Educational Leadership Commons^™

The Need For Expanding School Choice In Iowa, Dean W. Lemke

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

Allowing parents and students freedom of school choice is the established state policy in Iowa. Because of the success of this policy, further expansion of the existing public funding of elementary and secondary school choice is needed to provide Iowa families full choice of public and nonpublic schools.

My perspective is that of an Iowa native who attended a public school, is an engineering graduate of a state university in Iowa, and has been employed 22 years in public service. My wife is from a family of public school teachers and has taught in public schools for 20 years. Our …

Honoring The Right To Choose: An Argument For Funding Private Religious School Choice, John F. Cronin

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

Few issues arouse more passionate debate in education than school choice. Unfortunately, there is a flash point beyond which passionate debate dissolves into personal argument. When this happens, positions become entrenched and participants become unwilling to consider other perspectives on the issue.

Proponents of religious school choice, and I am one of them, have not promoted a dispassionate consideration of perspectives on this issue. Some of us, especially those who typically "have the mike" in this discussion, choose strategies that distort facts and impugn the competence or motives of public school educators. These strategies create a climate of fear about …

A Working Model Of The Home Education Option, Mary Terpstra

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

Anytime we talk of possibilities or a change in our vision, we look for models. Not just ideas, but working models that we can evaluate and consider adapting to our needs. Most of the considerations of school choice has been seen as an "either/or" proposition. I would like to present the Ames School District's model of an "and" option for families that choose the option of home education.

In 1991 the Iowa Legislature enacted a bill that set three options to satisfy the attendance requirements in our state: (a) attendance at a public school, (b) attendance at an accredited non-public …

Religious Minorities And The Establishment And Free Exercise Clauses, Steven J. Drahozal

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

Nowhere is the battle over sacred and secular waged with such intensity and frequency as in the schools of this country. It is, therefore, entirely fitting that a discussion of issues in education include the separation of Church and State. The ever increasing number of decisions handed down by the Supreme Court attest to the fact that the legal issues of separation of Church and State are multiple and complex. When dealing with these issues in a short paper, we must be clear on the issues being discussed. This paper shall focus on two main issues: the fact that "separation …

School Choice: A Win-Win Situation, Jody K. Wohlers

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

School choice is about giving parents educational options from which they can choose to best meet the needs of their child/family.

School choice has many favorable benefits which fall into two broad categories: (a) benefits to the child and family, and (b) benefits to the school district and community.

I believe that the student is the most important ingredient in the educational process and, therefore, one of the most important benefits is that his/her unique individual needs and desires can be better addressed and met through educational options, i.e., school choice.

Church-State Separation: The Legal Issues That Impact Public Schools, Carl Hartman

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

The primary law that affects church-state issues is the First Amendment to the Constitution. It reads: ''Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion (the first or establishment clause) or prohibiting the free exercise thereof (the second or free exercise clause)."

This constitutional statement clearly states the intent of our early American fathers to keep government and religion separate. James Madison wrote the purpose of separation of Church and State is to "keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe in blood for centuries." The blood still flows "over there." Most …

Education System's Responsibilities Include Conveying Information About Religion, Steven E. Hein

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof'' ... U. S. Constitution Amendment I This position paper will give a brief historical background on the reason for the First Amendment regarding to the clause concerning religious freedom, review the significant court decisions, note current trends, and make some personal observations.

Supreme Court Decisions Change Original Intent Of First Amendment, Galen R. Haegele

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

America was founded on biblical principles. Civil law was based on biblical law. The framers of the Constitution fully realized that political freedom could be achieved only if the foundations of religion, morality, and knowledge were firmly implanted in the hearts and minds of its people. Therefore, they took deliberate steps to encourage the people to strengthen their hold on religious freedom and to incorporate it into the educational and political fabric of the young republic.

Historical, Current Arguments For Re-Developing A Moral Base In Education, Tom Hochgesang

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

The intent of this paper is to stimulate dialog on:

• the legal issue of separation of Church and State in schools and the affect it has on Iowa's education system and on each person who passes through the process.

• some revealing quotes from our founding fathers that pointedly show how our Nation must be run and controlled to operate successfully, or to even survive.

• what affect specific court decisions on the separation of Church and State have had and are having on our citizens, especially on our youth.

• some startling, revealing statistics that seem to support …

Allow Local School Boards To Choose Type Of Education, Dennis St. Lawrence

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

This issue of separation of Church and State, which has been completely restructuring the fabric of our nation and education system, is a relatively new concept as currently understood. In fact, its very history conveys much insight into the issues of the day. The well-known and oft quoted phrase "separation of Church and State" is usually associated with the Constitution of the United States and the First Amendment, yet the words do not appear even once in the Constitution or in any of the founding documents of our nation, either individually or collectively.

Issue Area Five: Consensus Building In The Community: What Generates Trust And Respect?, Homer Larsen

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

It is not news to say that there are growing tensions in some communities between public schools and citizen groups. How can these tensions be lessened at a time when public trust in the schools is not as deep as it has been in the past?

