Leslie & Berdahl: The Politics of Restructuring in VA

This article discussed the changes that happened as a result of the "Big 3"- VA Tech, W&M, and UVa- wanted to become less dependent on the state.  They were looking for deregulation, privatization, and using the market.  Nevertheless, the state seems these institutions in particular as ways for the state to receive some revenue.

In 2005, the state allowed public schools to apply for this as long as they met 11 goals (it is not 12 and could be more over time depending on the legislature's wants).  Pg. 321 discusses that this could be part of some future "legislative mischief" by having options for additional amendments-- could this make the decentralization to hard to upkeep or make it just a pretense with all the check boxes schools might have to fill?

Garbage Can Model- three separate streams:  problems, policies (ideas/solutions), politics-- pg 311.  These streams come in with a window of opportunity for policy makers.

Here are some of the different streams that the Big 3 wanted to fix/have more control over:

• regulations from state bureaucracy-- rigid and inflexible
• competition for control over setting tuition
• inconsistent state appropriations (I am still working without a budget and have been doing this since July-- I hope I have the same funding as last year....)
• ambiguous strategic priorities
• incremental interdependence from state funds (but the schools want more interdependence 

Decentralization has been happening over the past 15 years, and having a new political player-- Gov Warner and his business background-- influence the legislature to think about this 2005 act. 

Nevertheless, this didn't work out for the Big 3 as intended-- but it did provide opportunities for all of the VA public four-year and community college institutions-- with those 11 clauses as indicated above.   

The schools were not completely unhappy with the 11 points, but I doubt anyone was entirely happy.

• "We also got something very different than we thought we were asking for...But we take the result as a fundamental state commitment to decentralization, and we feel all sides have entered new territory in good faith so far"  (pg. 319)
• More focused on output-- process can be intentional for each school

One of the continuing arguments/discussions is the ability for each school to determine tuition costs.  Schools have the authority to do this, in theory, but some of the proceeds go from the school directly to the state.  As a compromise, schools can set tuition, with six year projections.  I think this is good in theory; however, things can change during the course of the six year projections that might require an individual school or program not to increase tuition (like the intense competition between law schools-- some public like WM can't scholarship as well, but we can keep tuition low!)

A big thing with more decentralization is that each school can manage their own capital projects, human resources, etc all on their own, and allows each school to decide how to use state appropriations and to try to make individual institutions more efficient and stretch their budgets further. (pg. 317)

So what will ultimately happen with the decentralization?  Will quality and efficiency increase, better revenue streams?

The article starts and ends with questioning if this model can work for other states.  The authors don't want to say one example means it can be overarching for other state systems, and VA school admins also don't want to say this could work everywhere since each public system has such a different infrastructure.

DeBray & Houch: A Narrow Path

This article looks acts the possibility of reauthorizing ESEA, with an emphasis on traditional party politics, entrance of new players, and the stresses on the groups that normally would support education reform.

• Party politics- parties are traditionally highly polarized
• divided/unified party government-- seeing how this will affect party politics
• 2010 elections-- Republicans gained and bipartisanship with educ policy decresed.  Authors believe this will stay the same until after the 2012 election (assuming that Obama would have to win and Democrats would win the legislative branch....or vice versa)
• NCLB only passed during temporary partisanship due to 9/11 (we've talked about that in class before)
• RTTT-- says that it's fairly noncontroversial....this doesn't seem to be in line with what we heard in DC-- seems like there is more controversy  especially how this affects or has been affected by CCS
• with RTTT, creates competition and winners and losers.  The math coordinator from Isle of Wight (can't remember her name...) made some fantastic points about how this is beneficial for better for wealthier school districts and those that can hire grant writers, already have responsible incomes, etc
• graphs show that there is a growing divide between democrats and republicans, which makes a bipartisan effort even more difficult
• Mayhew-- 324-- suggests that partianship is not the only thing that matters.  For Obama, for example, other things are taking the forefront, like health care, foreign policy, financial/economy, etc.
• New players- increase in think tanks and other groups
• leadership changed in the HELP committee-- long time legislatures no longer in charge-- new people with different political ideologies have become the critical players
• More think tanks exist now-- more research, ton of more data available
• Stress on traditional coalition- policy landscape has changed
• Democrats are no longer seeing spending more money on education a safe bet, they are becoming more reform/market-oriented
• Pressure from teacher unions-- becoming more challenging

