal of money and effort in recruiting, enrolling, and graduating a more "diverse" student body.” (Gaztambide-Fernández, 2009, p. 1109)
    - - "The first characteristic common to all elite boarding schools is that they identify as independent schools.(Gaztambide-Fernadez, pg.1097)
      - "The first characteristic common to all elite boarding schools is that they identify as independent." (Gaztambide-Fernández, 2009, p. 1100)
      - "Elite boarding schools have room to be far more selective of both students and teachers."
    - - “Baird (1977) also notes that most elite schools, either boarding or day, are generally located in rural areas isolated from the city.” (Gaztambide-Fernández, 2009, p. 1108)
      - "As Cookson and Perseil (1985b) observe, the large majority of elite boarding schools are located in the Northeast, particularly in New England. Only two southern schools are listed in Baltzell's (1958) select 16 schools. Although the academies were a national movement that spread into the Midwest and the frontier, schools that survived were almost by rule in New England. As argued earlier, this was mostly due to their association with elite colleges and the New England elites who sponsored them, but probably more important than their particular location is their particular landscape." (Gaztambide-Fernandez, 2009 1108)
      - . In a rural environment their children would be far removed from the contaminating aspects of city life, including the dangerous habits and ideas of working-class children whom they were likely to meet on their way to and from school. (p. 72)” (Gaztambide-Fernandez, 2009, p. 1108-1109)
- - - - "A study by Gray and his colleagues suggests that enrolling in a four-year college may not always be the best course of action for some students. They studied the secondary and postsecondary experiences of all 1991 graduates of seven public high schools in affluent suburban districts. The authors found that on graduation from high school, almost half the students failed to meet what the authors identified as the minimal criteria for being prepared to do college academic work (defined as having a C average, a combined SAT score of 800, and a minimal sequence of college preparatory courses). " (Cohen, 2004,6)
      - “many students ignore CTE programs that might be a better choice for them.” (Cohen, 2004, p. 7)
      - "The response to the declining rewards of a high school diploma has often been to urge all students to go to college." (Cohen, 2004, p. 4)
    - - “Of the total job openings between 2000 and 2010, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) projects that 70 percent will require no postsecondary education.” (Cohen, 2004, p. 7)
      - Comparing the supply as well as the demand for workers with different types of education and training also suggests an oversupply of college-educated workers and a shortage of those with technical training. (Cohen, 2004,7)
    - - CTE is a promising strategy for addressing the difficulties faced by high school dropouts and graduates who seek jobs or attend college without adequate preparation. Through contextual learning and connections with adult mentors, CTE can engage students who otherwise might lose interest in school. By providing linkages to employers and a tryout period for new high school graduates, CTE can enhance the chances of finding good jobs that lead to rewarding careers (Cohen, pg. 13)
    - - "Young people who do not complete high school tend to have substantially lower employment rates and earnings than those who do graduate." (Cohen, 2004, p. 1)
      - • “Dropout rates are higher in urban areas and among African Americans and Hispanics (Cohen, 2004, p. 2).”
    - - "High youth unemployment rates reflect the difficulty that non-college youth have in making the transition to the labor force: only 67 percent of recent high school graduates not enrolled in college were employed in October 1997," (Cohen p. 3).
      - "Even graduation from high school is no longer sufficient to ensure a career," (Cohen p. 3).
  - - - CTE, originally known as “vocational education,” or “voc ed,” arose in response to the need for skilled workers in manufacturing industries and the entry of working-class students into high school. But vocational education eventually lost popularity in the United States due to an increased emphasis on academic skills and a belief in college for all, coupled with a perception that vocational education was becoming an educational backwater for the disadvantaged. By contrast, in many European countries, CTE is a respected option that is directly linked to good jobs (Cohen, pg.15)
    - - "Most U.S. high schools offer some CTE. One or more courses identified with CTE are offered in 93 percent of the nation's public comprehensive high schools. Nearly all public comprehensive high schools offer general labor market preparation or family and consumer sciences." (Cohen, 2004, p. 22)
    - - “Guidance counseling practices also contribute to the overemphasis on college. Whereas counselors in the 1960s saw their role as selecting only a limited number of students who should go to college, recent research suggests that they now advise college for almost everyone, steering students away from CTE and blue-collar jobs.” (Cohen, 2004, p.31)
  - - - “CTE is a promising strategy for addressing the difficulties faced by high school dropouts and graduates who seek jobs or attend college without adequate preparation. Through contextual learning and connections with adult mentors, CTE can engage students who otherwise might lose interest in school. By providing linkages to employers and a tryout period for new high school graduates, CTE can enhance the chances of finding good jobs that lead to rewarding careers (Cohen 13)”.
    - - Ford, B. (2005). The significance of charter schools and the privatization of standards: Holding the wolf by the ears. Pp. 16-29.
        
