Education Commons^™

Research Brief: "A Call To Duty: Educational Policy And School Reform Addressing The Needs Of Children From Military Families", Institute For Veterans And Military Families At Syracuse University

Institute for Veterans and Military Families

The purpose of this study was to identify the unique circumstantial stressors faced by military children and identify what type of educational support can be provided through implementation of supportive educational policies. Further research is necessary for the sustainability of proposed practice and policy.

2012 Northwest Arkansas Report Card, Gary Ritter

Education Report Card

No abstract provided.

Educational Adequacy In Arkansas: Facilities, Reed Greenwood

Arkansas Education Reports

Public school facilities funding was approached somewhat differently from the remainder of the work on public schools resulting from Lake View. A primary concern regarding school facilities was the lack of a comprehensive assessment of some 1200 schools in the state in over 250 independent public school districts. Early in the process, the General Assembly created the Joint Committee on Education Facilities in April 2003. This report covers the work of this Committee from the process of assessment through the reports of the Arkansas Division of Public School Academic Facilities & Transportation, a unit of the Arkansas Department of Education, …

Outstanding Educational Performance Awards: Highlighting High-Achieving Arkansas Schools, 2012, Sarah M. Burks, Caleb P. Rose, Gary W. Ritter

Arkansas Education Reports

No abstract provided.

Educational Adequacy In Arkansas: Funding, Reed Greenwood

Arkansas Education Reports

The public education system in Arkansas has undergone a significant transformation during the past ten years. This has come about as a result of several factors including the passage and implementation of federal legislation known as the No Child Left Behind Act, the ruling by the Arkansas Supreme Court in the Lake View case, and the legislation and executive decisions resulting from the efforts to create an equitable and adequate system of public education in the state.

2011-12 Arkansas Open-Enrollment Charter School Test Results, Reed Greenwood, Gary W. Ritter

Policy Briefs

Charter schools are receiving more attention in Arkansas and across the nation, as the number of these public schools of choice in Arkansas fluctuates each year. Some charters have been closed, while new ones have been opened. Further, in many media outlets, charter schools are often lumped together as one entity. However, ‘charter school’ is not a blanket term. They are separate schools run under separate charter documents with different operators. In Arkansas, there are two types of charter schools: conversion charter schools and openenrollment charter schools. Conversion charter schools are governed by the leadership in the district in which …

La Educacion Chilena: ¿Derecho Humano O Bien De Consumo?, Simone Nicole Henry

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

El tema de este proyecto es el sistema educativo chileno, en términos de los Derechos Humanos y, particularmente, el derecho a la educación del niño. Se busca información sobre el sistema educativo chileno por su historia, su evolución, sus métodos actuales, sus fortaleces y sus debilidades para encontrar el origen de la desigualdad profunda que el sistema sufre y también perpetua. Para obtener esa información, se usaron fuentes primarias y secundarias además de entrevistas de varias personas que participan, directamente o indirectamente, en la educación chilena primaria. Aunque la educación superior en Chile es también un desafío actual, como un …

Actores Secundarios En El Movimiento Estudiantil Chileno En 2011 Y 2012: Un Análisis Comparativo De La Asamblea Coordinadora De Estudiantes Secundarios Y La Coordinadora Nacional De Estudiantes Secundarios., Carly Brook

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The Chilean student movement, intermittently present in Chile since the beginning of the 20th Through the conduction of personal interviews, utilization of student proposals for a new system of education, occupation of the concepts of social movements of Alain Touraine and concepts of student movements of Manuel Garretón, revision of current news sources, and participant observation, this investigation concludes the dynamic between the ACES and the CONES to be an antagonistic one characteristic of two social actors in competition over control of the definition of the same social resource, a new education system for Chile. It then identifies this antagonism …

What Do Schools Look For In Prospective Teacher? An Analysis Of Teacher Application Data, James V. Shuls, Sarah M. Burks, Gary W. Ritter

Arkansas Education Reports

Across Arkansas, it is safe to say that districts are interested in hiring the best teachers; but how do district leaders attempt to recruit and hire the most effective teachers? How do district leaders attempt to identify which teacher candidates will be the most effective? Recently, a number of school districts have an even greater reason for their new hires to be excellent teachers, because these districts have schools that have been labeled as focus or priority schools, resulting from poor academic performance.

