Search

The article presents an invitation for research papers and programs for the 64th annual convention of the Council of Exceptional Children in New Orleans, Louisiana on March 31 to April 4, 1986. Proposals must be submitted not later than May 30, 1985. The Program Chairperson, with the Program Advisory Committee (PAC) members, is responsible for selecting all papers and programs presented. A broad range of special education and related topics will be included in the program. However, several topics have been selected by the PAC as being especially relevant to the education of exceptional individuals in the 1980's.

The article describes how the integration of a librarian in the third-year pediatric journal club benefitted students. It mentions that the third-year pediatric clerkship program exposes students to the clinical side of pediatrics. For several years, a medical doctor and professor from Allied Health facilitated the journal club, however, since a librarian joined the club, quality of papers presented and the level of student preparation and participation have increased.

This section offers news briefs related to education. Joint Use Libraries: An International Conference will be held in Manchester, England in June 2007. Tshukudu Technology College (TSTC) has added courses leading to the qualifications of Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH) and Computer Hacking Forensic Investigator (CHFI). A National Leadership Grant was received by Louisiana State University's School of Library and Information Science from the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

Reentry programs, when adequately funded and delivered with fidelity, can render recidivism reduction and other positive outcomes such as abstinence and employment stability. This paper reports process evaluation findings for the Louisiana 22nd Judicial District Reentry Court program, a joint SAMHSA/BJA-sponsored multiphase programming intervention for high-risk/high-need offenders featuring job readiness training in the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola and transition services during reentry, including program engagement, job placement, and treatment services continuation in the community under strict judicial supervision. Research procedures entailed 1) observation of court appearances, treatment team meetings, educational activities, and counseling sessions, 2) review of all program participant case files enabling progress tracking, and 3) in-depth and focus group interviews with program stakeholders both at Angola and post-release in community settings. Findings relate the evidence based nature and quality of services delivery to date, as well as fidelity demonstrated across major programmatic domains. Program improvement opportunities, outcome evaluation implications, and performance measures signaling early success center discussion around vanguard elements of the court and evaluation design, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents a study conducted by students in an undergraduate psychology course in experimental design and methods at the University of New Orleans. Research method used; Psychology of aging as the topic of the study; Two-part instrument given to the students; Guidelines used; Benefits derived from the project.

The article discusses teaching about HIV infection and AIDS in a hostile environment. Despite differing views on many aspects of AIDS crisis, there is, with few exceptions, general agreement that education, particularly safe sex education, plays the paramount role in controlling and combating the spread of Human Immunodeficiency Virus. According to the author, school age populations in particular have been delineated as being in critical need of AIDS education. The major focus has been on elementary and secondary populations, but there is evidence of a critical need for education at the college level since students are not only at risk, but also naive as to susceptibility and the necessity for safer sex practices. The author in this paper describes southwest Louisiana, an area where norms, values and beliefs constitute an even greater barrier to educational efforts than previously encountered and suggests ways in which sociologists are uniquely suited to provide AIDS education within the framework of existing courses.

As the city with the largest charter-school market share in the United States, New Orleans, Louisiana exemplifies market-oriented models in education. For a city that is so ‘drenched in the past,’ the reform movement in New Orleans typically neglects historical context, often dismissing the education system pre-Katrina as simply corrupt and dysfunctional. This is an incomplete story. While national narratives and news media tend to downplay these features, there is no local consensus on the reforms. There is mistrust on both sides of the debate, and a growing opposition movement, which arises from decades of racial and political struggles, corrupt public officials, and previous experiences with the state exerting power over locally elected school boards, which disenfranchised African-Americans in New Orleans in particular. Although the new, post-Katrina educational system significantly altered political dynamics, it has not eradicated politics altogether. In this paper, I conduct a policy history of education reforms in New Orleans, connecting the historical and political context to current reform efforts. As researchers evaluate the effectiveness of the new reforms in terms of student achievement, it is important also to examine their impacts on communities and the democratic control of schools, as well as how they reproduce or break from historical patterns of political struggle and inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article presents information on the international convention and exposition of the International Council for Hotel, Restaurant and Institutional Education which was held at New Orleans Hyatt Hotel in Louisiana on July 18-22, 2000. The general theme was New Beginnings and although the majority of the delegates were affiliated with universities, an important number of industry practitioners and tourism policy makers were also represented. The conference aimed to bring together all relevant stakeholders to discuss a wide portfolio of issues related to the hopsitality and tourism industry and education. Information Technology and specifically Web-based applications were the major focus of the majority of the presentations. Papers on Web page design and functionality, on e-commerce applications management and evaluation attracted the attention of the conference attendants. The impact of Internet on education was the next major theme of the conference. Participants had the opportunity to learn how to best harness technology for distance/online education or training purposes as well as obtain a first hand insight on how educational institutions are changing and adopting their educational methods and curriculum to address current challenges.

