Faqin Middle School,a Private School in Beijing,Exposed for Speculation and Profiteering with Production Loan

Jingshi News Agency: It has been brought to light that Faqin Middle School, a private school, has engaged in speculation and profiteering with the production loans for the school. The Beijing branch of the People's Bank provides schools with low-interest loans as investment in production. In March, Faqin Middle School received an annual production loan of 3,000,240 yuan from the People's Bank at a monthly interest rate of 7.5 percent. On April 7 the school deposited 1.5 million yuan in Jincheng Bank at an interest rate of 12 percent to be used as capital for usury, engaging in speculation and profiteering in violation of the People's Bank's stipulation that funds could only be used for the specified purpose. The school authorities did not report this to the students or the Municipal Production Steering Committee. After learning about this, the People's Bank Beijing Branch and the Beijing Municipal School Production Committee investigated and exposed the school at an enlarged meeting of the Municipal School Production Committee. Only then did the school admit its mistake.     

All that glitters is not gold: Challenges of teacher and school leader licensure licensing system in Qatar

In 2001, the Government of Qatar began a comprehensive education reform (Education for a New Era) based on RAND's recommendations and options for building an educational system that would meet the country's changing needs. Nine years later, Qatar's educational landscape has significantly changed. Among these changes is the introduction of Professional Standards for teacher and school leaders and Qatar's first system for the registration and licensing of teachers and school leaders that are directly linked to the professional standards. This study seeks to analyze school leaders’ perspectives regarding the Qatar National Professional Standards for Teachers and School Leaders and the recently introduced accompanying licensure system. The study reports results from questionnaires addressed to 74 school leaders. These findings illuminate problematic issues and indicate that these policies use ambiguous terminology and procedures, ignore local educators’ input, and provide unrealistic expectations of society, lack consistency and created resistance on the part of educators. Discussion is provided that centers on the implications of importing educational products and the need to take into account the local culture in implementing these products.     

Davis Street Magnet School: Linking Child Development With Literacy

The School Development Program Essentials of Literacy process uses a number of strategies to develop literacy among students who have been identified by their teachers as being "problem readers." At Davis Street Magnet School, this Comerian approach has worked not only to develop students' literacy skills but also to support and enhance their growth along six developmental pathways. This process also serves the important function of strengthening the connection between school and home.     

School Lunch Matters: Encountering the New Jim Crow and the Anthropocene

This presidential lecture to the American Educational Studies Association argues that school lunch matters as education, not merely as management, especially within the ethically challenging contexts of the New Jim Crow (with its school-to-prison pipeline) and the Anthropocene—both wicked problems. The educational significance of children's foodways, school food, and school lunch has deep roots in early modern, as well as high modern thought, and within the past decade a new educational studies scholarship on school lunch has emerged concurrently with Michelle Obama's leadership for National School Lunch Program reforms. This study invites a wide range of educational studies scholarship by mapping school lunch matters that might frame new curriculum theorizing with the purpose of developing leaders' ethical responses to both the school-to-prison pipeline and the environmental crisis. This conceptual frame focuses a prospectus for educational creativity on school lunch's health matters, choice matters, table matters, earth matters, aesthetics matters, kitchen matters, community matters, service matters, and study matters.     

In the Wake of A Nation at Risk: New American Schools' Private Sector School Reform Initiative

Since its publication in 1983, A Nation at Risk has caused several waves and ripples of educational reform. This article puts that report in the context of earlier responses to perceived education crises. One such important response was from the private sector: the New American Schools Development Corporation (NAS). NAS attempted to create, develop, and widely disseminate "break the mold" whole-school designs to improve student achievement in the nation's schools. Despite a history of mixed results, NAS was influential in changing federal policy to support the Comprehensive School Reform Demonstration program (CSRD). Now embedded in the No Child Left Behind legislation, CSRD has private and public sector support for the nation's continuing attempts to create effective schools. However, the effectiveness of comprehensive school reform at scale in the nation's highest poverty schools remains an open question.     

