Education Commons^™

A Critical Look At Women's Role In Physical Education And Sport In The 1930s, Mark Ellner

Educational Considerations

This historical research focuses on the role of women in physical education and sport during the 1930s. The purpose is to explore the trends that led to a vast difference between men’s and women’s roles and expectations in physical education and sport during this time period. To engage in effective research of this societal difference, a Feminist Theoretical Framework was employed to analyze primary and secondary sources related to physical education and sports during the 1930s.

The research reveals that while sports and physical education became an increasing part of life in the United States during the 1930s, women’s roles …

Experience Informed Philosophy, Tegan W. Nusser

Educational Considerations

John Dewey's philosophy of education did not arise in a vacuum. Much as Dewey himself would have recognized, his experiences shaped his philosophy. The experiences described include Dewey's time as a boy in Burlington, Vermont; his graduate education at Johns Hopkins University, and his first academic post at the University of Michigan; concluding with his time at the University of Chicago with his famous laboratory school. Following each narrative, Dewey's experiences are connected with and compared to his landmark publication Democracy and Education. Special consideration to the alignment of theory and practice helps to guide interpretation of his experiences with …

Turning White: Co-Opting A Profession Through The Myth Of Progress, An Intersectional Historical Perspective Of Brown V. Board Of Education, Jennifer L. Martin, Jennifer N. Brooks

Educational Considerations

The U.S. is currently experiencing a teacher shortage. Many school districts have been impacted by this issue and want to know: how do we recruit more qualified candidates into the profession, and, more importantly, how do we recruit more Teachers of Color? We may be experiencing a shortage of teachers in general, but there has been a paucity of Teachers of Color, particularly Black teachers, for decades. Looking back to the Brown v. Board decision (1954) to integrate public schools, thousands of Black teachers were pushed out of their jobs in various ways. In this article, we examine how this …

Understanding The Perpetuation Of Inequalities In Brazilian K-12 Public And Private Schools From A Historical Perspective, Ana Lucia Mendonca

Educational Considerations

Brazilian education has specific cultural and regional traits that infuse the school settings and vast inequalities that go beyond cultural and socioeconomic levels. All that contributed to creating two different school settings: the private and the public. The purpose of this article is to understand from a historical perspective how policies and laws were developed throughout different political periods and how they contributed to the formation of the educational setting in Brazil.

The Quest For Education: Racism, Paradox, And Interest Convergence In The Life Of George Washington Carver, Ron Wilson, Kay Ann Taylor

Educational Considerations

George Washington Carver is known primarily for his life and work at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. This historical research provides insight prior to that time and into his journey from Missouri to several towns in Kansas, and then to Iowa. The intersection of race, education, and philanthropy combined to guide the culmination of his life’s work—in concert with interest convergence.

A Critical Historical Examination Of Tracking As A Method For Maintaining Racial Segregation, Todd Mccardle

Educational Considerations

Using a Critical Race Theory framework, this manuscript examines the scholarly literature on the intersection of tracking and its historical use as a method for establishing and maintaining racial segregation in American public schools. I begin by exploring accounts of tracking in American public educational institutions as researched by historians of education. Then, I examine contemporary manifestations of tracking in American public schools beginning in the 20^th century by sociologists of education. Within the discussion of contemporary tracking, I explore the use of tracking through magnet schools in order to circumvent federal legislation aimed at desegregating American public schools. …

Vanessa Siddle Walker: Honoring Keepers Of Knowledge By Using Their Stories To Improve Education, Melissa Holmes, Eileen Wertzberger, Kay Ann Taylor, Lori Goodson

Educational Considerations

Dr. Vanessa Siddle Walker, a renowned historical researcher in the field of education, is a leading voice in the history of school desegregation in the United States. In this interview, she discusses positioning black educators as significant agents of change in the collective narrative of schools and highlights how their organized action and strategic advocacy has led to social justice and equity for black students. Her research informs how our schools have worked in the past, and how lessons from our past can serve to mobilize resources for the equitable education of all children today.

