Similar to Dickens's Tale of Two Cities, this research study is about a tale of two schools. The first type of school is a dysfunctional school. Dysfunctional schools are schools in a state of chaos (Shipengrower & Conway, 1998). The second school is that of order. The researchers refer to this school as a functional school. In 2003, the functional school in this research project scored a 100% pass rate in the Senior Certificate Examination (SCE), whereas the dysfunctional school scored 57.35%. Dysfunctional schools, known as "failing schools" are usually found in the poorest neighborhood, where children are mostly Black or immigrants who are not proficient in English. One of the casualties of the apartheid era has been the diminishing authority of the school principal. The aim of this research is to investigate the role of the leader in managing a functional school situated in a dysfunctional environment in the Gauteng province of South Africa. The research study is also directed at predicting the characteristics of dysfunctional/functional schools in the Gauteng province of South Africa.
This article provides a critical summary of the current state of the voucher question as it relates to Catholic schools. After an in-depth look at the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding the constitutionality of the Cleveland program (Zelman v. Simmons-Harris), the authors conclude that while voucher programs might he part of an overall solution for educating the urban poor, they will have limited impact on Catholic schools. T he Supreme Court's long-awaited decision in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris (2002), upholding the voucher portion of the Ohio Pilot Project Scholarship Program (OPPSP), affords poor inner-city parents the opportunity to send their children to the schools of their choice, most of which are Roman Catholic. Whether Z^//?7<7/7 is, as President Bush (Bumiller, 2002) and others suggest (Will, 2002), the most significant case on equal educational opportunities since Brown v. Board of Education (1954) remains to be seen. Further, given the narrowness of the facts in Zelman, its impact on education in general, and Catholic schools in particular, is also an open question. In light of potential significance of Zelman for Catholic and other schools, this article is divided into three sections. The article opens with a brief overview of the legal status of vouchers in the United States. The second part of the article extensively examines the OPPSP and its judicial history along with a detailed review of the ruling in Zelman. The final portion reflects on the meaning of Zelman for educators in Catholic schools. LITIGATION INVOLVING VOUCHERS The lower courts have treated vouchers inconsistently. For example, the Supreme Court of Wisconsin {Jackson v. Benson, 1998) and an appellate
Section 1981 prohibits discrimination concerning the right to contract, and Title VI prohibits discrimination on the basis of the basis of race and national origin. The two cases that form the basis for the discussion in this article—Silva v. St. Anne Catholic School and Doe v. Kamehameha Schools—address whether culture and language can affect the legality of policies that might otherwise appear to be discriminatory.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.