Examining the generalizability of administrative personnel allocation decisions

This study examined the effect of district and school size on principal teacher allocation decisions. The study tested the invariance of a personnel allocation decision making model for elementary school principals from three categories of school and district size. The sample consisted of elementary school principals from small, medium, and large schools and districts. The results confirmed the fit of the model across schools of all sizes and across small and medium size districts. For large school districts the proposed decision-making model did not fit the data. This result implies that district size has an effect on the personnel allocation decisions made by elementary school principals.     

Blurring Public and Private: The Pragmatic Desegregation Politics of an Elite Private School in Atlanta

The school desegregation narrative often references historically white public schools as sites of massive resistance and historically white private schools as segregationist academies. Yet some historically white elite private schools or independent schools, such as The Westminster Schools (plural in name only), established in 1951 in Atlanta, Georgia, chose to desegregate. Such elite institutions, which have served as one catalyst for the creation and maintenance of social and cultural capital, became more accessible after Brown v. Board of Education through a combination of private and public decisions galvanized by larger social, political, and federal forces. Westminster's 1965 decision to consider all applicants regardless of race was emblematic of the pragmatic desegregation politics of Atlanta's city leaders during the civil rights movement and a national independent school agenda focused on recruiting black students. Drawing on institutional, local, regional, and national archival records and publications, this article examines the import of schools like Westminster to civic and business leaders, to the politics of race and desegregation occurring in large cities, and to the range of educational opportunities available in metropolitan areas. This examination yields an analysis of the leadership and politics of a southern historically white elite private school that black students desegregated in 1967.     

The perceptions,policy, and practice of educating twins: A review

Twin births are increasing at a rapid rate, yet many educational personnel throughout the world are unaware of the needs of twins in school. Stereotypical views of twins as pathologically close or excessively dependent pervade educational policies and practices, despite the fact that twins do not differ from singletons on rates of psychological disturbance. Research shows that many schools implement strict policies for classroom placement of twins, yet the effects of such policies on twins' development and educational attainment are currently unknown. Recommendations for school personnel and future directions for this formative area are discussed. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Psychol Schs 40: 429–438, 2003.     

美国中小学校车政策体系及其启示

美国中小学校车政策经历了漫长的发展过程,校车使用正进入一个加速普及的阶段。其完善的校车政策体系和先进的校车营运管理模式为我国校车发展提供了重要启示。破解国内当前校车使用的混乱状况需从更新校车使用观念,完善校车政策体系以及建立教育界、政府和汽车企业三方联动的校车发展模式入手。     

Hazing in Public Schools: A Liability Challenge for School Leaders

Hazing in public schools is a significant problem that may result in serious physical or emotional harm to students who are victims. According to experts in the field, each year more than 1,500,000 American students become new hazing victims. Hazing also results in legal challenges for school personnel. The courts consider public schools to be safe places where teaching and learning occur in a peaceful environment. Thus, school personnel have a leading responsibility to protect the safety of students under the functional custody of their schools. Hazing activities, if not checked, pose a threat to the health and safety of students. Hazing by its very nature is a private act. Consequently, a significant number of hazing acts goes unreported. Hazing has become so prevalent that it has prompted 44 states to pass legislation banning it. Despite anti-hazing laws, hazing continues to occur among athletes, peer groups, gangs, and other schools clubs and organizations. Hazing creates stress, anxiety, intimidation, and often results in physical and emotional harm to victims. Well-defined policies prohibiting hazing and proper procedures for reporting hazing coupled with vigilance by school personnel in monitoring student activities may greatly reduce hazing incidents and minimize potential liability claims for school personnel.     

The Relationship between Self Concept and Academic Achievement

It was hypothesized that children, both white and Negro, attending a de facto segregated school have less positive self concepts than do children attending desegregated schools, and that there is a significant positive relationship between self concept and academic achievement. Sixty children from the intermediate grades of each of the elementary schools in a small city in northern New Jersey were matched on the basis of age, grade, ex, race, intelligence, and socio-economic status. Analyses of variance were computed on the scores obtained rom the self-report instrument administered and correlations between these scores and achievement scores were alculated. It was found that children attending the de facto segregated school had less positive self concepts. There was also a significant positive relationship between self concept and academic achievement. That is, those children having more positive self concepts had higher academic achievement.     

How Central Office Leaders Influence School Leaders’ Decision-Making: Unpacking Power Dynamics in Two School-Based Decision-Making Systems

ABSTRACT

While past studies on school district decentralization found that central office leaders can limit school leaders’ decision-making power, the studies did not examine how they do so. We investigated this in eight elementary schools in two large urban school systems with official policies of school site-based decision-making. We found that even though school leaders had legal authority over most instructional decisions, they overwhelmingly made decisions consistent with central office preferences. The question is why. By examining the micro process of interaction between central office and school leaders, we found that central office leaders in both districts used a range of persuasive strategies to influence school-level decisions. Specifically, they linked their suggestions to institutionalized norms, rules, and shared understandings in the district and profession. By doing so, central office leaders pushed against their decentralization policies. Differences in the combination of strategies that central office leaders used and the amount of interaction they had with school leaders led to (a) greater variability in the degree to which school leaders in one district made decisions aligned with central office preferences; and (b) greater feelings of coercion among school leaders in the second. These findings unpack the dynamics among local education leaders as they implement and sometimes alter the rules within policies through their daily practice.     

