No community left behind

Phi Delta Kappan

Volumn 89, Issue 8, 2008, Pages 552-559

  Schlechty, Phillip C ^a  

^a Schlechty Center for Leadership in School Reform   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 42349093712     PISSN: 00317217     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/003172170808900804     Document Type: Article

References (9)

1. Though he says it differently, David Mathews makes a similar point in his excellent book Reclaiming Public Education by Reclaiming Our Democracy (Dayton: Kettering Foundation Press, 2006).
2. Douglas B. Sosnik, Matthew J. Dowd, and Ron Fournier, Applebee's America: How Successful Political Business, and Religious Leaders Connect with the New American Community (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006).
3. The argument I am making here is in many ways similar to the argument David Mathews presents in Reclaiming Public Education by Reclaiming Our Democracy. The main difference is that I believe that the best way to reclaim our democracy is by reclaiming the public schools. Indeed, it is my view that the public schools are the last best hope we have of creating the kind of communities we need to ensure the continuation of our democratic way of life, and thus it is essential that school leaders -especially school boards -assume the role of community builders rather than representatives of the factions and groups that now divide our communities.
4. Stewart E. McClure, chief clerk, Senate Committee on Labor, Education and Public Welfare, "1949-1973 Oral History Interviews," Senate Historical Office, Washington, D.C., January 1983, pp. 110-11. Available at www.senate.gov. Google the title.
5. This point is also made by Neal McCluskey and Andrew Coulson in a recent op-ed piece that appeared in the Louisville Courier Journal under the headline "The Failures of No Child Left Behind." This article appeared after I had drafted this piece, but it was gratifying to find support for what I am asserting.
6. See Neal McCluskey and Andrew J. Coulson, "The Failures of No Child Left Behind: A Report by the Cato Institute," Louisville Courier Journal, 13 September 2007, p. A-11.
7. See, for example, Joel Packer, "The NEA Supports Substantial Overhaul, Not Repeal, of NCLB," Phi Delta Kappan, December 2007, pp. 265-69.
8. Peter Senge, The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization (New York: Doubleday Currency, 1990), p. 3.
9. So much of the attention of education policy makers is focused on solving the problems of large urban districts (those with more than 100,000 students) that it is sometimes overlooked that nearly two-thirds of all students attend schools in districts with fewer than 25,000 students (K-12) and that nearly one-third attend schools in districts with fewer than 5,000 students. School choice has much less meaning in a small town in South Dakota than it might have in inner-city Chicago.