The Education Mayor: Improving America's Schools

Anagnostopoulos (teacher education, Michigan State U.) and Rutledge (educational leadership and policy studies, Florida State U.) challenge the conventional paradigm that urban public education should be governed almost solely by the school board and the district superintendent, suggesting that more power should be vested in mayoral offices. They evaluate the results of reforms in cities that have turned to mayor-appointed school boards (Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, New York, Detroit, and Washington), assessing them in the areas of productivity, management and governance, human capital, and building public confidence and, on balance, find that such reforms can produce significant improvement in public education. Annotation c2008 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Kenneth K. Wong is Walter and Leonore Annenberg Professor in Education Policy and director of the Urban Education Policy Program at Brown University. He is the author ofFunding Public Schools: Politics and Policy and coauthor of Successful Schools and Educational Accountability.

Francis X. Shen is a licensed attorney and a doctoral fellow at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Dorothea Anagnostopoulos is an assistant professor of teacher education at Michigan State University.

Stacey A. Rutledge is an assistant professor in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at Florida State University.