Losing As And Fs: What Works For Schools Implementing Standards-Based Grading?, Matt Townsley, Tom Buckmiller

Educational Considerations

Learning goals such as the Common Core State Standards are helping educational leaders to better understand the critical role assessment and grading plays in the teaching and learning process. In response to the growing body of empirical research on the topic of accurate grading practices, a number of schools are moving away from letter grades and adopting standards-based grading which separately report learning goals from work habits. The purpose of this essay is to document what works when K-12 schools implement standards-based grading through a deep dive into related literature and to suggest areas for future consideration. With this improvement …

Self-Acceptance Of Adolescent Latino Students With Disabilities, Diane Rodríguez, Kenneth J. Luterbach, Sara B. Woolf, Sabino Peralta Rivera

Educational Considerations

This study examines the relationship of 165 adolescent students who self-identity as Latino and have been identified as having a disability. The participants completed the Perceived Stigma in People with Disabilities (PSPID) and Short Acculturation Scale for Hispanics (SASH) questionnaires to examine factors that may affect the academic engagement of adolescent Latino students with disabilities. The researchers investigated self-acceptance as a factor that may positively predict the academic engagement of adolescent Latino students with disabilities

Teaching Beliefs And Their Relationship To Professional Development In Special Education Teachers, Jennifer Francois

Educational Considerations

Access to high-quality, meaningful professional development (PD) for in-service teachers around inclusive practices is an important element that has the potential to influence change in classroom practice and student outcomes. This is particularly important for children with identified disabilities. Previous research has identified that a teacher’s self-efficacy impacts the adoption of PD and subsequent implementation of new educational strategies. In addition, teacher beliefs about their own teaching ability (i.e., self-efficacy) has been shown to be related to motivation and the willingness to seek out PD experiences. The current study investigates the relationship of PD and teaching self-efficacy for inclusive practices. …

The Importance Of Planning Intellectually Challenging Tasks, Ali Althuwaybi

Educational Considerations

Since the emergence of the 21st century, advances in information, communication, and technology are changing teaching and learning in numerous ways. Today, teachers are essential for this momentum shift. The identification and design of appropriate and effective instructional tasks and applying them in the classroom will affect teaching and learning. However, this goes beyond offering curriculum and teaching materials to educators. Teachers should be able to stimulate passive curriculum materials and transform them into intriguing instructional tasks if they can specify resources, processes, and outcomes. Current literature underscores the need to support teachers in engaging in operational planning activities that …

Collaborative Autonomy: Exploring The Professional Freedom Of Three Science Teachers, Michael Ralph, Darian Robbins, Stephen Young, Laurence Woodruff

Educational Considerations

Education reform efforts must support and protect professional autonomy for classroom teachers. When policymakers attempt to make systemic change in ways that reduce the professional autonomy of educators, student learning suffers. Teachers need the freedom to identify their professional goals, seek resources and collaboration opportunities in pursuit of those goals, and act on feedback regarding their progress in meeting those goals. We present three stories from teachers who share a department engaged in collaborative autonomy. These accounts provide guidance for how professional autonomy can be defended by those pursuing systemic change.

'We’Re Like Family And Stuff Like That': Relationships In After-School Programs, Alan English

Educational Considerations

After-school programs have been demonstrated or theorized to be associated with a wide variety of positive youth outcomes and have become a more widely-accepted aspect of the greater educational system. One of the most commonly-cited vehicles for these positive outcomes is relationships developed within the after-school program. This paper investigated youth perception of after-school program relationships through a phenomenological case study. Analysis of interview, observation, and artifact data indicated the potential for the individual positionalities with which youth approach involvement in after-school program relationships to dramatically impact youth outcomes. Consequentially, these individual positionalities need to be considered when developing conceptualizations …

Editorial Board

Educational Considerations

Editorial Board

Redesign Resiliency During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Jay Scott

Educational Considerations

Voices from a state-wide school redesign initiative share their challenges and successes during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Kansans Can: Redesigning Schools, Brad Neuenswander

Educational Considerations

Kansas, like many states that are coming off of an era of accountability under the federal No Child Left Behind requirements, is looking at more meaningful ways to value and measure student success. We have asked ourselves questions such as: are we focusing on the right measures; is our accountability system aligned to our educational priorities and values; or is it the educational system itself that needs to change in order to produce a more meaningful set of outcomes? These are questions that need answers before any educational reform initiatives can be addressed. The Kansas State Department of Education leadership, …

