Education Commons^™

Longitudinal And Geographic Trends In Family Engagement During The Pre-Kindergarten To Kindergarten Transition, Susan M. Sheridan, Natalie A. Koziol, Amanda Witte, Iheoma Iruka, Lisa Knoche

Nebraska Center for Research on Children, Youth, Families, and Schools: Faculty Publications

The transition to kindergarten is foundational for children’s future school performance and families’ relationships with the educational system. Despite its well-documented benefits, few studies have explored family engagement across the pre- Kindergarten (pre-K) to kindergarten transition nor considered the role of geographic context during this period. This study examined trajectories of family engagement across the pre-K to kindergarten transition, and identified whether engagement differs for families in rural versus urban settings. Participants were 248 parents of children who participated in publicly funded pre-K programs and transitioned 1 year later into kindergarten. Home-based involvement increased from pre-K through kindergarten. School-based involvement …

Teachers’ Perspectives On Year Two Implementation Of A Kindergarten Readiness Assessment, Rachel E. Schachter, Erin E. Flynn, Amy R. Napoli, Shayne B. Piasta

Department of Child, Youth, and Family Studies: Faculty Publications

In this study we examined teachers’ perspectives regarding the second year of implementing a Kindergarten Readiness Assessment (KRA). Using a mixed-methods approach, we focused on the administration process, the perceived benefits of the assessment, and how teachers used the assessment to inform instruction. We also investigated whether these differed by teacher and district characteristics and how KRA experiences were different in the second year of implementation. Research Findings: Teachers generally did not view the KRA as beneficial for instruction or for students, reporting administration difficulties, inadequate KRA content, and limited utility of KRA data for supporting instruction as ongoing barriers …

Clues To Rural Community Survival, Milan Wall

Heartland Center for Leadership Development Materials

Myths about the future of small towns:

- Towns that are "too small" have no future

- A community's location is key to its survival

- Industrial recruitment is the best strategy for economic development

- Small towns can't compete in the global economy

- The "best people" leave small towns as soon as they can

- The rural and urban economies are not independent

The Protective Influence Of Self-Compassion Against Internalized Racism Among African Americans, Alexandra Emery

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Racist experiences and internalized racism may lead to poorer mental health outcomes for African Americans born and socialized in the United States (Graham, West, Martinez & Roemer, 2016; Mouzon & McLean, 2017). Self-compassion has been shown to protect against poor mental health outcomes, but limited research exists with respect to African Americans specifically (Lockard, Hayes, Neff and Locke, 2014). The present study explored whether self-compassion could serve as a protective factor between the relations of internalized racism and racist experiences, and the negative mental health outcomes of anxiety, depression, and stress among (N = 230) African American adults. To …

Onaga, Kansas, Heartland Center For Leadership Development

Heartland Center for Leadership Development Materials

Leadership, entrepreneurship, wealth retention and youth development are all pieces of the recent successes of Onaga, Kansas, a very rural community of 704 people. Driving down Kansas Highway 16 and seeing the sign “Onaga, next five exits” would make you think it’s a large town. Indeed, it isn’t. But it’s the brainstorm of community developers who propose that adding such a series of signs would encourage more travelers to stop in.

“Onaga has a lot of assets that other communities would die for!” That is the sentiment of the part-time community development specialist for Onaga. This kind of sentiment is …

St. Paris, Ohio, Heartland Center For Leadership Development

Heartland Center for Leadership Development Materials

On the surface, St. Paris, Ohio, (population about 2,000) looks like hundreds of other small Midwestern farm towns—quiet and pleasant—a nice town to drive through on a Sunday afternoon. Like many communities, the town has enjoyed a “gentle growth” of about 4 % over the past ten years.

But underneath that traditional exterior, a persistent entrepreneurial spirit breeds new business with an aggressiveness that can be felt from the coffee shop to the farms that surround the town. Like many small towns in west-central Ohio, St. Paris enjoys a very diverse economic base that would be the envy of other …

Flathead Reservation, Montana, Heartland Center For Leadership Development

Heartland Center for Leadership Development Materials

Looking out the window of a crowded office in Polson, Montana, one can picture a tipi village where the employee parking lot is now—a combination tourist attraction and outdoor sales show room for the traditional Plains-style tipis made by a local company that markets them throughout the nation. The company owner, and the person with the idea for selling the tipis, is a Native American who is a “serial” entrepreneur—someone who has started several businesses over time, then sells them off and starts another.

