Readings:
- Arnstein, Sherry. 2019. “A Ladder of Citizen Participation.” Journal of American Planning Association, 35(4): 216-224.
- M. Warren, Mark. 2005. “Communities and Schools: A New View of Urban Education Reform.” Harvard Educational Review, 75(2): 133-173.
- Nuamah, Sally. 2021. “The Cost of Participating While Poor and Black: Toward a Theory of Collective Participatory Debt.” Perspectives on Politics, 19(4): 1115-1130.
- Henig, J. and Stone, C. “Rethinking School Reform: The Distractions of Dogma and the Potential for a New Politics of Progressive Pragmatism.” Links to an external site. American Journal of Education 114(3): 191-218.
- Connor, J. et al. 1970. “Introduction to Student Voice in American Education Policy.” Teachers College Record, 117(3): 1-18.
Prompts:
- What are the arguments for and against decentralizing key decisions to the school or community level?
- What types of decisions might be better kept at the district, state, or national level?
- In theory…and in practice…do school-based decision-making and community-based decision-making necessarily complement one another?
- Does decentralization to the school or community level complement or undermine the goal of reducing educational achievement gaps
- How are the arguments for centralization vs. decentralization similar across the different levels of government, politics and policy we’ve considered in this course?
- How are they different?
- How are the political alignments and conflicts around centralization vs. decentralization similar across the different levels of government, politics and policy we’ve considered in this course?
- How are they different?