Houston, We Have A…Solution?, Reed Greenwood, Gary W. Ritter

Policy Briefs

The Arkansas Department of Education recently released the list of the lowest performing schools in Arkansas—labeled as focus and priority schools. Now that these schools have been singled out, they will be subjected to heavy intervention. Educators and policymakers all over Arkansas have their eyes on these schools and are asking - what's next? How do we turn around lower performing schools? What works? In this policy brief, we outline one particular program—the Apollo 20 program—that is working to turnaround achievement in lower performing schools. Early results show gains comparable with prominent charter schools in the nation, but some criticize …

Common Core State Standards In Arkansas, Caleb P. Rose, Gary W. Ritter

Policy Briefs

In July 2010, the Arkansas Board of Education adopted the Common Core State Standards and the PARCC Assessment program. The Arkansas Department of Education (ADE) then created a strategic plan and a timeline for the implementation of the standards. The new standards were implemented in Arkansas K-2 classrooms this past school year, 2011-12. During this current school year, 2012-13, the standards are being implemented in grades 3-8.

Arkansas’ Esea Waiver Approval Update, Caleb P. Rose, Gary W. Ritter

Policy Briefs

On June 29th, 2012, the US Department of Education announced that it had approved Arkansas’s ESEA waiver request. On July 4th, the Arkansas Department of Education (ADE) announced it had identified 48 Priority and 110 Focus schools. Priority and Focus schools are the new names for the two lowest-rated school performance categories; schools and districts in these categories are subject to ADE intervention. This policy brief explains the major differences between the accountability system under No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and the new revised system.

2011-2012 Arkansas Test Results, Reed Greenwood, Gary W. Ritter

Policy Briefs

On Monday, July 30, the Arkansas Department of Education (ADE) released the 2011-2012 test score results. The following brief will highlight the results of these tests, compare achievement scores over time, and provide a glimpse of regional achievement results for the following exams:  Benchmark Exam (Grades 3-8)  End-of-Course Exam (Algebra I, Geometry, Biology, and Grade 11 Literacy).  Iowa Test of Basic Skills (Grades 1-9)

Parent And Family Engagement: The Missing Piece In Urban Education Reform, Sonya D. Horsford, Tonia Faye Holmes-Sutton

Lincy Institute Reports and Briefs

Parent and family engagement in the educational lives of children and youth positively influence student learning and achievement. While this connection may seem obvious, varying ideals of parent engagement limit the ways in which school communities understand, encourage, and benefit from meaningful school‐home‐community interactions. This is frequently the case in culturally diverse, urban communities where education reform has focused heavily on high‐stakes testing, teacher accountability, and school choice, but less on the fragile connections that often exist between schools and the families they serve. The purpose of this policy brief is to review selected research on parent involvement and expand …

Traditional And Charter School Funding In Arkansas, Reed Greenwood, Gary W. Ritter

Policy Briefs

Charter schools, once considered an anomaly, are becoming increasingly common in the U.S. There are concerns among some education stakeholders that charter schools pull funding away from traditional public schools, since a large portion of education funds follow the student to the charter school. Conversely, some argue that there are funding inequities that favor public schools. These individuals claim that since charter schools are public schools, the funds allocated to them should be the equivalent of that received by the traditional public schools. This brief examines funding of traditional and charter schools in Arkansas