The Flathead Indian Reservation, which occupies more than one million acres from Montana’s scenic Flathead Lake …

The Paradoxical Implications Of Deported American Students, Edmund T. Hamann, Jessica Mitchell-Mccollough

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

This book chapter (which has no formal abstract) uses the case of two children who had to leave the United States because their father was deported to raise questions about how US schooling does or does not anticipate and support students who will need to negotiate schooling in two countries.

Principals and teachers throughout the United States (and world) have students with transnational ties. Sometimes students were born in another country. More commonly, one or both parents were. Sometimes that means students and/or parents lack documentation, which creates anxiety and ambiguity in students’ lives that schools need to negotiate. Suro …

Inclusion Of The Economically Backward Students: Scope And Tenet Of Indian School Libraries, Sarthak Chakraborty, Sabuj Kumar Chaudhuri

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

The study aims to find out how far a school library can contribute in the issue of inclusion of the economically backward class students. Meanwhile the author has opined three major issues: Economical, Psychological and Societal as the reasons behind the school dropouts in India; while theoretical analyses have unveiled that the school library has enough scope and potential to reduce the dropout rate by offering several innovative approaches. Further, the author has investigated the reality and forwarded ten unique approaches (broadly classified into Library beyond school, Increase the reading habit and Empowerment of the student) which could …

Treating Participation As An Assignment, Brandon Bosch

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Participation is a funny thing. Some of us grade it obliquely, bumping up the final grades for students that were truly exceptional at it. Some of us explicitly state on the syllabus how important it is for students to come to class “ready and willing to participate,” but only allocate 10% of the overall grade to this supposedly valued activity. But perhaps the most common thing that we do as instructors with participation is this: despite the fact that participation is one of the most commonly “submitted” activities in a class, very few instructors treat participation like an actual assignment. …

Small Places, Big Successes: Rural Towns Revitalizing Themselves, Milan Wall

Heartland Center for Leadership Development Materials

Key Indicators of Transformative Change

Income Taxes 2000-2016

- Federal Adjusted Gross Income 20%

- State Adjusted Gross Income 56%

Property Tax Valuations 2000 2018

- Ord 131%

- Valley County 280%

Community Strengths And Opportunities, Heartland Center For Leadership Development

Heartland Center for Leadership Development Materials

Community Strengths and Opportunities

The following is a list of twenty characteristics found among thriving communities, based on research conducted by the Heartland Center for Leadership Development. The Heartland Center found that thriving communities will tend to possess a variety of these characteristics, but not all twenty characteristics. Review these characteristics. Based on your community, rate each characteristic as a (1) agree, (2) neutral or (3), disagree.

Wind River Reservation, Wyoming, Heartland Center For Leadership Development

Heartland Center for Leadership Development Materials

The people of the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming view entrepreneurship as the key to future survival. Entrepreneurship, they say, will encourage more people to shop locally, while attracting more outside dollars into the community. Locally owned businesses are important for a community that faces such challenges as a 54% unemployment rate, 28% living on per-capita payments to tribal members, and 62% living below the poverty level. While there are many opportunities for economic development, the twist is finding the right strategy and maintaining traditional cultural and tribal values that are important to the two tribes that share this reservation.

Outcomes Of The Iowa Parent Partner Program Evaluation: Stability Of Reunification And Re-Entry Into Foster Care, Jeff M. Chambers, Sandy Lint, Maggie G. Thompson, Matthew W. Carlson, Michelle Graef

Center on Children, Families, and the Law: Faculty Publications

In an effort to facilitate family engagement with services, improve reunification outcomes, and empower the families they serve, child welfare agencies across the country have developed and implemented programs designed to provide peer mentoring. These programs work to identify parents who have successfully navigated the child welfare system in the past and train them to mentor parents who are currently in the system. The current study used a quasi-experimental design and propensity score matching to examine the outcomes for children of families served by the Iowa Department of Human Services Parent Partner program, one of the earliest and most established …

A Physical Therapy Intervention To Advance Cognitive And Motor Skills: A Single Subject Study Of A Young Child With Cerebral Palsy, Stacey C. Dusing, Reggie T. Harbourne, Michele A. Lobo, Sally Westcott-Mccoy, James A. Bovaird, Audrey E. Kane, Gullnar Syed, Emily C. Marcinowski, Natalie A. Koziol, Shaaron E. Brown

Nebraska Center for Research on Children, Youth, Families, and Schools: Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Buffett Early Childhood Institute: Five Year Report 2013-18, Buffett Early Childhood Institute

Buffet Early Childhood Institute Reports and Publications

The Buffett Early Childhood Institute began operations in June 2013. We were charged with creating a new model for how public higher education can engage in early education by helping to transform the lives of young children and their families. This report presents a by-thenumbers profile of who we are and what we’ve accomplished in our first five years. Following the numbers you’ll find brief descriptions of programs, initiatives, financials, and the Institute itself.

