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Objective: To highlight the role that school district boundaries along racial cleavages contribute to differences in spending on public education. Methods: Financial and demographic data were collected on the 11,000 plus school districts and 1,800 counties in the United States from 1995 to 2011. A series of panel models was used to estimate the effect of segregation on differences in spending. Results: Models show that white–Black segregation leads to increased variation in per child local revenue within counties. Within these segregated counties, districts with larger Black populations collect less in local revenue but have a higher tax burden. Conclusion: In explaining differences in per child expenditures across school districts, economic differences are the most cited. Racial segregation often occurs along school district borders and leads to differences in per child expenditures through concentration of resources in certain districts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims: This study was carried out to identify the current status of prevention and management of anaphylaxis in school children with the main goal of establishing such an action plan. Study Design: Cross-sectional study. Methods: Schools were randomly selected from 11 different regions of Istanbul. A questionnaire was filled out by 2596 teachers/school principals from 232 public schools. Results: A school safety committee was absent in 80% of elementary schools (ES) and 60.8% of preschools (PS). Although some form of health recording system was available in many schools, no such system was available in 24.5% of ESs and 10% of PSs. A specific inquiry for detecting children with food allergies was a routine practice in only 4% of ES and 10% of PS. Approximately 27% of teachers stated that monitoring children in school places was not possible at all times. Eighty four percent stated that no written anaphylaxis treatment protocol was available in their school and only around 2.3% in ES and 3.1% in PS stated that they would perform an epinephrine injection in the event of anaphylaxis. Conclusion: Our survey demonstrated critical gaps in the organization of schools for the management of children at risk of anaphylaxis. Data derived from this study would provide the initiative for legislators to review the current situation of school health policies along with the relevant authorities to establish school anaphylaxis guidelines.

