Educational Leadership Commons^™

Components Of Effective Teacher Induction Programs And The Impact Of Experienced Mentors, Craig P. Mcbride

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Based on data from the 2007-08 Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS), 2008-09 Teacher Follow-up Survey (TFS) and 2009-10 Beginning Teacher Longitudinal Study (BTLS) datasets, this study examined a prediction model for new teacher retention that combined variables from both the presence of induction program components and mentoring traits. New teacher retention was selected as an important criterion because attrition causes a large financial burden on already budget-limited districts, and teacher turnover impacts teacher effectiveness and student learning. Results of a logistic regression analysis indicated that the presence of an induction program (W1T0220), the presence of a mentor (W2MNTYN), the use …

Perceived Impact Of Quality In A 21st Century Community Learning Center Out-Of-School Time Program: A Case Study, Patricia Ann Wright

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Concern for the safety, education and well-being of children during out-of-school time is helping to change the landscape and priorities of families, educators and policy-makers. Changes in family structure and society have presented the need for quality out-of-school time programs. The changing family structure caused by both parents working outside the home, the advent of the single-parent household, the necessity of federally mandated standardized testing for student achievement, certain criminal activities and the expanding population of children have contributed to the question of how to protect children and enrich their lives during out-of-school time hours. The purpose of this intrinsic …

Factors Influencing The Improved Academic Success In Literacy At The Knowledge Is Educatpower Program School In The Delta Region According To Administrator, Teacher, And Student Perceptions: Case Study, Kimberly Jonetta Brown

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to explore the factors that have influenced the literacy success of the Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP) students in the low-income, poverty stricken Delta Region of a mid-south state. The study examined the progress made since the implementation of the KIPP Program and the influence the program has made upon student achievement in literacy, at the KIPP Middle and High Schools, according to administrator, teacher, and student perceptions. The study explored what factors are influencing the improvement of previously at-risk students. The study adopted the research of Gene Bottoms' High Schools that Work Initiative …

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.

Outstanding Educational Performance Awards: Highlighting High Achieving Arkansas Schools, 2011, Alexandra Boyd, Greg Michel, Misty Newcomb, Gary Ritter

Arkansas Education Reports

So, in this Arkansas Education Report (AER) we aim to highlight excellent performance and give our congratulations. To that end, we are happy to highlight many high performing schools around the state in our now-annual AER entitled the Outstanding Educational Performance Awards.

The Effects Of Scheduling On Criterion-Referenced Assessments In Arkansas High Schools, Sheila Marie Trinkle

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to examine the differences in achievement on the end of course assessment in Geometry and the Grade 11 Literacy exam administered to students in Arkansas during the 2005-2006 and 2006-2007 school years. The three main types of scheduling are the traditional schedule with seven or eight periods; the A/B, or the alternating block; and the 4 x 4, or accelerated block. The traditional was utilized by 90% of schools in Arkansas during this time frame. The A/B block and 4 x 4 block were used almost equally, each representing approximately 5% of Arkansas schools. …

A Multiple Case Study Of Principals' Instructional Leadership In "Level 5" Schools Of Excellence For Improvement, Janice V. Mccoy

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

After 28 years of federal and state policy development, regional and local initiatives and various budgetary appropriations, the status of American schools continues to decline. Lyne (2001) reported that Finland, Japan and Korea had the world's highest literacy in reading, math, and science, while the United States ranked 15 in reading literacy, 19 in mathematical literacy, and 14 in scientific literacy. Many factors may contribute to the decline in America's schools. However, with the prevailing economic decline in the United States schools continue to struggle with student achievement, especially students with who are low socio-economic. In addition, to meeting the …

Boot Camps And Science Camps: Comparing The Kipp And Harmony Charter School Networks, Robert Maranto

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

The Obama administration has encouraged "high quality" charter school networks to improve the achievement of disadvantaged students, viewing this as a struggle for civil rights (Maranto and McShane 2011; Paige and Witty 2010). The best known of these is the 109 campus strong Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP), which started in Houston in 1994. KIPP now serves 32,000 students in 20 states and the District of Columbia, more than 90% African American or Latino/a, and more than 80% low income (KIPP Foundation 2011). Journalists (Mathews 2009; Guggenheim 2010) and scholars (Thernstrom and Thernstrom 2003; Maranto and Maranto 2006; Macey et …

