Educational Leadership Commons^™

Focus Area Six: Creating Partnerships With The Private Sector To Support Children [Fiene], Kevin W. Fiene

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

What is an at-risk child? For the purpose of this paper, I have defined an at-risk child as one who will not be able to function as a contributing member of society during his/her lifetime.

How does one go about helping children defined as at risk? A lot of options are available, all of which can be substantial and supported by available research and literature. I believe, however, the only way our educational system will be successful in meaningful assistance to the at-risk child is to work and coordinate with broader spectrums of society. i.e., community, state and national resources. …

Issue Five: Expectations And Standards Of Performance For People Of Color In Education [Clayton], Scharron A. Clayton

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

The task of writing a position paper based on the given title poses a problem, firstly, of definition. The phrase "the difference" represents the deficit manner in which society continually views "people of color" and the White population. Specifically, we have historically chosen to use deficit thinking in education when trying to articulate characteristics of Blacks arid Whites, thanks to the testing movement and other highly questionable and devastating historical events. So, naturally, this difference alluded to in the given title must refer to the difference in expectations and performance standards that teachers hold for children of color when compared …

Focus Area One: Coordinating Services Between Schools And Agencies: Facilitator's Summary, James L. Doud

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

The topic of this conference, "Strengthening the Partnership Between Schools, Service Agencies and Families in Meeting the Needs of Students At Risk," highlights one of the most frustrating issues facing service providers today. How can we devise ways which will guarantee essential services to students and families so that they are enabled to become more productive members of society? This focus area addressed the issues associated with coordinating services between schools and agencies for the benefit of students and families at risk.

The five papers in this section address the coordination of services from the perspectives of both service agencies …

Focus Area Six: Creating Partnerships With The Private Sector To Support Children [Burk], Mary Ann Burk

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

The shutdown of federal programs in early October, 1990, because of the inability of Congress and the President to establish spending priorities was just another reminder that financing society's needs now and in the future is going to take planning and collaboration. To take a narrow "just me" approach will mean a "shutdown" of programs for all.

Youth development programs are no different. Limited resources and difficult issues are forcing agencies to move from an isolationist point of view to increasing cooperative efforts.

Focus Area Five: Improving The School Performance Of All Children [Redalen], Joan Redalen

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

The major issue addressing the school is improving the school performance of all children, not the narrow perspective of improving the performance of at-risk students. The focus must be on changing the cultural norms of the school which have unintentionally contributed to the alienation of many students from the system and indeed may have had a causal relationship to students' lack of academic achievement.

To improve school performance for all students, all staff must focus on the ways the school can and must meet two of what Dr. William Glasser identifies as basic human needs: the need for belonging, and …

Focus Area Five: Improving The School Performance Of All Children: Facilitator's Summary, Joan Redalen

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

Improving the performance of all students should be the continual focus for all districts and all buildings. This focus demands the belief that all students indeed can learn and want to learn given appropriate circumstances, motivation, and opportunity. The task group assigned to this issue drew four conclusions regarding what schools must do to meet this objective.

- The System Must Plan for the Success of All Students

- All the Stakeholders Must Realize the School Cannot Do It Alone

- Schools Must Have a Proactive Focus from the Point of the Child's School Entry

- Schools Must Have a …

Focus Area One: Coordinating Services Between Schools And Agencies [Rebouche], Richard Rebouche

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

The need to coordinate services across federally mandated and funded service categories is not new. Often national service priorities may already be addressed by state or local legislation or practice. The federal practice of targeting a specific area for funds to accomplish a specific objective or to fill a specific service void has increased the need for interagency cooperation by creating multiple program and funding streams. Thus similar services for children and families may be available through federal, state or local sources with resultant variation in eligibility criteria.