The first step in building trust and respect in the community is to know ourselves. What do we and our organizations believe? What are our values? What is our vision for education in the community? Only after we have answered these questions can we proceed in a pluralistic culture with a secure spirit and …

Historical Interpretation Views Separation Clause More Narrowly, Gareth R. Volz

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

Many times school districts and other government agencies attempt to justify acts of censorship targeted directly at religious people on the basis of what has been commonly referred to as the "separation of Church and State." Although the phrase "separation of Church and State" never appears in our Constitution, Bill of Rights, or other founding documents, groups opposed to religion in general, and Christianity in particular, argue that the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment (which prohibits states from interfering with churches) somehow requires that there be a wall of separation between religious people and governmental affairs.

Encourage School Boards To Seek Community-Wide Participation, Comments, Helen Van Steenhuyse

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

Consensus Building in the Community: What Generates Trust and Respect must be addressed at local levels as we endeavor to build supportive and collaborative communication between the community and the schools.

In preparing this report, I interviewed various people, both in our school system and statewide. I found a wide variance of opinions regarding our public school system.

Our project is to enhance communication with communities to better serve the needs of all the students. It is my belief that Iowa must transform its education system to meet the needs of the high performing, global economy of the twenty-first century. …

Consensus Building Starts With Understanding The Parts Of The Whole, Louise Voss Thurn

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

In The Seven Blind Mice, Caldecott medalist author, Ed Young, charmingly adapted the ancient fable of The Blind Man and the Elephant to the adventure of seven contemporary blind mice as they, one by one, examine what they finally conclude to be an elephant.

As The Seven Blind Mice illustrated, knowing in part may make for a fine tale, but wisdom comes from seeing and understanding the whole. This tale cleverly illustrates the importance of understanding all the parts before one understands the whole. I believe an analogy can be drawn from this story and how we view school …

The Customer Is Always The Customer, Michael Krumm

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

"The customer is always right" is a disturbing idea to many people in business. Customers may make extreme or absurd demands. Customers also have a difficult time predicting what they want. When they are asked to react to an idea for a new service or product, their responses are often unreliable because they have had no previous experience with the new concept.

Businesses committed to delivering quality service to their customers have changed this old adage to "The customer isn't always right, but the customer is always the customer." This revision acknowledges that the customer is in control of the …

Schools Need To Change Focus And Return To Imparting Knowledge, Esther Mcguire

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

Has there been a change in both schools and society, or have our schools been forced to change because of the misconception that society has changed? As Nikki Giovanni (1994) wrote in Racism 101, "Thomas Jefferson and others sat to chart a course for humans that would incorporate change as a constant" (p. 146). It is interesting to follow the educational issues and concerns of this country over the past 200 years. The issues are rarely new, but have been revisited time and again. Two things remain constant: (a) the school will remain a positive force if the focus is …

Chaos: A Positive Force In Changing Schools, Joe Millard

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

The butterfly effect is at work in society impacting American education. There are examples at the national, state, and local level where these disturbances provide opportunities for potential change. Section 504 of the 1973 Civil Rights legislation is an example of the national level impacting schools. New businesses in local communities directly cause confusion for the community schools. And, within districts, a new practice in an elementary school may create the butterfly effect that will impact the entire school district. These are all examples of disturbances that can create positive change.

Public Education And Shared Values, Darryl D. Hansen

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

In our society, parents are primarily responsible for teaching morality to their children. Parents may delegate certain teaching roles to religious or public institutions, but they cannot escape the responsibility for the outcome of that teaching. Our public institutions must look to the family for the authority to teach morality and the content of that morality. Unfortunately, the prevailing idea in education is relativism. There are no universal moral values we can all agree upon, so we don't teach any.

To Teach Values, We Must First Believe And Then Model Them Ourselves, Samona Joy Smit

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

The teaching of values in public schools: Which values? Whose values? These are intriguing questions. Even more intriguing than the answer, is the question itself. Is it not a serious indictment of our culture that we would even have to ask, much less debate, which values we must teach to our children?

A series of "not-guilty-because" verdicts in highly publicized court cases in the past year indicate that we as a society have lost the ability to differentiate between right and wrong as well as the moral backbone to call it wrong. Each time, the jury found an excuse for …

Time, Change, Organizational Structure - Factors For Success, Connie A. Aalderks

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

The issue of time- finding enough time to accomplish all the things we want to do is real and will always be a factor to consider. Plus many other factors affect our use of time. Consequently, a successful plan for one school district may not work for another district. Two factors to consider are the stages a school district moves through to implement change and a district's organizational structure needs.

Executive Summary, Dave Else

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

Pressures to transform American schools continue to build. And school leaders anxious to respond positively to these pressures seek approaches to better meet expanding student needs while at the same time improving student achievement.