Understanding How Institutional Leadership Affects Civic Engagement On University Campuses, Prairie Leigh Burgess

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Higher education in America has a long tradition of civic engagement education. Although there is theoretical and rhetorical support, many institutions still struggle with implementing effective civic engagement on their campuses. The aim of this study was to provide an understanding of factors that contribute to successful civic engagement, specifically focusing on the affect of presidential leadership. The study used a limited sample of two groups to provide comparative analysis and offer much needed statistical research for civic engagement. Institutions were identified through the organization Campus Compact and the Carnegie Foundation's elective Community Engagement classification. Institutions that had joined Campus …

Family Labor Participation And Child Care Decisions: The Role Of Grannies, Gema Zamarro

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

One of the most significant long term trends in the labor market in most OECD countries has been the increase in the proportion of working mothers. However, not all countries show the same pattern. Countries in Southern Europe (Italy, Greece and Spain) show an average participation rate of about 45% whereas the participation rates in Northern countries (Denmark, Sweden) are around 75%. The characteristics of child care systems also differ significantly across OECD countries. This along with the characteristics of the labor market may have led families to get the necessary social services in an alternative way, i.e. through grandmothers. …

Climbing The Ladder: The Experiences Of Women Senior Leaders In Southern Baptist Colleges And Universities, Allison Barritt Langford

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this interview study was to explore the career pathways, barriers, and keys to success experienced by women senior administrators in Southern Baptist colleges and universities. The researcher conducted an interview study with both open-ended and closed survey questions. The interviews primarily involved open-ended questions without response options and were conducted via the telephone. The researcher targeted the population of 42 women senior-level administrators. From this population, 20 women participated in the study. The researcher interviewed the 20 participants and collected a vita for 16 of the 20 women in the sample. Interviews were recorded and transcribed. Member …

Outstanding Educational Performance Awards: Highlighting High Achieving Arkansas Schools, 2010, James L. Woodworth, Jeffery R. Dean, James V. Shuls, Caleb P. Rose, Nathan C. Jensen, Gary W. Ritter

Arkansas Education Reports

So, in this Arkansas Education Report (AER) we aim to highlight excellent performance and give our congratulations. To that end, we are happy to highlight many high performing schools around the state in our now-annual AER entitled the Outstanding Educational Performance Awards.

Comprehensive Analysis Of Arkansas Teacher Salaries: State, Region, And District, James V. Shuls, Nathan C. Jensen

Arkansas Education Reports

School funding has been an area of contention in the courts of nearly every state. Many of these court cases have challenged the constitutionality of state funding formulas, arguing the funding system was inadequate or inequitable because poor urban or rural districts often faced a disadvantage in garnering tax dollars for education. Specific to Arkansas, in the 1983 decision Dupree v. Alma School District, the Arkansas Supreme Court declared the state’s funding system was not meeting its constitutional requirements.

Spotlights On Success: Traits And Strategies Of Five High-Growth Schools In Arkansas, Misty Newcomb, James L. Woodworth, Jeffery R. Dean, Caleb P. Rose, Gary W. Ritter

Arkansas Education Reports

Successful schools are those which best educate the students, regardless of background. They are not those with students who come in well-educated but show only slight improvement, nor are they schools which use the disadvantage as an excuse for continued low levels of achievement. Instead, successful schools are those which advance the learning of all their children beyond what is expected.

What Explains The Gender Gap In Financial Literacy? The Role Of Household Decision-Making, Raquel Fonseca, Kathleen J. Mullen, Gema Zamarro, Julie Zissimopoulos

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

Research has shown that financial illiteracy is widespread among women, and that many women are unfamiliar with even the most basic economic concepts needed to make saving and investment decisions. This gender gap in financial literacy may contribute to the differential levels of retirement preparedness between women and men. However, little is known about the determinants of the gender gap in financial literacy. Using data from the RAND American Life Panel, we examined potential explanations for the gender gap including the role of marriage and division of financial decision-making among couples. We found that differences in the demographic characteristics of …

