Preferences,Proximity, and Controlled Choice: Examining Families’ School Choices and Enrollment Decisions in Louisville,Kentucky

This study provides evidence studying one diverse, countywide district’s integration efforts utilizing school choice and parental preferences. The findings illustrate substantial differences about the way in which the district’s student assignment policy affects students. In particular, this choice-based integration policy with a weak geographic preference still advantages those who choose their nearest schools as well as white students and those living in more advantaged areas. Examining differences in families’ school preferences, whether students are assigned to their preferred school, and whether and where students enroll in schools illustrates how an integration-focused assignment policy can still result in segregation and inequality. Yet, by illustrating the many influences on family preferences beyond proximity, it also suggests the opportunity for using assignment policy to overcome persistent neighborhood segregation.     

Transition services for students with intellectual disabilities: School psychologists’ perceptions

For individuals with intellectual disabilities (ID), transition services increase access to postschool opportunities. School psychologists should contribute to transition services but have reportedly limited involvement in this area. This study distributed a national survey (N = 176) assessing school psychologists’ current knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors regarding transition services for students with ID. Results indicated that attitudes toward and knowledge of the ID population were significant predictors of transition task performance, and knowledge was a significant predictor of transition‐related attitudes and behaviors. The results provided preliminary evidence that increasing school psychologists’ specific knowledge of transition services and encouraging positive attitudes toward the transition needs of students with ID may increase school psychologists’ performance in transition practice. Specific recommendations are provided.     

Curriculum Reform and the Case of the Disappearing Agents

It is an irony that, as the educational world has come to recognise the value of school or district‐based teacher leaders, many teachers have become wary of involvement in activities which take them beyond their own classrooms or schools. The problem becomes particularly apparent in centrally organised curriculum reform efforts that call for a cadre of teachers to be co‐opted to act as ‘link’ or ‘lighthouse’ teachers. This paper examines these issues in the context of an Australian state‐wide physics curriculum project in which a ‘pyramid’ implementation model required a group of school‐based ‘link’ or ‘lighthouse’ teachers to work as change agents in district school clusters. The study focused on the motivations of those teachers who chose, and those who chose not, to become involved. It reports a number of critical distinctions, in both experience and motivation, between these two groups of teachers. These differences are analysed as a set of interlocking themes: personal meaning, professional history, ownership, rewards, professional autonomy and gender.     

A QUALITATIVE STUDY OF FACILITATORS AND BARRIERS RELATED TO COMPREHENSIVE AND INTEGRATED SCHOOL PSYCHOLOGICAL SERVICES

Recent studies indicate that the majority of school psychologists’ time continues to be dedicated to SPED related activities. Despite ongoing calls for school psychologists to expand their roles, why many practitioners do not deliver more comprehensive services is not well understood. This qualitative study investigated facilitators of and barriers to comprehensive and integrated services using the National Association of School Psychologists Model for Comprehensive and Integrated School Psychological Services as the guiding framework. Thirteen full‐time, school‐based practitioners from across the US participated in semi‐structured interviews. Constant‐comparative analysis was used to generate themes. Results indicated that practitioners experienced a number of systemic barriers to (e.g., heavy caseload; inconsistent district policies, priorities, and role definitions; lack of stakeholder involvement) and facilitators of (e.g., resources, graduate training and professional development) comprehensive and integrated service delivery. Participants’ perspectives regarding changes needed to expand their services focused on systemic issues as well. Implications for research and practitioners’ efforts to advocate for systems change are discussed.     

4 Public choice perspectives on urban schools

Using public choice theory as a conceptual orientation, the authors argue that politics in urban school districts have differed from those in suburban school districts. Urban school politics have been characterized by relatively well‐organized interest groups and weak market controls, although politics in suburban school districts vary also, as a function of the strength of market controls. The strength of these interest groups in city school systems is reflected in school board politics, in the administrative structure and in district policies. Interest group liberalism in urban school districts may be lessening due to the changing educational needs of urban students and due to reformers’ efforts to give parents more educational choices. However, the success of market reforms depends on a number of conditions which will be a severe challenge to reformers.     