Between the School and the Academy: The Struggle to Promote Teacher Research at Columbia University's Lincoln School, 1917–1935

This essay examines the development of a research faculty and culture at the Lincoln School, a laboratory school founded in 1917 by the Rockefeller General Education Board (GEB) at Teachers College, Columbia University. The school was dedicated to the production of education research by practicing teachers. The essay focuses in particular on the role played by the two men first charged by the GEB to organize and administrate the school, Abraham Flexner and Otis Caldwell, and some of the school's teachers. Flexner and Caldwell promoted a working environment marked by experimentation, academic freedom, and faculty collaboration. This leadership model created tensions between Flexner and Caldwell and some Teachers College faculty over the use of Lincoln School classrooms as a resource for education research. Over the twenty‐four years of the school's existence, Lincoln School teachers published hundreds of studies and textbooks focusing on curriculum development, child development, teaching techniques, and democratic school administration. In a profession where members are expected to be consumers rather than creators of knowledge, and practitioners rather than “experts,” the teachers and administrators of the Lincoln School defied many of the most foundational premises that have guided schools and the production of education research alike.     

The impact of school policy and stakeholders' actions on student learning: A longitudinal study

This paper proposes a theoretical framework on how school policy can promote student learning. School policy is considered to have an indirect effect on student achievement by changing school stakeholders' actions toward improving the School Learning Environment (SLE) and teaching practice. A reciprocal relationship between school policy and stakeholders' actions is also considered. A longitudinal study was conducted to test the framework's main assumptions. A stratified sample of 64 primary schools was selected and students' achievement in Mathematics at the beginning of Grade 4 and at the end of the next three consecutive school years was measured, alongside the school policy and teachers' actions with regards to issues associated with teaching and the SLE. The results of multilevel structural equation modelling analyses supported the main assumptions of the framework. Implications for the development of school policy are drawn and suggestions for further research are provided.     

Replication of a path analysis model of secondary physics enrollments: 20 years later

The percentage of enrollment in physics (PEP) at the secondary level in the United States has been approximately 20% for the past few decades. In an attempt to isolate variables related to physics enrollment. Bryant (1977) conducted a path analysis model of secondary physics enrollment in New York State. This present study is a replication and extension of the study conducted by Bryant. Current data were used to verify the Bryant model and construct models with data available since Bryant's work. Data gathered by the New York State Education Department for the 1990–1991 school year were used. The source of this data included surveys completed by teachers and administrators on student characteristics and school facilities. A data analysis similar to Bryant's was conducted to determine whether the relationships between a set of predictor variables and physics enrollment had changed in the past 20 years. The findings indicate that there has been no change in the set of variables related to physics enrollment. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

School psychology trainers' identification of current stressors in the work lives of urban practitioners. A comparison study

The focus of this study is to investigate school psychology trainers' identification of current stressors in the work lives of practitioners. Surveys rating 40 stressors on a Likert‐type scale were completed by 161 school psychology graduate faculty, members of the School Psychology Educators Council of New York State. Survey results were compared to the job‐related stressors identified by New York City Psychologists using an almost identical questionnaire. While there appears to be general agreement between faculty trainers and practitioners on the identification and relative ranking of work‐related stress, the faculty trainers consider those events to be more stressful than do the practitioners. Faculty's recognition of the environmental forces that negatively impact upon the experience of school psychologists should provide impetus for the development of graduate programs that address stress prevention and/or coping strategies. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

School closures and educational attainment in Ethiopia: Can extra classes help children to catch up?

School closures impact children's attainment adversely, but understanding the effects of closures on children's attainment in lower-income countries is still limited. Addressing this deficit, this study examines how past school closures have impacted children's educational attainment in Ethiopia. The study uses individual student-level data from the Young Lives School Survey and standardised test scores in mathematics and language recorded at the start and end of the school year to model children's attainment. Multiple regression with propensity score matching is used to analyse how attainment over the school year is impacted by school closures for a matched sub-sample of 4842 students. The effectiveness of additional classes to make up for lost learning is also evaluated. Past school closures have had a detrimental effect on attainment in mathematics, but not literacy. Extra classes, specifically those that families do not pay for, have helped children in the past to recuperate lost learning and could serve this function post-Covid-19. Inequalities in learning outcomes, measured by Gini coefficients in educational attainment, are widened by school closures. Applying these results to the extensive school closures under Covid-19 furthers our understanding of the likely effects on academic attainment and can inform policy to mitigate the impact.     