In this study, we use a Geographic Information System-based index to measure spatial accessibility of public high schools. The index is applied to the Baton Rouge Metropolitan Statistical Area in 1990, 2000, and 2010. Overall, urban areas had consistently worse accessibility scores compared with suburban and rural areas. High schools with more African American students tended to have poorer accessibility levels. Schools with lower accessibility tended to be associated with poorer average student performance, and the effect strengthened between 2000 and 2010. In developing a better understanding of the accessibility of public high schools, this paper reaffirms the significance of space, place, and race, and challenges the notion of declining relevance of accessibility in Louisiana public education policymaking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina, which devastated the Gulf Coast of the United States in the summer of 2005, have highlighted the need to develop effective post-trauma psychotherapeutic intervention strategies, not only to deal with the immediate psychological aftermath of trauma, but also the long-term effects of anniversary reactions. Governmental responses to Hurricane Katrina relief were greatly criticized for disorganization and delay. Both immediately afterwards and in ensuing months, people's life needs often were not addressed. People-to-people individual and group grassroots efforts, including those provided by mental health professionals, however, did reach local communities to service immediate needs and long-term emotional reactions. The present paper describes one such effort designed to help survivors cope on the occasion of the first anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Specifically, anniversary reaction group workshops were held to address unresolved emotional issues and to promote healing by encouraging belonging, comfort, security, and resilience. The ultimate goal of these wellness workshops was to assist participants in understanding and resolving their anniversary reactions. Preliminary quantitative and qualitative findings suggested that this workshop format helped participants face their anniversary reactions, address their related psychological sequelae, and deal with their physical displacement. Participants were then able to find the emotional strength to reattach, form new communities, and begin problem solving. These methods, with appropriate cultural modifications, were subsequently used in China, to assist Chinese mental health professionals prepare for the first anniversary of the Sichuan earthquake.

This paper examines the role that cultural identity and grassroots activism and community development have played in the creation, maintenance and expansion of Louisiana French immersion education. Although linguists tend to portray the extinction of endangered minority languages as inevitable, research on the effects of minority language immersion education provides evidence that this portrayal is not an accurate one. In Louisiana, community concerns over the eminent death of Louisiana French and its associate culture have mobilised parents, educators and other advocates to establish French immersion programmes in public schools throughout southern Louisiana. Issues of regional and familial cultural identity have provided much of the impetus to expand these programmes in the region. As a result of the successful community-based efforts to create and extend immersion education in Louisiana, there is now a growing youth population proficient in Louisiana French, providing hope that the region's unique Francophone culture remains an enduring, active presence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This conference was convened by the Association of Chiropractic Colleges in New Orleans, Louisiana from March 23-25, 2023. The theme for this Association of Chiropractic Colleges Educational Conference and Research Agenda Conference (ACC-RAC) program was Leadership in Education. This proceedings document includes the names of the Peer Review Committee members and all platform and poster abstracts presented at the 2023 ACC-RAC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extant literature on education research focuses on evaluating schools' academic performance rather than the performance of educational institutions. Moreover, the State of Louisiana public school system always performs poorly in education outcomes compared to other school systems in the U.S. One of the limiting factors is the stringent standards applied among heterogeneous schools, steaming from the fit-for-all policies. We use a pairwise controlled manifold approximation technique and gradient boosting machine algorithm to typify Louisiana public schools into homogenous clusters and then characterize each identified group. The analyses uncover critical features of failing and high-performing school systems. Results confirm the heterogeneity of the school system, and each school needs tailored support to buoy its performance. Short-term interventions should focus on customized administrative and academic protocols with malleable interpositions addressing individual school shortcomings such as truancy. Long-term policies must discourse authentic economic development programs to foster community engagement and creativity while allocating strategic resources that cultivate resilience at the school and community levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the mounting of a dry skull to a dental chair for teaching dental assistants to take radiographs. It is stated that the use of a skull prevents the unnecessary exposure of patients to ionizing radiation. It describes the fabrication of such mounts and their use in the radiology clinic of Louisiana State University's School of Dentistry, New Orleans, Louisiana. It is mentioned that the swivel mounted skull helps dental technicians to practice the positioning of the X-ray beam and diagnostic films. It is suggested that the cost for fabricating such mounts can be minimized by the use of easily available and inexpensive materials.