MEASURING KINDNESS AT SCHOOL: PSYCHOMETRIC PROPERTIES OF A SCHOOL KINDNESS SCALE FOR CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS

In this study, we sought to create and validate a brief measure to assess students’ perceptions of kindness in school. Participants included 1,753 students in Grades 4 to 8 attending public schools in a large school district in southern British Columbia. The School Kindness Scale (SKS) demonstrated a unidimensional factor structure and adequate internal consistency. The pattern of associations of the SKS to a corpus of theoretically relevant constructs obtained via student self‐reports (classroom supportiveness, optimism, happiness, prosocial and social goals, satisfaction with life, and academic self‐efficacy) provided evidence for convergent and discriminant validity. Furthermore, the SKS was significantly and positively associated with teacher reports on students’ empathy, social skills, and peer acceptance. Analyses by gender and grade indicated that girls perceived significantly higher levels of kindness in school than did boys, and that students’ perceptions of kindness in school decreased from fourth to eighth grade, with fourth‐grade students reporting the highest levels of kindness in school and eighth‐grade students reporting the lowest levels. The theoretical importance of investigating students’ perceptions of kindness in the school context and the practical implications of this research for informing educational efforts to promote social and emotional competencies in school communities are discussed.     

How Good Are Our Schools

ABSTRACT

Research suggests a positive relationship between schools’ efforts to engage parents and parents’ involvement in their child's education. The authors investigated school socioeconomic status, school size, grade level, and student–teacher ratio as predictors of schools’ efforts to engage parents of students receiving special education services. The dependent variable was the Schools’ Efforts to Partner with Parents’ Scale, which has been validated for states’ use in their federal accountability systems. Mean school-level scores were calculated for 265 schools in a large southeastern state. Results indicated that student–teacher ratio was the strongest predictor of parents’ perceived school engagement efforts. Implications are drawn for ways in which all schools, including those with high student–teacher ratios, can improve their collaboration with parents of students receiving special education services.     

School Improvement Efforts: Qualitative and Quantitative Data from Four Naturally Occurring Experiments in Phases III and IV of the Louisiana School Effectiveness Study

Abstract

Phase III of the Louisiana School Effectiveness Study (LSES‐III) was designed to provide rich, qualitative and quantitative data on the characteristics of more and less effective schools. Data were gathered on eight matched outlier pairs of schools. Unbeknownst to the authors at the beginning of LSES‐III, four of the eight historically ineffective schools were engaged in school improvement efforts. None of these efforts was guided from the state or district. This serendipity provided an opportunity to observe improvement efforts which were of the “naturally occurring” ‐‐ as opposed to externally developed, mandated or otherwise offered ‐‐ variety. The four projects are described, complete with five year follow‐up data. The efforts are seen as falling along two dimensions: technical changes designed to raise achievement test scores; and efforts focused on a point along a continuum ranging from orderliness to excellence, and designed to raise students’ academic achievement. Comparisons are made to more formally planned school improvement efforts.     

Supporting the transition to secondary school: The voices of lower secondary leaders and teachers

ABSTRACT

Background: The primary-secondary transition is recognised as a challenging time for students, and poor transition processes can negatively affect the students’ development. School professionals play an important role in enhancing the students’ transition experience, but international literature calls for more research concerning their perspective on this transition.

Purpose: The aim of this study was to investigate what lower secondary school leaders and teachers in Norway emphasise when supporting the primary to lower secondary school transition.

Methods: A qualitative single case study approach was used. The participants were ten form teachers, their team leader and the principal (n = 12) within one lower secondary school. These were the individuals overseeing the transition process on behalf of a cohort of students who transferred to their school in August 2017. Data were collected through observations and focus group interviews. The data were transcribed and analysed qualitatively, inspired by the constant comparative method of analysis.

Findings and conclusion: Framed by their own experiences, the leaders and teachers emphasised ensuring predictability, establishing a safe psychosocial learning environment, giving the students time to learn to be lower secondary school students, and collaboration at the school level and with the families. These efforts are largely in line with what the research recommends. The findings indicate, however, that the teachers need more support during this process. The article concludes that a closer dialogical interaction with colleagues at the primary and secondary levels, parents and students could support the leaders and teachers to promote an even better transition.     