Very interesting!!!  They say that CCS aren't from the federal government, but (pg. 332) Pres Obama said that "Title I allocations to their adoption of the CCS".  This doesn't seem to fit what we heard from Margaret on Friday :(

• now talks about opposition-- Mike Enzi (Wyoming-- Kelly's old employer)

Conclusion-- educational arena more fluid and diverse!

Tan: Variation Theory

Variation theory is (my definition) of way of explaining phenomena what looks at the variation within rather the differences between
ex- teach less, learn more

Politics of discourse- struggle over meaning.  This related to the politics of policy making and the importance of language.

Ways phenomenon can be experienced:

• Theoretical aspect- conceptual in nature
• Analytical aspect- looking for exactness in answer
• slightly annoyed with this definition because I hate when a word in the phrase (analytical) is used over and over again in the definition- it's not very helpful 
• Pedagogical aspect- why and how people experience the phenomenon differently

Teach less, learn more cam from a Singapore educational initiative.  It came about as a vision for the country's learning environments.  I think a good analogy provided by Tan is that of switching from quantity to quality.  Instead of spending more time being taught, the time spent in the classroom should be at a higher level.  With this philosophy, there would need to be both qualitative and quantitative measures to see if it is successful, and Tan argues that it is "impossible, if not illogical" (100).  I'm not sure if I agree- I think using both types of measures are important.  It makes the research regarding the philosophy more subjective (agreed- objective measures would be better), but it doesn't mean that evaluating this philosophy in action is illogical.

Later in the article, Tan discusses that variation theory can explain how each teacher will teach a phenomenon differently and in one class how each student will understand and be influenced by their teacher differently.

I tried to summarize the article as best I could, but I am a little confused by its overall messaging.  I'm looking forward to class to help explain it!

Smircrich & Morgan-- Leadership: The Management of Meaning

The article is looking at leadership in terms of a larger organization.  The quote in the beginning sums up leadership well, in my opinion:  "successful acts of organization are often seem to rest in the synchrony between the initiation of action and the appeal for direction" (pg. 257).

Pg. 258- "Leadership lies in large part in generating a point of reference, against which a feeling of organization and direction can emerge."  The article goes on to say that leadership results from interactions and the ability to help definite the situation.  It also says it's natural for people to come together and formalize their group with a leader.

I like on pg. 261 where the discuss leadership as the management of meaning-- the best bosses I have had and best leaders I have seen have always managed expectations and relationship.  Along with that comes framing a situation appropriately to motivate people to work in a specific direction.  The best leaders I have seen have them lead without you even knowing it.  They have built strong relationships and understand people and situations so well that you trust their instincts even if you are skeptical.  It helps make them more effective if there isn't constant questioning.

The case study presented by the authors provides an example of disconnect between leaders and the worker bees if the leader cannot make the appropriate connections and relationships with his/her employees.  The leader's ability to make decisions and "sense-making" (270) takes priority over others' same skills, but a connection need to be made between the two as there is strong interdependence 

Week Four- Fowler Chapter Six

This chapter discusses the policy actors or participants in education law and policy.  Fowler felt focusing on the state level was important because little is known about state politics and govenment as opposed to these on the state level.  I find that to absolutely true--I know very little about the state level, and even less about the state level in Virginia since I grew up in New York/Pennsylvania.  It's ironic, as I feel like I should know more as a Virginia state employee.

