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Publicly funded pre-K is often touted as a means to narrow achievement gaps, but this goal is less likely to be achieved if poor and/or minority children do not, at a minimum, attend equal quality pre-K as their non-poor, non-minority peers. In this paper, I find large “quality gaps” in public pre-K between poor, minority students and non-poor, non-minority students, ranging from 0.3 to 0.7 SD on a range of classroom observational measures. I also find that even after adjusting for several classroom characteristics, significant and sizable quality gaps remain. Finally, I find much between-state variation in gap magnitudes and that state-level quality gaps are related to state-level residential segregation. These findings are particularly troubling if a goal of public pre-K is to minimize inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents abstracts of articles related student retention and promotion in secondary schools in the U.S. Alternatives to social promotion and grade retention; Report regarding efforts to end social promotion in public schools; Relation between race differences and grade retention.

Attempts to improve indicators of the performance of the educational system encounter three core problems: How to measure performance? How to report the results? and How to interpret the results? This paper explores these problems by comparing the U.S. experience in developing educational indicators with the experience in developing indicators ofthe performance of the economy in providing jobs. Central questions that run through the paper concern the extent to which the problems faced in improving indicators ofthe performances of the two sectors are the same, and the reasons for the differences that are present. One theme is that many ofthe problems in improving social indicators are generic; that is, they are not restricted to particular sectors. A second theme is that some of the problems in improving educational indicators stem from the nature of the governance of American public education, and for that reason, differ from the problems in improving economic indicators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article cites two recent surveys of evaluation activities in U.S. public education. Concern about inadequate funding for evaluation of public-education programs--as well as concern about other aspects of educational evaluation--prompted the American Educational Research Association's (AERA) division on School Evaluation and Program Development (Division H) to organize five task forces or committees in 1978. Each task force was asked to prepare a position paper on a particular issue in evaluation by 1980. The present paper represents part of the work prerequisite to the position paper of the AERA Division H task force on resource allocation and budgeting for public school evaluation. This paper reports results of a 1979 survey of heads of evaluation units in public school districts (hereafter referred to as local education agencies, or LEAs) and state departments of education (state education agencies, or SEAs). This survey primarily concerned current versus ideal procedures for determining program evaluation budgets in LEAs, and to a lesser extent, in SEAs.

A prolific number of researchers have chosen to study metaphorical narratives, confirming their usefulness in educational research. The aim of this paper is to analyse the metaphorical expressions used by 68 principals from infant, primary and secondary schools in Alicante (Spain), concerning the way they see the figure of the principal and how it makes them feel. The data were processed using AQUAD 7. Results indicated a weak presence of characteristics related to social and contextual leader learning, as principals' views tended more towards traditional models with duty predominating as a motivating force. Such views are usually associated with the experience of negative emotions. Findings highlighted the need to introduce an important cognitive and dis-positional change in leadership education to ensure the development of professional skills aligned with current shared leadership models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary accountability frameworks position school leaders as being essential to improving school performance and driving innovation. Simultaneously, new accountability demands have forced the restructuring of school leadership, both in terms of form and function. In this paper, we look at the growing trend of distributed leadership among teachers who are tasked to assume leadership roles while maintaining their (sometimes reduced) teaching responsibilities. In the US, federally backed programs have incentivized schools to bolster teacher leadership opportunities, often predicated on claims of teacher empowerment and leadership democratization. Given the rise in distributed leadership as a prescribed local governance structure, we examined one popular distributed leadership model in the US to better understand how the teacher leaders are experiencing their dual roles and responsibilities. Drawing on focus group interviews with mentor teachers, we found tension between the teachers' expectations with regard to increased collegiality and mentoring opportunities, and their actual experiences of bureaucratic control and finding that their expectations were unrealistic. We argue that prescribed, incentive-driven forms of distributed leadership can place teacher leaders in precarious positions that demand more of their time, while limiting their capacities to participate in the leadership practices they deem most valuable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When No Child Left Behind (NCLB) became law in 2002, it was viewed as an effort to create uniform standards for students and schools across the country. More than a decade later, we know surprisingly little about how states actually implemented NCLB and the extent to which state implementation decisions managed to undo the centralizing objectives of the law. This paper introduces a state-level measure of NCLB stringency that helps shed light on these issues. The measure is available for 49 states and the District of Columbia and covers most years under NCLB (2003–2011). Importantly, the measure does not depend on population characteristics of the state. It varies only because of state-level decisions about rule exemptions, standards, and proficiency trajectories. Overall, we find that while NCLB was successful in encouraging states to adopt higher and more consistent performance standards for schools, it also provided much more flexibility and customization in state-level accountability policies than is generally realized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the continuing need for effective mentoring in the face of social justice inequities in higher education and the larger society. The importance of persistence and resistance as essential qualities of mentors and mentees is emphasized, as well as the integral links of the personal, political, and professional components of psychological work. A discussion of impactful mentors is presented, including family, academic, cultural, professional, and peer mentors. A final section focuses on current mentees, who in turn will mentor future generations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inspired by their goal for a well-rounded education in a world that has become more globalized, an increasing number of schools in the United States, Europe, and other parts of the world have been adapting the philosophy and curricula of international schools. While there have been several studies to support Diploma Program as an established curriculum at the senior high school level, there has been little evidence that would support any particular curriculum at the junior high school level. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between external examination scores of International General Certificate of Secondary Education (IGCSE) and those of Diploma Program. A purposive sample was drawn from high school students who attended an international school in a major metropolitan city in Turkey. Data were analyzed with multiple regression approach. Statistically significant and relatively strong relationships were found between external examination scores, both in mathematics and science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Marked-based reforms in education have garnered the support of politicians, philanthropists, and academics, reworking the nature of public education in the United States. In this paper we explore the methods used to produce consent for market-based reforms of primary and secondary (K-12) schooling in the United States, focusing on two case studies to interrogate how this consent is generated as well as how these reforms are resisted in place. In doing so we illustrate how market-making in public services is a contested terrain and the importance of understanding the nature of their roll-out at the local level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Education has a large and increasing impact on health in America. This paper examines one reason why. Education gives individuals the ability to override the default American lifestyle. The default lifestyle has three elements: displacing human energy with mechanical energy, displacing household food production with industrial food production, and displacing health maintenance with medical dependency. Too little physical activity and too much food produce imperceptibly accumulating pathologies. The medical industry looks for products and services that promise to soften the consequences but do not eliminate the underlying pathologies. This “secondary prevention” creates pharmacologic accumulation: prolonging the use of medications, layering them, and accruing their side effects and interactions. Staying healthy depends on recognizing the risks of the default lifestyle. Overriding it requires insight, knowledge, critical analysis, long-range strategic thinking, personal agency, and self-direction. Education develops that ability directly and indirectly, by way of creative work and a sense of controlling one’s own life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: This paper is part of the special issue "Reimagining Research and Practice at the Crossroads of Philosophy, Teaching, and Teacher Education." Early childhood initiatives have joined a nexus of educational reforms characterized by increased accountability and a focus on measurement as a marker of student and teacher learning, with early education being framed as an economic good necessary for competing in the global marketplace. Underlying the recent push for early childhood education is what we see as a "discourse of improvement"--depictions of school change that prioritize achievement as reflected in assessment scores, data collection on teacher effectiveness, and high-stakes evaluation. These characteristics, we argue, foster increasingly inequitable educational contexts and obscure the particularities of what it means to be a child in the world. Purpose: We use the practice of philosophical meditation, as articulated in Pierre Hadot's examination of philosophy as a way of life, to inquire into the logics of educational improvement as instantiated in particular contexts, and for cultivating cross-disciplinary partnerships committed to fostering children's flourishing. We link this meditational focus with feminist and de-colonial theoretical perspectives to make visible the role of power in the characterization of children's learning as related to norms of development, minoritized identities, and hierarchies of knowledge. Research Design: In this collaborative inquiry, we compose a series of meditations on our experiences with the logics of improvement inspired by 12 months of systematic conversation. Our data sources include correspondence between the two authors, written reflections on specific practices in teacher education each author engages with, and a set of literary, philosophical, and teacher education texts. Conclusions/Recommendations: Our meditations illuminate the value of collective inquiry about what constitutes improvement in schools. We raise questions about how the measurement of learning is entwined in historical and present-day relations of power and idealized formulations of the universal "child" or "teacher" and argue that we must work together to reimagine the framings that inform our work. Ultimately and most directly, these meditations can support dynamic attempts to cultivate meaningful and more equitable educational experiences for teachers and students. Philosophical meditations at the crossroads of philosophy, teaching, and teacher education thus extend beyond critique toward imagining and enacting a better world in our classrooms, even though (and especially when) this path is not clear. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Researchers have noted with concern the often weak link between research evidence and policymaking, particularly in some areas such as education. In this introductory essay—dedicated to the late Carol Weiss—we consider this issue first by reflecting on how changing historical conditions can shape institutional demands on and for research production, promotion, and use. This leads to the questions: How can institutions use evidence on different policy options? How do policymakers and other information consumers sort through competing claims? Are new processes and institutions emerging to shape research use? In view of the current calls from public policymakers in the government and private policymakers in philanthropies for rigorous research on the effectiveness of policy interventions, we compare the relative role of research use in education policy to other issues, such as climate science, and highlight the growing role of intermediate actors as they shape research use. And we consider some common characteristics of these policy issues that may contribute to misuse or disuse, as well as to greater consideration of research. We offer an overview of the understanding of research use in education and point to the need to explore new theoretical frameworks and methodologies. The essay ends with an overview of the papers in the issue. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Background/Context: The stakes are getting higher for teachers daily as more and more states adopt hiring, firing, and tenure-granting policies based on teacher evaluations. Even more concerning is the limited discussion about whether or not high-stakes teacher evaluation can meet the intended outcome of improved student achievement, and at what cost. These high-stakes decisions are based on the rationale that firing ineffective teachers (as primarily measured by observation data and value-added scores) will improve student achievement. This premise is challenged by various variables and assumptions (e.g., reliability, validity, percentage fired, and turnover) that, if not met, could result in a number of possible unintended consequences. Focus of Study: This paper examines the history of high-stakes teacher evaluation and the ways in which teacher evaluation data are being used in today's schools to make human capital decisions. The intended consequences and unintended consequences are explored in great detail. Research Design: This paper is an analytic essay. Conclusions/Recommendations: There is no evidence that high-stakes teacher evaluation can produce a more effective teacher workforce and improve student achievement. Even if basic requirements and assumptions are met (e.g., highly reliable and valid measures, retention of effective teachers, and highly effective hires), gains in student achievement may be short lived, insignificant, or practically meaningless. The possible unintended consequences could result in worse, rather than better, student achievement outcomes and increase the gap in opportunity to learn for students attending the most and least affluent schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: In the last decade, the effects of teachers on student performance (typically manifested as state-wide standardized tests) have been re-examined using statistical models that are known as value-added models. These statistical models aim to compute the unique contribution of the teachers in promoting student achievement gains from grade to grade, net of student background and prior ability. Value-added models are widely used nowadays and they are used by some states to rank teachers. These models are used to measure teacher performance or effectiveness (via student achievement gains), with the ultimate objective of rewarding or penalizing teachers. Such practices have resulted in a large amount of controversy in the education community about the role of value-added models in the process of making important decisions about teachers such as salary increases, promotion, or termination of employment. Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to review the effects teachers have on student achievement, with an emphasis on value-added models. The paper also discusses whether value-added models are appropriately used as a sole indicator in evaluating teachers' performance and making critical decisions about teachers' futures in the profession. Research Design: This is a narrative review of the literature on teacher effects that includes evidence about the stability of teacher effects using value-added models. Conclusions: More comprehensive systems for teacher evaluation are needed. We need more research on value-added models and more work on evaluating value-added models. The strengths and weaknesses of these models should be clearly described. We also need much more empirical evidence with respect to the reliability and the stability of value-added measures across different states. The findings thus far do not seem robust and conclusive enough to warrant decisions about raises, tenure, or termination of employment. In other words, it is unclear that the value-added measures that inform the accountability system are adequate. It is not obvious that we are better equipped now to make such important decisions about teachers than we were 35 years ago. Good et al. have argued that we need well-thought-out and well-developed criteria that guide accountability decisions. Perhaps such criteria should be standardized across school districts and states. That would ensure that empirical evidence across different states is comparable and would help determine whether findings converge or diverge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background/Context: Since the 1970s, researchers have attempted to link observational measures of instructional process to student achievement (and occasionally to other outcomes of schooling). This paper reviews extensively both historical and contemporary research to identify what is known about effective teaching. Purpose/Objective: Good, after reviewing what is known about effective teaching, attempts to apply this to current descriptions of effective teaching and its application value for practice. Good notes that much of the "new" research on effective teaching has simply replicated what has been known since the 1980s. Although this is not unimportant (since it shows that older findings still pertain to contemporary classrooms), it is unfortunate that research has not moved beyond the relationship between general teacher behavior (those that cut across subject areas) and student achievement (as measured by standardized tests). How this information can be applied and the difficulty in using this information is examined in the paper. Research Design: The paper is a historical analysis and reviews research on teaching from the 1960s to today. Conclusion: This paper has stressed that our data base on effective teaching is limited--still it has some implications for practice. Even though the knowledge base is limited, there is no clear knowledge that teachers-in-training learn and have the opportunity to practice and use. It would seem that teacher education programs would want to assure that their graduates, in addition to possessing appropriate knowledge, would also have clear conceptual understanding and skills related to active teaching, proactive management, communication of appropriate expectations for learning, and the ability to plan and enact instruction that balances procedural and conceptual knowledge. Future research on the use of this knowledge base and its effects in teacher education programs would be informative. If done correctly, research on teaching can improve instruction. However, the research must be applied carefully if it is to have useful effects. And, as noted often in this paper, research must consider outcomes of schooling other than achievement such as creativity, adaptability, and problem finding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: In 1991, Savage Inequalities quickly became the most riveting assessment of the inequalities in U.S. public schools. When Kozol visited East St. Louis for his book, the authors of this paper lived and attended schools there. As Kozol's readers in their respective graduate and undergraduate classes, the authors found it difficult to merge his outsider views with their insider experiences because their backgrounds included many unnamed human and structural resources, valuable beyond a dominant and patriarchal framework. Objective: The objective of this paper is to resituate Jonathan Kozol's Savage Inequalities by critiquing Kozol's caricaturization of East St. Louis and its schools as places where students and community members lack communal agency and resources. Through the lens of each form of capital from Yosso's (2005) Community Cultural Wealth Model, the authors show how their stories reflected access to various forms of capital as K-12 students in East St. Louis. Research Design: The methodological framework for this study is narrative inquiry. The authors storied their East St. Louis experiences by generating a narrative protocol and using the protocol to share their backgrounds, historical and contemporary understandings of East St. Louis, and each author's educational and professional trajectories. Once the narratives were completed, the authors shared and analyzed the narrative texts to identify patterns and emergent themes. Findings: The narratives revealed how families, teachers, community centers, churches, and extracurricular programs were sources of familial, aspirational, resistant, navigational, and social capital. The narratives also provided clarity on the power and dignity of "unnamed" family and community structures, even though these forms of capital are rarely explored in the dominant literature. Conclusion: The narratives complicate Kozol's interpretation and prompt readers to look at East St. Louis (and other urban communities) with a more paradoxical frame. This study is important for future educators who read Savage Inequalities and misunderstand urban students and families as subjects who need to be saved. Educators and potential educators require a much more complicated view of urban school districts and school children since scholarship can often provide a one-sided picture of inadequacy and despair. The authors contend that although East St. Louis indeed faces critical challenges fueled by racism and classism, the authors re-storied Kozol's narrative to expose the very rich source of community cultural capital that exists in East St. Louis and other urban centers very much like it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background/Context: This opening article, like the other articles in this special issue, is situated in scholarship that attempts to understand the racialized nature of mathematics education in the United States and to examine the racial identities of students and teachers in the context of school mathematics. It is designed to respond to the current (mathematics) education policy context that largely ignores teachers' experiential and cultural knowledge while stressing the importance of teachers" content knowledge and academic achievement. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study: This article presents theoretical perspectives and research questions concerning the knowledge and other resources that African American teachers bring to teaching mathematics, perspectives and questions that are taken up in the five subsequent articles in this special issue. Setting: The cases developed in this special issue were developed from observations of the introductory algebra classes of and interviews with, two well-respected African American teachers in one neighborhood high school in a large urban school district that serves a predominantly African American student population. Research Design: This opening article frames two case study papers and two analysis papers that report on findings from a large-scale qualitative study of the racialized identity and instructional approaches of two of the six African American mathematics teachers studied in the Mid-Atlantic Center for Mathematics Teaching and Learning Algebra 1 Case Studies Project. Conclusions/Recommendations: Together with the other articles in this special issue, this work contributes to the development of more sophisticated attempts to integrate understandings of race into the work of the mathematics education community. It challenges taken-for-granted notions of the knowledge base and resources needed to be an effective mathematics teacher of African American students in underresourced large urban schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This section offers news briefs on gifted education and academic achievement in the U.S. as of July 2012. A Brookings Institution report titled "How Well Are American Students Learning?" addresses the National Assessment of Educational Progress' relationship to the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). A white paper that responds to frequently asked questions about the CCSS and gifted education was released by the National Association for Gifted Children.