NY BOK I PEDAGOGIKENS HISTORIA

Sandven, J. Students in General and School‐rejecting Students Compared. Results from an investigation concerning relations to school and personality characteristics among 9th graders in the compulsory school. Scand. J. Educ. Res., 1968, 12,91‐‐140. The purpose of the investigation was to bring to light some main characteristics in the students' relations to school, and to compare the findings for students in general with school‐rejecting students, i.e. students who express a desire to leave school immediately if permitted. Furthermore the purpose was to compare the school‐rejecting students with the other students with regard to some major personality characteristics: school achievement motivation, feeling of security, problem‐solving ability. The background for the investigation was the growing problem presented by students wanting to leave the compulsory school as it is extended to higher age groups. The findings show that the bulk of students feel attached to school, like their work, and make efforts. The school‐rejecting students present a complex picture. But as a group they differ clearly from the others in their relations to school as well as in personality characteristics.     

School demographic variables and out‐of‐school suspension rates: A quantitative and qualitative analysis of a large,ethnically diverse school district

This study examined out‐of‐school suspensions (OSS) in a large, ethnically diverse school district using both quantitative and qualitative procedures. Pearson product moment correlations and semi‐partial correlations were used to identify those school‐level variables that showed the strongest relationships to the duplicated OSS rate among elementary schools (n = 97) and secondary schools (n = 45). Additionally, interviews were conducted with administrators and student support personnel from the 24 schools in the district with the highest suspension rates and 24 demographically matched schools with significantly lower suspension rates. The majority of these schools served a high percentage of children from low socioeconomic backgrounds. Although the correlational analyses indicated that student demographic variables (e.g., percentage of White students, percentage of Black students, percentage of students receiving free or reduced price lunch) were strongly related to a school's suspension rate, the school comparisons showed that not all schools serving a high percentage of children placed at risk have high suspension rates. Implications of the findings for school discipline reform are discussed. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Postschool Engagement Predictors for Youth with Intellectual Disability: Results from South Carolina

ABSTRACT

Postschool outcomes of youth with intellectual disability (ID) continue to trouble practitioners and scholars. The purpose of this study was to analyze postschool engagement outcome data for 360 survey respondents with ID in South Carolina in the areas of employment and postsecondary education/training. Specifically, we examined the relationship of special education exit reason, as well as, student, school, and district variables to youth’s postschool engagement. We used logistic regression to estimate probability of engagement one year after exiting high school. Results indicated that special education exit reason, gender, school retention rates, district attendance rates, percentage of students with disabilities within a district, percentage of students within a district receiving free and reduced lunch, district retention rates, and district suspension/expulsion rates were significantly related to three postschool engagement outcomes. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.     

Construction and Validation of an Instrument to Measure Taiwanese Elementary Students’ Attitudes toward Their Science Class

The main purpose of this study is to develop a valid and reliable instrument for measuring the attitudes toward science class of fourth‐ and fifth‐grade students in an Asian school culture. Specifically, the development focused on three science attitude constructs—science enjoyment, science confidence, and importance of science as related to science class experiences. A total of 265 elementary school students in Taiwan responded to the instrument developed. Data analysis indicated that the instrument exhibited satisfactory validity and reliability with the Taiwan population used. The Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was 0.93 for the entire instrument indicating a satisfactory level of internal consistency. However, both principal component analysis and parallel analysis showed that the three attitude scales were not unique and should be combined and used as a general “attitudes toward science class” scale. The analysis also showed that there were no gender or grade‐level differences in students’ overall attitudes toward science class.     

Moberly Junior College,the four-year junior college

In Leonard Koos’s book, The Junior-College Movement, he described the establishment of a junior college in an American public school district as the ‘culmination of the local school system’, alluding to the prestige associated with having a junior college in a community. The best-known example of this arrangement was in Pasadena, California where the combined high school and college operated for 27 years. Less well known is the four-year junior college in central Missouri called Moberly Junior College (MJC). MJC operated as a combined high school and college for 36 years from the autumn of 1931 to the autumn of 1967, the longest running four-year junior college in the United States. This case study of the college examines how the seamless transition between high school and college was accomplished, and what changes in the institution and the educational environment led to the eventual dissolution of the four-year junior college.     

Place-Based Stewardship Education: Nurturing Aspirations to Protect the Rural Commons

In this mixed-methods study, we examine the potential of place-based stewardship education (PBSE) for nurturing rural students’ community attachment and aspirations to contribute to the preservation of the environmental “commons.” Analyzing pre- and post-experience surveys (n = 240) and open-ended responses (n = 275) collected from middle school students in a Northeast Michigan school district, we found significant increases in students’ environmental sensitivity, environmentally responsible behaviors, community attachment, and confidence in their capacities for civic action. Analyses of open-ended responses pointed to the potential of PBSE to nurture students’ identification with their community and to increase their commitment to stewardship of their community's natural resources. This study makes a unique contribution to the literature on rural schools by focusing on the environmental commons and younger generations’ commitments to preserve it as an asset of rural communities. By linking students’ learning with collective action to preserve the environmental commons, PBSE can expand students’ aspirations for the kind of world they want to live in and the roles they might play in it.     