Our eyes are the windows to our world. In the United States, our eyes also become the windows to the quality and depth of connection between two human beings. Deeply imprinted within the American mind is the story of race. This story continues to consciously and unconsciously determine how Americans perceive, reason, remember and make decisions with respect to human relations. For example, 63 years after the seminal decision Brown v. Board of Education that ended legalised segregation in American schools, over 75 per cent of White Americans have zero friends of colour, and two-thirds of Black Americans have zero White friends. While much has been written about systems and structures that create such realities, this paper aims to delve deeper into the role of vedanā in creating such interpersonal and system-wide realities. The paper will further comment on how feeling tones associated with the myth of different races continue play a role in the opportunities and experiences of differently hued human beings in American society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the relationship between shared governance and one school district's (in)ability to advance educational equity. Specifically, we consider the district's policies, discourse, and practice around equity within the context of site-based management and shared decision making. We suggest that if equity is indeed a major district responsibility, then it seems inconsistent to leave equity at the mercy of shared governance and occasional externally-imposed mandates because most individual school leaders and educators are not currently taking up this agenda or implementing changes that would result in equitable education. Thus, our work suggests that progress toward educational equity may best be achieved through top-down, directive leadership in districts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Allergic diseases with a potential for anaphylaxis pose a critical public health issue in schools. Aims: This study was carried out to identify the current status of prevention and management of anaphylaxis in school children with the main goal of establishing such an action plan. Study Design: Cross-sectional study. Methods: Schools were randomly selected from 11 different regions of Istanbul. A questionnaire was filled out by 2596 teachers/school principals from 232 public schools. Results: A school safety committee was absent in 80% of elementary schools (ES) and 60.8% of preschools (PS). Although some form of health recording system was available in many schools, no such system was available in 24.5% of ESs and 10% of PSs. A specific inquiry for detecting children with food allergies was a routine practice in only 4% of ES and 10% of PS. Approximately 27% of teachers stated that monitoring children in school places was not possible at all times. Eighty four percent stated that no written anaphylaxis treatment protocol was available in their school and only around 2.3% in ES and 3.1% in PS stated that they would perform an epinephrine injection in the event of anaphylaxis. Conclusion: Our survey demonstrated critical gaps in the organization of schools for the management of children at risk of anaphylaxis. Data derived from this study would provide the initiative for legislators to review the current situation of school health policies along with the relevant authorities to establish school anaphylaxis guidelines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Non-parental arrangements for young children serve a dual function as supports for parental activities and educational inputs for children. However, arrangements that are suited to meet families’ specific needs and preferences are sometimes in tension with experts’ definitions of “quality.” Researchers and policymakers increasingly emphasize that educational goals cannot be met until this tension is reconciled. I offer new institutionalism as a conceptual framework for these emerging conversations and propose two ideal-typical institutional logics: the logic of the family and the logic of education. This perspective emphasizes that different expectations and goals are related to individuals’ differing social and institutional locations. Secondary analyses of the National Institute of Child Health and Development Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (SECCYD) data offer preliminary empirical evidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The eight presidential addresses included in this essay, delivered between 1923 and 2009, focus wholly or partly on education politics and policy. Although they reflect their different intellectual and social times, they share a dominant theme in documenting the shifting and uneasy relationship between research and education policy. Presidents have expressed faith in both as resources to achieve an equal and democratic education for all children. Still that faith, expressed most strongly in the early years, has been mixed with strong doses of skepticism and caution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In an effort to reforest school sites with limited resources, communities and non-profits have implemented projects on Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) school sites, often without thought for the best location, long-term maintenance, or appropriateness of the tree type. Although studies exist related to sun safety policies in schools, there has been little emphasis on the environmental public health benefits of trees in public schools. The LAUSD School Shade Tree Canopy Study was a response to this issue in which data was analyzed (a total of 33,729 trees in the LAUSD were mapped) regarding tree canopy coverage, pervious/impervious areas, and buildings for 509 elementary schools to assess urban forestry management issues and environmental injustices within communities of the district. The results of these analyses indicate that there is a wide range of school site size, tree canopy coverage as a percentage of school site size, tree canopy coverage as a percentage of play area, and percentage of unpaved surface play areas (e.g., (~20%) of the schools have both (0.0%) tree canopy coverage play areas and 100% paved surfaces). This finding alone has implications in how the LAUSD may implement sun safe polices which would aid in preventing skin cancer and other adverse health outcomes for students within the school district. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This study is based on the gap identified in studies of organizational learning and power. For this, it aims to analyze the relationship between knowledge, organizational learning and power, which allows controlling, from implementation, monitoring and evaluation of an English Teaching National Program by the Board of Education and Culture of Coahuila, Mexico. As a benchmark, it makes use of the literature of learning and knowledge, power and controlling. Specifically, it describes the ordering ability of textual elements in a net. Through a qualitative case study it verified how the flow of knowledge (accumulation and utilization) and the exercise of power happen, where mediators act, configuring the process of individual and organizational learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many discussions of school finance policy fail to consider how households respond to policies that change the attractiveness of different residential locations. We develop a general equilibrium model that incorporates workplace choice, residential choice, and political choice of tax and expenditure levels. Importantly, we consider multiple workplaces, a fundamental feature of today's metropolitan landscape. This basic model permits investigating how accessibility and public goods interact in a metropolitan area. The model is used to analyze two conventional policy initiatives: school district consolidation and district power equalization. The surprising conclusion is that school quality and welfare can fall for all families when these restrictions on choice are introduced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study describes national school district policy and practice regarding elementary school children's outdoor learning and play. District representatives from 173 randomly selected school districts completed questionnaires describing policy and practice related to recess, outdoor play, outdoor curricular studies, playground materials, ADA accessibility, and administrative support. Quantitative analyses indicate that although the largest proportion of school districts overall reported maintaining the same amount of outdoor activity time, more school districts reported decreasing time spent outdoors than school districts that reported increasing children's time outside. There were no significant differences in variables across the three different-sized school districts. These data are congruent with other findings indicating that decreasing children's outdoor time is a national trend. Data suggest administrators' greater support for outdoor play and learning than previously identified. These findings are discussed as an opening dialogue between administration and teachers to plan for children's quality outdoor experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Formative assessment has been widely promoted as a means to support student learning and motivation. This practice has potential for communicating to students the value of what they are learning, both in the classroom and beyond (Brophy, 2008). To make good on those promises, however, requires an understanding of the connections between formative assessment practices and the realities of the social systems in which they are employed. In this article, I consider the importance of classroom systems, including the purposes of assessments, their function in the classroom social structure (including issues of power, identity, and competing values), and teachers' multiple concerns with effects on student learning and motivation. I also address the role of conflicts between the practice of formative assessment and grading policies, departmental assessment norms, school district structures, and external assessment mandates. Finally, the recommendation of Black, Harrison, Lee, Marshall, and Wiliam (2004) are examined in light of these issues. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study examines how public debate can shape school district policy. Using qualitative methods and an interdisciplinary framework that weaves an interpretive approach to policy implementation with the language policy and planning literature, the analysis demonstrates that immigrant voices were mostly absent in a debate over a new dual-language program. Instead, English-dominant participants alluded to various “community” values and persuaded policy makers to implement dual-language classes throughout the district rather than in sites favored by policy advocates, including immigrant families. The article concludes that language policy implementation is a value-laden process in which public deliberation reflects dominant cultural “discourses,” which can shape what a policy ultimately becomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are many cases of environmental injustice taking place in Appalachian Coal Country against the people of Appalachia by the coal industry. This paper looks in depth at one instance of possible environmental injustice; the case of Marsh Fork Elementary School located at the heart of Appalachian Coal Country, West Virginia. At this school students attend class in a building located next to a coal processing plant and coal sludge dam and reservoir. Using the principles explained in Brown v Board of Education, this paper analyzes whether or not the school has met their obligations to the children who attend the school. Focusing on, whether or not having a coal processing plant and coal sludge dam and reservoir next to the school was a violation of the children's rights set forth in that decision, and was the school district obligated by these principles to give the students a new school, not located next to the coal processing plant and coal sludge dam and reservoir. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the issues surrounding U.S. teachers' use of social networking media and their First Amendment rights. It suggests the formulation of a school district policy that lays the guidelines on the use of technology and social media. Cases of teachers who have been dismissed are reviewed. The authors also offer recommendations for the formulation of quality social networking policy.

