Hall and four colleagues review "Dancing on the Ceiling: A Study of Women Managers in Education" (Paul Chapman, 1996). Reviewers agree that Hall's profiles of six British elementary and secondary women headteachers should improve readers' understanding of female managers' development and their preference for "soft,"…

Experience and research on superintendents reveal the enormous conflict and tension in a changing, ambiguous position. This article discusses the significance of "outsider" superintendents. It examines how outsider status (negatively) influences superintendents' effectiveness, how these effects can be reduced, and whether women and minorities…

Presents a critical history of a particular composition handbook: the "Harbrace College Handbook." Argues that such handbooks serve two important institutional purposes: articulating what is deemed important subject matter for composition classrooms (handbooks write the discipline); and shaping teacher and student subjectivities…

Encourages social studies teachers and curriculum coordinators to consider, in their units on the antebellum period, the common school movement. Notes useful classroom strategies and recommends use of short readings from primary sources. Suggests that students will be fascinated by the intellectual and social forces that motivated discussion of…

Investigated the inherent dilemma evident in attempts to promote decentralization in urban public schools by examining the situation in the Detroit (Michigan) school system. Results indicate that efforts at promoting decentralization may, over time, produce counterpressures to recentralize decision making. (Author/SLD)

In discussing school superintendent vulnerability, the paper addresses diverse meanings among scholars of Callahan's vulnerability thesis, highlighting other articles within this theme issue. The paper reflects on discussions of Callahan's "Education and the Cult of Efficacy" before its 1962 publication and investigates the relation…

Explores the political legacy of standardized testing, or how testing legitimates discussions about school politics. Focuses on the narrowing of purpose for schools, impatience with educational reform, and the erosion of public support for publicly funded schools. Contains 129 references. (SLD)

Presents a study of parents' involvement with their children that reveals how some black parents, concerned about the legacy of discrimination against blacks in schooling, approach schools critically. Extends the results to a theoretical discussion of interactions of moments of inclusion or exclusion with activation of social and cultural capital.…

Illuminates one example of a critical ethnography in practice, exploring the life of Dr. Huey P. Newton, a leader in the African-American community, and arguing that critical ethnography cannot teach African Americans how to overcome oppression. The suggested postcritical ethnography would be part of African Americans looking to their own…

Provides a historical link between the civil rights movement in the 1960s and the disability rights movement. The origins of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 are discussed from the sociopolitical context at the time of their passage. Links are drawn between these laws,…

Suggests that a goal of schooling should be to educate students for democracy as a means of challenging a status quo in which a relatively small number of people control a disproportionate share of society's social and economic resources. Examines the potential of critical, pro-justice, whole-language instruction to help create the conditions for…

Discusses how by accepting the metaphor of education as product and the corporate-bureaucratic definition of "quality," community colleges fail to help students transform their lives and may foster America's class system. Considers the humanities' definition and the corporate definition of quality. Exhibits concerns about the political structures…

"Mock v. Kansas" (1991) determined that the state legislature is obligated to fund its schools so that each child receives an equal educational opportunity. Two major sources of funding variations (the local option budget and higher weightings for rural students) represent unjustified disparities based on politics (and spending) as…

Argues that pursuing the nonexistent "perfect method" for teaching reading to all children distracts from the real key to improving reading instruction: developing teachers who know a variety of methods and approaches and thoughtfully orchestrate them according to their students' needs. Suggests what teachers, policy makers, researchers, and…

Telephone interviews with several California principals and superintendents disclosed inconsistent principal-evaluation procedures. Principals said they were concerned about possible negative influences of covert superintendent and/or board agendas and district micromanagement of schools on their evaluations. Strategies for improving practice and…