Family Engagement Practices as Sites of Possibility: Supporting Immigrant Families through a District-University Partnership

In this article, we consider the ways in which family engagement practices foster sites of possibility for immigrant families in the public schools. As demographic change leads to a growing number of new immigrant destinations and amidst increasing hostility toward immigrant communities, educational institutions play an increasingly important role in supporting these students and their families. Drawing on a study of one school district’s partnership with a local university to identify and resolve engagement gaps between immigrant and nonimmigrant families, our article discusses asset-based approaches to family engagement practices. In addition to discussing district initiatives to engage immigrant families in 2-way communication and minimize barriers to participation, we also consider the role of university partners in building sites of possibility for immigrant youth and their families. We conclude with implications for expanded efforts to develop equitable family engagement practices in districts serving immigrant communities.     

DEFINING THE UNDEFINABLE: OPERATIONALIZATION OF METHODS TO IDENTIFY SPECIFIC LEARNING DISABILITIES AMONG PRACTICING SCHOOL PSYCHOLOGISTS

Accurate and consistent identification of students with specific learning disabilities (SLDs) is crucial; however, state and district guidelines regarding identification methods lack operationalization and are inconsistent throughout the United States. In the current study, the authors surveyed 471 school psychologists about school SLD identification guidelines and the identification methods actually used (e.g., ability‐achievement discrepancy, response‐to‐intervention, and the evaluation of students’ pattern of strengths and weaknesses). Results indicated that nearly half the participants were allowed or required to choose the method of identification that ensured students received services, if the school‐based team determined services were warranted. Variations in SLD identification methods were also found between schools with different characteristics (e.g., location, school level, and student composition). Implications for practice are discussed.     

Does STES‐Oriented Science Education Promote 10th‐Grade Students’ Decision‐Making Capability?

Today’s society is continuously coping with sustainability‐related complex issues in the Science‐Technology‐Environment‐Society (STES) interfaces. In those contexts, the need and relevance of the development of students’ higher‐order cognitive skills (HOCS) such as question‐asking, critical‐thinking, problem‐solving and decision‐making capabilities within science teaching have been argued by several science educators for decades. Three main objectives guided this study: (1) to establish “base lines” for HOCS capabilities of 10th grade students (n = 264) in the Israeli educational system; (2) to delineate within this population, two different groups with respect to their decision‐making capability, science‐oriented (n = 142) and non‐science (n = 122) students, Groups A and B, respectively; and (3) to assess the pre‐post development/change of students’ decision‐making capabilities via STES‐oriented HOCS‐promoting curricular modules entitled Science, Technology and Environment in Modern Society (STEMS). A specially developed and validated decision‐making questionnaire was used for obtaining a research‐based response to the guiding research questions. Our findings suggest that a long‐term persistent application of purposed decision‐making, promoting teaching strategies, is needed in order to succeed in affecting, positively, high‐school students’ decision‐making ability. The need for science teachers’ involvement in the development of their students’ HOCS capabilities is thus apparent.     

The relation between exposure to sophisticated and complex language and early-adolescent English-only and language minority learners' vocabulary

This study investigated the relation between teachers’ (N = 22) use of sophisticated and complex language in urban middle‐school classrooms and their students’ (mean age at pretest = 11.51 years; N = 782; 568 language minority and 247 English only) vocabulary knowledge. Using videotaped classroom observations, teachers’ speech was transcribed and coded for their total amount of talk, vocabulary usage, and syntactic complexity. Students’ vocabulary skills were assessed at the beginning and end of the school year. Results showed variation in students’ vocabulary skills and teachers’ language use. Hierarchical linear modeling techniques revealed that after controlling for classroom and school composition and students’ beginning‐of‐the‐year scores, students’ end‐of‐the‐year vocabulary skills were positively related to teachers’ use of sophisticated vocabulary and complex syntax, but not teachers’ total amount of talk.