        Money Problems and Problem Students
        
        Object of Attack
        
        “Of slavery, Jefferson wrote that America had ‘the wolf by the ears’ – unable to let go without fear of being attacked, unable to subdue the beast. While slavery should not be facilely equated with privatization initiatives and business influence, if education is akin to freedom, then I would suggest that a similar dilemma confronts public education in the USA.” (Ford, 2005, p. 18)
        
        In the editorial pages, organizations representing education workers are portrayed as an enemy in a righteous battle: liberating the children of this country from the shackles of the public schools.
        
        The privatization of public education was a real threat, and teachers’ unions in the USA, representing public sector employees, had concerns about public image.
        
        Public Charter Schools
        
        "According to Peter Cookson: ‘Deeply embedded in the charter school concept is the assumption schools chosen by students and families are more accountable and, thus, better learning environments.’ He goes on to call this assumption a ‘mantra’ that ‘may be unfounded. it is difficult to believe that any large-scale system of charter schools could produce a coherent system of public-education’."
        
        "Again, there is that word ‘monopoly’. Being a public school teacher who does not feel all that cozy, I am a bit suspicious of Mr Finn’s motives. I am also suspicious of programs, such as Mr Klein’s and Mr Bloomberg’s, which think it a good idea to bring in Jack Welch, former chief executive officer of General Electric, to give motivational talks to principals to make them better managers."
        
        "Shanker believed that education is failing because so many kids are not getting anything out of it. Of all children who remain in schools until they graduate from high school, only 20 percent can write an adequate letter that requires persuasive arguments. What I would like to see is a totally different institution, an institution in which is not lecturing. The teachers' job is not to talk to kids, but to connect them with a learning experience together to solve problems." (Ford, 2005, p.18)
        
        Private Leadership
        
        "Outright rejection ... [of] reform proposals could very well lead our newfound allies in the business community to the conclusion that public schools cannot be changed ... [this] might lead not only to a loss of its vital support, but to its outright opposition; to abandonment of public schools in favor of other alternatives such as private schools, through tax credits or vouchers."
        
        Damned Statistics and Reversed Positions
        
        "Charter schools doing less well than the nationwide public-school average could easily indicate nothing other than the simple fact that chart schools are typically asked to serve problematic students in low-performing districts with many poor, minority children." (Ford, 2005, p. 21)
        
        Not only does Ford portray the idea that no single test can fairly measure performance, but especially in the case of chart schools without consideration into the school and community's socioeconomic. His explanation states clearly that the reasoning behind charter school scores being lower is simply in effect of that shouldn't imply anything else.
        
        Investment Opportunities and Other Flipped Positions
        
        “Charter schools are public schools with a special charter granted to a lay board of directors.” (Ford, 2005, p. 23)
        
        “Public schools, charters included, have to deal with social pathologies. Without being able to exclude students, public schools have to deal with this to a greater degree, and schools in high poverty areas even more so.” (Ford, 2005, p. 24)
        
        “Public schools, charters included, have to deal with social pathologies. Without being able to exclude students, public schools have to deal with this to a greater degree, and schools in high poverty areas even more so.” (Ford, 2005, p. 24)
      - Shober, A. F., Manna, P., & Witte, J. F. (2006). Flexibility meets accountability: State charter school laws and their influence on the formation of charter schools in the United States. Pp. 563-587.
        