Focus Area Five: Improving The School Performance Of All Children [Raschke - 1], Donna B. Raschke

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

Our nation, overshadowed by large scale transportation problems, an over-crowded environment, and a "gloom-and-doom" economic forecast, is consumed by a myriad of issues which compete with education for attention, time, and financial support. Yet, today's youth are clearly the adults of tomorrow and unless basic skills are mastered, these individuals will be a burden to tomorrow's society. While it is easy to cast attention to the masses of failures-at-risk students on the pedagogical merry-go-round- educators must readjust their vision so a myopic orientation is not undertaken. It is absolutely essential we do not lose sight of one of the most …

Focus Area Five: Improving The School Performance Of All Children [Raschke - 2], Donna B. Raschke

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

Unequivocally, teachers who work daily with at-risk students face demands and requirements that other teachers do not. For example, these teachers are challenged by:

1. Students who may be unpredictable in their behavior, erratic in their performance, and discouraged by a long history of academic failure.

2. Parents who are unable to provide a wholesome, stable environment for their youngsters.

3. Professional support staff who are always too busy, overbooked, and unavailable, and who seem more interested in classifying students than in identifying appropriate pedagogical practices.

4. Guidance counselors who are overwhelmed by the myriad (of) problems the at-risk student …

Focus Area Four: Providing Continuity Of Service For Highly Mobile Children And Families [Seeland], Jean Seeland

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

Nationwide, the issue of the homeless and the precariously housed poses a serious problem for our schools. The high mobility rate of students' families is a growing problem schools must face.

Twenty percent of all school-age children live in poverty. By the year 2000, as many as one-third of the nation's children may be disadvantaged and at risk (Trevino, 1991). The recent increase in the number of people living in poverty and the decrease in the supply of sufficient low income housing produces a growing number of our population who are marginally housed or homeless. In 12 large U.S. Cities, …

Issue Two: The Importance Of Sensitivity In Dealing With Cultural Diversity In Education [Dial], Ray Dial

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

The presenters for this focus group identified and defined the critical issues in our area to develop options for resolving them and to make recommendations for public policy changes that support these resolutions. To meet our goal, we worked from the general to the specific. We first defined nine major points made in the group papers, then condensed those into three major areas. From these three areas we established five strategies and recommendations.

Issue Five: Expectations And Standards Of Performance For People Of Color In Education [Schmits], Donald Schmits

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

As one explores the number of variables that can possibly affect how or how much any person learns at any one time, the task of finding clarity to make recommendations on standards of performance seems overwhelming. It does not bode well for clarity when Travers (1973), Second Handbook of Research on Teaching concludes there is no empirical relationship between the type of pedagogy and student achievement test scores. Hovighurst, Moorefield, Passow, and Elliott (1967) in The Sixty-Sixth Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education suggest that to describe the "disadvantaged" we need the following groups: (a) Urban …

Issue Two: The Importance Of Sensitivity In Dealing With Cultural Diversity In Education [Turner], Sarah Turner

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

Sensitivity in dealing with cultural diversity in education must begin with general interpersonal sensitivity. As an individual, one must be considerate and "sensitive" to the values and idiosyncrasies of others (Lieberman, 1989). This concept must pervade educators' behavior in the service of others. Indeed, if educators are to be committed to serving all equally, more than a mere awareness of cultural differences is needed: sensitivity to and respect for those differences is needed as well (Anderson, 1989).

Issue One: Curriculum That Adequately Addresses The Concerns And Needs Of People Of Color In Education [Fortenberry; Dawson], Diana Fortenberry, Charlesetta Dawson

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

They saw themselves as others had seen them. They had been formed by the images made of them by those who had had the deepest necessity to despise them. (James Baldwin)

This quote by James Baldwin seemed to capture the essence of our issue group: ''The lack of curriculum that adequately addresses the concerns and needs of people of color in education." Each contributor gave her or his view of why this phenomena continues to exist and provided some solutions for consideration.

Our issue group spent many hours discussing "the lack of curriculum ... " and decided upon two major …

Issue One: Curriculum That Adequately Addresses The Concerns And Needs Of People Of Color In Education [L. Brown], Leander A. Brown

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

If the trend in multicultural education literature were examined, we would find that it received major attention for about 10 years from the late 1960s until the late 1970s. Disappointingly, the attention then declined until the late 1980s. Towards the latter part of the active period just cited, Stanley D. Ivie of Shaw University questioned in the Journal of Teacher Education whether multicultural education was a "boon or boondoggle."

