Since the 1980s, strategies for improving public education in America have focused on either competition through voucher programs and charter schools or standardization as enacted into federal law through No Child Left Behind. These reforms, however, have failed to narrow the performance gap between poor urban students and other children. In response, parents have begun to organize local campaigns to strengthen the public schools in their communities. One of the most original, successful, and influential of these parent-led campaigns has been the Community Collaborative to Improve District 9 (CC9), a consortium of six neighborhood-based groups in the Bronx. In Organizing for Educational Justice, Michael B. Fabricant tells the story of CC9 from its origins in 1995 as a small group of concerned parents to the citywide application of its reform agenda--concentrating on targeted investment in the development of teacher capacity--ten years later. Drawing on in-depth interviews with participants, analysis of qualitative data, and access to meetings and archives, Fabricant evaluates CC9's innovative approach to organizing and collaboration with other stakeholders, including the United Federation of Teachers, the NYC Department of Education, neighborhood nonprofits, and city colleges and universities. Situating this case within a wider exploration of parent participation in educational reform, Fabricant explains why CC9 succeeded and other parent-led movements did not. He also examines the ways in which the movement effectively empowered parents by rigorously ensuring a democratic process in making decisions and, more broadly, an inclusive organizational culture. As urban parents across America search for ways to hold public schools accountable for their failures, this book shows how the success of the CC9 experience can be replicated elsewhere around the country.

That education should instill and nurture democracy is an American truism. Yet organizations such as the Business Roundtable, together with conservative philanthropists such as Bill Gates and Walmart’s owners, the Waltons, have been turning public schools into corporate mills. Their top-down programs, such as Common Core State Standards, track, judge, and homogenize the minds of millions of American students from kindergarten through high school. But corporate funders would not be able to implement this educational control without the de facto partnership of government at all levels, channeling public moneys into privatization initiatives, school closings, and high-stakes testing that discourages independent thinking. Educational Justice offers hope that there’s still time to take on corporatized schools and achieve democratic justice in the classroom. Forcefully written by educator and journalist Howard Ryan, with contributing authors, the book opens with four chapters that discuss theories on teacher unionism, social justice pedagogy, and corporate school reform. These chapters are balanced with four case-study chapters documenting exemplary teaching and school-site organizing practices in the field. Reports from various educational fronts include innovative union strategies against charter school expansion, as well as teaching visions drawn from the vibrant “whole language” movement. Bold, informative, clearly reasoned, this book is an education in itself—a democratic one at that.

This book presents a novel perspective on education as a social right. Literature on this topic has focused on inclusion as the universal concept whereby access to education is examined. As a moral principle, this concept opens new challenges in different ways if we take a deeper view into diverse contexts. What education? For what? For whom? Are we thinking about education because it will bring social justice in the future, or are we thinking of education as a just practice in the present? This book brings fresh theoretical and empirical perspectives on those questions, moving beyond a pure inclusion paradigm to a broader and context-oriented notion of educational justice. The chapters engage with theories of educational justice to present these challenges at the institutional level of educational policy, at the practical level of schooling practices, and in the production of ideas around childhood and education, for instance, notions of normalcy at schools. Although the featured works are related to the Chilean educational system, they opens questions about education in general. They embrace rural and urban contexts, different educational levels (from preschool to university), and university and vocational education. This book will be rewarding reading for educational scholars, those interested in theories of social and educational justice, and anyone interested in contemporary perspectives on education, childhood and youth, inclusion, and justice.

In cities across the nation, low-income African-American and Latino parents hope their children's education will bring a better life. But their schools, typically, are overcrowded, ill equipped, and shamefully under-staffed. This work offers a radical approach to school reform that stresses grassroots public activism.

This volume examines the ways youth, parents, community members, and civic leaders join forces to improve public education.

Fairness in the workplace is a key element to the successful management and development of an organization. By evaluating the treatment of employees within educational settings, as well as examining their reaction to fair and effective leadership practices, an institution gains a competitive edge within the global academic landscape. The Handbook of Research on Organizational Justice and Culture in Higher Education Institutions examines employee perspectives and behavior within educational settings. Highlighting the application of organizational integrity practices being used to meet the demands of institutional employees within developing and developed economies, this publication is a vital reference source for academicians, professionals, researchers, and students interested in higher education business management and development.

This book articulates a path for a renewed conception of-and commitment to-the public dimensions of schooling. It is an interdisciplinary book of philosophy and politics, written for educational leaders working in or on behalf of public schooling. Publics for Public Schools introduces a fresh view on how educational leaders might view the public ideal. In this conception of public work and leadership, educational leaders do not work with the public but help to achieve publics for public schools. The demos, or "the people" in the case of democratic governance of schools, mobilize around particular problems related to young people and schooling; they are best understood not as "the public" but as multiple publics. This book provides a conception of public life and of public leadership that can enable educational leaders of all types to help achieve publics for their schools.

Although various factors contribute to failed change, one of the key reasons for change failure is the inability of leaders to gain the trust of employees, to understand the interaction between their subordinates, and to convince them to support change and to commit the energy and effort necessary to implement it. The aims of this book are to establish theories in order to describe and explain how human behaviors and contexts interact dynamically in these changes, and manage change and justice by reducing inequalities, giving emphasis to distributive justice. In addition, the aim of this book is also for readers to better understand employees' perceptions of organizational justice by senior management which is particularly important during the organizational change because change cannot succeed without the acceptance and support from employees. Organizational Justice and Organizational Change: Managing by Love provides readers a theoretical understanding and recommendations for acting properly in an organization, forming a comprehensive tool and better enable practitioners to achieve management of change and justice in organizations. It will be of interest to researchers, academics, practitioners, and students in the fields of change management, organizational studies, leadership, and strategic management.

The Arts and Emergent Bilingual Youth offers a critical sociopolitical perspective on working with emerging bilingual youth at the intersection of the arts and language learning. Utilizing research from both arts and language education to explore the ways they work in tandem to contribute to emergent bilingual students’ language and academic development, the book analyzes model arts projects to raise questions about “best practices” for and with marginalized bilingual young people, in terms of relevance to their languages, cultures, and communities as they envision better worlds. A central assumption is that the arts can be especially valuable for contributing to English learning by enabling learners to experience ideas, patterns, and relationship (form) in ways that lead to new knowledge (content). Each chapter features vignettes showcasing current projects with ELL populations both in and out of school and visual art pieces and poems, to prompt reflection on key issues and relevant concepts and theories in the arts and language learning. Taking a stance about language and culture in English learners’ lives, this book shows the intimate connections among art, narrative, and resistance for addressing topics of social injustice.

The importance of community empowerment in advancing public policy cannot be underestimated. Collaborations for Social Justice provides powerful examples of how professionals have successfully mobilized the public. Written primarily for students, academics, and lawyers, this book bridges the widely publicized gap between professional advocates and grassroots organizations. The authors demonstrate that participation on the part of professionals in the process of empowerment of low-income communities is transformative and enriching for everyone affected.