Considerable strides have been made in the past decade in recognizing the centrality of the cultural context of schooling to adolescent development. In this review, adopting a developmental systems conceptualization of schooling, we focus on selected new research findings from the past decade regarding how (a) teachers, curricular tasks, and classroom environments; (b) aspects of the school as an organization; and (c) district policies and practices can play an instrumental role in adolescents' intellectual and social-emotional development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There exist different models of multicultural education that school boards can adopt such as the enrichment model, the enlightenment model, the empowerment model and the intercultural education model. This paper is a case study examining how, between 1960 and 1975, the Board of Education for the City of Toronto, experienced a paradigm shift in their approach towards immigrant students, from a focus on integration to an empowerment model of multicultural education. While in the sixties, the board promoted integration through their New Canadian classes, ESL classes and the promotion of heritage languages, after the adoption of the federal policy of Multiculturalism, the board demonstrated a change in the semantics related to diversity, an increase in its partnerships with community-based organizations and a new enthusiasm for bilin-gual/bicultural pilot projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers news briefs related to education in the U.S. The inadequate financial support from the government has led to the closure of public schools. The changes in the social studies curriculum approved by the Texas Board of Education was based on the educational mandate. The students have protested on fee increases during the March 4 Day of Action.

This study examined the extent to which Texas school boards of education made efforts to locally modify student speech policy. Using online policy manuals provided by the Texas Association of School Boards, speech policies for 91 school districts were gathered using a purposive stratified sampling procedure and examined for local modifications to student speech policies under school-sponsored publications, expression, distribution of non-school literature, use of school facilities, and harassment. The geographical location of the district, district percentage of minority students, and total district student enrollment were employed as explanatory variables. The results of a chi-square statistic indicate geographical location and student enrollment were significantly related to whether school boards made changes to its speech policy. Although not entirely surprising, the more pertinent issue is whether an over reliance on school board associations for policy development curbs meaningful discussion of critical issues such as free speech. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the democratic dispensation of 1994, the education sector seems to be in perpetual transition with numerous facets of policies being introduced against a background of alleged poor management, understaffing and a poorly paid cadre of teachers. The situation was at one time likened "to a patient on a resuscitation bed in a hospital". Despite this seemingly chaotic and complex scenario, the education system has managed to survive. Using the Malawi Community Day Secondary Schools (CDSS) policy, the paper intends to draw some insights from public policy's Chaos and Complexity theory to explain why the education sector still manages to survive and show resilience (on the "edge of chaos") despite the apparent overwhelming challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the controversial topic of desegregation in the American higher education. It presents several perspectives on desegregation and segregation policies that omitted the notion of equality in educational opportunity. It cites few important cases that illustrated how the American courts had treated the Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) in the post-Brown era. It includes an important consideration to the legislation that encompassed the elementary and secondary schools and its relevance to institutions of higher education.

The article discusses the use of the charter school policy by a community group in a Midwestern city in the U.S. to foster change in a local school district. The theory of public choice lies at the center of the school choice movement. One benefit of charter school policy to public schooling is providing the space and freedom to create new political and institutional arrangements within district schools. Such policy also facilitates the creation of new governance agreements.

This case scenario addresses allowing electronic devices in schools as well as how districts can establish acceptable use policies. The dynamics of the case illustrate how various stakeholders conceptualize and view building management and facilitate a desired school climate and culture. The case is designed to prompt students' thinking about (a) how district policy development or a lack thereof affects local building administration, (b) the impacts of climate and culture on schools, (c) the outcome of principal and assistant principal relationships in leading and managing schools, and (d) the development of policies that address technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To contribute to the understanding of the links between urban planning and school siting and, ultimately, the impact of both on physical activity, we conducted a case study of Lee County, Florida. Our study examined the extent of state-mandated collaboration between the Lee County School Board and Lee County government (e.g., the Lee County Department of Planning, the Office of Smart Growth, and the Department of Parks and Recreation). Specifically, we investigated planning processes under mandated coordination between the school board and the county and the impact of such coordination on the integration of land-use planning and school facility planning. By describing the process of mandated collaborative school planning in Florida, we illustrate the promise and pitfalls of such top-down legislation and offer insights to other state and local governments looking for ways to improve local planning and to increase physical activity among children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]