Besieged: School Boards and the Future of Education Politics.Besieged be·siegetr.v. be·sieged, be·sieg·ing, be·sieg·es 1. To surround with hostile forces. 2. To crowd around; hem in. 3. : School Boards and the Future of Education Politics, edited by William William, crown prince of Germany William or Frederick William, 1882–1951, crown prince of Germany, son of William II. In World War I he commanded (1914) an army on the Western Front and was nominal commander in the German attack G. Howell How´ell n. 1. The upper stage of a porcelian furnace. (Brookings Brookings, city (1990 pop. 16,270), seat of Brookings co., E S.Dak., on the Big Sioux River; inc. 1883. A trade center in a livestock and grain region, Brookings is an important seed-processing point. ). The traditional American school board is under attack from above (by state and federal regulations), from the sides (by judicial mandates and assertions of mayoral control), and from below (by demands for increased school choice). If not necessarily on the way out, school boards are plainly under siege siege, assault against a city or fortress with the purpose of capturing it. The history of siegecraft parallels the development of fortification and, later, artillery. . Some say, "good riddance," dismissing school boards as yet another mechanism by which teacher unions and other organized interest groups exert undue influence over the nation's schools. Defenders of school boards, however, see them as responsive, accountable bodies through which local communities can still deliberate how best to educate their children. On balance, the evidence compiled in this edited volume favors the critics. Most notably, none of the volume's authors believes that school boards are a source of meaningful policy innovation. Those who are convinced that our schools require fundamental reform, Howell aptly concludes, had best look beyond the boardroom. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] |
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