Defining the Good School: Educational Adequacy Requires More than Minimums

(Paperback)

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The deck is stacked against educators and parents/caregivers looking for educational adequacy in contemporary US education. Too often, satisfactory quality in the good public school is identified based on opinion, the dubious value of standardized test results, and marketing ploys. Moreover, the contemporary purpose of US education and the definition of educational adequacy are wild cards that prevent most from playing a winning hand.



Finding the good public school is left to chance. This book initiates a search to transform this state of affairs. All students deserve a comprehensive public education that invests in the original power of education, dynamic instruction, and principled reasoning.



This discussion tackles the barriersthe eye of the beholder, the tyranny of either/or, and standardized testingthat hobble the capacities of educators and students. Once these barriers are removed, the determinants of comprehensive public educationpower, policy, and instructionemerge.



From these discoveries implications are derived that indicate how comprehensive public educationengages educators and students with a transformed definition of educational adequacy. The good public school depends on this and a complete readjustment of the purpose of US public education. This search enables educators and parents/caregivers to identify and establish the good public school without taking any chances.

Reviews

In the US, chance is a major factor in finding and choosing a good public school for one's children, as a school's educational adequacy is often determined by test scores, marketing strategies, and public opinion, factors that may not accurately represent whether a school can deliver the best education for students. In Defining the Good School, Swensson and Shaffer, both public school leaders, provide an opportunity for policy makers, professors, school administrators, teachers, and parents/caregivers to engage in a thoughtful dialogue about the purpose of US public education and the notion of educational adequacy. The authors claim that the only way to achieve educational adequacy is to identify and dismantle the barriers that stand in the way of a good public education. They espouse the belief that the responsibility to create the conditions for a good public school for every child rests on everyone's shoulders, and can be achieved by identifying the characteristics that would constitute a 21st-century, comprehensive public education (21CPE). This is a must read for anyone seeking to understand the obstacles hindering public education and preventing schools from delivering adequate education to all students in the US. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels. * Choice Reviews *
I was struck by Swenssons and Shaffers data selfie regarding American public education as the metaphorical equivalent of the ancient Greek cynic philosopher Diogenes of Sinope who has been painted with a lantern held in the faces of the citizens of Athens searching for an honest man. Swensson and Shaffer are long time educators, trench workers in the fight for adequate education for all students, something too many have given up on as the impossible dream. They bring us back to first principles and re-establish the case for moral clarity and not market efficiency as the driving force for true educational reform. -- Fenwick W. English, Teachers College, Ball State University
Educational adequacy is the way that many of our U.S. state constitutions define the governments obligation to public education. Legal decisions over federal or state financial obligations to public schools use this term repeatedly. But educational adequacy has remained a murky, legalistic, and empty term. The authors of Defining the Good School show us that our responsibility for creating the conditions for a good public school for every child is the singular task for achieving educational adequacy. Spelling out both the purposes of, and barriers to the good public school, the authors create a compelling vision for comprehensive public education in the 21st century founded on the powerful construct of critical habits of mind. I recommend this book to school leaders and policy-makers at all levels of governance. -- Kathleen Knight Abowitz, Professor, Department of Educational Leadership, Miami University
The authors of Unraveling Reform Rhetoric: What Educators Need to Know and Understand have now turned their studied attention to the critical topic of what constitutes an adequate K-12 education. Their new work, Defining the Good School: Educational Adequacy Requires More than Minimums, explores the topics of what actually constitutes educational adequacy, what types of societal, legislative, and cultural obstacles currently impede the delivery of an adequate education in Americas public schools, and finally how we, as a society, can overcome those barriers. Swensson and Shaffer have once again correctly identified the cancerous impact of recent privatization efforts and the so-called choice movement as one of the greatest obstacles to the delivery of comprehensive public education for all US students. This is a must read. -- Joel D. Hand, Partner, Hand Ponist Horvath Smith and Rayl, LLC, General Counsel and Lobbyist for the Indiana Coalition for Public Education

Author Bio

Jeff Swensson served in traditional public education as a teacher, assistant principal, principal, assistant superintendent, and superintendent across the Midwest for the past 45 years. He graduated from Amherst College, received his MAT from Northwestern University, and earned his PhD from Indiana University.

Michael Shaffer served in schools in Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Indiana, and Iowa as an assistant principal, principal, and assistant superintendent. He graduated from Morehead State University with a BA and MA in elementary education and earned his Education Specialist and Education Doctorate in Educational Leadership from Ball State University.