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Full-Text Articles in Education
Getting Power Back: Court Restoration Of Executive Authority In Boston City Government (1985), Marcy Murninghan
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
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 …
Looking Back Without Anger: Reflections On The Boston School Crisis, Robert Wood
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This article is taken from the unpublished autobiography of Robert Wood who served as Superintendent of Boston Public Schools from 1978 to 1980 during the difficult period when U.S. District Court Judge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.
An Effective Compromise: Class-Based Affirmative Action In Boston Schools, Gabriel O'Malley
An Effective Compromise: Class-Based Affirmative Action In Boston Schools, Gabriel O'Malley
New England Journal of Public Policy
The author seeks to shift the traditional focus of the affirmative action debate from race to class. With the Boston Latin School as an example, he argues that, under certain circumstances, a shift in an admission policy based on preferences from race to class will maintain academic standards while increasing minority representation; it will also expand opportunity for economically underprivileged youths who have succeeded academically despite the obstacles they face. A focus on class rather than race offers both sides of the affirmative action debate a philosophy that can be reconciled with their views on race-based affirmative action. In certain …