Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Public Opinion About Measuring And Reporting Of Student Body Mass Index, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter

Policy Briefs

In response to growing public concern about childhood obesity, the 2003 Arkansas General Assembly passed a measure requiring that school officials measure and report to parents each student’s body mass index (BMI) annually (§20-7- 135). Beginning in the 2003-2004 school year, schools were required to do the following: • include as a part of a student health report to parents an annual body mass index percentile by age for each student; and • to annually provide parents with an explanation of the possible health effects of body mass index, nutrition, and physical activity. This measure was one element of a …

Measuring Student Well-Being In The Context Of Australian Schooling : Discussion Paper, Julian Fraillon

Wellbeing

This report was commissioned by the South Australian Department of Education and Children's Services as an agent of the Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs (MCEETYA). The report constitutes Phase 1 of a planned two phase process. Specifically this report defines a measurement construct for student well-being; outlines a methodology for measuring student well-being; and provides recommendations for ongoing work in the measuring, reporting and monitoring of student well-being (Phase 2).

Interview With Dr. Charles Watson, Arkansas Department Of Education, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter

Policy Briefs

No abstract provided.

Interview With Dr. Ken James, Arkansas Department Of Education, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter

Policy Briefs

No abstract provided.

Sacs Standards 2004: A Compliance Strategy For Academic Libraries, William N. Nelson

The Southeastern Librarian

This article first provides an introduction to and summary of Principles of Accreditation accompanied by a detailed list of provisions specifically applicable to libraries in higher education. The provisions and importance of Standards for College Libraries, approved by the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) in 2000, are summarized and examples of implementation are identified. In a 2003 revision, minimal changes were made to these ACRL standards, which received final approval as the ACRL Standards for Libraries in Higher Education in June 2004. These standards now supercede the three ACRL type-of-library standards produced separately for universities, colleges, and community …

The Relationship Of Undergraduate Students’ Self-Assessment Of Library Skills To Their Opinion Of Library Instruction: A Self-Reporting Survey, Christopher A. Freeman

The Southeastern Librarian

College students, in general, are known to be lacking in their ability to effectively make use of academic library resources, yet in many previous studies these same students have estimated their library-use skills at inflated levels. Neither do college students in general often willingly take advantage of library instruction opportunities. A self-reporting survey was administered to forty first-year college students in order to investigate whether students’ tendency to over-estimate library use skills has an effect on student opinion about library instruction in general. Results from the survey not only indicate that such a relationship may exist, but also strongly support …

Information Literacy Instruction And Assessments, College Of Business And College Of Education, Robert Fernekes, Sonya Shepherd, Debra Skinner

Sonya S. Gaither

No abstract provided.

Assessing Information Literacy With Knowledge Surveys: Interim Report From Two Computer Based Trials, David Robinson, R. Mathaney, Robert Fernekes, Sonya Shepherd, Debra Skinner

Sonya S. Gaither

No abstract provided.

La Educación Superior Transnacional En México: El Caso Sylvan-Universidad Del Valle De México, Roberto Rodríguez-Gómez

Roberto Rodríguez-Gómez

This paper discusses the impact of transnationalisation on Mexican higher education system in four steps: First, it examines the Mexican government position about the global international trade. Second, it exposes the general Mexican position about the educative transnationalisation. Third, it refers the Mexican legal frame about direct foreign investment in education. Fourth, it displays data about the volume of direct foreign investment in the Mexican educative sector. Finally, the attention turns to a specific case of transnationalisation: the presence of a partnership between Sylvan Learning Systems and the University of the Valley of Mexico, private institution that offers education of …

Cooperative Conservation - Interagency Volunteer Program Quarterly Progress Report: Period Ending September 30, 2004, Margaret N. Rees

Get Outdoors Nevada

Collaboration with Interagency Team

Although the task agreement formally commenced June 30, 2004, the agreement was not fully executed by both parties until July 29, 2004. In the first three months of this agreement, UNLV representatives have met with or communicated via email with the Interagency Volunteer Team on numerous occasions. At the first meeting on July 13, 2004, Government Technical Representative Bobbie Antonich and UNLV Public Lands Initiative Director Nancy Flagg met with the interagency team to discuss the overall goals for the Interagency Volunteer Program (IVP). The team was brought up-to-date on the status of the task agreement, …

Highly Qualified Teachers, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter

Policy Briefs

One of the key features of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2001 is a requirement that all teachers in core academic areas be “highly qualified” before the 2005-2006 school year. Even more quickly, by the end of the 2002-2003 school year, all newly hired teachers in Title I schools had to be highly qualified. The core academic areas— which must be taught by a “highly qualified” teacher—are English, reading or language arts, math, science, arts and foreign language, economics, geography, civics or government, and history. Teachers of special education and English language learner students are not required …