The article proposes strategies for teaching social studies in an integrated manner using Main Street, a small town in Louisiana, as a laboratory. It further explores the opportunity to engage in research using both primary and secondary sources to understand the origin, growth and evolution of small towns across time and space in the state. The authors produce a uniform package of attributes for each of the areas to develop a typology of main streets in the state. They believe that Main Street serves as a microcosm of the social studies, both in terms of concept and skill development.

Environmental education is key in solving environmental problems and for producing a future workforce capable of solving issues of climate change. Over the last two decades, the Coastal Roots Program at Louisiana State University (LSU) has reached more than 26,676 K–12 students in Louisiana to teach them environmental science and has brought them to restoration sites to plant 194,336 school-grown trees and grasses. The codirectors of Coastal Roots are continually searching for opportunities to enrich the experience of teachers and students in connecting school subjects, Coastal Roots, and stewardship. In school year 2018/19, students in five local schools entered a pilot program to learn how tree-ring science informs environmental science broadly. During their scheduled restoration planting trips, students were asked to collect the following tree data: tree cores, tree height, tree diameter, tree species, and global positioning system location points. Data were given to scientists at LSU for preliminary analysis, and graphical representation of the data were shown to the students for their interpretation. Results from this program indicate that bringing students into the field and teaching them a new scientific skill improved their understanding of environmental science and their role in coastal restoration, and tree-ring data showed significant correlations to various climate parameters in Louisiana. Additionally, we find that bringing this knowledge to teachers allows the knowledge to spread for multiple generations of students. Here we present tree-ring data from this project, lessons learned during the pilot program, advantages to student-based citizen science, and recommendations for similar programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between educational level and time of decline to AIDS mortality. A total of 1578 death certificates were matched and processed with reported Louisiana male AIDS cases to assess the relation between decline to AIDS mortality with educational background, age, race, and transmission group. A 2 (race) x 4 (age group) x 2 (transmission group) x 3 (educational background) ANOVA was performed. In addition, descriptive statistics were utilized to show patterns of the association. A significant (P < 0.05) main effect of educational background on decline to death was found. However, inconsistent educational level effect on mortality was found across different subgroups regarding race and AIDS transmission group. Those with higher educational levels demonstrated least severity of decline to death. Furthermore, a significant 3-way interaction in the well-educated black intravenous drug user (IDU) population suggests a call to expand current models of counselling for this clientele. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The smartphone is perhaps the most influential device in modern society. Research has indicated students perceived that using smartphones in the classroom aided learning. However, most American high schools ban students from using phones in the classroom. Previous research supports the idea that advanced smartphone applications in student- centered learning environments can improve achievement and motivation. Currently, there is little in the agricultural education literature pertaining to smartphone enhanced learning among secondary agriculture students. This study compared motivational differences between non-equivalent comparison groups. Secondary agricultural students from 13 schools across Louisiana completed the Course Interest Survey to measure motivation during a forestry unit. Data were analyzed using Hierarchical Linear Modeling. The analysis rendered no statistically significant differences between the groups in motivation. It was concluded that smartphones do not reduce motivation and should be considered in agricultural education classrooms where policy permits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans eliminated default neighborhood schools and began to require parents to choose a school for their child. There are many new schools and a new enrollment process, making accurate and comprehensive information essential. Is one’s information source related to satisfaction in their choices? Psychological theories suggest that more information may not always be better; people can be overwhelmed and actually make suboptimal choices. I show that a greater reliance on comprehensive sources is related to less confidence that one’s child got into their top choice school, while those parents who use shortcuts, such as social networks and/or school advertising, are more satisfied that they made the right choice. Information sources are not, however, related to the likelihood of enrolling one’s child in a high performing school. Rather, the school performance score is predicted by race and socioeconomic class. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Geography at elementary and middle schools in Louisiana, USA., remains a social studies strand along with civics, economics, and history, with no state-required geography course at any level. But because schools may require more geography than the state standard, this research examines the extent to which K–12 students are exposed to geography in Louisiana, using an electronic survey and an interview with state department of education officials. Results suggest that geography remains underemphasized, but the 2011 implementation of new social studies standards, the Advanced Placement Human Geography course, and other initiatives offer promise for more geographically literate Louisiana citizens. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Objectives: School truancy, school failure, and dropout are highly correlated with delinquency and criminality. There are also racial inequalities regarding the relationship between education and crime. The current study asks, "What risk do demographic, academic, and behavioral factors contribute to later adult justice system contact for urban youth residing in Louisiana?" Method: Using administrative data from the Louisiana Department of Education, the Louisiana Office of Juvenile Justice, and the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections (LADOC), hierarchical, mixed-effects logistic regression models (N = 507,613) explored whether youth later encountered the LADOC and were incarcerated, and whether they committed a violent crime leading to their contact. Results: The most significant predictors of any adult contact with the LADOC were being male (p < .01; odds ratio [OR] 4.74), contact with the state Office of Juvenile Justice (p < .01, OR 3.742), and school expulsion (p < .01, OR 2.46). The most significant predictors of adult incarceration were being male (p < .01, OR 9.932), contact with the state Office of Juvenile Justice (p <.01, OR 4.637), and expulsion (p < .01, OR 2.368). The most significant predictors of contact with the LADOC after a violent crime were being male (p < .01, O.R. 7.726), contact with the Louisiana Office of Juvenile Justice (p < .01, OR 3.606), and being African American (p < .01, OR 2.651). Conclusions: Despite its intent, punishment-oriented approaches such as suspension, expulsion, and the juvenile justice system seem to encourage further deviant behavior among youth. Reform is necessary to decrease adult criminality for those engaging in risky behavior during adolescence. Additional considerations must be made for youth from disadvantaged backgrounds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Students at the Center (SAC) learning community in New Orleans challenges the premises of neoliberal education reform through an alternative social vision and an oppositional social praxis. It encourages students to be people wholeadtheir communities rather than people wholeave. SAC presents a model of democratic and egalitarian education that exposes, challenges, resists, and counters the enormous harm perpetrated by the neoliberal reorganization of public institutions. The young people who participate in the classes run by SAC view their own fate as individuals as linked to the survival, dignity and democratic potential of all people. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