Here are the players:

• Government
• legislature
• Executive branch--governors- "issue catalysts" in policymaking-- and other staff such as state boards
• judicial branch
• local-- 
• school boards- have to follow law but can use larger framework-- must meet minimum qualifications but can go above and beyond (ex- school year must be 180 days but can be longer)
• Superintendents-- see not below on Ole Boys club
• Nongovernment
• interest groups
• education--most important= teacher's union
• business-- most influential non-education interest group
• Policy networks
• Media

It was really interesting to read about the legislative branch and how most state legislatures are not viewed as highly professional.  I believe that many states do not have their legislatures as full-time.  I can understand the cost implications of this, but I also wonder (since many of them are in business/industry) if their loyalties lay with their constituencies or the interests of the employer who pays their larger paycheck?

Ole Boys Club

This theme kept emerging in Chapter 6, in some ways verbatim but indirectly in others.  Pg. 127 expresses that state legislators often do not demographically represent the people they represent.  State legislators are constantly running for re-election and must have independent sources of money to not necessarily hold another full-time job and connections to be able to keep running for election.  This severely limits who has the ability to run and hold office. 

Furthermore, demographics are not the case for superintendents within school districts.  Only 4% were African American or Hispanic in 2010 (pg. 135), and 25% were women.

Questions

The speaker of the house in VA-- Tommy Norment is a WM alumnus-- I wonder how this connection helps our students and the College in resources allocated in the legislature?  Or doesn't it?

Birnbaum- How Colleges Work

Birnbaum's article also talks about loose and tight coupling.  I am a little completed with the boxes she used (predictable and perverse) to describe the types of coupling.  The preserve is the loosely coupled, but the image also confuses what I think loosely coupled systems are.

On pg. 39, it is said that loosely coupled is attacked because it is often used to describe waste and inefficiency in a system.  This seems in contrast to another reading where loose coupling was supposed to cost less.  I don't know if I believe either description.  I can understand that attack in this article, but I do not know if I believe it.

The way loose coupling is described that I like in this article is that it allows organizations to try new things, but not let it influence what else is going on in the organization. If it doesn't work, it can be discarded, but if it does, this new idea can be brought into the tightly coupled system.  I don't consider this waste-- it actually seems smart.  Test pilot something before introducing it to everyone as the new system.  This seems like a good model in policy.

Weick- Educational Organizations as Loosely Coupled Sytems

This article really helped in my understanding of loose and tight coupling, but I still have questions as I head into class on Monday. Tight coupling makes much more sense to me-- since the idea of loose coupling hasn't quite sunk in.  Loose coupling, I feel like, is more indirect effects that direct like in tight coupling.

Loose coupling- tied together weakly, minimal interdependence (also more independence?)
Tight coupling- directly affects/effects one another, more crucial to survival of system (pg. 44)

With loose coupling, I highlighted loose coupling with local adaption. I think this would work with state mandates and how each district interprets.  I see a connection between this and Fowler with policies written broadly.

The article mentioned the idea that loose coupling would be less expensive because it doesn't require as many resources.  I'm not sure about that.  Someone is coordinating the efforts-- it might not be their full-time job like in a tightly coupled system, but someone is still doing the work.

I tried to put on my research methods had when the article started talking about dependent and independent variables with couple systems.  Dependent variable certainly exist in tightly coupled systems, and loosely coupled systems are more independent.  However, I think I understand it to say that loosely coupled can also become dependent variables, but tightly coupled systems can never have independent variables due to the interdependence of tightly couple systems.

Culver- The Virginia Example

I was a bit confused when I finished reading the Culver article.  I was anticipated how it showed that Virginia was a model of coming together and sharing information, but that wasn't the case.  From what I read, the state wanted schools to share information, so it could be analyzed, but most schools did not participate and only reported what they wanted it to be.