Issue One: Curriculum That Adequately Addresses The Concerns And Needs Of People Of Color In Education [Winter], Floyd Winter

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

In addressing this topic my thoughts immediately turn to the recent emphasis on school transformation or restructuring. Most professional educators would agree the 1983 Nation At Risk Educational Reform Report placed a great deal of emphasis in furthering academic achievement in American public schools. At the same time, it is generally agreed the Nation At Risk and other educational reform reports of the mid-1980s focused on a top down approach to solving the perceived problems of American education.

Issue Two: The Importance Of Sensitivity In Dealing With Cultural Diversity In Education [Johannsen], Sue Johannsen

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

Over the past three years the Muscatine Community School District has provided inservice for the professional development of teachers and administrators. During this time, I have facilitated these inservice sessions in Gender/Ethnic Expectations and Student Achievement (GESA).

GESA addresses the interactions of teachers with their students. This program was created by Dolores A. Grayson and Mary Dahlberg Martin. Participants in GESA attend five three hour inservice sessions and work in teams to observe each other in classroom situations. Each unit includes three strands. The first strand identifies major areas of classroom disparity; the second is an interaction strand; and the …

Issue Two: The Importance Of Sensitivity In Dealing With Cultural Diversity In Education [Wright], Juanita Wright

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

Although much has already been written about the need for and the benefits of multicultural education, the changing demographics of our society continue to promote the need for sensitivity in dealing with cultural diversity. A recent report from the United States Census Bureau which appeared in the Des Moines Register, March 11, 1991 indicates:

1. The United States' ethnic composition is increasing at a faster rate than had been expected.

2. Asian and Hispanic population increases accounted for more than half of the US population growth in the last 10 years.

3. The distribution of the Asian and Hispanic populations …

Issue Four: Coping With And Addressing Racism In Our Educational Institutions [Wilcox], Clayton Wilcox

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

It has been almost 40 years since the 1954 landmark school desegregation case of Brown v. The Board of Education, almost 30 years since the historic 1963 Civil Rights March on Washington and passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Bill, and 20 years since the State of Iowa decided to make major changes in the delivery of education to African-American and other children of color. Even so, on any given day when we turn on the electronic media or read the print media, Americans hear and see a new but somehow familiar account of yet another example of racism in …

Issue Four: Coping With And Addressing Racism In Our Educational Institutions [Johniken], Daniel Johniken

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

The mission of public education is to provide all students with a high-quality education that will enable them to function successfully in an interdependent, multiethnic, multicultural, and rapidly changing world. But racism and its outgrowth of hate and bigotry are thoroughly sabotaging our nation's efforts to provide a good education for all children. All students, teachers, and administrators bring with them to the educational setting the experiences and feelings of their cultural reality. All of these realities have been affected by the functions of racism, whether in positive or negative ways. Thus, we find many of our institutions of learning …

Issue Five: Expectations And Standards Of Performance For People Of Color In Education [Ishler], Peggy Ishler

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

If one examines the questions surfacing from the title of this paper, it becomes clear that a serious problem exists in education today. Why consider standards of performance for people of color that are different from standards for all other students in the nation? Does this mean people of color cannot be expected to meet the level of performance required for the rest of the population? Is this standards issue the reason the number of university graduates of color has been dwindling to the smallest percentage in the last two decades?

These disturbing questions need to be examined in this …

Issue Six: Appropriate Role Models For People Of Color In Education (Social, Academic, Administration) [Mitchell], Jacqueliine Mitchell

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

The following discussion synthesizes the beliefs and ideas of the group whose topic was "appropriate role models for people of color in education." This report, also, includes group recommendations for solving the problem of underrepresentation of people of color in education. It is hoped that these solutions will find audiences among local and federal policymakers, school districts, universities, and the business community. Role models do make a difference in the lives of children. The major objective, therefore, is to increase the presence of appropriate role models in education for people of color.