New Orleans Publicly Funded Private School System: Unbelievable Claims, Undemocratic, Unmasked Inequity, Unaccountable Cash Cow Schools and Chronic Failure all under the guise of School Reform identifies five major claims in the narrative of unprecedented success in the education reforms in New Orleans that is simply preposterous. This article concludes with how these senseless claims have led to the creation of a 21st-century acceptable school system, which promotes blatant inequitable and poor educational practices for mostly poor and minority students. The article also discusses the invaluable lesson the miracles education reforms in New Orleans has taught the nation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Academic institutions and community organizations engaged community health workers (CHWs) in creating a community-appropriate CHW workforce capacity-building program in an area without a previously established CHW professional group. From 2009 to 2010, we solicited New Orleans-based CHWs' opinions about CHW professional development through a survey, a community conference, and workgroup meetings. Throughout 2011 and 2012, we created and implemented a responsive 80-h workforce development program that used popular education techniques. We interviewed CHWs 6 months post-training to assess impressions of the course and application of skills and knowledge to practice. CHWs requested training to develop nationally-recognized core competencies including community advocacy, addresses issues unique to New Orleans, and mitigate common professional challenges. Thirty-five people completed the course. Among 25 interviewees, common themes included positive impressions of the course, application of skills and community-specific information to practice, understanding of CHWs' historical roles as community advocates, and ongoing professional challenges. Engaging CHW participation in workforce development programs is possible in areas lacking organized CHW groups. CHW insight supports development of training that addresses unique local concerns. Trained CHWs require ongoing professional support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This chapter examines one of the nation's most rigorous high stakes testing programs, the Louisiana Educational Assessment Program (LEAP). Archival data was collected and analyzed to construct a historical record of the LEAP. Results show the purpose of Louisiana's high stakes testing program was to target promotion and graduation rates following the desegregation period. Results are used to examine these lasting implications on student achievement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present article includes 2 studies that were designed to expand the literature on the technical features of vocabulary matching. The purpose of both studies was to extend validity research on the general outcome measure of content knowledge. In Study 1, direct comparisons of predictor-criterion correlations related to selected standardized and curriculum-based instruments were made with a diverse sample of 153 sixth-grade students from 3 middle schools. Among other findings, direct correlation comparisons indicated that the relation between vocabulary matching and the state accountability test was statistically significantly stronger than those between other curriculum-based measures. In Study 2, linear mixed modeling was used to compare growth rates for a sample of 224 sixth-graders from the same 3 schools. Participants were administered 25 weekly probes over the course of a school year. Findings demonstrated growth rates that were significantly different from a zero growth hypothesis and variable across learners and probe type. Research implications for vocabulary matching are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Truancy has been identified as a risk factor of criminal behavior but results are mixed as to the best means to reduce this school-based concern. The Truancy Prevention Initiative has been implemented in New Orleans post-Hurricane Katrina under the direction of the Recovery School District to reduce levels of truancy, increase graduation rates, and decrease youth crime. This article emphasizes the statutes and ordinances behind this initiative in order for it to be compared to current evidence-based literature to forecast its effectiveness. In addition, social disorganization and deterrence theories are used to analyze the foundational elements of the Truancy Prevention Initiative. The Truancy Prevention Initiative is a promising program that requires process and outcome evaluations to draw a stronger conclusion of its effectiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Focuses on the discussion related to educational services for members of Robotics and Automation Society during the 2004 International Conference on Robotics and Automation in New Orleans, Louisiana. Promotion on the development of low-cost robotic and automation hardware to support teaching and research; Visibility of educational activities; Establishment of a semipermanent organization coordinating the efforts in education.

