Policy studies for education leaders

Exercises

Chapter 2

1. Questions and Activities for Discussion

1.1 List the types of power to which your educational position entitles you and the major power resources at your disposal. How could you make more effective use of your power? What ethical challenges have you encountered because of your power?

1.2 Call your representative in the state legislature and request some information from the office. Keep a list of everything that happens, starting with location the representative’s phone number. Analyze the bias mobilized against public participation in legislative policy making.

• 1.3 What evidence suggests that some people in your district have been disempowered through the shaping of their consciousness? How does their disempowerment affect district education policy?

• 1.4 Do a PRINCE analysis of a current issue in your district of state. How could the less powerful stakeholders build their power?

2. CASE STUDY:SATANISM AND WITHCHCRAFT IN THE

SCHOOLS

Bob Mathews is the superintendent of a school district that includes a small city and the surrounding rural area. The district is about thirty miles from a large metropolis; but recently many former city dwellers have purchased houses in two new subdivisions. About ten days ago Bob received a phone call from a man who identified himself as Clyde Ruggles.

Saying that he had some concerns about the language arts books used in the district, Ruggles requested an opportunity to address the school board at its next meeting. Because Ruggles spoke with a “country” accent and made several grammatical errors, Bob thought, “Just a harmless crackpot.” He agreed to place him on the agenda and forgot about him.

At last night’s school board meeting, Bob was astonished to see that every seat in the meeting room was occupied. Many in the crowd were wearing red, white, and blue buttons that read, “Save our children from the devil.” Some were holding up professional-looking signs containing the same words. As he made his way through the crowd, someone shoved a leaflet into his hand and a flashbulb went off. Looking around, Bob recognized several reporters in the audience.

Because Bob had placed Ruggles first on the agenda, Ruggles strode to the microphone right after the Pledge of Allegiance and read a brilliantly written speech to the school board. In it he claimed that the language arts series used by the system taught Satanism, magic, and witchcraft.

After citing several examples, Ruggles concluded: This school district systematically teaches our children a heathen religion: Satanism. Under the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, this practice is illegal. I therefore request that the school board immediately stop using this textbook series.” The room rang with thunderous applause.

• Then Ed Zabriski, one of the board members, said, “I move that we stop using this series.” After considerable hesitation, Jay Bullock seconded the motion, and the audience applauded again. The motion failed, 3-2, on a roll call vote. Then, in a voice not much above a whisper, Dr. Dale Attali said, “I move we adjourn to the superintendent’s office to discuss personnel matters in an executive session.”

This motion passed, 3-2. Bob did not know if this motion was legal or not, but he did not care. He, the board members, and the treasurer hurriedly left the room to calls of “Cowards! Cowards!” In his office Bob learned that Zabriski strongly supported Ruggles and his group. Bullock, on the other hand, had supported the motion because many voters from his district were present. Attali and the other two board members, both from the new subdivisions, were appalled by Ruggles’s ideas.

• The next morning Bob attended a Kiwanis pancake breakfast before meeting wihe the city manager. When he reached his office at 10:00 a.m., he found a stack of telephone messages on the desk. They included: (1) “Jane Cohen, president of the REA called. Several English teachers have contacted her, concerned about censorship after last night.” (Eighty-five percent of the teachers belong to the union, which has been bargaining for twenty years.)

(2) “Harold Brook of Realtors Association-concerned about declining home sales in new subdivision if ˋkooksˊ take over.” (3) “Jasper Powers, pastor of the Four Square Solid Bible Gospel Temple called. Concerned about Satanism in our schools.” (This church has 800 members, mostly from working-class families.)

(4) “George P. Trotwood, president of First Home Fidelity Bank called-wants to know what in h-is going on around here? Have you lost control?”

(5) Every elementary principal had left a message to the effect that several students were refusing to participate in reading class.

(6) “Robert Bachfeld, pastor of the Holy Light Tabernacle, wants an appointment to discuss the curriculum with you.” (This church has about 600 members.)

(7) “Tammy Brouillette, Channel 7 News Reporter, wants to interview you about Satanism.”

Question

• 1. Do a PRINCE analysis of power relationships in this district.

• 2. Apparently, Bob Mathews has based his behavior on a faulty analysis of power relationships. Describe his apparent analysis. In your opinion, why did he make these mistakes?

• 3. In what ways do the second and third dimensions of power probably operate in this district?

• 4. Develop a plan that Bob Mathews and the majority on the board could use to alter power relationships so that this conflict can be resolved in a positive, ethical manner.

3. NEWS STORY FOR ANALYSIS: Teachers’ claims on

charter plan contradicted Buffalo, NY-The claims of the Buffalo Teachers

Federation that School 18’s charter school proposal would wipe out tenure and seniority for teachers was undercut Thursday by a New York City school official who said teachers automatically retained those protections when conversion charters were established there. State education officials said there is no reason similar arrangements couldn’t be made in Buffalo if school administrators and the BTF approached the issue cooperatively.

And Board of Education President Paul G. Buchanan said any plan at School 18 would fully retain those protections for teachers. But BTF President Philip Rumore continued to insist Thursday that the proposal to convert School 18 into a charter school would automatically strip teachers of seniority and tenure. “There are no ifs, ands or buts,” Rumore said. “Those are not things that can be worked out. It’s precluded by law.”

Buffalo’s School 18, a West Side elementary school with low test scores and an overwhelmingly minority enrollment, had been planning for months to transform itself into a charter school that would employ multi-age classrooms and build instruction around community service projects. The school’s teaching staff initially voted overwhelmingly to support the conversion, but then reversed itself in a second vote taken after Rumore claimed they could lose tenure protection and possibly their pensions.

Principal Gary R. Stillman put the charter school planning on hold indefinitely after the second vote. A majority vote of the school’s parents of Education and the state. When a handful of New York City public schools became the first conversion charters in the state several years ago, teachers fully retained their tenure and seniority protections, a New York City School official said Thursday. That was not by special arrangement, she said, but simply by law.

• Buchanan said that would also be the case in Buffalo. “What the BTF has done is stop the process, even though those are the things we would have worked on,” he said. “That doesn’t really bode well for any kind of reform.” Rumore said his opposition to the School 18 proposal remains firm. “I don’t see any reason to support it,” he said. Rumore said traditional public schools can institute the same reforms as charter schools.

• “I don’t really think charter schools serve any purpose but to undermine the Buffalo Public Schools,” he said.

• (Adapted by permission of the publisher from P.Simon, “Teachers’ claims on charter plan contradicted,” Buffalo News, January 4,2002,P. C1. Copyright 2002 by the Buffalo News.)

Questions

• 1. List all actors mentioned in the article. Identify the types of power they hold and the resources on which each depends.

• 2. Identify the ethical issues related to power in this article. Be prepared to discuss them.

• 3. Assuming that each actor is trying to maintain or gain power, explain the differing positions that each takes in the article.