This seems to be in line with my understanding of the Virginia higher ed system.  I grew up/worked in New York State and Pennsylvania, and these systems seemed to be much more hierarchical than Virginia.  New York has the SUNY system, and Pennsylvania has the flagship with branch campus and other state schools that are tied together with specific missions (many of these schools have a focus on teaching).  Virginia has nothing like that.  Each state school is completely differently.  People are always surprised when they learn William & Mary is a state school since it is its own separate entity, and it really is. I don't see a lot of communication and sharing among state schools, almost like it's a competition- maybe it is.  Since Virginia has such a strong public education system, the non-sharing surprises me.  Yet I can understand that every school wants to maintain its uniqueness.

The only way sharing could happen and Virginia could in fact be "an example" would to have mandates from the state-- but this would require resources and funding that are severely lacking in support of individual schools.  As a result, I do not know if that will happen in the near future.

Bragg- Examining Pathways to and through the Community College

The article talked about the American Graduation Initiative (AGI), and I struggled with this article because of my own personal beliefs with community colleges.  I have known so many not know what they wanted to do, so they went to community college to figure it out with plans on getting a four-year degrees.  Years later, some have their associates, some went on to a four-year school, but most did not achieve either of these.  Community colleges certainly do serve a purpose for more adult learners who need more flexibility with degree programs (most times-- their expectations and end games are different), but I personally do not see the counseling and help at the community college level to get people to four-year degrees.

I know I am making some very large, overarching arguments, and I hope and know there are certainly exceptions, but I would rather see more focused on four-year degrees than community colleges. Financial aid is available just a much to students from lower SES to go to a four-year school than a community college.  Yes, a little more expensive for a four-year school, but I think the value added is there.  Seen on pg. 355, it says that community college will provide more access and credentials.  I disagree- many more access, but I do not think it will add more degrees (associates or otherwise) at the end of the day.

On the other hand, I think the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) is great idea to provide skillets and employ-ability to workers through trade classes and literacy/adult education work.  Pg. 360 discusses how important literacy is for better wages, standard of living, etc.

Another piece of the article talks about dual enrollment and how it will help everyone have access to college. I think this is false.  Dual enrollment is only available in schools once other courses have been exhausted, and it normally put aside for the top achieving students.  If students do not complete courses satisfactorily at the high school level, how can they then move on to dual-enrollment?  I do not believe they can.  The article states that dual enrollment will help prepare students more for college, but if they don't have the basics, taking classes at a community college will not be beneficial.  Community colleges can be a good collaborator for high schools, but the population taking advantage of dual enrollment are not the students who have difficulties with college access.  I do not think this is a viable solution.

I did like the discussion on pg. 384 about bridge programs. I think that is a tremendous idea to help students, and not just a bridge over the summer but one that continues and follows students with a  mentoring program throughout their time in college.  I look at programs like Posse and One Voice and see how successful they are as outside entities, and I believe that higher ed can emulate successfully to help students who normally may not have college access be successful and feel supported en route to their degree.

Week Three- Fowler Reading

Chapter One
Summary and Reaction

I love that the book started with a Wizard of Oz reference.  Besides for being one of my favorite movies, the quote, "Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore," is very relevant to where we are in educational policy. We don't know if the direction we're going in is the correct one (NCLB) but going in another direction is an uphill battle and other potential directions are unclear.

Fowler offers her definition of policy, but also provides other definitions.  I liked reading through these, and there were certainly some that resonated with me.

"Policy sometimes is formed from a compromise among political participants...none of whom had quite in the mind the problem to which the agreed problem responds."  Some things to note with this:

• compromise-- policy develops through people giving in to constituencies and no one quite being happy with the result
• one problem "solved", even more problems to combat/understand and deal with 

Fowler took time to go through the history of policies, specifically racial segregation in the schools.

As with statutes, these rules are regulations provide important clues as to what the policy really is.  It is especially important to note whether the rules are written narrowly or broadly.  pg. 6

Policies are always altered during implementation.  pg. 8

School officials had adopted a pattern of inaction that was tacitly supported by the inaction of their state governments.  pg. 9

I believe these quotes summarize implementation of rulings such as Brown v. Board.  I can see many rules and laws being put in place (particularly with compromise) that makes them written very broadly-- making implementation inconsistent among states, districts, etc.  If each group can view the statue differently and implement it as they see fit, the spirit of the law is not met even if techinivally the letter of the law is met.

