Background: In 1954, the "Brown v. Board of Education" case involved four states and their school segregation laws and policies. During that period, de jure and de facto segregation were a way of life in America. Sixty years later, as most schools across the country have resegregated, the authors ask the question of whether we should be…

Purpose: In this essay, we examine the racial politics of education in the six decades after "Brown". We consider the state of educational policy in an era in which market reform advocates often invoke the spirit of the "Brown" decision even as the Supreme Court has largely vacated the legal framework provided by…

This article presents a case study examining the demise of a high school Mandarin language program in a school district that appeared to offer an exceptionally friendly habitat for its survival. Though members of the school board majority who voted against funding the program offered rational explanations for their decision (e.g., insufficient…

Purpose: The purpose is to examine how recent conservative cultural political shifts have affected the meanings of curriculum leadership in schools. The author examines four principals in the wake of the No Child Left Behind Act and other related policies and trends. Design: This is a critical ethnographic study of principals' curriculum…

Purpose: This article examines the impact that a principal's community-leadership has on school-community relations and student outcomes. Comparisons are drawn between leadership behaviors that emphasize school-centered approaches and community-centered approaches. Research Methodology: Ethnographic research methodology was conducted over a 2-year…

Background: In Ohio, levy campaigns are a burdensome task for district administrators and stakeholders alike. To date, there is little research on the districts' role in crafting school budget referenda campaigns. Purpose: This study asked three research questions: How did the macropolitical contexts shape stakeholders' decision making in terms of…

This theoretical analysis employs a poststructuralist lens to reveal the constructs behind the word "fit", an oft used descriptor integral to the discourse of school hiring practices, personnel decisions, and politics. Although the term is a part of the everyday culture of school politics, it is rarely considered with any depth. Using the metaphor…

Purpose: Alternative routes to teacher certification, such as California's Intern Program, have increasingly gained support in the past decade. A significant and growing percentage of all new teachers, close to 30% in California, now enter classrooms through alternative paths and are considered highly qualified under No Child Left Behind. This…

Background: Massive retirements, increased expectations, and mounting political pressures have resulted in a diminished talent pool for school superintendents. For school boards of the 124 school districts on Long Island, New York, the selection of a superintendent has been further complicated by sky-rocketing taxes and scandals leading to an…

Purpose: Extant reports on states' policy differences are mostly descriptive and largely ignore the pervasive role of political culture on their educational policy-making processes. This article examines the effect of policy culture on states' policy-making mechanisms. There is evidence that a state's political culture is a significant mediating…

In this reaction, the author concentrates on evaluating the study's broader interpretive claims. He states that the articles reviewed have the following three purposes: (1) to explore the ways in which a variety of factors shape school change over time; (2) to show how the five factors combine at key points in the story to create what Ivor…

Foster anchors his analysis of educational leadership by situating the function of schooling as bureaucratic control over individuals. Within the context of schools as a systemic, rule-bearing institution, Foster challenges the work of educational leaders. Are educational leaders virtuous and free or are they mere agents of the state? Foster pits…

Foster's concerns with the decline of the local are examined in the context of schools' embeddedness in intersections of social, economic, and political forces of the communities in which they are located. Three readings are taken of Foster's call to explore political and economic undercurrents when viewing schools as agents of, and for,…

Explores potential links between school board member and superintendent turnover. Qualitative and quantitative data from 176 school districts in a Northwest state support use of Dissatisfaction Theory as a useful tool in describing the political sequence of events in local school governance and establish the necessity of distinguishing between…

Places the evolution of politics of education field in historical context and introduces a framework for understanding how three theoretical streams--micropolitics, political culture, and neoinstitutionalism--emerged as the behavioralist movement receded. Argues that the field has been advancing by means of integrative and aggregative drives that…