Updated Analysis Of Racial Segregation In Pulaski County Charter And Traditional Public Schools, Nathan C. Jensen, Gary W. Ritter

Arkansas Education Reports

In September of 2009, the Office for Education Policy (OEP) released a report titled “An Analysis of Charter Schools on Desegregation Efforts in Little Rock, Arkansas.” In this report, we presented data from the 2005 to 2009 schools years for students who transferred to open-enrollment charter schools in Pulaski County from the Little Rock School District (LRSD). The aim of this report was to show what impacts – if any – these transfers were having on the desegregation efforts of the LRSD. The motivation for this report was an ongoing legal debate about how charter schools impact desegregation, in which …

Outstanding Educational Performance Awards: Highlighting Top Achieving Arkansas Schools, 2009, Bentley R. Kirkland, James V. Shuls, Caleb P. Rose, Nathan C. Jensen, Gary W. Ritter

Arkansas Education Reports

Since our founding in 2003, the mission of the Office for Education Policy has been to look at pressing issues through the lens of academic research and disseminate our findings to educators, policymakers, and other stakeholders around Arkansas. Every once in a while, however, we think it is okay to stray from issue analysis and simply share some good news! So, in this Arkansas Education Report (AER) we merely aim to highlight excellent performance and give our congratulations. To that end, we are happy to highlight the top performing schools around the state in an annual AER entitled the Outstanding …

An Analysis Of The Impact Of Charter Schools On Desegregation Efforts In Little Rock, Arkansas, Nathan C. Jensen, Gary W. Ritter

Arkansas Education Reports

The aim of this report is to address the challenge by the Little Rock School District (LRSD) that open-enrollment charter schools in Pulaski County (PC) are impeding the efforts of the three PC school districts (Little Rock, North Little Rock (NLRSD), and Pulaski County Special (PCSSD)) to become racially integrated. A key motivation for this analysis is the ongoing debate about how expanded school choice, in this case charter schools, impacts racial segregation. Critics of charter schools argue that these schools lead to greater racial segregation, whereas proponents of charter schools suggest that there is no necessary link between racial …

Bush’S Brain (No, Not Karl Rove): How Bush’S Psyche Shaped His Decision Making, Robert Maranto, Richard E. Redding

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

We will summarize the most systematic work on George W. Bush's psyche, stressing that leader personality traits should not be judged as good nor bad: Rather traits which match some situations mismatch others. SAT scores and other available measures indicate that Bush has sufficient intelligence to serve as president. Yet the best studies, in which raters evaluate statements without being aware of their source, suggest that Bush lacks integrative complexity and thus views issues without nuance (Thoemmes and Conway 2007). The leading personality theory (the “5-Factor Model”), as measured by the NEO Personality Inventory, suggests that Bush is highly extraverted …

Teacher Effectiveness In Urban High Schools, Richard Buddin, Gema Zamarro

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

This research examines whether teacher licensure test scores and other teacher qualifications affect high school student achievement. The results are based on longitudinal student-level data from Los Angeles. The achievement analysis uses a value-added approach that adjusts for both student and teacher fixed effects. The results show little relationship between traditional measures of teacher quality (e.g., experience and education level) and student achievement in English Language Arts (ELA) or math. Similarly, teacher aptitude and subject-matter knowledge, as measured on state licensure tests, have no significant effects on student achievement. Achievement outcomes differ substantially from teacher to teacher, however, and the …

Interview With Paul Gray: 2008 Arkansas Teacher Of The Year, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter

Policy Briefs

The 2008 Arkansas Teacher of the Year was Paul Gray of Russellville. Mr. Gray is a social studies teacher and department chairman at Russellville High School.

Teacher Qualifications And Middle School Student Achievement, Richard Buddin, Gema Zamarro

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

This research examines whether teacher licensure test scores and other teacher qualifications affect middle school student achievement. The results are based on longitudinal student-level data from Los Angeles. The achievement analysis uses a value-added approach that adjusts for both student and teacher fixed effects. The results show little relationship between traditional measures of teacher quality (e.g., experience and education level) and student achievement in reading or math. Similarly, licensure test scores in general aptitude, subject-matter knowledge, and reading pedagogy had no significant effects on student achievement. Teachers with elementary school credentials had slightly better success in the classroom than did …

Arra Spending On Education In Arkansas, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter

Policy Briefs

The U.S. Department of Education (US DOE) recently issued guidance to the state departments of education regarding how to appropriately spend the $102 billion set aside for education in the American Recovery Reinvestment Act (ARRA). The first payments of these funds were sent out to states inn March 2009.

