Black Power/White Power in Public Education / Edition 1

by Ralph Edwards, Charles V. Willie

Overview

According to master-politician Thomas Tip O'Neill, all politics is local. Edwards and Willie demonstrate the efficacy of local community action, but also show how linkage with state, regional, and national agencies helps groups in their efforts to shape educational policy and practice.

Edwards and Willie examine the notion of critical mass and its relationship to community decision making. They also analyze the assets and liabilities of coalition politics. They show that specific population groups dominant in one season, and for selected circumstances, may become subdominant at another time. Such change and flexibility, they assert, is beneficial for the total community, because no one group is able to maintain control indefinitely. Their analysis will be of considerable interest to scholars, policymakers, and administrators dealing with public education issues, as well as to parents and concerned citizens.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780275962012
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	05/12/1998
Pages:	143
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.38(d)
Lexile:	1340L (what's this?)

About the Author

RALPH EDWARDS is Senior Research Associate at the Center for Innovation in Urban Education at Northeastern University. Edwards was an elementary school principal in Harlem for 10 years and Assistant Professor of Education at Boston College prior to his current research activities.

CHARLES V. WILLIE is Professor of Education and Urban Studies, Graduate School of Education, Harvard University. Willie has served as a community planner, university administrator as well as a court-appointed Master in the Boston School Desegregation case. Among his earlier publications are School Desegregation Plans That Work (Greenwood, 1984) and Effective Education (Greenwood, 1988).

Table of Contents

Introduction: The Efficacy of Local Community Action
The Hiring and Firing of Laval Wilson, Boston's First African American Superintendent of Schools
The Case of an Elected Versus an Appointed School Committee
Conclusion: Making Alliances and Building Coalitions
Index

Editorial Reviews

Discusses interracial power dynamics in local communities in disputes concerning public education, focusing on two case studies: one regarding the hiring and firing of the first Black superintendent of schools in Boston, and the other regarding the campaign to transform the Boston school committee from an elected to an appointed organization. The authors conclude with suggestions for forming alliances and building coalitions to better advance Black concerns in such disputes. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

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