Kansans Can: Redesign Professional Learning And Re-Licensure, Paul Erickson

Educational Considerations

Professional learning is and always has been a core expectation for educators. Educators, whether they are self-directed as intrinsically motivated learners or compliantly fulfilling requirements set by their employing districts and state departments, engage in professional learning throughout their careers. While educators engage in traditional means of professional learning in the form of workshops, conferences, mentoring, and graduate coursework, this study centered on educators’ professional learning efforts that are more informal and more personalized to their specific interests and passions. This professional learning often comes in the nonconventional forms of social media, professional learning networks, peer observations, and professional units …

School And Community Relations In The Kansans Can School Redesign Project, Tamra Mitchell

Educational Considerations

Since July of 2017, approximately 72 Kansas school districts and approximately 183 schools have volunteered to redesign their schools around four redesign principles as part of the Kansans Can School Redesign Project. The earliest cohort of volunteer schools were led by the two redesign specialists through a planning process that included engaging community stakeholders in developing a shared vision for their redesigned and innovative school. Many of the earliest launch schools proved to be very successful in engaging stakeholders to collect authentic feedback early in the process. However, some school districts were surprised by pushback from stakeholders early in the …

Case Study: Career Pathways In Rural Kansas Redesign Schools, Audrey Herbst

Educational Considerations

A country's productivity and economic competitiveness relies upon education, specifically postsecondary training which is fundamental to students' upward mobility in a thriving and progressive economic culture (Haunshek & Woessmann, 2012; Bailey, Jaggars, & Jenkins, 2015). In order to maintain the economic stability of the United States for future generations to come, job qualifications will require that at least 71% of careers in the 21st century be accompanied by a vocational certificate or licensure, associate’s degree, or bachelor’s degree by the year 2020 (Lindsay, J., Davis, E., Stephan, J., Bonsu, P., & Narlock, J., 2016). Despite several years of state and …

Redesign: A Case Study Of Change In A Kansas School District, Fred Van Ranken, Lori Goodson

Educational Considerations

USD 240 Twin Valley School District, consisting of Bennington Grade School and Bennington Junior High/High School in Bennington and Tescott Grade School and Tescott Junior High/High School, was one of seven districts initially selected in August 2017 as part of the first cohort of Kansas State Department of Education's Kansas Can School Redesign Project. This article shares the journey, told by the superintendent and a researcher, of USD 240 as part of the ongoing program which now involves multiple cohorts of districts developing their own pathways toward improvement.

Individual Personalized Learning, Judy Hughey

Educational Considerations

What is personalized learning? Our ancestors reveled in personalized learning, orally sharing stories of family and community history. Certainly, it could be said that the oral histories shared within families might not always be entirely accurate; perhaps they were revised year-to-year or revised due to memory issues. However, the criteria of relevancy and meaningfulness that made the personalization of the oral sharing of family history successful are what makes personalized learning successful today.

Kansans Can: Redesigning Education In Kansas, Randy Watson

Educational Considerations

In fall 2014, the Kansas State Board of Education charged me with gathering information from Kansans as to what they wanted in their school system. After months of studying the research conducted from listening tours and matching that data to current educational research, the State Board of Education launched a new vision for education in October 2015.

This vision had clear metrics for success – Lead the World. Those metrics were all focused on a single point of obtainment – the Success of Each Student. The vision was clear, difficult to achieve, compelling and viewed attainable by 2026. In fall …

Leadership During Change, Mischel Miller

Educational Considerations

The national education system, similar to the Kansas education system, has seen little change since the 1800s(Throckmorton, 1967). In fact, over 50 years later, there have been few changes. Children come to school around the age of five to enter kindergarten and then move through the current system by age and grade level. These children sit in rows, are addressed by the expert teacher, are given information, and are expected to memorize and regurgitate the material in a standardized testing process. Schools in Kansas predominately open their doors in August and close in May (KSDE, 2018), perpetuating the long history …