Stability of School Academic Performance Across Subject Areas

Recent studies on the stability of school academic performance across school subject areas show two weaknesses: a lack of research attention to elementary schools and a lack of adequate statistical adjustments for school characteristics. With data describing elementary students (N = 6,883 students in Grade 6 in 148 schools) from the New Brunswick School Climate Study (NBSCS), the current study examined correlates of academic performance across mathematics, science, reading, and writing among students and among schools, using a multivariate multilevel model with statistical adjustments for student characteristics and school context and climate characteristics. Results indicated that (a) students were differentially successful in different subject areas, (b) schools were differentially effective in different subject areas, and (c) the differential success was more obvious among students than among schools. Findings of this study call for a new type of school programs that aim to ensure that students progress equally in different subject areas and for stronger school policies that systematically coordinate classroom or department practices.     

Implementing the KiVa antibullying program: recognition of stable victims

Teachers do not always recognise students who are victimised by their peers. In this study, we examined the recognition of stable victims in 76 schools beginning to implement the KiVa antibullying programme. We focused on 348 victims (9–15 years) who reported victimisation at the pretest and still at wave 2, after five months of programme implementation. Only 24% of these stable victims received the attention of school personnel during the school year. Multilevel logistic regression analyses revealed that male victims were recognised more often than female victims, but only in elementary school level. Peer reputation as a victim, as well as telling an adult about one’s plight increased the likelihood of recognition by school personnel, whereas bullying others (in addition to being victimised) decreased it. The study emphasises the importance of encouraging school personnel to put more effort in reaching the victimised students.     

“Maybe That Helps Folks Feel Better About What They're Doing”: Examining Contradictions Between Educator Presumptions,Student Experiences,and Outcomes at an Alternative School

The use of alternative schools as exclusionary discipline for students found guilty of committing behavioral infractions raises questions about the effectiveness of these schools in producing improved student outcomes. Educators' justifications for alternative placements are highly relevant, because decisions regarding placements are often subjective and based on ill-defined criteria. This mixed-methods study investigates educators' perceptions of one disciplinary alternative school in the Southeast and educators' justifications for its use. The study examines the district's alternative school students' outcome data and analyzes whether these data support educators' explanations for why they assign students to the alternative school. Findings show that educators often hold mixed beliefs about alternative schools, seeing them as both a punishment and as providing needed support and services. Students, however, do not demonstrate dramatically different academic or behavioral performance as a result of their placement, bringing into question educators' justifications for placing students in these schools.     

美国农村中小学合并研究

美国学者对农村中小学合并进行过大量的研究,主集中在农村中小学合并的原因、政策、实施策略与效果以及合并的争论等方面。这些研究对我国推进农村中小学"撤点并校"具有参考意义:正确认识农村中小学校的合并现象;合并应因地、因时制宜;针对合并过程中的不同环节采取相应的有效措施;大量开展对农村中小学合并案例的实证研究。     

Parent-Teacher Contacts and Student Learning

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of teacher-parent contacts on the reading achievement of 398 underachievers in an ESEA program in a desegregated elementary school district. Most of the students were black. The central hypothesis was that the home environment influences classroom learning. The results, as measured by normed CAT achievement tests, indicate that the number of contacts was found to have a differential effect on achievement gains. With increasing numbers of contacts, younger students made significant gains in reading; however, increasing numbers of contacts were associated with decreased achievement in older students.     

Does desegregation matter? A comparative study of school-based social capital for university-bound minority students in segregated and desegregated school contexts of Hong Kong

Despite national policies, de facto school segregation for racial/ethnic minority students in the West and East has continued to deepen. In Hong Kong, the segregated school system was abolished in 2013, while from 2004 reformed School Places Allocation Systems encouraged minority students to choose mainstream primary and secondary schools. However, de facto ethnicity-based school segregation continues to prevail. Most minority students in the mainstream system are stuck in low-status schools where they face discrimination and institutional exclusion. This has led many of them to retreat to a limited number of schools that have traditionally catered for minority communities. Such segregation calls forth scholarly attention to the paradoxical correlation between the physical mixing of diverse students and equality of educational opportunity, especially equal access to post-secondary education (PSE)—a key for minority youth to function in the competitive labour market. This study employed the theory of school-based social capital (SBSC) and compared the ways in which PSE-relevant institutional resources and support were rationalised and enacted by staff in de facto segregated and desegregated school contexts. Case studies of two secondary schools lead us to argue that desegregation is only effective when institutional structure, culture and agents empower minority students through access to instrumental resources and support for the pursuit of PSE. The findings confound the desegregation policy and call for structural/institutional interventions to ensure instrumental SBSC is accessible to PSE-bound minority students in all schools, and thus increase the effectiveness of school desegregation.     

