Educational Leadership Commons^™

Focus Area Five: Improving The School Performance Of All Children [Schoenauer], Barb Schoenauer

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

No issue has been bantered about more within the educational community during the past few years than that of the at-risk child. Are there truly more at risk or are we now becoming more cognizant of the problem? Is it a new name for an old problem?

Recently professionals concerned with the dropout rate and the number of graduates unprepared to become productive members of society have urged schools to address the problem of children at risk of school failure. This call to action has resulted in an extensive assortment of reports and policy statements all designed to address the …

Focus Area Five: Improving The School Performance Of All Children [Young], Kristen Young

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

Few students enjoy feeling like a faceless number, or worse, a faceless problem to be passed on to someone else. The treatment the student receives from the teacher serves as a blueprint for the student to follow in dealing with others. Will this be a blueprint that builds positive relationships and encourages hard work and the pursuit of new experiences? Students who are not reaching their educational capabilities sit in every classroom, in every school. To address the needs of these students, we must acknowledge that they are not just ESL students, troublemakers, or poor attenders. To serve these students …

Focus Area Six: Creating Partnerships With The Private Sector To Support Children [Boyd], James N. Boyd

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

Iowa is slowly losing its population to the Sunbelt states and even to Minnesota. As the jobs go, so go the families.

Certainly the State of Iowa has tried to offer incentives to businesses to develop and to expand, but we still seem to be losing people. This trend keeps occurring even though Iowa is a leader in education and its people have a highly-regarded work ethic. The decline of the family farm and the consolidation of the small schools illustrate this dilemma to the ultimate.

What is called for is the cooperation among state and local governments, business, and …

Focus Area Six: Creating Partnerships With The Private Sector To Support Children [Domsic], Valli A. Domsic

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

At-risk students need support from every sector of our society. The number of young people who can be considered at risk is increasing steadily. This is not a problem which can be alleviated with a quick fix. We cannot vaccinate our children against the economic, psychological, and social perils of divorce, death, substance abuse, poverty, learning difficulties, and teenage pregnancy.

At best, our society can work together to form a network which provides a supportive structure for all students and particularly those students who are deemed to be at risk. While Iowa's legal definition of at risk clearly defines the …

Focus Area Six: Creating Partnerships With The Private Sector To Support Children [Jackson], H. James Jackson

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

I believe that business and education can form viable partnerships that will prove beneficial to all students and their families. While I support the idea of providing services for students in traditional at-risk situations or conditions I believe that all students are, at sometime during their school years, at risk.

In recent years, both the business and educational communities have consciously and deliberately encouraged the development of formal partnerships. The reasons for the formalization and expansion of the partnership concept is related, I believe, to two factors: the educational community seeking philosophical and financial support for their increasing funding needs, …

Executive Summary, Dave Else

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

John Dewey said, ''The purpose of education is to allow each individual to come into full possession of his or her personal power." A rapidly growing number of youth in Iowa and across the nation have little hope of capturing their personal power for a variety of reasons. They are students at risk. At risk of ridicule by peers; at risk of failure in school; at risk of being unable to bond with society; at risk of social deprivation; and at risk of never realizing their sense of personal value, worth, and dignity.

Focus Area Four: Providing Continuity Of Service For Highly Mobile Children And Families: Facilitator's Summary, Linda A. Fernandez

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

High mobility-frequent change of residence and/or school-is an indicator of a child at risk, or potentially at risk. Frequent mobility may be a symptom of conditions that contribute to at-risk behaviors, but the effects of high mobility compound the problems confronting at-risk children. The causes and effects of high mobility of families and children need to be examined to determine what social services need continuity, the most efficient and effective methods of increasing continuity of services, and what deterrents must be removed to provide the continuity.

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 …

Enhancing Creativity In A Graduate Course On Creativity: Entering The Time And Space Of The Young Child, Carolyn P. Edwards, Doris J. Shallcross, Julie Maloney

Department of Child, Youth, and Family Studies: Faculty Publications

In designing a graduate class at the University of Massachusetts, called "Creativity and the Young Child," we built an experience for adults based on a highly regarded European preschool program based on the visual arts. The program, found in the municipal schools for three- to six- year-olds in the city of Reggio Emilia, Italy, is designed to foster young children's learning, representation, and expression through exploration and mastery of many symbolic media. We wanted to find out whether American adults exposed to the theoretical and practical elements of the Reggio Emilia approach - but on an adult level - would …

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.