Mayors and Schools: Minority Voices and Democratic Tensions in Urban Education

By Stefanie Chambers

Book Overview

America's urban public schools are in crisis. Compared with their suburban counterparts, urban students have lower test scores and higher dropout rates. In an attempt to improve educational quality, responsibility for school governance has been handed over to mayors in several U.S. cities. Based on extensive research, including more than eighty in-depth interviews, Mayors and Schools examines whether mayoral control results in higher student achievement and considers the social costs of diminished community involvement. Using a comparative case study approach, Stefanie Chambers researches the impact of mayoral educational control in two big-city school districts, Chicago and Cleveland. On the whole, she finds, student test scores have improved since the takeovers but there are now fewer opportunities for grassroots participation in the educational system by minority community members. Chambers contends that these findings have important implications for democratic theory, arguing that urban schools cannot be successful in the long run without the active participation of local citizens.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1592134696
• ISBN13: 9781592134694
• Release Date: June 2006
• Publisher: Temple University Press
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.0" x 8.2"