Abstract
For decades, governmental institutions have focused on improving and equalizing the educational opportunities for students. Courts, legislatures, and chief executive officers at federal and state levels have spearheaded a range of large-scale educational reform efforts, including desegregation, school finance reform, educational improvement for students with disabilities, charter schools, and standards-based accountability systems. However, many assessments of these efforts reflect limited or mixed success. This Article takes a bird’s-eye view examination of not simply why a single type of educational reform has failed to reach its goals in a particular area, but instead at why such efforts have failed to reach their goals more generally. Drawing insights from both the history of these reform efforts and educational research, this Article analyzes cross-cutting challenges from a perspective that highlights the horizontal and vertical governance structures underlying these reforms. Based on the analysis of these reforms, this Article presents principles for rethinking educational governance in a way that has a greater potential for equalizing and improving students’ learning opportunities and performance.
Recommended Citation
Benjamin M. Superfine PhD and Mark Paige PhD,
From Governance to the Classroom: Rethinking Large-Scale School Reform to Improve Educational Opportunity and Equity,
70 Clev. St. L. Rev.
561
(2022)
available at https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/clevstlrev/vol70/iss3/7