        Results
        
        “What we find is that the most flexible laws tend to be those with the most provisions for accountability. In other words, if public accountability is indeed a problem in charter schools, it is not because of the laws themselves, but rather how policymakers implement them.”(Shober, 2006 pg. 577)
        
        “to many critics of charter schools who see them as ways to circumvent accountability, more schools are likely to open as accountability becomes stricter.”(Shober, 2006 pg. 578)
        
        Hypotheses
        
        Hypothesis 1 (ideology and flexibility): As a state’s elected officials become more politically conservative, state law will allow more flexibility for charter schools.
        Hypothesis 2 (ideology and accountability): As a state’s elected officials become more politically conservative, state law will require charter schools to be less accountable to public authorities.
        
        “States serving large numbers of at-risk and minority students, many of whom struggle to learn key subjects such as reading and math (Jencks & Phillips, 1998; National Assessment of Educational Progress, 2003), may move policymakers to try anything possible to increase these students’ chances of success.3 That would suggest an impulse to give charter operators maximum range to open and operate schools, while not binding them with rigid accountability provisions, which may hamper their ability to creatively address their students’ needs.”(Shober, 2006 pg. 571)
        
        Hypothesis 5 (demographics and flexibility): As the percentage of at-risk students in a state increases, state law will grant charter schools more flexibility.
        Hypothesis 6 (demographics and accountability): As the percentage of at-risk students in a state increases, state law will require less public accountability from charter schools.
        
        “Some case studies and school-level quantitative analyses have shown that in most states charter schools serve a higher percentage of disadvantaged students than traditional public schools (Carnoy et al., 2005; Dickman, Van Dunk, Witte, Schlomer, & Weimer, 2003; RPP International, 1999; SRI International, 2004).”(Shober, 2006 pg. 571)
        
        Hypothesis 7 (flexibility and number of charters): As state charter school laws grant more flexibility, more charter schools will open.
        Hypothesis 8 (accountability and number of charters): As state charter school laws require more public accountability, fewer charter schools will open.
        
        Introduction
        
        Data and Methods
        
        Independent Variables
        
        race and pverty
        
        Dependent Variables
        
        flexibility is a related issue
        
        “We defined flexibility as the freedom from general school regulation and the availability of financial and other support for charters in state law” (Shober, Manna, & Witte, 2006, p. 571).
        
        parents and students choose their own education
        
        Overview of Charter Schools
        
        "Note that charter schools, as public schools, are required to meet the same accountability standards as traditional schools under the No Child Left Behind (NLCB) Act" (Shober, Manna, & Witte, 2006, p. 567).
        
        “Traditional public schools often may become charters so they can adopt more innovative educational programs. Most states with charter laws allow this process, known as conversion. The federal NLCB Act even incorporates the option to convert to charter status for traditional public schools that persistently fail to meet yearly progress targets. Private schools may also convert to public charters in some states, but at present, religious private schools may not become charter schools, although some states allow conversion to charter status if they drop religious instruction” (Shober, 567).
        
        Public Policy, Competing Values, and American Education
        
        “Because the American political system generates policy from compromises between separated institutions empowered to act for everyone, it is inevitable that multiple and sometimes competing values will become embedded in public policy (Baumgartner & Jones, 1993). That result fosters tensions that unfold when policy moves beyond the halls of legislatures and into the daily work of public servants and lives of the nation’s citizens” (Shober, 564).
        
        “Several examples of these value tensions exist. Okun’s (1975) famous study identified a “big tradeoff” between efficiency and equality. The irony of democratic capitalist societies, he reasoned, was that they prod people to work better to “get ahead of our neighbors” while simultaneously they embrace “the worth of every human being.” In combination, that drive for both efficiency and equality has produced a mix of political, social, and economic disparities, which suggest the “uneasy compromises” that policymakers have made in constructing institutions such as the nation’s income tax system and social safety net (Okun, p. 1)” (Shober, 564).
        
        “Despite their increasing popularity, charters remain controversial in part because, like many other school reforms (Tyack & Cuban, 1995), they attempt to satisfy many values simultaneously. Because charter schools are public institutions that rely on tax dollars, arguably they must remain accountable to the larger political community, not just the parents and students who they serve. Still, too much accountability can undermine the flexibility that charter principals and teachers argue is necessary to meet their students’ needs” (Shober, 566).