多元智能学校：理论评介与个案分析

加德纳的多元智能理论已成为一些国家和地区教育改革的重要指导思想,美国新城学校运用此理论建立多元智能学校的经验,给我国目前的学校变革以及优质学校探索开辟了新的视野,带来了可贵的借鉴与启示。     

Exploring the Politics of Blame: School inspection and its contestation in New Zealand and England

This article examines how New Zealand's Education Review Office (ERO) and England's Office for Standards in Education (OFSTED) attempt to construct school failure as the clear responsibility of schools in order to gain ideological power as agents of accountability. These 'politics of blame' are contested in both settings by an alternative 'contextual' claim which seeks to take account of broader social and political constraints on schools. It is argued that whereas New Zealand academics have been distrustful of the ERO's agenda, English school effectiveness and school improvement researchers have often provided support for OFSTED's politics of blame. However this relationship represents a double-edged sword for OFSTED because some school effectiveness/school improvement researchers also partly support the contextual claim. The article concludes that the politics of blame and their contestation will continue to be important in these settings and elsewhere.     

School District and University Leadership Development Collaborations: How Do Three Partnerships Line Up With Best Practices?

This article explores the application of Whitaker, King, and Vogel's (2004) best practices for the implementation of partnerships regarding school leadership preparation programs in 3 school district–university collaboratives located in urban settings with large minority student populations. The 3 partnerships studied include the Nashville Metropolitan School District and Vanderbilt University (Nashville, TN), Prince George's County Public Schools and Howard University (Washington, DC, and Upper Marlboro, MD), and the San Diego Unified School District and San Diego State University (San Diego, CA). Five elements of Whitaker's best practices for implementing school district–university school leadership preparation programs were used to determine the extent to which the 3 partnerships were aligned with best practice. Document analysis was used to analyze the materials related to the 3 programs. Findings indicate that the 3 partnerships have successfully implemented 3 of the 5 best practices. Exemplary collaboration has occurred (a) in the development of high-quality curriculum and delivery of instruction and (b) the commitment of the partnerships to provide support to the participants through advising and other forms of assistance.     

Effects of a School for Pregnant Students on the Incidence of Low-Birthweight Deliveries

To evaluate effects of an alternative public school for pregnant teenagers in New Haven, CT, medical and school records were reviewed for a 1-year birth cohort of 230 adolescent mothers. Nearly three-quarters of all school-aged primiparas who were enrolled in the city's public schools when they became pregnant attended the alternative school. Because of summer vacation, however, students who conceived in January through April began attending later in pregnancy than did those who conceived in May through December; these mothers were significantly more likely to deliver a preterm, low-birthweight infant. No such seasonal effects were found for other teenagers in the city who were not enrolled in public school at conception. Positive birth outcomes for early program attenders are similar to those reported for a nurse-home-visitation program. The results suggest that school programs have considerable potential to be an effective service delivery model for providing prenatal intervention to adolescents.     

Hava N'Halela 1 : Tzipora Jochsberger and Her Vision for the Hebrew Arts School

Tzipora Jochsberger (1920–) educator, composer, and musicologist, dreamed of using the arts to introduce Jews to the richness of their heritage. The founder and director of the Hebrew Arts School in New York (1952–1986), Jochsberger's contributions deserve the attention of Jewish educators and artists who are looking to the arts to address the diverse needs of Jewish learners of all ages. A student of the Jewish Teachers’ Seminary in Wurzburg, Germany, Jochsberger was offered an opportunity that would not only save her life, but determine its direction as well. Using interviews, archival data, and Jochsberger's papers both published and unpublished, I have tried to examine her educational vision for the school she nurtured for more than thirty years, discovering in the process that the school was the product of a fortuitous shiddukh: the dream of a gifted Holocaust survivor and the idealism of American Hebraists, the ideologues of Ha'Noar Ha'lvri.     

School membership among students with learning disabilities and nondisabled students in a semirural high school

School reform proposals have urged that schools provide students with an enhanced sense of community, especially for at-risk youth belonging, is thought to be crucial. Given their high rate of school drop out, school membership holds special relevance for students with learning disabilities (LD). Thirty-seven mainstreamed students with LD and an equal number of nondisabled (ND) high school students were compared on five dependent variables: grades, time spent on homework, Scholastic Competence, Global Self-Worth, and school membership. School membership was assessed by Goodenow's (1993) Psychological Sense of School Membership (PSSM) scale. ND students reported higher grades and more favorable ratings of Scholastic Competence, while groups did not differ significantly on time on homework or Global Self-Worth. Also, contrary to the author's hypothesis, the groups did not differ on the PSSM. These findings are attributed to either the small size of the school in which the study was conducted or to the supportive nature of special education (i.e., resource room). Future studies are required to understand the development of school membership among students with LD. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Exploring principal capacity to lead reform of teaching and learning quality in Thailand

