Building schools, rethinking quality? Early lessons from Los Angeles

Fuller, Bruce; Dauter, Luke; Hosek, Adrienne; Kirschenbaum, Greta; McKoy, Deborah L.; Rigby, Jessica G.; Vincent, Jeffrey M.

doi:10.1108/09578230910955773

Cited by 8 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 8 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The nature and quality of the built learning environment has been shown to affect the community's ongoing engagement with a school (Berner, 1993), as well as the teachers' attitudes, behaviors, performance (Buckley, Schneider, & Shang., 2004;Dawson & Parker, 1998;Earthman & Lemasters, 2009;Lowe, 1990;Schneider, 2003), and choices about where to work (e.g., Fuller et al, 2009). Research suggests that new elementary schools in los angeles attract younger, more recently trained members of the teaching ranks (Fuller et al, 2009). Horng (2009) surveyed 531 California elementary teachers, asking them to choose among various workplace characteristics.…”

Section: School Physical Environment and Student Achievementmentioning

confidence: 99%

Improving the Physical and Social Environment of School: A Question of Equity

Uline¹,

Wolsey²,

Tschannen‐Moran³

et al. 2010

Journal of School Leadership

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This study explored the interplay between quality facilities and school climate, charting the effects of facility conditions on student and teacher attitudes, behaviors, and performance within schools slated for renovations in a large metropolitan school district. The research applied a school leadership-building design model to explore how six characteristics of facility quality-movement, aesthetics, play of light, flexible and responsive classrooms, elbow room, and security-interact with four aspects of school climate: academic press, community engagement, teacher professionalism, and collegial leadership. Because the schools were older and participants in the research perceived them as being in great need of maintenance and repair, the school building characteristics were often described as absent qualities. The survey data revealed moderate to strong relationships between the quality of school facilities and school climate. The interviews further explicated these relationships. Two additional themes-counterbalance and equity-emerged as being significant to occupants' interactions with their current facilities. This study used a mixed-methods triangulation designdata transformation model. Specifically, school climate surveys, photo interviews with students, walking tours of the school facility, and formal interviews were triangulated to obtain complementary data and a more complete understanding of the educational facility to be renovated and its impact on occupants. Students, teachers, parents, and community members initially come to understand the primary functions of school through their observations of the buildings and grounds. occupants struggle to perceive a clear focus

show abstract

Section: School Physical Environment and Student Achievementmentioning

confidence: 99%

Improving the Physical and Social Environment of School: A Question of Equity

Uline¹,

Wolsey²,

Tschannen‐Moran³

et al. 2010

Journal of School Leadership

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Upgrading the school facilities, for example, will directly reduce the “distraction[s] to our learning” that Crystal and other students experienced, furnishing schools more conducive to intellectual pursuit. And indeed, previous research ties better building quality to increases in student achievement (Crampton, 2009; Durán-Narucki, 2008; Fuller et al, 2009; Schneider, 2002; Tanner, 2008, 2009; Uline & Tschannen-Moran, 2008). Furthermore, meeting the students’ reform goals can indirectly support learning by encouraging more constructive and academically oriented responses toward schooling (Newmann, 1981).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 94%

Educational or Social Reform? Students Inform the Debate Over Improving Urban Schools

Taines

2010

Education and Urban Society

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The educational community is divided over which is the best approach for improving urban schools: focus on teaching and learning or underlying social inequity? This article argues that the students who attend urban schools can inform the debate. The study draws on interviews with fourteen urban youth about their participation in a community-based program that supports school activism. In the program, the students selected a surprising, and seemingly trivial, set of school problems as their top reform priorities. Yet findings reveal that from the students’ vantage point, these concrete changes will enhance engagement and the perceived fairness of the educational environment. Urban students therefore bridge current policy debates by posing recommendations pertinent to both educational and social reform advocates. The study concludes with reflections on students’ contributions to the content and process of urban educational reform.

show abstract

“…In an earlier phase of this reform effort, charter school advocates and others lobbied for state legislation (Proposition 39) that lowered the threshold for votes required to pass local bonds, with an expectation that charter schools would be guaranteed some of the new campus space. As a result of this proposition, Los Angeles voters approved more than $20 billion in revenue bonds to build 130 new facilities over the past decade (Fuller et al, 2009). Yet, as these schools began to open, some encountered problems.…”

Section: Interaction Of Reform Issuesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Political Dynamics of District Reform: The Form and Fate of the Los Angeles Public School Choice Initiative

Marsh

2016

Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Background Scholars widely acknowledge that politics help explain why policies are adopted and how they play out in states, districts, and schools. To date, political analyses of education reform tend to isolate a particular policy and examine the politics of its adoption or implementation, but pay less attention to the effects of the politics of surrounding reforms and broader issues. Purpose In this article, I use the instrumental case of the Los Angeles Public School Choice Initiative (PSCI) to demonstrate the ways in which the political dynamics of other policy issues in the same local environment greatly affect the form and fate of a reform. The article examines what led to the adoption of PSCI and what explains its implementation and adaptation over time. Research Design The study employed an embedded case study design and gathered 3 years of data from leader interviews, observations, interviews, and focus groups in nine case study schools, media articles, and documents. I drew on an ecological-political framework to analyze these data and to understand the evolution of PSCI. Findings I find that PSCI provided a vehicle to advance the goals of six education reform “subgames”—decentralization, charter expansion, accountability, union reform, academic rigor, and community empowerment—as well as goals of two broader local “games” of electoral politics and bridging, and that each was consequential to at least one or more phase of PSCI. At times in its evolution, players seeking success in one area of reform aligned with, used, or were used by players seeking success in other areas of reform. It is the interactions of these players in relation to the environment and to others working to advance complementary and conflicting reform issues and goals that explains how a reform touted to improve accountability and learning for low-performing schools and to empower the community became a broader referendum on school governance and reform writ large. Conclusions Consistent with recent scholarship, this research demonstrates that an increasingly broad set of actors are engaging in decisions around public schooling and changing the nature of educational governance. The study also illustrates the value of examining local policy with an ecological-political lens and poses several hypotheses that could be explored in future studies. Finally, it suggests that prior to adoption, policymakers consider the extent to which a new policy advances or competes with the goals of surrounding reforms and investigate ways to bolster bridging games.

show abstract

Building schools, rethinking quality? Early lessons from Los Angeles

Cited by 8 publications

References 8 publications

Improving the Physical and Social Environment of School: A Question of Equity

Improving the Physical and Social Environment of School: A Question of Equity

Educational or Social Reform? Students Inform the Debate Over Improving Urban Schools

The Political Dynamics of District Reform: The Form and Fate of the Los Angeles Public School Choice Initiative

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About