No Child Left Behind Act Of 2001: An Overview, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter

Policy Briefs

The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2001, the cornerstone of the Bush Administration’s plan to reform K-12 education, strengthens significantly the federal role in education through sweeping reforms to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). The stated legislative intent of the NCLB Act is “to close the achievement gap with accountability, flexibility, and choice, so that no child is left behind” (PL-107-110 [20 U.S.C. §6301, et seq.], 2001). Key provisions of the measure, for both Title I and non-Title I schools, are as follows: • accountability for education results through annual standardized testing and through additional standards …

Understanding Adequate Yearly Progress, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter

Policy Briefs

No abstract provided.

No Child Left Behind And Act 35, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter

Policy Briefs

The Student Assessment and Educational Accountability Act or Arkansas Act 35 represents an ambitious attempt to develop and articulate a strategic plan for ensuring that all students in Arkansas are meeting grade-level standards in reading and math. The legislation describes the types of testing schools must implement each year, how schools and districts should report data, how data should be used to inform staff development, and the sanctions students and schools will face if they fail to meet state standards.

School Finance Litigation And Adequacy Studies, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter

Policy Briefs

The adequacy approach to challenging school funding systems has proven the most successful of the waves of finance litigation, and the approach serves as the foundation for new or ongoing litigation and reform in many states today, including Arkansas. The standards reform movement has provided courts with a way to measure plaintiffs’ claims that school finance systems do not provide for an adequate education, and many courts have found school funding formulae unconstitutional. In this paper, we review the history of school finance litigation across the United States and focus specifically on cases related to educational adequacy. In the final …

The Effects Of Cultural Congruity, University Alienation, And Self-Concept Upon Multiracial Students' Adjustment To College, Derrick Adam Paladino

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to examine key factors that relate to the self-perception of cultural congruity, university alienation (powerlessness, meaninglessness, and social estrangement), and self-concept (perceived intellectual ability, perceived scholastic competence, perceived social acceptance, appearance, and global self-worth) in multiracial college students. One goal of this study is to discover if there is a relationship between cultural congruity, alienation, and self-concept among multiracial college students. In addition, this study examined what factors predict cultural congruity, university alienation, and self-concept in multiracial college students. Finally, this study explored the relationship of cultural congruity, university alienation, self-concept, and specific demographic …

Placing Arkansas School Funding Data In The National Context, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter

Policy Briefs

In November 2002, the Arkansas Supreme Court found the Arkansas school funding system to be unconstitutional. The decade long court battle, Lake View v Huckabee, concluded when the Supreme Court determined that the state needed to develop a new system to provide a “general, suitable and efficient system of free public schools equally available to all" as called for by the Arkansas Constitution (Article 14, § 1). Arkansas, however, is not alone in being taken to court over the equity and adequacy of its school funding system. Since 1960, over 40 states’ educational funding systems have been legally challenged. Since …

La Toma De Decisiones En Una Universidad Pública Estatal Desde La Perspectiva De Sus Académicos, Jesús F. Galaz-Fontes, Esperanza Viloria-Hernández

Jesús Francisco Galaz Fontes

Con base en un cuestionario aplicado a 289 académicos con 30 o más horas semanales de trabajo, en una institución de educación superior pública, del noroeste del país, se investigó la percepción de los encuestados sobre su influencia en las decisiones de las administraciones central y de las unidades académicas, así como de ellos mismos. Mientras que a la administración central le asignan las decisiones institucionales, a las de las unidades, asuntos más locales y ellos se percibieron como carentes de un peso, con poca influencia personal en la unidad y en la institución, tienen una visión autocrática de las …

Effective School Reform, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter

Policy Briefs

At the forefront of education research and policy agendas is an effort to ensure that all children, especially those in low performing, high-poverty schools, get a quality education. The question of which programs and strategies are most effective in reforming K-12 education is complex. School administrators and policymakers throughout the nation are seeking strategies that will help all students to achieve mastery of basic grade-level academic skills as measured by standardized tests. This brief summarizes current research on the characteristics of effective schools and effective teachers. Also, we highlight several comprehensive school reform models with evidence of effectiveness in improving …

Special Masters’ Report, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter

Policy Briefs

The final ruling in the 1992 Lake View School District case was upheld by the State Supreme Court in November 2002 in a decision known as “Lake View III.” The ruling found that the school system for Arkansas failed to meet the mandate in the Arkansas Constitution requiring that the State provide a “general, suitable and efficient system of free public schools equally available to all" (Article 14, § 1) and required that the legislature develop remedies by January 1, 2004. The Arkansas General Assembly convened in a Special Session from December 8, 2003 to February 6, 2004 to address …

