DownloadThe Portobello Bookshop Gift Guide 2024

A Democratic Constitution for Public Education

Paul T Hill author Ashley E Jochim author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:The University of Chicago Press

Published:19th Dec '14

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

A Democratic Constitution for Public Education cover

America's education system faces a stark dilemma: it needs governmental oversight, rules and regulations, but it also needs to be adaptable enough to address student needs and the many different problems that can arise at any given school-something that large educational bureaucracies are notoriously bad at. Paul T. Hill and Ashley E. Jochim offer here a solution that is brilliant for its simplicity and distinctly American sensibility: our public education system needs a constitution. Adapting the tried-and-true framework of our forefathers to the specific governance of education, they show that the answer has been part of our political DNA all along. Most reformers focus on who should control education, but Hill and Jochim show that who governs is less important than determining what powers they have. They propose a Civic Education Council-a democratic body subject to checks and balances that would define the boundaries of its purview as well as each school's particular freedoms. They show how such a system would prevent regulations meant to satisfy special interests and shift the focus to the real task at hand: improving school performance. Laying out the implications of such a system for parents, students, teachers, unions, state and federal governments, and courts, they offer a vision of educational governance that stays true to - and draws on the strengths of - one of the greatest democratic tools we have ever created.

"Hill and Jochim offer an engaging, thought-provoking, original, and quite ambitious redesign of K-12 education governance that is rich in historical grounding and practical detail. It will surely generate a vigorous debate over education's biggest issues and the problems that beset our current system." (Julie Marsh, author of Democratic Dilemmas)"

ISBN: 9780226200545

Dimensions: 22mm x 14mm x 2mm

Weight: 312g

152 pages