A phenomenological study explored how five U.S. school counselors-in-training experienced cultural immersion in family life, schools, agencies, and community in the Netherlands. The central phenomenon emerging from reflection papers was that insights about cultural values led to making sense of how school counseling and special education were conceptualized. Students' growth in cultural competence evolved from an initial preoccupation with concrete differences to a nuanced understanding of, and preference for, Dutch institutions and policies, and finally to a balanced view of U.S. and Dutch cultures. Findings attest that deep learning can occur in 2 weeks if thoughtful preparation, mutual benefit, collaboration, homestays, and community experiences are elements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For over a century after the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson decision, researchers have been grappling with how to effectively implement educational reform policies to provide students with an equal education in American schools. This literature review examines previous school desegregation cases and school desegregation plans to investigate how schools have been unsuccessful in fully implementing desegregation plans. The paper discusses the role that social and political factors played in prohibiting schools from fully desegregating in the South. It ends with some suggestions on moving from equal to equitable schooling inside and outside of the Southern region of the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Online learning in K-12 education has grown rapidly in the past decade. Cyber charter schools (CCSs) have been a particularly controversial form of online school, but there is very little scholarly examination of these new organizations. As CCSs expand, policymakers and stakeholders have a critical need to understand how to evolve the charter school policies that govern these new school forms. Focus of Study: Through a three-site case study, this paper (1) explores what current charter policies govern CCSs and (2) outlines the practices in these schools that might illuminate future policy needs. Specifically, the findings highlight how cyber charters problematize existing charter school policies in the areas of authorizers and governance, teacher policy, and student achievement. Research Design: The study presents an exploratory, comparative case study. The exploratory analyses illuminate implications for how policymakers understand governance, teacher policy, and the evaluation of student achievement in cyber charters. The comparative case design also highlights how different state policy contexts might influence the practices of CCSs. Conclusions: Cyber charter schools introduce new ways of delivering public schooling. The study shows how state leadership is vital to coordinate student enrollment across geographic boundaries, funding mechanisms, and conflicts between CCSs and established stakeholders. This paper also illuminates how teaching and learning practices differ in an online environment and introduces questions of teacher preparation and professional practices. Finally, CCSs in this study serve unique, niche student populations that opt out of the traditional school system. These considerations are vital for evaluating student achievement in cyber charters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Forms of White oppression in the United States are hierarchically evaluated through male-dominated society. This paper concentrates on a different perspective—White, female privilege through the experiences and self-reflections of narratives from three geographical perspectives—rural, urban, and international. Within the theoretical frameworks of place and geography these stories come to life through an autoethnographic approach to establish that we can "unpack the invisible knapsack" in the arena of adult education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

America's early education sector remains so radically decentralized-a far flung archipelago of pre-schools family child-care homes, and subsidized individuals providing services-that basic information on local organizations and staff members remains scarce. This, despite rising policy trite rest in, and skyrocketing appropriations for, preschool programs which are aimed at boosting children's school readiness, Working from a social ecology framework, this study aimed to learn more about local populations of early education organizations. This paper uses 1990 household census data aggregated to the zip-code level to report on features of the early education workforce nationwide. Teachers and other staff in preschools and center-based programs reported low wages, averaging about $7,300 per year ($10,700 in 2000 dollars), with most working less than full time. The median center-based teacher was 34 years of age, reported having completed some college, and was married. The median worker in family child-care homes earned even less and only had a high school diploma. About 15% of all preschool teachers in urban areas were African-American; about 8% were Latina. Twice as many preschool and center teachers per 1,000 young children resided in affluent zip codes, relative to poor and lower middle-class areas. Preschools and centers located in blue-collar and middle-income zip codes displayed the lowest level of organizational formalization, compared to those operating in poor or affluent areas. We discuss the utility of 2000 census data to assess inequalities in the supply and quality of early education organizations and their staff and modeling how economic and policy forces may shape organizational variability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Getting teachers within schools to support substantively engage in, and sustain the implementation of whole-school designs is critical to the success of the design-based assistance providers, such as New American Schools (NAS). As policymakers make decisions about reauthorizing Title I this year and as they consider alternatives to previous shortcomings of Title I spending, it is important to understand the factors related to implementing whole-school restructuring efforts and early indications of their effects. The purposes and approaches of NAS and its design teams are the same as those of "schoolwide" Title I programs and the Comprehensive School Reform Development program. Each intends to improve student and school performance through schools adopting a unified coherent approach rather than adding fragmented programs or investing in personnel dedicated to a small group of students in pull-out programs. It is uncertain whether the designs have positive effects on teachers' professional lives and, more importantly, the educational experiences of students. This is especially true for schools in the first few years of implementing whole-school reforms. This paper attempts to shed light on these issues with analyses of survey data from teachers and principals in 130 implementing NAS sites in eight jurisdictions. Findings reveal that teacher views of resource adequacy and communication by designs to further implementation are related to teacher support for the design and implementation. The paper ends with a discussion of the policy implications of the analyses reported here and of the need to better understand the process of schoolwide change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Even though many universities and secondary schools have developed a variety of distance learning options, few are designed specifically for gifted students. This paper provides background information about distance learning, the rationale for it, descriptions of three-programs designed specifically for gifted students, and