Making The Case For An English Academy: Reflections On An Ongoing Endeavor, Geoff Bender

Educational Considerations

This article makes a case for the academy as a site for meaningful school-university dialogue in order to strengthen rapport across stakeholders in the teacher education process while generating crucial data for a teacher education program’s continuous improvement. Similar in some ways to its cousins, including the leadership academy and the professional development school, the academy model described here is distinguished from these related structures in its diverging purposes. While invested in bringing new professionals into the field, the English Academy keeps its linked teacher education program abreast of trends in public education that help shape that program’s work in …

The Relationship Between Pre-Service Training And Teaching Self-Efficacy For Inclusive Practices, Jennifer Francois

Educational Considerations

Pre-service programming is instrumental in providing skills to teachers that builds positive teaching self-efficacy. This becomes increasingly important for those teachers who are hired to work in inclusive settings. Directives by the Division for Early Childhood and the Individuals for Disabilities Act have outlined content areas that teachers working in special education settings should have knowledge of and are comfortable in implementing (Division of Early Childhood 2014; United States Department of Education 2017). Many teachers, however, continue to come away from pre-service experiences without these skills (Lewis et al. 1999). Institutions continue to struggle with the integration of course content …

A Case Study Of Teacher Turnover And Retention In An Urban Elementary School, Barry Kamrath, Kim Bradford

Educational Considerations

This mixed methods study examined the phenomenon of teacher turnover in one high poverty urban elementary school to determine common characteristics of teachers who remained long-term (> 5 years), as well as factors that contributed to teachers’ decisions to leave before reaching their sixth year. The study included structured interviews with long-term teachers and surveys of short-term teachers. Qualitative data were analyzed through constant-comparative analysis to determine emergent themes; whereas, quantitative data provided triangulation of interview data as well as the formalizing of comparisons. Long-term teachers had built deep connections to the school, its students, and the community, despite the …

What Does A Successful 24 Year Old Look Like?: Reflections From The State Board Of Education, Jim Porter

Educational Considerations

“What does a successful 24 year old look like?” This is a critical question that must be successfully addressed if Kansas is to “Lead the World in the Success of EACH Student.”

For many decades we have attempted to fit the student in to the system and many students have been successful, however, many have not. What would happen if the system were built around the individual student? What would happen if student’s interests, passions and talents were controlling when determining the best educational plan for each student?

By developing Individual Plans of Study based on student interests, abilities and …

Designing Behavioral Interventions That Work: The Triple T – Triple R Competing Pathways Model, Karen L. Gischlar, Laura A. Riffel

Educational Considerations

Increasing numbers of children are entering our nation’s schools with mental or behavioral health problems. Although many of these children are included in general education programs, teachers report feeling under- or unprepared to manage problematic behaviors. This is not surprising given that reviews of teacher training programs have evidenced limited coursework in classroom management. Within this paper, we present a framework, the Triple T – Triple R Competing Pathways Model, that is grounded in the tenets of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA). ABA has decades of empirical evidence to support its use in the classroom. Triple T – Triple R simplifies …

Our Moonshot: Dighton Public Schools, Kelly Arnberger

Educational Considerations

“Through redesign you have the opportunity do whatever you choose to do to make your school reflect the needs and desires of your community. I believe our public-school teachers can do the great things we keep hearing private and charter schools do if we would just let them.” Randy Watson said something to that effect at Dighton in January, 2017. We would now have permission to make our school reflect the true mission, vision, and values of our community without constraint. Sounds great! At least many of us in attendance listening to Dr. Watson that day thought so. We chose …

Post-Pandemic To Post-Secondary Success, John Heim

Educational Considerations

Ten years ago, the Kansas Association of School Boards Board of Directors authorized a statewide research project to determine how Kansans felt about their public schools. Local boards were encouraged to bring their communities together and ask them some basic questions about what they like and dislike about education in Kansas. One hundred districts ranging in size from Blue Valley to Republic County facilitated community meetings. Over 1,000 Kansans participated and the most commonly reported concern reported was that there was too much emphasis on testing.

With the new “Kansans Can” vision, local districts were asked to look beyond indicators …