2012 Multicultural Development Plan, Illinois Mathematics And Science Academy

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: Resources

The affirmation, appreciation, and inclusion of multiple cultures is vital to ensure that all students, faculty, and staff and the IMSA community will be able to thrive in a multicultural academic and residential environment. From this perspective it is important that community members be effective at interacting across cultures, which is essential to IMSA’s vision of “ igniting and nurturing creative, ethical scientific minds that advance the human condition”. The multiple cultures that make up the IMSA community include individual characteristics that contribute to personal identity such as race, ethnicity, geographic origin, gender, socioeconomic status, religion, age, sexual orientation, and …

Understanding Resistance To Standardization In Education: The Tragedy Of The Commons As A Theoretical Framework, Grinell Smith, Colette Rabin

Faculty Publications

The purpose of this paper is to articulate how a theory, developed in 1968 by Garrett Hardin to describe how shared resources, or “commons” can become depleted, also elucidates the mechanism by which standardization of educational outcomes and assessment have come to dominate current education discourse. We then present results of a case study of a school struggling to succeed within a context of a district’s hyper-focus on standardized measures of success, and employ the theory to illustrate its usefulness to explain what we found at the school site. We believe this theoretical framework provides interesting perspectives on current trends …

Identifying Success In Schools And Programs For English Language Learners In Boston Public Schools, Miren Uriarte, Michael Berardino, Jie Chen, Virginia Diez, Faye Karp, Sarah Rustan, Rosann Tung, Laurie Gagnon, Pamela Stazesky, Eileen De Los Reyes, Antonieta Bolomey, Gaston Institute, University Of Massachusetts Boston

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

The Gastón Institute collaborates with government agencies, community organizations and foundations in applied research aimed at evaluating the impact of policies, programs and practices. This poster describes a three-way collaboration among researchers and practitioners from Boston Public Schools (BPS), the Gastón Institute and the Center for Collaborative Education (CCE) which yielded two comprehensive studies: 1. The enrollment and outcomes of English language learners in BPS; 2. Best ELL practices in four schools that were consistently high performing or steadily improving with respect to ELL student outcomes.

Ready For School, Ready For Life: The Increasing Significance Of Early Childhood Education And School Readiness In Nevada, Sonya D. Horsford

Lincy Institute Reports and Briefs

School readiness continues to be an area of growing concern in education and public policy circles. The notion that “all children should arrive at school ready for the first day” has important implications not only for parents, early childhood educators, and K‐12 schoolteachers, but also policymakers, business owners, and our local and state economies. The purpose of this policy brief is to define school readiness, present the most recent conceptualization of school readiness in the state of Nevada, and consider the challenges inherent in building bridges between the separate and distinct domains of early childhood and K‐12 education. The brief …

Bridging The Gap: Transitioning Information Literacy Skills For Student Success, Jennifer L. Fabbi, David Forgues

Library Faculty Presentations

Context: UNLV, University Undergraduate Learning Outcomes, Inquiry & Critical Thinking, Information Literacy, iSkills Assessment

Analyzing The 2011 Naep Results: Where Does Arkansas Stand Now?, Misty Newcomb, Gary Ritter

Arkansas Education Reports

State education policymakers in Arkansas, and in all states around the country, take great interest in the state assessment scores published each year and are pleased when they are able to present positive results. This has certainly been the case in Arkansas with the annual publication of the results of student performance on the state Benchmark exams. While the state exams provide useful information that allow policymakers to compare schools and districts within Arkansas, they do not allow policymakers to assess the performance of Arkansas students relative to other students in the nation.

Arkansas’ Plan For Accountability And Achievement: Analyzing The Esea Waiver Request, Misty Newcomb, Greg Michel

Policy Briefs

In October 2011, President Obama developed rules for states to individually develop requests for waivers to the accountability requirements of No Child Left Behind. This week, the Arkansas Department of Education (ADE) submitted the plan for the state of Arkansas’ request for waivers.

Review Of Overcoming The Governance Challenge In K-12 Online Learning, Michael K. Barbour

Education Faculty Publications

Review by Michael K. Barbour.