The Nebraska Panhandle: An Assessment Of Birth-Grade 3 Care And Education, Panhandle Birth – Grade 3 Leadership Team

Buffet Early Childhood Institute Reports and Publications

This report summarizes the collaborative work of the Panhandle Partnership, Inc., Educational Service Unit (ESU) 13, and the Buffett Early Childhood Institute at the University of Nebraska in documenting and assessing birth through Grade 3 programming in the Nebraska Panhandle. The report summarizes findings from 15 school-community conversations and includes data snapshots from local communities that provide information about the status of young children and the services and supports that exist to serve them and their families. Work in the Panhandle was undertaken on the basis of an agreement between the three organizations to work together to better understand and …

Nebraska Child Care Market Rate Survey Report 2019, Greg W. Welch, Elizabeth Svoboda, Amanda Garrett, Kathleen C. Gallagher, Molly Goldberg, Alexandra Daro

Buffet Early Childhood Institute Reports and Publications

The Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) Act of 2014 was reauthorized with renewed emphasis placed on the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) program, which seeks to provide equal access to quality child care for families. The CCDF program is necessary to ensure children from low-income families have the opportunity to experience stable, high-quality early experiences while their parents experience a pathway to economic stability. A primary goal of the CCDF program is to ensure that low-income families receive CCDF funds to help them access quality child care in the same manner as families that pay the full …

Islamophobia In U.S. Education, Shabana Mir, Loukia K. Sarroub

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

Anti-Muslim sentiment has grown in scale and visibility far beyond its association with the horrific attacks of 2001. The US government’s “War on Terror,” which began after the attacks, often pervades the domestic landscape as a war on Islamic religious “extremism.” The definitions and content of such religious extremism are so extensive that they encompass large numbers of Muslims, and they highlight Muslims as being inherently problematic. For example, the success of the 2016 presidential campaign can be said to have relied significantly on a right-wing Islamophobic fear-mongering that shariah was set to take over the US. As we grappled …

Risk Factors For Depression Among Early Childhood Teachers, Amy Roberts, Kathleen C. Gallagher, Alexandra Daro, Iheoma U. Iruka, Susan Sarver

Buffet Early Childhood Institute Reports and Publications

This study examined possible risk factors associated with teachers’ depression in a variety of early childhood settings. Teachers with lower pay, no health insurance, multiple jobs, greater job stress, and more adult-centered beliefs reported more symptoms of depression. To reduce these symptoms, efforts should be made to support teachers’ mental health at multiple levels, including individual, environmental, and policy.

Researchers used data collected in 2015-16 from a large survey of early childhood educators in Nebraska. Four early childhood settings were sampled: licensed family child care homes (home-based), licensed child care centers (center-based), state-funded PreK programs, and elementary schools serving children …

Making Sense Of Place: A Case Study Of A Sensemaking In A Rural School-Community Partnership, Sarah J. Zuckerman

Department of Educational Administration: Faculty Publications

Cross-sector, place-based, school-community partnerships seeking to improve educational and other outcomes at scale have experienced a resurgence in the United States. Rather than isolated eff orts, this new generation relies on scaling up models in networks, such as Strive Together. However, many of these models evolved in urban contexts, creating challenges for scaling up in rural areas with fewer organizations, limited resources, and lower population density. Using conceptions of sensemaking as precursor for collective action, this case study examines the strategies used by partnership leaders in a rural county to make sense of Strive and the local community. By iteratively …

Why We Publish Where We Do: Faculty Publishing Values And Their Relationship To Review, Promotion And Tenure Expectations, Meredith T. Niles, Lesley A. Schimanski, Erin Christy Mckiernan, Juan P. Alperin

Copyright, Fair Use, Scholarly Communication, etc.

Using an online survey of academics at 55 randomly selected institutions across the US and Canada, we explore priorities for publishing decisions and their perceived importance within review, promotion, and tenure (RPT). We find that respondents most value journal readership, while they believe their peers most value prestige and related metrics such as impact factor when submitting their work for publication. Respondents indicated that total number of publications, number of publications per year, and journal name recognition were the most valued factors in RPT. Older and tenured respondents (most likely to serve on RPT committees) were less likely to value …