Figure 1.1 on page 16 shows a diagram of the political process where it flows from one point to the next and vice versa:

Issue Definition

Agenda Setting

Policy Formulation

Policy Adoption

Implementation

Evaluation

Fowler discusses how this happens in different examples through political administrations.  In today's school systems, this system doesn't just exist at the macro level but also in micro levels in school systems, where school officials have to have their hand in policy making and in the individual schools.  

Week Two- Fowler Reflection

Chapter 12
Summary
Four Theoretical Frameworks (to help guide later discussions of policy)

1. Competing values- values are cyclical with importance in US culture.  They change and shift between order and individualism, democratic values, and economic values.
2. Lowi's policy types- historical periods influence/dictate what type of policy is used/wanted at the time.
3. Institutional choice- policy incorporates five different types of institutions (and can incorporate more than one to varying extents)- bureaucracy, legalization, professionalization, politics, and the market
4. International convergence- our systems overtime become closer to those of international systems

Chapter 12 focused on going through time periods and showing how the four theoretical frameworks were applied, with a focus on the educational system.  It started with the birth of the US as a country (young republic) where education wasn't a national focus to the rise of common schools in the mid 1800s where education and some form of compulsory education began to take form.  The scientific sorting machine and searching for a new paradigm take us to present where issues of tracking at the school level and more bureaucratic at the national level begin and continue to take effect.

No Child Left Behind is discussed at a policy level and why it was allowed/passed into law and if it is in fact achieving its goals.

Reactions
I found it interesting that we started with Chapter 12 rather than Chapter 1 or another chapter close to the beginning of the book, but I appreciated the non-linear nature of reading the Fowler book.   In going through history and seeing how educational policy has changed, it is almost amazing to me how legalized education has become.  I see this contrast at the law school-- we were the first law school, starting with John Wythe teaching whatever he felt like to this highly rigid form of education.  The founders did just find with poor apprenticeships with lawyers to be the leaders of a nation, yet we critique lack of experience for all leaders today.  I get it; it just amazes me about how far we came.  Did we move in the right direction?

Some quotes that stood out to me:
pg. 314- "Americans have long regarded education as a cure-all for whatever ails the nations"
In defense of NCLB (the quotes are, not necessarily me)
pg. 319- "represent the resolution of the education reform movements of the 1980s and 1990s"
320- "might have found it impossible to pull together the votes to pass an education reform law if 19 terrorists had not flown airplanes into the World Trade Center..."
320- "teeth or enforcement mechanisms"
321- "pay more attention to certain children than they have in the past"
325- "It is extremely difficult for people whose salaries are paid with public money and who operate schools and school systems using public money to sounds credible when they object to standards and assessments"

Chapter 3
Summary and Reactions
This chapter talked about the economy and demographics.  What stood out to me was how the economy at the time greatly affects policy and school spending (no surprise there).  In addition, I enjoyed reading about demographics within the country and how the suburbs are increasing, urban schools get less funding as poverty rates increases in urban and close suburban areas to city centers, and how diversity is increasing.

Long-range trends in regards to funding were in three ways:  do more with less, do a lot more with a little more, and do a lot more with a lot less.  This puts the burdens on the school systems and private industry to education children through the system.  Chapter 12 said that many times education is seen as a cure-all for whatever ails the nation, but if there isn't an investment in education, how can it cure anything?

I was interested in the pro-con debate:  should the schools teach all children a core curriculum?  I initially thought yes, they absolutely should.  When I thought about it more, I was thinking of a core curriculum like in a college setting, rather than a prescribed everyone do exactly the same thing in order to graduate.  I do think there should be some commonalities across schools and classes, but there needs to be some flexibility for students as individuals and for the community that the school interacts with.