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Forthcoming
Book:
A
Level Playing Field: School Finance in the Northeast
In
this timely work, Jane Fowler Morse reviews the history of school
finance litigation in the United States and then examines recent
legal and political struggles to obtain equitable school funding
in New York, Vermont, and Ontario. These three places have employed
strikingly different strategies to address this issue, and Morse
analyzes lessons learned at each that will benefit both public
officials and citizens interested in seeking reform elsewhere.
Drawing on writers from Aristotle to Cass Sunstein and Martin Luther
King Jr., she also explores the concepts of social justice and
equity, highlighting the connections between racism, poverty, and
school funding. The result is a passionate plea for equitable funding
of public education nationwide to instantiate the ideal of “liberty
and justice for all.”
“This
interesting and important book covers a critical topic in a thorough
and well-documented way. Indeed, it provides an encyclopedia
of school law cases that are relevant not only to school finance,
but also to school equity. Policy and law scholars, as well as
historians, will find this an important reference, and the book
can be used in courses in school law, policy studies, and administration.” — Ellen
Brantlinger, author of Dividing Classes: How the Middle Class
Negotiates and Rationalizes School Advantage.
Forthcoming
from SUNY Press, November 2006, http://www.sunypress.edu/details.asp?id=61358
Book
Chapter:
Chapter
Thirteen, "September 11, Political Invisibility, and..." in
Invisible Children in the Society and Its
Schools, 2nd edition,
Sue Books, editor
In
this chapter, now out-of-print, Jane Fowler Morse writes about
her own harassment in school on account of her parent's
political beliefs. The chapter provides an account of rural schooling
in Southern New Jersey in the late 1940s and early 1950s, as well
as a caution about jingoistic and shallow political teachings in
schools after 9/11.
Still
available from Laurence Erlbaum for a limited time, http://www.erlbaum.com/
Recent
Article:
"Education
as a Civil Right: the Ongoing Struggle in New York"
Educational
Studies, Vol. 40, No. 1 (August 2006), 39-59
This
article examines the law cases leading up to the successful school
funding case in 2003, Campaign of Fiscal Equity v. State
of New York and subsequent
developments.
Even though the court ruled that children in New York have a "constitutional
right to a meaningful high school education," the New York legislature
still has not revised the school funding formula statewide, three
years after the original ruling. In addition, despite the court's
declaration that the right to an education cannot exist where dropout
rates are as high as 30%, as thy are in urban areas, no action
has been taken to remediate the situation.
Educational
Studies, http://www3.uakron.edu/aesa/publications/edstudies.html
Full
text posted here.
(For
additional publications, contact author)
Recent
Conference Presentations:
"Constructivism
as an Antidote to NCLB"
Presented
at the Annual Meeting of the New York State Foundations of
Education, Rochester, NY,
April 2, 2006.
This
paper lays out the philosophical foundations of a constructivist
theory of education in an attempt to counteract the pervasive
preference of the government for a simplistic theory of education
that allows the current emphasis on testing to retain its political
appeal. Full text posted here.
"Human
Flourishing, Social Justice, and the School"
Presented
at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Studies Association,
Charlottesville, VA, Nov. 3, 2005
This
paper lays out Aristotle's theory of eudaimonia (human flourishing) as the
basis for the claim that schools are institutions which support
human flourishing. As institutions in a socially just society,
schools ought to be funded both adequately and equitably. Draft
available from author .
"Women
as Change Agents: The Importance of Women’s Ideas
in the Peace Movement in the Early Twentieth Century"
This
paper discusses the contribution of Helen Bradford Thompson
and Jane Addams in giving prominence to the importance of women's
ideas in the early twentieth century. It was presented as part
of a panel on Women as Change Agents at the inauguration of SUNY
Geneseo's celebration of Susan B. Anthony's centennial year,
March 9, 2006. Full
text posted here.
The
Philosophical Basis of Constructivism
Powerpoint
presented at the Annual Retreat of the School of Education, SUNY
Geneseo, August 23, 2006. Slides posted here.
(For
additional presentations, contact author)
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