Brian R. Beabout

The Perceptions of New Orleans Educators on the Process of Rebuilding the New Orleans School System after Katrina

This exploratory study seeks to understand the perceptions of New Orleans educators on the process of rebuilding the school system destroyed by Hurricane Katrina in August, 2005. Interviews with 10 educators and extensive document analysis allowed for an exploration of the phenomenology of this unique case of school reform in response to a natural disaster. Using the theoretical framework of chaos theory, the data reveal that this instance of school reform is influenced heavily by the uncertainties of life in post-Katrina New Orleans and that the presence of both hope and pessimism for positive change indicate a slower, less dramatic change in the New Orleans Public Schools (NOPS) than some had predicted.

Creating Shared Visions of the Future for K-12 Education: A Systemic Transformation Process for a Learner-Centered Paradigm

This chapter compares a number of systemic change approaches to K-12 school innovation. The approaches reviewed in this chapter range from idealized design to leveraged emergent design, school-wide to district-wide transformation, and key-leader directed to broad-stakeholder-directed transformation. Definitions of each approach are reviewed, along with key practices of each and comparisons among them. The chapter does not recommend a particular approach for all or even most cases, but rather is intended to stimulate discussion and understanding of their advantages and disadvantages within the culture and context of any particular school community.

Research apprenticeships: A report on a model graduate programme in instructional systems

Graduate programmes in instructional design/educational technology are, by their nature, continuously being updated and improved. As a most recent iteration of the ever-evolving graduate experience, an experimental programme at Pennsylvania State University’s Instructional Systems programme takes as its centerpiece a research apprenticeship in which graduate students work directly with their advisors in research teams as part of a credit-bearing coursework. This paper reports the results of an evaluation to examine the uses and the effectiveness of the research apprenticeship from both faculty and staff perspectives. The findings indicate that the course enjoyed a great degree of flexibility and allowed faculty to integrate a number of different approaches and activities into this course and to account for extensive mentoring of graduate students through the credit-bearing apprenticeship. Students indicated that the course gave them much more equitable access to mentoring for publications and presentations and opportunities to engage in scholarly activities throughout their apprenticeship. Suggestions for programmes seeking to employ an apprenticeship approach were drawn along with future research directions.

Community Leadership: Seeking Social Justice While Re-creating Public Schools in Post-Katrina New Orleans

As New Orleans becomes an important reform model, many have been attracted to the simplistic logic of decentralized, market-based educational reforms that assume easily articulated and quantified goals and rational actors. In an effort to reclaim a role for social justice in such an environment, this chapter assumes the position that educational leadership for social justice must prioritize community engagement, indeed community leadership, if it is to be both sustainable and just. Guided by scholarship on the ethic of community (Furman GC, J Educ Admin 42(2):215–235, 2004; Furman GC, Shields C, Paper presented at the American Educational Research Association, Chicago, 2003; Shields CM, Seltzer PA Educ Admin Q 33(4):413–439, 1997), it begins with a history of the Morris Jeff Community School, followed by a series of cantankerous contradictions which highlight points of conflict between community leadership and many features of the currently popular market-based reforms (heroic vs. democratic leadership, competition vs. systemic improvement, state vs. localized goals, and teacher leadership vs. teacher churn). The analysis concludes that urban schools need leaders with expertise rather than expertism and that the development of adult leadership within our urban communities may provide the best hope of reconnecting social justice to the work of educational leaders.

Parental Voucher Enrollment Decisions: Choice within Choice in New Orleans.

Set in the context of a choice-saturated public school system, this study examines the school choice process of low-income parents who participated in Louisianas 2008 voucher program. Based on semistructured interviews with 16 parents at 1 Catholic school, we report that spirituality, small class and school size, character/values, familiarity, discipline, and parent communication all were factors important to parents. Notably, participants appear to have based their decisions more on the familiar brand of Catholic schooling rather than verifiable characteristics of the school they selected. Policy implications include the need to recognize the power of branding in local education markets, the need for publically provided school directories, and an argument for centralized support for school marketing as a region becomes increasingly marketized.

Why here and why now? Teacher Motivations for Unionizing in a New Orleans Charter School"

The rigidity of teachers unions has been given as a primary reason for their lack of representation among America’s rapidly growing, although still relatively small, charter school sector. In the case of post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans, the city rapidly converted from a union-backed teacher workforce to a largely nonunionized charter school workforce in the years following state takeover and charter conversion. This makes the recent emergence of two single-school unions in charter schools there worthy of study. As the teachers attempt to organize single-school unions in a nearly all charter school system, what are their motivations? This case study of one of New Orleans’ emerging charter school unions found that pay inequities, job insecurity, a lack of teacher voice in school-level decisions, and a culture of compliance, all motivated teachers to seek unionization. Teachers hoped to promote equity and teacher involvement with their union, but the organizing effort did strain some relationships, particularly those involving middle management.

Principles of Leading Change

While many theories of educational change certainly exist in print (Carr-Chellman, 2006; Cuban & Usdan, 2002; Ellsworth, 2000; Elmore & Burney, 1997; Fullan, 2001; Hargreaves & Shirley, 2009; Miles, 2005; Reigeluth, Carr-Chellman, Beabout, & Watson, 2006; Squire & Reigeluth, 2000), it is less clear whether these theories are aligned with practitioners’ beliefs and actions regarding change.