Estimating High School GPA Weighting Parameters With a Graded Response Model

The high school grade point average (GPA) is often adjusted to account for nominal indicators of course rigor, such as “honors” or “advanced placement.” Adjusted GPAs—also known as weighted GPAs—are frequently used for computing students’ rank in class and in the college admission process. Despite the high stakes attached to GPA, weighting policies vary considerably across states and high schools. Previous methods of estimating weighting parameters have used regression models with college course performance as the dependent variable. We discuss and demonstrate the suitability of the graded response model for estimating GPA weighting parameters and evaluating traditional weighting schemes. In our sample, which was limited to self‐reported performance in high school mathematics courses, we found that commonly used policies award more than twice the bonus points necessary to create parity for standard and advanced courses.     

Making desegregation work: Extracurricular activities

Southern desegregated high schools with high levels of black or white student extracurricular participation have students who report more interracial contact, higher self-esteem, more positive attitudes toward school, more parent visits to schools, and more personal contact with teachers. The results are derived from regression equations based on responses from 10,000 students in 200 schools, controlling on student and school background factors. The author recommends that secondary schools place high priority on encouraging extracurricular participation and argues that this enhances the school's ability to teach because it increases student attachment to the school, reduces student alienation, provides alternative channels for students to develop self-esteem, and increases the opportunity for positive interracial contact.     

Teachers as Managers: an analysis of the professional‐bureaucratic characteristics of Belgian schools

In a power‐political perspective, school management can be defined as the way people may and like to participate in aspects of school policy. Referring to an extended marketing mix, that policy was seen as the whole of 12 domains of School policy decisions labelled by P‐words. To describe management in secondary schools of Flemish speaking Belgium, a questionnaire was sent to 80 school heads. Their perceptions were the basis for a survey of 8 schools, selected by Tannenbaum's ‘control graph method’. The opinions of the school personnel revealed 3 main findings: (1) the 12‐P mix is useful to analyse the professional‐bureaucratic characteristics of schools; (2) schools differ in the degree teachers are allowed or like to participate, and in the objects of that participation; and (3) participation and (perceptions of) effectiveness are interrelated. These conclusions give ground to the hypothesis that schools would be more effective if all school personnel were to be trained in co‐operating capabilities.     

四川彝区成人初等教育的回顾与反思

新中国成立初期，四川彝区成人初等教育兴起，除学校教育外，各地彝区还曾开展过冬学、夜校、识字班等成人业余教育活动和彝、汉扫盲工作，后来经历过曲折。1985年后，彝族地区成人教育进入一个新的发展阶段，其主要原因有：政策的落实、改革的需要、人事制度的改革、教师队伍的保证等。     

Social returns to private choice? Effects of charter schools on behavioral outcomes,arrests, and civic participation

The vast majority of literature on school choice, and charter schools in particular, focus on attending an elementary or middle school grades and often focus on test scores or other proximal outcomes. Much less is known about the long-term effects of attending a charter school in 9th grade. It is important to fill this information void for a few reasons. First, schools in general affect more than just students’ test scores. Second, secondary schools (including grades 9–12) make up a larger share of the charter sector. Third, school choice depends on freely available information for parents and students to make informed decisions about where to attend, including potential long-term benefits. We add to the empirical research on charter school effects by using a doubly-robust inverse probability weighted approach to evaluate the impacts of secondary charter school attendance on 9th grade behavioral outcomes and individuals propensity to commit crime and participate in elections as young adults in North Carolina, a state with a large and growing charter school sector.     

Summary of a Symposium on Nongovernmental Basic Education

The symposium on nongovernmental basic education sponsored by the Guangzhou Zhonghua Yinghao School, the Guangzhou Modern Education Science Center, and the magazine Zhongxiaoxue jiaoyu guanli (Management of elementary and secondary school education) was held in Conghua, Guangzhou, from May 29 to May 31. Representatives of sixteen nongovernmental schools in Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Shenyang, Sichuan, Anhui, Hainan, and Guangdong participated. Leading personnel and experts from the Statutes and Law Bureau of the State Council and relevant departments of the State Education Commission and from the Guangzhou Education Commission were also invited to attend. In his opening address, Comrade Wu Ziyan, director of Guangzhou's Modern Education Science Center, proposed the following topics for discussion: the position and role of nongovernmental elementary and secondary schools in the development of socialist education; how nongovernmental elementary and secondary schools should handle the relationship between the laws of education and the laws of the market economy; how nongovernmental elementary and secondary schools should implement the state's educational policies, improve educational quality, and do their best to acquire special characteristics. The following is a summary of the discussions.     

基础教育师资配置均衡化:教育公平的必然要求

基础教育师资配置均衡化是实现教育公平的必要条件,而实现师资配置均衡化必须依赖于国家制定合理和有效的教师政策:1.落实人事改革制度,严格教师合约管理;2.改革师资配置方式,促进教师合理流动;3.加大教育投资力度,保障基础教育发展;4.加强薄弱学校建设,提高整体师资水平;5.大力扶持农村经济,逐步缩小城乡差别.