Fixing Urban Schools Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Fixing Urban Schools - Essay Example This project concluded that members of the school board, mayors, foundation leaders and city council need to have an idea on how to improve school systems. One of the vital elements of reform policies that can transform performance in schools is giving responsibility to other school members other than just superintendents. Most superintendents maintain their jobs for approximately three years. The school officials normally hire a different superintendent serious and confident enough to advance a school and raise the performance of students. Three years is not enough to achieve set goals. When a superintendent leaves, he or she leaves behind partially implemented plans and unfulfilled goals. This report declares that big city leaders face issues of political and intellectual types. The political issue is the complexity of developing and maintaining a strong coalition that can conquer the resistance to change that many large organizations face, whose constituency consists of opposing civil employees and interest groups. Only a number of communities have enjoyed the advantage of both a system of political support and strong ideas. Political support is important because it plays a huge role in making ideas come to life. It is not clear how to solve the issues faced by city schools. Without proper direction, the millions of young people’s future living in the city are at stake. This is because they need the public school system to shape their employment ability and their entry into society. (Hill & Celio, 1998). Apart from teachers, members of the school board, mayors, foundation leaders and city council need to have an idea on how to improve school systems. One of th e vital elements of reform policies that can transform performance in schools is giving responsibility to other school members other than just superintendents. Most superintendents maintain their jobs for approximately three years. The school officials normally hire a different superintendent serious and confident enough to advance a school and raise the performance of students. Three years is not enough to achieve set goals. When a superintendent leaves, he or she leaves behind partially implemented plans and unfulfilled goals (Hill & Celio, 1998). The reasons why public schools face these issues is poverty, racial isolation, social instability and labor unrest. It is also helpful if local leaders can gather the needed administrative and political support to attain such reforms. The biggest challenge faced by urban schools relates to the reality that the term connotes worries concerning experiences of education for minority and poor youth. Improving public schools hence communicate s the idea of conquering inequalities in occupational, educational, and social opportunity throughout economic and racial groups. Overview of Current Policy: The policy of fixing urban schools encourages school restructuring as a way to allow improvement in the achievement of students and the effectiveness of an organization. This happened with the appointment of state officials and local appointed boards to run schools. The move prevented any bureaucracy in the management of urban schools. Because of bureaucracy, schools normally have a poor relationship with community and parental networks. This relationship is important because it helps facilitate the effective education of children. Creating a sense of community for public schools is a suggestion by many scholars. They claim that this is what separates different schools socially. For example, catholic schools run based on functional communities. This means that the