Objectives. In light of challenges imposed by the changing media landscape and decreasing classroom time available for health interventions, new approaches are needed to disseminate anti-tobacco messages to adolescents. This study reported process evaluation of an in-school three-year anti-tobacco media campaign conducted in 10 schools in Louisiana. Methods. Over three years, 10 schools received an in-school anti-tobacco media campaign. The media campaign was one intervention component of the Acadiana Coalition of Teens against Tobacco. Campaign measures were tracked over the campaign's three-year duration. The campaign and evaluation were designed to target the students as they progressed through high school. The number of students who completed the surveys were 1,823 in Year 1, 1,552 in Year 2, and 1,390 in Year 3. Schools eligible for participation were publicly funded schools with no magnet or special populations and within a two-hour driving distance of the New Orleans study office. Results. In a self-report survey (Year 1, n=1,823; Year 2, n=1,552; Year 3, n=1,390), more than 75% and 50% of students reported being exposed to posters and public service announcements, respectively. Recognition of campaign theme was more than 80%. Almost half of respondents reported that the posters were interesting, one-third reported that the posters prevented them from smoking, and 10% reported that the posters encouraged them to cease smoking. Stock media posters had a significantly higher affective reaction than the customized media posters. Conclusion. Findings suggest that in-school media programs are useful and should be considered as a viable approach to health education for adolescents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hurricane Katrina had, and continues to have, a devastating effect on every student who was living in the southeastern quadrant of Louisiana at the beginning of the 2005-2006 school term. African American public school students who were enrolled in gifted and talented programs were particularly impacted by the storm, although they comprised a healthy proportion of gifted and talented students statewide before Katrina struck. Following the hurricane, 20% of all of the gifted and talented students in Louisiana were displaced. Because the majority of that displacement occurred among the predominantly African American public school population in New Orleans, gifted and talented program enrollment among African American students was reduced by 47%. This article examines the circumstances in 4 Southeastern Louisiana parishes before and after Hurricane Katrina that contributed to the drastic reduction in gifted and talented African American participants. Included are suggestions for recovering this population of students, and for increasing proportional distribution of identified gifted and talented students statewide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on the quality of life in New Orleans, Louisiana several months after it was hit by Hurricane Katrina. Rents over living space in the state have doubled, sometimes tripled. The public school system of the state has been eviscerated in favor of radical privatization. Roughly half of the schools scheduled to open will be charter schools managed by private sponsors.

Recently, increasing numbers of partnerships have emerged in which universities work to address economic, social, and political problems within troubled communities. Such experiences have led to careful discussion of the model such efforts should follow, and a literature which has assessed such activity as overwhelmingly positive. Based on team ethnographic research, this case study discusses the emergence of one such partnership that was forged at high levels of government and university administration. Such an emergence, we argue, impacted the partnership in such a way that the interests of more powerful members outweighed those of members with less power. Unequal interests influenced the structure of the partnership, its ability to carry out its mission, the participation of community residents, and intentions for the future of the partnership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents information on the Campus Affiliates Program, a collaborative venture among Tulane and Xavier universities and other agencies in New Orleans, Louisiana. Socio-economic condition of New Orleans, Louisiana; Organizing principles of the program; Barriers and bridges to the program.

Phase III of the Louisiana School Effectiveness Study (LSES-III) was designed to provide rich, qualitative and quantitative data on the characteristics of more and less effective schools. Data were gathered on eight matched outlier pairs of schools. Unbeknownst to the authors at the beginning of LSES-III, four of the eight historically ineffective schools were engaged in school improvement efforts. None of these efforts was guided from the state or district. This serendipity provided an opportunity to observe improvement efforts which were of the ‘naturally occurring’ — as opposed to externally developed, mandated or otherwise offered — variety. The four projects are described, complete with five year follow-up data. The efforts are seen as falling along two dimensions: technical changes designed to raise achievement test scores; and efforts focused on a point along a continuum ranging from orderliness to excellence, and designed to raise students' academic achievement. Comparisons are made to more formally planned school improvement efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the Academy of Human Resource Development in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Creation of the organization for scholarly academic communities; Membership requirements; Activities of the academy.