the pros and cons of providing instruction using this method of delivery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the concept of mentoring is examined. Matchmaking for mentorship, or the deliberate matching of young people with adult mentors, is presented as a viable study option for gifted students. A management strategy and guidelines from a school- and university-based program are presented. Resulting practical tips for developing mentorships are suggested. Two community-based mentor-projects implemented by the Wisconsin Center for Academically Talented Youth (WCATY) are shared. Retrospective student reports from the WCATY Young Scholar Project Program demonstrate that the long-term benefits to gifted students are significant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ethnographers and other students of interaction have documented the impact of status factors on students' success in school. Yet survey research data consistently show the absence of family background measure effects on high school grades. It is argued that conventional measures of family background fail to capture those cultural elements of status that make a difference in school interactions. Drawing on Weber's work on status groups and status cultures, and on Bourdieu's work on cultural capital, this paper reports the findings of an effort to assess the impact of one component of status culture participation-cultural capital-on one aspect of life chances-students' high school grades. A composite measure of cultural capital has a significant impact on grades, controlling for family background and measured ability. The pattern of relationships, however) differs strikingly by gender. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A hierarchical linear model analysis (Raudenbush & Bryk, 1986) is aced to investigate directly the effects of structural and normative features of schools on both the probability of dropping out and the strongest behavioral predictor of dropping out, absenteeism. We hypothesized that high levels of internal differentiation within high schools and weak normative environments contribute to the problems of absenteeism and dropping our. Conversely, these student behaviors should he less problematic in school contexts where there is less differentiation among students and strong normation. The empirical results reported in this paper support these hypotheses. No single factor makes schools effective in sustaining student interest and commitment. Rather, a constellation of both structural and normative,features appears to be involved. The analyses also provide some support for the contention that special benefits accrue to disadvantaged and at-risk youth from attending certain kinds of schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article evaluates the collaborative planning process teachers used and examines the conceptual framework that was developed to guide the agenda building process in the U.S. The first major task of the Planning Committee was to establish a conceptual framework around which the conference could be built. This was necessary in view of the multiple dimensions of teacher education as well as the diversity of research areas that could be relevant. The framework not only would serve the conference well, but also would provide a useful and provocative structure within which research on teacher education could comfortably be housed.

This article reviews literature on dropout process in higher education in the U.S. The failure of past research to delineate more clearly the multiple characteristics of dropout can be traced to two major shortcomings; namely, inadequate attention given to questions of definition and to the development of theoretical models that seek to explain the processes that bring individuals to leave institutions of higher education. Research on dropout from higher education has also been marked by inadequate conceptualization of the dropout process. The author of this paper attempts to formulate a theoretical model that explains the processes of interaction between individual and the institution that lead deferring individuals to dropout from the institution of higher education.

The article examines the database of the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) concerning the practice of sexism in U.S. education. Sexist attitudes and beliefs are present in spoken language, literature and visual media where American culture is transmitted. ERIC database reveals concrete means of eliminating sex stereotyping in the education process. It offers solutions to sexism in language and presents strategies and tools used to construct alternatives to sexist education.

In higher education, shortages of faculty members in engineering and business schools are considered extremely serious. Similar conditions of shortage exist in elementary and secondary schools in the mathematics and science teacher market. This paper examines what strategies are employed by the higher education institutions and whether these strategies can provide some options for elementary-secondary schools. What we hove found is that the basic parallel between elementary-secondary schools and higher education should not be overdrawn. More nonsalary options are available to address the market shortages at the university level than at the elementary-secondary level. Accordingly, the situation of elementary and secondary schools is considerably worse. Even so, it is interesting to see the degree to which all the adjustments at the university level still leave shortages that must be remedied through salary differentials and other benefits. Therefore, it is difficult to see how elementary and secondary schools, with fewer nonsalary options, can effectively deal with the shortage conditions without wage and benefit adjustments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many people believe that one major problem currently confronting American education is a severe shortage of mathematics and science teachers. This paper develops alternative ways of measuring shortages and reviews the evidence based on these alternative measures. Evidence from other studies as well as new evidence presented here suggests that shortages do exist, but that they are much less severe than previous studies have claimed. In addition, comparisons with earlier studies suggest that shortages of qualified mathematics and science teachers have existed at least since the 1960s. The present analysis reveals that two factors contributing to such shortages are the placement of recent qualified graduates outside of teaching and the misassignment of certified graduates who go into teaching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the reasons for the emphasis of educational policy analysis on federal and state activity in the United States. There are two reasons why educational policy analysis has focused on federal and state activity: bias of research focus and the centralization of public education. Much of the work in policy analysis begins with the acceptance of organizational models which implicitly or explicitly reduce the importance of local policy analysis. State and federal activity lends itself to analysis more readily than does local activity. Policy analysis is not a traditional function of local level school personnel. The creation of such a role or function within a school district must overcome a strong bias at the local level for direct service to students and against central office administration. One of the most significant areas of policy analysis during the last quarter century has been educational finance. The primary centralizing factor in educational finance has been the shift in responsibility for financing education from local communities to the state.