School-based management through shared decision-making has been applauded and criticized; met with exceptional success and disappointing failure, been hailed as the new leadership paradigm to rescue schools and labeled as one more desperate but poorly conceived attempt to resurrect America's schools. These divergent views are, in part, a result of the degree of preparation for moving from a highly centralized, system with lingering strands of autocrated …

Executive Summary, Dave Else

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

We live in a changing world that is highly diverse in the makeup of its people. A World Village, (Table 1), demonstrates the diversity in continent representation, economics, and religion. While this diversity adds a richness to a society, it historically has often been a source of conflict. Perhaps the conflict is no more visible than in our public schools.

Fear and misunderstanding all too often fuel the fires of conflict. I was adequately reminded of this when traveling to the Slovak Republic to work with school principals in democratizing their schools after the Velvet Revolution. Because they were a …

Issue Area Three: Training Stakeholders To Participate In School-Based Shared Decision-Making: What Are The Roles And Responsibilities And What Skills Are Needed?, John Finnessy

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

The purpose in this portion of the monograph is to share some of the issues considered when training stakeholders to participate in shared decision-making. Also presented are observations and recommendations regarding what training is needed, and how that training should be implemented.

The heart of shared decision-making rests in the beliefs and values that underlie the roles, responsibilities, and skills needed for shared decision-making. The participants of this focus group identified three significant areas they felt were critical concerns related to the shared decision-making process.

Issue Area One: The Impact Of School-Based Shared Decision-Making: What Are The Benefits And Pitfalls?, James L. Doud, Ellyn Wrzeski

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

The topic of school-based shared decision-making is one which has captured the attention of educators throughout the nation. The meaning of the term varies nearly as much as those who speak about it. The rationale for why school-based shared decision-making should or should not exist is debated (sometimes rather heatedly) by those who would be responsible for its implementation as well as those who are responsible for the financial support of public education.

Ten position papers dealing with the benefits and pitfalls of school-based shared decision-making were developed in advance of this conference. These papers, along with comments made by …

Consensus Building: The Dimension That Makes Everything Work, Robert Decker

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

Consensus building has to do with developing relationships between people in all walks of life. Many people believe that human relationships rely heavily on a great deal of talking and little listening. For some of us we have forgotten the concept of diplomacy. To be an effective member of a team whose main objective is to build consensus with a feeling of trust and respect, one needs to develop a variety of techniques.

Relationships are built upon a complex and comprehensive set of conditions and understandings. Some of the ingredients in the recipe for good working relationships are: predictability, no …

Appendix A: Separation Of Church And State: The Legal Issues In Public Schools: Background Paper, Kathy Lee Collins

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

In 47 years of Supreme Court jurisprudence defining and interpreting the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause, some questions have been answered, others have been toyed with, and those in turn have led to the situations from which new religious constitutional issues arise almost daily. This background paper focuses almost exclusively on Supreme Court cases from Everson forward. Naturally there have been significant religion cases decided in federal district and circuit courts as well as some interesting state court decisions; however, these will not be addressed here.

Issue Area Five: Time To Plan, Implement And Institutionalize School-Based Shared Decision-Making: Where Does It Come From And How Do We Use It Most Effectively?, Daniel H. Smith, Gary Van Hemert

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

The largest single barrier to implementing meaningful change is time. Complex problems resist quick remedies, and no one has enough time to adequately deal with school transformation issues. The more complex the problem facing a school district, the more there is a need for broad-based support in solving it. Finding the time for school and community members to get together is problematic.

A school that is serious about change and about teams of teachers exerting influence beyond the walls of their own classrooms must deal with the issue of time. A school must be committed to giving real time to …

Shared Decision-Making Serves Students, Gregory A. Reed

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

School-based shared decision-making is a system of administration in which the school is the primary unit of decision-making. I believe our students are best served when decisions that affect them are made collaboratively by the adults who are responsible for all aspects of their education. In theory, the teaching staff, administration, and support staff in the school with participation from parents, students, and community members should make all decisions concerning expenditures, curricula, and personnel. The role of the central office should be as a facilitator to the local school while the school board should continue to define and set district …

Demon In The Doorway, Satan In The Schoolhouse: The Myth Of Values Education As Social Savior, Aaron Podolefsky

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

Conflicts of values are among the most intractable of disagreements. Because values are core elements of who we are, individuals tend to take positions from which they will not compromise. Because values are, ultimately, tied to norms and goals, groups become concerned about the larger agenda of others. Today, many educators are concerned because much of the pressure for teaching values in schools is coming from religious groups perceived as extremist, intolerant, and divisive.

Six Issues To Resolve For School-Based Shared Decision-Making, Michael W. Milligan

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

Shared decision-making is a complex concept whose goal is clear, but whose implementation is lost in the labyrinth of methodology. While most current researchers regard shared decision-making as a vital component in improving student performance, there does not seem to be wide consensus as to how to achieve the desired goal of implementing and integrating the process into our schools. As with many supposedly new educational concepts, shared decision-making is not new at all, but can trace its roots back to the days of John Dewey. Additionally, current researchers fall victim to the disease of nomenclaturitis, (i.e., the inability to …