In 1999 Thailand passed an ambitious national educational law that paved the way for major reforms in teaching, learning and school management. Despite the ambitious vision of reform embedded in this law, recent studies suggest that implementation progress has been slow, uneven, and lacking deep penetration onto classrooms. Carried out ten years after the launch of the reform law, the current research sought to expand on these earlier studies by examining the capacity of Thailand's principals to lead reforms in teaching and learning. The study developed a national profile of principal instructional leadership using a Thai Form of the Principal Instructional Management Rating Scale ( Hallinger, 1994). The overall profile of 1195 primary and secondary school principals suggested a moderate level of engagement in two dimensions (Creating a School Mission and Developing a Positive School Learning Climate) and a lower level of activity on the dimension, Managing the Instructional Program. The results provide preliminary evidence which suggests that a more systematic human resource strategy is needed in order to ensure that Thailand's key school leaders have the knowledge, skills and motivation needed to support changes in teaching and learning envisioned in the nation's education reforms.     

Friedrich Eberhard von Rochow's Education of_the Children in Rural Communities and its Impact on Urban Educational Reforms in the Eighteenth Century*

Friedrich Eberhard von Rochow (1734-1805) - squire, educational reformer, writer of textbooks and agricultural innovator - tried in the true spirit of Enlightenment to impart the concept of reason to the people, especially countryfolk. In Rochow's view, the rural population's situation had to be improved materially as well as intellectually in order to alleviate the misery of wide sections of the population and thus to achieve an improvement of public welfare. His Enlightenment interest was primarily aimed at pedagogical reforms in order to teach children in the rural communities "how to think" and - influenced through a moral-philosophical thinking at that time - to lay the foundations for moral judgement in their minds. The article deals with the question of what influence Rochow's pedagogical thoughts and school reforms had on other school projects of the Enlightenment. Taking the development of the School of Industry (1788-1811) in Hamburg as an example, I shall take a closer look at the transfer to urban areas of the educational ideas that originally related to the rural space. The development of the School of Industry highlighted the fact that Rochow's pedagogical thoughts could not simply be transferred to the urban space, even though the problem of poverty and a new work ethic had initiated the reform projects in both areas. The different life worlds of city and countryside and, especially, the specific situation and living conditions of the urban underclasses had to be considered for the institutional, organisational and curricular formation of the school project in the city.     

Toward A Pragmatic Discourse of Constructivism: Reflections on Lessons from Practice

Although New York's highest court granted children the constitutional right to a meaningful high school education in Campaign for Fiscal Equity v. State of New York, equitable funding has yet to be implemented. The state of New York continues to stall on revising the funding formula statewide, despite the many indications that this must be done if the state is to satisfy the Court of Appeal's 2003 ruling. Although some factors that affect children's performance in school, such as lead poisoning and poverty, lie beyond the control of the schools, schools are nevertheless required to remediate their effects by providing special education. Equitable funding based on obtaining good educational outcomes for all children would help create conditions under which children could improve their life chances through education. After equitable funding has been obtained, defining the markers of a meaningful high school education will be the next task for school reformers in New York.     

Moral Education Through Art

Abstract

In 1992, I conducted a study in two schools, the Scarsdale High Alternative School (SAS) in New York, a Kohlbergian Just Community Program for 16 years, headed by Tony Arenella; and Public School No. 825, a kindergarten to senior high school on the outskirts of Moscow, Russia, an experimental school in Developmental Education following the ideas of Lev Vygotsky, headed by Vladimir Karakovsky. This article presents a narrative comparison of the philosophies and practices of the secondary teachers in each school. The teachers’ philosophies seemed to be like Janus, facing in two directions‐‐outward toward the school culture, reflecting each school's shared norms and values, and inward, expressing each person's own values and ways of thinking. It was the influence of each school's culture that created the most striking philosophical differences. Teachers from Russia and the US held only one value in common: community. Other particular norms and values differed almost completely and seem to reflect the larger cultures of the US and Russia: affection and harmony rooted in love of Motherland for the Russians, and for the Americans, a sense of self and responsibility expressing the value of individualism. The paper first focuses on how teachers in each school conceived of the morality of teaching and of the moral authority of teachers. The focus then moves to a discussion of both the common and unique norms and values the teachers desired to transmit to their students, the practices they use and the moral conflicts they face. The article concludes with remarks about what we can learn from these schools for moral education.