Education Commons^™

Getting Power Back: Court Restoration Of Executive Authority In Boston City Government (1985), Marcy Murninghan

New England Journal of Public Policy

This article, originally published in 1985, is based partly on the author’s experience with the Boston school desegregation case, but goes beyond it. It chronicles some of the events that occurred when a state and a federal court attempted to disengage from active jurisdiction over two Boston public systems: the Boston Public Schools and the Boston Housing Authority. It makes three proposals, which, if enacted, would help to keep the courts out of day-to-day management of municipal operations. It also makes some generalizations about the court-agency interplay that are relevant to the post-remedial phase of institutional reform litigation. The author …

Behind The Numbers: Conditions Of Schooling In Boston (1981), Marcy Murninghan

New England Journal of Public Policy

This article includes portions of a report on the structure, governance, operations, and effectiveness of the Boston School Committee that was commissioned by the Boston Municipal Research Bureau in 1980. The passages provide an overview of the mandate, background, and recommendations, examining how a set of prominent professionals and citizens viewed the problem facing school department governance, including its isolation and the longstanding credibility gap fueled by patronage politics. It also looks at continued tensions between “equality” and “quality,” which occupied the heart of court-ordered desegregation; rising demands on a system that lacked the capacity to serve a broad array …

Introduction, Marcy Murninghan

New England Journal of Public Policy

America faces a reckoning, a crucible of what Reinhold Niebuhr observed more than eighty years ago. Our democratic principles and traditions are imperiled by the power of financial oligarchs and unfettered money flows, which have contributed to massive inequality that, in turn, has given rise to political unrest and a sense of cultural unmooring.

The articles presented here are both descriptive and normative, setting forth a complex social problem with seemingly bottomless proportions and then offering a design or set of remedial actions to alleviate them. Drawing on my professional experience going back to the mid-1970s, I wrote these pieces …

Editor's Note, Padraig O'Malley

New England Journal of Public Policy

Everyone who knew Robert Wood — LBJ's man to develop the Model Cities Program, President of the University of Massachusetts, Superintendent of Boston Public Schools, and author — has an anecdote about him.

He was that kind of man. You remembered him and if it was not quite in a way that was always warm and fuzzy, that delighted Bob for whom the battle of ideas was fought on a terrain where he, at least, did not know the meaning of running for intellectual cover. Nor, for that matter was he much inclined to take prisoners of sloppy thinking.

This …

Looking Back Without Anger: Reflections On The Boston School Crisis, Robert Wood

New England Journal of Public Policy

This article is taken from the unpublished autobiography of Robert Wood who served as Superintendent of Boston Public Schools from 1978 to 1980 during the difficult period when U.S. District Court Judge W. Arthur Garrity was overseeing court ordered desegregation of schools. After leaving the University of Massachusetts in January 1978, Robert Wood spent six months at the Harvard Graduate School of Education working on a book and considering a possible run for the United States Senate. Suggestion as to his next assignment, however, came from an unexpected source, as he describes below.

Parent Involvement In Urban Schools: The View From The Front Of The Classroom, Frances Gamer, Kathleen Mccarthy Mastaby

New England Journal of Public Policy

American educational reform movements focus on efforts to restructure our schools to include all interested parties, especially parents, in the decision-making process. Nowhere is involvement more crucial than in America's inner-city urban neighborhoods. As parents are given a greater voice in their child's school, educators must join them as collaborators. This article identifies elements that impeded parental involvement and recognizes positive and encouraging techniques leading toward successful family-school-community partnerships. An alliance between groups too long seen as opponents rather than proponents must be established.

Boston School Desegregation: The Fallowness Of Common Ground, Robert A. Dentler

New England Journal of Public Policy

This essay scrutinizes the book by J. Anthony Lukas, Common Ground: A Turbulent Decade in the Lives of Three American Families, to assess whether it presents a valid and reliable account of the issues, people, and events it chronicles. The substantive core of the book is shown to be the politics of Boston public school desegregation. The parts played by the three families in this event are dramatically portrayed but cannot be corroborated and are not interpreted. The parts played by five major policy leaders, when tested against other evidence, are found to be distorted, questionable legends woven in …

Public Education In Boston, Joseph M. Cronin

New England Journal of Public Policy

Historically, Boston schools have been a source of pride and educational innovation, yet they have also been fraught with problems that are typical of urban education. Both the success achieved and the problems encountered in Boston schools bear analysis. In looking at such areas as overall quality of education, funding, and compliance with federal guidelines, specific recommendations for the future of public education in Boston can be offered. In addition, the impact of Boston's success or failure in implementing new ideas through the school committee and the mayor is not limited to the city itself. This article' s outlining of …