Focus Area Six: Creating Partnerships With The Private Sector To Support Children: Facilitator's Summary, Judy Fossell

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

With dwindling resources, more responsibilities, and higher expectations being given to schools, it is not only prudent but imperative that the total community become partners in the educational process. To accomplish this end, our panel deemed it necessary to open the doors to the schools, shed the mysticism of the pedagogic process, and encourage reciprocity as teachers go to the homes, parents to the schools, students to the community, and community partners to the schools.

To establish successful partnerships, it is vital to look beyond the "volunteers in the classroom" stereotype of community involvement and look toward working collaboratively with …

Executive Summary, David Else

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

Octavio Paz (1985) reminds us that "life is plurality, death is uniformity. Every view that becomes extinct, every culture that disappears, diminishes a possibility of life." While there has been a great deal of rhetoric and certainly some action that has resulted in progress, the American society continues to be haunted by inequality of its people and widespread failure to value diversity. Until educators begin to value differences and prize them as resources for learning, American youth will not experience the type of learning environment that prepares them to live productively in a world characterized by diversity (Pine & Hilliard, …

Issue One: Curriculum That Adequately Addresses The Concerns And Needs Of People Of Color In Education [Pearson-Stevens], Terry Pearson-Stevens

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

Note: It is my belief that each racial group can speak better for itself than anyone else. Therefore, in this paper I will refer primarily to African-American students even though I am certain that information contained within has the same implications for all Third-World people.

Sooner or later educators must collectively acknowledge that neither traditional nor contemporary educational methods have succeeded in providing equitable learning experiences for African-American students.

The very educational system that stimulates the growth and development of Caucasian children by reinforcing what is familiar to them acts as a depressant to African-American children who are made to …

Issue Three: Support And Mentoring For People Of Color In Education [Grohe; Strub], Barbara Grohe, Richard Strub

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

The educators involved in exploring Issue 3: Support and Mentoring for People of Color in Education, were exceptionally enthusiastic in their efforts to critically examine this important concern. The insightful position papers gave excellent perspective for the group to begin its deliberations. The level of participation and respect given to differing views allowed for continued movement toward consensus on the critical issues involved and the resolution for options for public policy on these issues.

Issue Three: Support And Mentoring For People Of Color In Education [Duea], Joan Duea

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

Our nation is facing a crucial educational problem. Significant numbers of citizens are not reaching their educational potential. Look around you. How many people of color are walking beside you in the mall? pushing a cart in the grocery store? participating in a discussion in a university class? teaching a graduate course at the university? Did your numbers diminish greatly? What happens to members of under-represented groups?

Issue Five: Expectations And Standards Of Performance For People Of Color In Education [Haggard], David Haggard

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

This paper will focus on the expectations and standards of performance for people of color in education, particularly for students. The approach will allow application of the concepts for students at any level.

The concept of three generations is commonly used to describe our efforts to deal with cultural diversity. First generation refers to the allocation of people to diminish segregation. The second generation emphasis is a challenge to remove the barriers to program accessibility while recognizing stereotyping and individual prejudices. Third generation efforts deal with producing equal learning outcomes, implementing multicultural teaching strategies, and gaining the acceptance of diversity. …

Issue Five: Expectations And Standards Of Performance For People Of Color In Education [Hawkes], Richard Hawkes

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

This paper will explore, present questions, and address issues that teacher educators have ignored for years. The single position in this paper is that educators in urban and inner city schools will have greater opportunity in the future to work with minority students, with a substantial number being students of color.

Section V: Meeting Student Needs In Rural Education [Blundall], Joan Blundall

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

Many students, families and community members have gone through tremendous changes in the 1980s. The economic and social upheaval of the rural debt crisis of this decade, though put to death by many, continues to impact our rural systems. While many rural youth have experienced major losses direct (change in residence, working status of parents, role changes within the family), some have experienced those changes indirectly (friends exiting communities, discussions of school/church closing). What is unknown to school personnel and helping professionals is the extent of which the changes of the 80s have been processed by children or the extent …