Abstract/Notes: Includes three case studies

Language: English

ISSN: 1071-6246

Language: English

ISSN: 0010-700X

Abstract/Notes: As prototypes for new forms of education, public and private alternative schools have much to offer regular schools in the way of new ideas. This paper provides an overview of alternative schools and the options available. Alternative schools are characterized by a more selected student body, a smaller and less bureaucratic structure, values derived from within the school community, holistic student work, and a recognition of the school-survival issue. The basic educational frameworks within the array of public alternative school options are identified: (1) the traditional approach; (2) the nontraditional and nongraded approach; (3) schools that focus on the development of student abilities; (4) schools that emphasize techniques for delivering education (rather than philosophy); (5) schools with community-based organizing principles; (6) the self-directed, Montessori-like environment; (7) schools that are intentionally structured for particular student groups; and (8) subcontracted arrangements. In conclusion, alternative schools are flexible and able to respond to students' various needs. (LMI)

Language: English

Published: Houston, Texas: University Council for Educational Administration, Oct 1993

Pages: 19 p.

Language: English

ISSN: 0040-7887

Language: English

Abstract/Notes: The purpose of this study was to describe the variables that contributed to the establishment of a charter school in an urban Arizona district and rural California district noting the similarities and dissimilarities, and to disclose the factors used to justify the implementation of the Montessori theory of education. Another purpose of the study was to describe the guidelines for maintaining a charter school, and the evaluation methods and factors used in the school's unique experience with staffing and funding. This research was descriptive and employed a case study approach. Descriptive research methodology was used to identify the same factors found in the Arizona study replicated by the researcher. Nonprobability, purposive sampling technique was the sampling used in the study. The instrument used for the study was interviews. Findings. The NFL/YET Academy in Arizona and Discovery Charter School in California experienced many similarities when the same variables were applied to both schools. As a result, the stakeholders of both schools used the principles of the organizational theory of empowerment to implement choices in curriculum. This process allowed the stakeholders an opportunity to meet the educational needs of students in the community. The following conclusions were made: (1) community empowerment plays a vital role in educating children; (2) the charter school movement allows parents, teachers, administrators, and community leaders to be involved in the creation of school governance and curriculum; and (3) charter schools allow all stakeholders to become involved in the decision-making process. The following are recommendations for further study: (1) This study should be conducted using a greater number of charter schools, and (2) This study should be conducted using administrator's leadership style in the organizational theory area of structure/roles.

Language: English

Published: La Verne, California, 2003

Language: English

Language: English

Published: Newtown, Australia: Nursery School Teacher's College, 1980

Abstract/Notes: Montessori pedagogy is a century-old, whole-school system increasingly used in the public sector. In the United States, public Montessori schools are typically Title I schools that mostly serve children of color. The present secondary, exploratory data analysis examined outcomes of 134 children who entered a lottery for admission to public Montessori schools in the northeastern United States at age 3; half were admitted and enrolled and the rest enrolled at other preschool programs. About half of the children were identified as White, and half were identified as African American, Hispanic, or multiracial. Children were tested in the fall when they enrolled and again in the subsequent three springs (i.e., through the kindergarten year) on a range of measures addressing academic outcomes, executive function, and social cognition. Although the Black, Hispanic, and multiracial group tended to score lower in the beginning of preschool in both conditions, by the end of preschool, the scores of Black, Hispanic, and multiracial students enrolled in Montessori schools were not different from the White children; by contrast, such students in the business-as-usual schools continued to perform less well than White children in academic achievement and social cognition. The study has important limitations that lead us to view these findings as exploratory, but taken together with other findings, the results suggest that Montessori education may create an environment that is more conducive to racial and ethnic parity than other school environments.

Language: English

DOI: 10.17161/jomr.v9i1.19540

ISSN: 2378-3923

Abstract/Notes: This study examines the school’s physical environment as a place of learning, and takes its starting point in the phenomenology movement, inspired both by Merleau-Ponty’s thesis of man’s physical relation to the world and by the existential analysis represented by Heidegger which implies a mutual relationship between man and the world. Such a view rejects a standpoint which describes man as being divided between a material body and a thinking soul. Instead, there emerges an embodied self which engages in meaningful interaction with its surroundings. The choice of this standpoint has implications for the design of the school’s physical environment. Montessori pedagogy is one of the activity-based pedagogies which have designed the physical environment in line with this theory. The purpose of the study is to understand, but further to visualise, the way in which the conditions for learning for children and adolescents are created in schools, from pre-school to lower secondary level, which follow the Montessori pedagogy. The material for the empirical study has been gathered from Europe and the US and from differing social contexts. The reason for this is to discover what distinguishes the prepared environment. The study also discusses the way in which the argument for a form of schooling which is based on activity, from the early 20th century to the present day, has been addressed through the architectural design of schools. The thesis shows that the rich array of didactic material in the schools observed offers pupils the opportunity to perform activities which create meaning. The organisation of the environment provides the pupils with the necessary conditions to concentrate fully on their work and to complete their tasks without interruption. I see the didactic continuity which prevails from pre-school to the lower secondary school in the Montessori schools studied as a prerequisite if the pedagogical activity is to offer meaning and create the conditions for learning in the way demonstrated by the empirical studies.

Language: Swedish

Published: Stockholm, Sweden, 2012