(DOWNLOAD) "Portfolio Management Districts and Rebuilding Inequality (Issues in Education) (Report)" by Childhood Education " Book PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Portfolio Management Districts and Rebuilding Inequality (Issues in Education) (Report)
- Author : Childhood Education
- Release Date : January 01, 2011
- Genre: Education,Books,Professional & Technical,Nonfiction,Family & Relationships,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 62 KB
Description
Despite over 50 years of near-constant education reform movements in the United States, most attempts at improving outcomes in urban public schools have met with "predictable failure" (Sarason, 1990). The recently coined term "Portfolio Management Models" (Bulkley, Henig, & Levin, 2010) describes a new approach to citywide governance in which the district serves as a coordinator of public education services, rather than as the single provider of these services. In New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and New Orleans, schools may be run by a variety of groups, including national and local charter operators as well as the local or state governments. In these cases, the district functions like a financial investment adviser, readjusting the portfolio of schools in the city by authorizing promising new schools, closing low-performing ones, and regularly evaluating school performance. This model of governance, coupled with school choice and standards-based accountability policies, seems likely to ensure the end of poor-testing schools. This is an intended consequence of portfolio management, and a compelling one at that. But all changes also have unintended consequences (Fink, 2003) that may be difficult to anticipate and thus prepare for. Previous research in post-Katrina New Orleans schools (Beabout, 2008) confirms that increased inequality is one such unintended consequence of the portfolio management model. The mechanisms by which inequality has emerged in New Orleans' "portfolioized" school system include: selectivity in charter schools, pedagogical admissions requirements, uneven special education staffing, and selective marketing. Those districts currently employing portfolio models of management, and the many others that are watching from the sidelines (e.g., Detroit, Memphis) must consider the impact of increased inequality between schools if portfolio management is to avoid joining the long list of failed reforms of the past.