The article focuses on the measurement of the observed relationship between revenues and wealth in education in the U.S., what has been referred to as simple, ex post wealth neutrality. Among school finance researchers and policy analysts, the search for meaning of the term "wealth neutrality" has led to the ex ante-ex post and the simple-conditional dichotomies. Wealth neutrality takes on very different meanings depending on how choices about these dichotomies are made. Even having chosen one definition, simple ex post wealth neutrality, there are significant measurement issues that have not previously received adequate attention in the literature available to the researcher and policy analyst. The conclusions from the analyses presented in the paper are straightforward, although ways to take the conclusions into account in studies are not always easy and obvious. The primary conclusion is that the alternative simple ex post wealth neutrality measures capture different aspects of the wealth neutrality concept and the use of one measure alone or several measures independently can lead to serious problems of interpretation.

Background/Context: Prior research has linked social engagement, such as peer inter-action and participation in school activities, to a host of positive outcomes for youth and adolescents. However, little research considers patterns of social engagement among racial/ ethnic minority and immigrant adolescents, despite prior research suggesting distinct racial/ethnic and generational differences in social interactions among young people. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study: This paper examines patterns of social engagement in friendships and extracurricular activities among racial/ethnic minorities and immigrant adolescents. We analyze five measures of social engagement: having any friends, socializing with friends, participating in school sports, participating in school clubs, and participating in activities outside of school. Population/Participants/Subjects: This study utilizes the Education Longitudinal Study of2002 (ELS.-2002), a nationally representative sample of high school sophomores. Research Design: Our research design includes statistical analysis of secondary data. Findings/Results: Overall, results show that racial/ethnic minority adolescents, as well as first- and second-generation adolescents, are less engaged in friendships than their third-generation White counterparts. In contrast, there is no clear pattern of advantage or dis-advantage in extracurricular activity participation. Conclusions/Recommendations: These findings suggest that a disproportionate number of racial/ethnic minority and immigrant adolescents are less engaged in friendships than their peers, and that schools and adults play an important role in facilitating social interac-tions that may not occur within informal friendship networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background/Context: Under supplemental educational services (".supplemental services"), a parental choice provision of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), schools that have not made adequate yearly progress in increasing student achievement are required to offer low-income families free, afterschool tutoring. Existing research shows low attendance rates among eligible students and little to no aggregate effects on achievement for students who do attend. Focus of study: We employ a framework grounded in examining the instructional setting, or "instructional core, " and we draw on the unique contributions of qualitative research to help explain the limited effects of supplemental services on student achievement. Specifically, we address the following research question: How can in-depth examination of the instructional core explain the impact of supplemental services on student learning? Research Design: Our findings draw on data from an ongoing mixed-method and multisite study of the implementation and impact of supplemental educational services in five urban school districts located in four states. Although this paper includes quantitative data from this study, analysis focuses on qualitative data, including observations of tutoring ses-sions using a standardized observation instrument; semistructured interviews with district staff, provider administrators, and tutors; focus groups with parents of eligible students; and document analysis. Findings: We identify two primary reasons for a lack of effects. First, there is a "treatment exposure" problem where most students receive far less than 40 hours of tutoring over the course of a school year, a critical threshold for seeing significant effects on achievement. In addition, there are discrepancies between an invoiced hour of tutoring and actual instructional time. Second, supplemental services has an instructional quality problem. Instruction lacks innovation; the curriculum typically does not align to that of the day school; programs do not meet all students' instructional needs, especially students with dis-abilities and English language learners; and there can be considerable variation in quality within the same provider. Conclusions: Our findings lay the foundations for being able to not only establish best practices for supplemental services, but to suggest policy changes to facilitate these best practices and offer insights to a host of other parental choice, out-of-school time (OST), and accountability-based reforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Context: In the past two years, states have implemented sweeping reforms to their teacher evaluation systems in response to Race to the Top legislation and, more recently, NCLB waivers. With these new systems, policymakers hope to make teacher evaluation both more rigorous and more grounded in specific job performance domains such as teaching quality and contributions to student outcomes. Attaching high stakes to teacher scores has prompted an increased focus on the reliability and validity of these scores. Teachers unions have expressed strong concerns about the reliability and validity of using student achievement data to evaluate teachers and the potential for subjective ratings by classroom observers to be biased. The legislation enacted by many states also requires scores derived from teacher observations and the overall systems of teacher evaluation to be valid and reliable. Focus of the Study: In this paper, we explore how state education officials and their district and local partners plan to implement and evaluate their teacher evaluation systems, focusing in particular on states' efforts to investigate the reliability and validity of scores emerging from the observational component of these systems. Research Design: Through document analysis and interviews with state education officials, we explore several issues that arise in observational systems, including the overall generalizability of teacher scores; the training, certification, and reliability of observers; and specifications regarding the sampling and number of lessons observed per teacher. Findings: Respondents' reports suggest that states are attending to the reliability and validity of scores, but inconsistently; in only a few states does there appear to be a coherent strategy regarding reliability and validity in place. Conclusions: There remain a variety of system design and implementation decisions that states can optimize to increase the reliability and validity of their teacher evaluation scores. While a state may engage in auditing scores, for instance, it may miss the gains to reliability and validity that would accrue from periodic rater retraining and recertification, a stiff program of rater monitoring, and the use of multiple raters per teacher. Most troublesome are decisions about which and how many lessons to sample, which are either mandated legislatively, result from practical concerns or negotiations between stakeholders, or, at best case, rest on broad research not directly related to the state context. This suggests that states should more actively investigate the number of lessons and lesson sampling designs required to yield high-quality scores. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper points out that the most popular current school reforms offered have failed to accomplish their goal because they fail to understand the fundamental problem of American schools, namely, income inequality and the poverty that accompanies such inequality. Prescriptions to fix our schools cannot work if the diagnosis about what is wrong with them is in error. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Context: No Child Left Behind is only the most recent manifestation of a longstanding American impulse to reform schools through accountability systems created from afar. While research has explored the causes and consequences of No Child Left Behind, this study puts the modern accountability movement in longer historical perspective, seeking to identify broader underlying patterns that shape this approach to reform. Purpose and Research Design: The study explores the question of the short and longer-term causes of the movement to "rationalize" schools by comparing three major movements demanding accountability in American education across the 20th century: the efficiency reforms of the Progressive Era; the now almost forgotten movement toward accountability in the late 1960s and early 1970s; and the modern standards and accountability movement, culminating in No Child Left Behind. This paper considers the three movements as cases of school "rationalization" in the Weberian sense, in that each sought to reduce variation and discretion across schools in favor of increasingly formal systems of standardized top-down control. Findings: This impulse to rationalize schools cannot be explained by interest group or partisan explanations since the reformers defy easy ideological categorization.. Instead, the reforms can be understood as a penetration of "technocratic logic" into the educational sphere. In each movement, this process exhibited a similar pattern: (1) the identification of a crisis of quality which destabilized the existing educational status quo; (2) the elevation of a technocratic logic, backed by the knowledge base of a high-high status epistemic community; (3) the rallying of ideologically diverse powerful actors external to the schools behind a commensurating logic that promised control over and improvement of an unwieldy school system; and (4) the inability of education to resist this technocratic logic (and often to be co-opted by it) due to teaching's historical institutionalization as a feminized, weak, bureaucratically-administered field lacking its own set of widely respected countervailing professional standards. Conclusions/Implications: This history suggests that unless teachers are able to develop and organize a stronger field, they will remain at the whim of external actors. It also suggests that top-down accountability-centered approaches are limited if the goal is to consistently produce teaching that can help students engage in higher level academic work. Rather than continuing to pursue these rationalizing strategies, this analysis and emerging international evidence suggest that a more promising approach would be to work towards professionalizing the educational field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background/Context: Testing accommodations have been widely utilized as a way of increasing the validity of content assessments for English language learner (ELL) students. However, concerns have also arisen regarding the appropriateness of accommodation use, including the accessibility and fairness of accommodations. While many states have developed ELL-specific accommodation policies and guidelines, little research has been available on how the accommodation policies are carried out in practice. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study: The present study investigated two states' accommodation policies, specifically for the states' respective large-scale Grade 8 math assessments, and conducted a case study to examine teachers' understanding of the policies and uses. The study aimed to identify issues to consider for an appropriate use of accommodations and provide useful information for policymakers to improve their accommodation policies. Research Design: The study utilized a qualitative method employing teacher surveys and interviews. The survey and interview instruments were developed based on previous literature and experts' feedback. The interview transcripts were coded by two researchers using a systematic coding scheme. Descriptive statistics of the responses were computed to observe trends across and within districts and schools. The results were also compared between states or between ELL and math teachers when applicable. Conclusions/Recommendations: Despite the limitation of the small sample in this study, the findings of the study offer practical implications for policymakers and educators in the use of accommodations for ELL students. The study found considerable variation reported by teachers with regard to the perception of accommodation decision makers, selection criteria, and the types of accommodations allowed in each state's math assessment. This variation raised serious concerns regarding the adequacy of the accommodation uses and the comparability of accommodated test results across schools. In this paper, we discussed a number of possible reasons for teachers' reported difficulty in keeping up with state policies: (a) lack of clear guidelines in making accommodation decisions and implementing accommodations in a standardized way, (b) lack of or limited opportunities in receiving information and communicating about accommodations among decision makers and teachers, and (c) limited resources and logistical difficulties. To support an appropriate use of accommodations for teachers, we recommend that states make efforts to provide comprehensive, operationalized guidelines for ELL accommodations, monitor the use of the guidelines, and hold regular professional meetings for ELL and content teachers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background/Context: William H. Kilpatrick is known worldwide as "Mr. Project Method. " Despite considerable scholarship by Lawrence A. Cremin, Herbert M. Kliebard, Milton A. Bleeke,John A. Beineke, and others, the origin of Kilpatrick's celebrated paper of 1918 has never been explored in depth and its historical context. Focus of Study: The reconstruction reveals that the concept of teaching by "projects" arose in seventeenth-century Italy and reached the United States in 1865 where it served as an instructional device in manual training, agricultural education, and general science. Kilpatrick came into contact with the project method movement in 1915. He jumped on the bandwagon, adopted the two-hundred-year-old concept, and used it in a provocative new way to be not only remembered as a genial teacher but as an "originator" as well. Supported by the "Project Propaganda Club," he had already initiated in 1917 and which became known as the National Conference for the Promotion of Educational Method in 1921, Kilpatrick advocated a decidedly child-centered approach that in New York, Milwaukee, and Bethpage, Missouri, failed the practice test and evoked fierce criticism from friend and foe, including Boyd H. Bode, Ernest Horn, Guy M. Wilson, and John Dewey. In the late 1920s, Kilpatrick decided that in defining the project as a subjective "philosophy" of education and not as an objective "method" of instruction he "had made a mistake." Subsequently, he gave up the term and spoke of "activities" when the students carried out their plans and ideas "heartily"and "purposefully." Conclusions: Historians worldwide have fallen victim to an error. Contrary to conventional wisdom, Kilpatrick is not the classic of the project method, but rather the classical outsider. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background/Context: The academic success and failure of low-income youth, and Black and Latina/o youth in particular, has received significant attention in the educational literature, particularly in relation to school dropout. Over the last decade, several studies have demonstrated that student-teacher relationships, committed teachers, and notions of caring are critical to the success of Latina/o youth. However, high-poverty urban schools are graduating fewer than half of their students, in comparison with about 70% at the national level. There remains a scant body of research, policy, and conceptual frameworks to help address the crisis, popularly deemed the "dropout crisis, "particularly among Latinas/os, the youngest, fastest growing, and lowest educated group in the United States. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study: In what ways can and should researchers, practitioners, and policy makers recognize the existence of Latina/o youth? The purpose of the article, contextualized in the theoretical and empirical literature, is to problematize the concept of recognition, particularly for Latina/o youth, and introduce a conceptual framework to understand, examine, and help rectify the crisis facing this population. Research Design: In this conceptual paper, I argue that key stakeholders must recognize the existence of the Latina/o youth by acknowledging their human existence through legitimizing the unequal conditions and struggles they face in school. Educators much engage youth in curricular and pedagogical experiences that seek to raise students' consciousness through critical thinking and dialogue. This article is focused on the human and interpersonal actions and processes that are necessary to facilitate agency and change among students. Theoretical origins informing recognition are discussed, followed by a contextualized analysis of recognition within the present-day conditions of U.S. schools, particularly for Latina/o youth. I then propose five pedagogies of recognition: relational recognition, curricular recognition, pedagogical recognition, contextualizing recognition, and transformative recognition. Each form of recognition is situated in the relevant literature. Conclusions/Recommendations: This article argues that the proposed pedagogies of recognition need to be enacted to foster the intellectual, academic, and political development of youth, particularly Latina/o youth. Recognition can help educators and scholars understand how the social, political, and economic conditions impact Latina/o youth and helps educators reframe the conceptual bases of their work by challenging them to interrogate the (in)effectiveness of institutional and classroom-level practices. The ultimate goal is to help educators and researchers reconstruct and redefine the purpose of education for Latina/o youth in U.S. schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports the results of a national research project begun in 2003 and continuing in 2011 by a Special Interest Group (SIG) in the American Educational Research Association (AERA), specifically the SIG Middle Level Education Research (MLER). The membership and interest suffered from a lack of leadership and low membership. Developing the National Research Project on a critical element of successful middle schools, Common Planning Time (CPT), effectively revitalized the MLER's leadership, helped stabilize membership numbers, and contributed significantly to middle school research by developing the National Database on Common Planning Time.

Never in the course of the last century, has so little attention been paid to the development of talents and gifts in schools. Programs for talented children are being eliminated at an increasing and alarming rate, with minimal or no funds expended on this population in both our state and most other states in the country. Governments continue to appropriate the lion's share of their nation's education budget towards remedial education for children who currently achieve at the lowest levels, leaving little for children who achieve at the opposite end of the spectrum. In fact, the current federal education budget designates less than $10 million to talent development and gifted programs. In 2006, the U.S. Department of Education spent approximately $84 billion, and the only program addressing the education of talented and gifted youth received $9.6 million, one-hundredth of 1% of expenditures. In schools that do provide some level of support, existing programs are often part-time, providing children with limited opportunities to develop their talents. The vast majority of these programs focus on academics alone, with minimal (if any) attention paid to talented children who demonstrate musical or artistic abilities, or to those with strong potential that has not yet been honed. Simply put, most schools are not places where talents and gifts are developed. Most teachers do not consider the development of talents as part of their responsibility, while many parents do not know how or do not have the interest or the time to cultivate the gifts of their children. Parents who do find ways to develop the talents and gifts of their children often find that, in school, these gifts go unnoticed and unidentified. What does society lose from failing to encourage and develop musical gifts and talents? Whose responsibility is it anyway? How do we measure the loss to our society when children with the talent to compose or play at the highest levels are denied lessons or other opportunities to develop their potentials? How does our society make up for the loss of remarkably high potential and how many undiscovered performers and composers are unengaged and unmotivated in music classes today? In this paper, the process of the acquisition of musical talent development is discussed. Definitions of musical talent and genius are reviewed, as is the information we have regarding the development of musical talent at its highest level. The ways in which parents, educators, and the community in general can contribute to the acquisition and development of differing levels of musical excellence is also summarized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Cosmopolitans and their critics often imagine a spectrum of affinities--concentric circles of belonging reaching from the self and family to the ethnic group, the nation and, finally, to all humanity. Debates over the role schools should play in educating "world citizens" versus national patriots follow suit: Should educators work to maintain the reputedly natural, warm, and necessary scale of national allegiance, or should they attempt to produce new subjects oriented to Earth and the human family? Purpose: In this paper we critique the spatial assumptions that underlie this discourse. We question the assumption that affinity is attached to particular scales, that these scales are fixed rather than flexible, and that they are received rather than produced. Our examination focuses on Nussbaum's celebrated proposal that civic education be freed from its national tether and allowed to embrace the whole world. Research Design: In order to trouble the nation/world binary that is central to both Nussbaum's proposal and the arguments of its many critics, we undertook a qualitative case study of youth in a western metropolitan area in the United States. Working with a theoretical sample of public and private middle and high school teachers who wanted to learn what and how their students were thinking about patriotism, citizenship, and allegiance in the year following the events of September 11, 2001, we conducted focus group interviews in their classrooms in early 2003, as the invasion of Iraq was imminent. Findings: These youthful citizens-in-formation generally expressed a historicized affinity-- constructed, contingent, and impermanent. Some of them already, in advance of the proposed civic education reform, were imagining and producing allegiances that were multiple, flexible, and relational. These allegiances do not fit neatly into the spatial models of affinity that have been constructed in some contemporary and ancient literatures, especially those that force a choice between nationalism and cosmopolitanism. These young people displayed more flexibility than the linear inner-to-outer concentric-circles model would permit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]