Perceptions Of The Library: A Key To Planning Effective Services, Sue Alexander, William Black, Virginia Vesper

The Southeastern Librarian

such as questions answered, books cataloged, and dollars spent. Now we are called upon to measure the impact of those services on our clients. Stakeholder demand for accountability, changing accreditation standards, and state and federal concerns over student outcomes have driven a real concern for measurement from the client’s perspective. This will become increasingly important as demands for accountability and competition from other sectors increase. “Assessment and evaluation are intended as means to demonstrate institutional effectiveness, foster institutional improvement, and demonstrate accountability.” Programs such as the New Measures Initiative, from the Association of Research Libraries, have been developed to strengthen …

Introducing Dialogue To Graduate Students, Monica W. Tracey, David L. Solomon, James L. Moseley

Administrative and Organizational Studies

Scholars and practitioners in adult education commonly agree on the importance of communication and interaction in the adult classroom. Frequently, however, learners are not provided with guidelines on how to interact and communicate with others in such settings. This paper reports on an experiential orientation to the practice of dialogue for adults in a graduate program

Defining Educational Adequacy, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter

Policy Briefs

In his 2001 ruling of the Lake View case, Judge Kilgore ordered, “an adequacy study is necessary and must be conducted forthwith.” In November 2002, the Arkansas Supreme Court upheld the lower court ruling and mandated that the General Assembly begin an “adequacy study.” Consequently, Act 94 of 2003 created the Arkansas Joint Legislative Committee on Educational Adequacy, which was given primary responsibility for fulfilling the Court’s mandate. The Committee contracted with the national consulting firm of Lawrence O. Picus and Associates to conduct a statewide adequacy study and report the findings to the Committee in the Fall of 2003. …

School Consolidation: Making Sense Of The Consolidation Debate, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter

Policy Briefs

Much scholarly and public debate has centered on whether consolidation of small schools is positive, negative, or neutral for student academic achievement, student social development, and funding efficiency. In an attempt to derive lessons from the research on this issue, we investigated evidence related to: (1) school district consolidation and school size, and (2) spending and academic performance data for schools and districts in Arkansas.

Understanding The Achievement Gap, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter

Policy Briefs

Educators across Arkansas and the nation are sharpening their focus on “achievement gaps,” or those areas in which less-advantaged students perform poorly compared to their more advantaged peers. The No Child Left Behind Act, nationally, and the Lake View case, in Arkansas, are driving state and local education policymakers to address these achievement gaps to ensure that all student subgroups perform at high standards. Reducing these achievement gaps can have myriad social benefits, not the least of which is reducing racial inequality in educational achievement and future inequality in employment and earnings.

The Relationship Between Maine School Administrative Unit Size, Costs, And Outcomes, David L. Silvernail Phd, James E. Sloan

School Funding - Essential Programs and Services (EPS)

No abstract provided.

[A Library Policy Manual For Selah School District Libraries, Selah, Washington], Roberta Jean Gustafson

All Graduate Projects

This project was undertaken to develop a library policy manual for the Selah School District libraries. Topics were collected from a variety of venues, manuals on the Internet,the.librarian list serv LM-NET, American.LibraryAssociation and the Washington Library Media Association. Lists generated from these sources were then narrowed down to the important management and operations topics. It was determined that substitutes in the library would need the information to manage the library, utilize the checkout system and enforce library policies, therefore those sections are in the front of the manual. Those policies that are part of the Selah School District Board Policies …

Essentials Of Language Testing For Malaysian Teachers, Arshad Abd Samad

Arshad Abd Samad

This is a chapter from a book on language testing that was written to address the need to use tests to not only measure language output or product alone but also to utilize tests as an impetus to language learning. This book is intended as a bridge between the more traditional concepts of testing and measurement in teaching English as a Second Language to one that is more contemporary and compatible with modern views of language learning and education.

Imagining Alternativas To Global, Corporate, New Economy Academic Capitalism, Gary Rhoades, Alma Maldonado-Maldonado, Imanol Ordorika, Martín Velásquez

Imanol Ordorika

In this article, the authors detail the conditions and patterns of academic capitalism and the new economy in US higher education. Subsequently, a conceptual model is offered for considering the international reach and national and local patterns of academic capitalism. Further, a distinctive Mexican case of entrepreneurialism is offered. The article concludes with a discussion of alternatives for a model of a universidad latinoamericana that is grounded in the historical role of Latin American universities.

La Academia En Jaque: Perspectivas Políticas Sobre La Evaluación De La Educación Superior En México, Imanol Ordorika

Imanol Ordorika

No abstract provided.