Putting "Teaching To The Test" To The Test: Is This Really A Problem In Arkansas?, Stuart Buck, Gary W. Ritter

Arkansas Education Reports

Arkansas’s state standardized tests have changed over the past few years. Since the ACTAAP legislation of 1999, Arkansas students have taken criterion-referenced Benchmark Tests based on the state’s curricular standards along with national norm-referenced exams each year. Prior to 2004, students in grades 4, 6, and 8 were administered the Benchmark tests in Mathematics and in English Language Arts. Starting in 2005, the odd-numbered grades were added so that students in grades 3-8 took the week-long Benchmark tests, in accordance with the requirements of the federal No Child Left Behind act.

The New Arkansas School Performance Report, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter

Policy Briefs

The Arkansas Department of Education has just released the Arkansas School Performance Report, a yearly report on academic achievement in all of Arkansas’ schools.1 One important addition to the Report this year is an academic improvement rating for all elementary and middle schools in the state. This rating should be of interest to all school observers who desire more nuanced information about school and student performance than is provided in commonly used school performance indices, such as the Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) rating. We applaud the Arkansas Department of Education for collecting and releasing this invaluable information on student growth.

President-Elect Obama’S Choice For Secretary Of Education: Arne Duncan, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter

Policy Briefs

Tuesday, December 16, President-elect Obama announced his choice for Secretary of Education: Arne Duncan.

Dollars For Sense: Assessing Achievement Gaps In Arkansas In The Context Of Substantial Funding Increases, Joshua H. Barnett, Nathan C. Jensen, Gary W. Ritter

Arkansas Education Reports

Over the last half century, more than forty states across the nation have experienced school finance lawsuits as a consequence of perceived and real funding gaps between rich and poor districts (Rebell, 2001). Arkansas is one such state, with a long history of school funding battles in the courts. The legal challenges began in 1983, when the Arkansas Supreme Court initially found the state's school funding system unconstitutional under the equal protection clause of the state constitution .

What Does Naep Tell Us About Student Achievement In Arkansas?, Sarah B. Kent, Nathan C. Jensen, Gary W. Ritter

Arkansas Education Reports

Recently, policymakers at the Arkansas Department of Education were pleased to release the results of the 2008 Benchmark exams, which indicate more Arkansas students are becoming proficient each year. This is good news for Arkansas, as the Benchmark exam is an Arkansas developed exam used to compare student performance to state standards. Nevertheless, it is also important to take note of how Arkansas students perform compared to students across the nation, which is where the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) plays an important role. The NAEP, also known as “the Nation’s Report Card,” allows student performance to be compared …

The Impact Of Personality Type On Undergraduate College Student Success At Oklahoma State University, Pamela I. Ehlers

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this descriptive/causal-comparative study was to determine if relationships existed between individual personality types as determined by the Do What You Are (DWYA) on-line personality inventory and gender, ethnicity, area of academic study, entering and exiting grade point averages (GPA), and time to degree completion of undergraduate students at the case study institution.

Data were collected over a six year period by the institution's career development center. The student respondents were undergraduates and were self-selected to take the inventory. The sample included 2, 533 undergraduate students surveyed between 2003 and 2007.

Statistical analysis utilized scores on the four …

The State Of Education In Arkansas 2008: How Much Are Arkansas Schools Spending?, Joshua H. Barnett, Gary W. Ritter, Brent E. Riffel

Arkansas Education Reports

Over the last half century, more than forty states across the nation have experienced school finance lawsuits as a consequence of funding gaps between rich and poor districts. Arkansas is one such state, with a long history of school funding battles in the courts. The legal challenges began in 1983, when the Arkansas Supreme Court initially found the state's school funding system unconstitutional under the equal protection clause of the state constitution1 . The court found “no legitimate state purpose” and “no rational relationship to educational needs” in the state's method of financing public schools. This initial finding set the …