Chubb, John E. Overcoming the Governance Challenge in K-12 Online Learning. Washington, DC: Thomas B. Fordham Institute, 2012.

This fifth and final paper in the Fordham Institute’s series examining digital learning policy is Overcoming the Governance Challenge in K-12 Online Learning. The purpose of this report is to outline the steps required to move the governance of K-12 online learning from the local district level to the less restrictive state level and to create a free market for corporate innovation in K-12 online learning. Unfortunately, the report is based on an unsupported premise …

Bridging The Information Literacy Gap: First-Year Students Reflect For Success, Jennifer L. Fabbi, Dan Gianoutsos, David Forgues

Library Faculty Presentations

UNLV Context

• Fall 2011: 22,138 undergraduate students; 72% were fulltime; 5135 freshmen with a 76.4% first-yr retention rate (2010 to 2011); 40.6% six-year graduation rate

• Budget-induced movement to large-enrollment classes – Program eliminations and consolidations underway

• General Education Reform developments – Articulation of University Undergraduate Learning Outcomes, especially Inquiry and Critical Thinking – New general education requirements extending vertically throughout the curriculum

• Focus on enhancing the first-year experience for incoming students

Quality Counts 2012, Misty Newcomb, Gary W. Ritter

Policy Briefs

In an attempt to gauge the educational progress of the nation and each state, Education Week has published state report cards since 1997 in its annual Quality Counts series. The 16th annual report - Quality Counts 2012 - was released in January. Overall, Arkansas ranked 5th among the 50 states and was one of only nine states in the U.S. that received a B. This policy brief examines Arkansas’ rank in each category of the report as well as the quality of the report itself.

Gender, Culture And Intervention: Exploring Differences Between Aboriginal And Non-Aboriginal Children’S Responses To An Early Intervention Programme, Gary W. Robinson, William B. Tyler, Sven R. Silburn, Stephen R. Zubrick

Aboriginal Policy Research Consortium International (APRCi)

Evaluation of a group parenting programme in the Northern Territory of Australia showed significant differences in benefits for Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal boys and girls. The analysis considers whether boys and girls from different cultural backgrounds present with different problems; whether parental expectations for boys and girls differ and whether the intervention activates different responses in different settings. Conclusions suggest that there is a need to closely examine the ‘cultural logic’ of interventions, the appropriateness of their assumptions about child development and hypothesised mechanisms of change in different settings.

More Efficient Public Schools In Maine: Learning Communities Building The Foundation Of Intellectual Work, David L. Silvernail Phd, Erika K. Stump Phd, Richard E. Barnes, Kenneth E. Kunin, Sarah E. Wintle

School Improvement

This report describes the methodology used to identify Maine schools that were outperforming expectations and reports the results from conducting case studies of a representative sample of these and other Maine schools. Through these case studies, we were able to uncover what the schools were doing that set them apart from other schools and what other schools may wish to emulate as they work to build the foundation for improvement within their own schools.

Hitch Your Wagon To Institutional Goals, Anne E. Zald, Michelle Millet

Library Faculty Publications

The landscape of accreditation and accountability in higher education is in a period of rapid change, coalescing around issues identified in the 2006 report of the Spellings Commission, “A Test of Leadership: Charting the Future of U.S. Higher Education.” Information literacy librarians need to connect their instructional efforts to the institutional strategies and initiatives that address continuous improvement whatever their source, e.g. accreditation agencies, funding bodies such as state legislatures, institutional participation in the Voluntary System of Accountability (VSA), University & College Accountability Network (U-CAN), or internal initiatives of the institution’s administration. The challenge for instruction librarians is great, requiring …

Working With Parents In Early Years Services, Anne Fitzpatrick

Books/Book Chapters

No abstract provided.

Education Policy Borrowing In Pakistan: Public-Private Partnerships, Sajid Ali

Book Chapters / Conference Papers

No abstract provided.