The Devaluation of Standardized Testing: One District's Response to a Mandated Assessment

This study examined teacher testing-related attitudes and practices in a relatively unexplored educational assessment setting: court-ordered achieve- ment testing. Responses to a mail survey from teachers (representing Grades 3,4, and 5) in 17 elementary schools in a Midwestern urban district suggested that teachers engaged in a large number of test preparation practices preceding mandated Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (ITBS) testing. Most teachers reported that the results of ITBS testing did not provide benefits that offset the time and costs associated with testing. Teachers reported finding minimal value in the purpose or results from the tests. Furthermore, teachers indicated having experienced pressure from others, inside and outside their school, to improve student scores. Engagement in inappropriate testing practices was found to be substantially greater than had been previously reported in other studies of testing impact. Correlations and path analysis indicated that teacher engagement in inappropriate testing practice was unrelated to the intensity of pressure to improve test scores. Teachers who perceived less value and benefit associated with testing were more likely to engage in inappropriate practices.     

Mandated Disciplinary Counseling: Working Effectively With Challenging Clients

Mandated disciplinary counseling has been a long‐established practice for many college and university counseling centers. Although the practice is well established, practitioners continue to raise questions about its appropriateness and effectiveness. Student dynamics and other issues influencing the efficacy of mandated counseling are explored. Counseling readiness interventions are recommended to mitigate the types of reactance issues that can be barriers to effective counseling outcomes.     

Mandated Psychological Assessments for Suicide Risk in a College Population: A Pilot Study

This study was conducted to evaluate the impact of a protocol mandating psychological assessment of college students exhibiting specific signs of suicide risk and/or nonsuicidal self-harm. Thirty-seven current and former students who had been documented as at risk completed a structured interview in person or by phone. Outcomes suggest this protocol identifies students at risk for suicide, with 27% having made an attempt at some point in their lives and 50% having been suicidal at the time the report was written. The majority of participants endorsed the value of this intervention.     

教育政策执行偏差的表现、原因及矫正措施

在当前的教育政策贯彻执行实践中存在着教育政策执行偏差现象,教育政策执行上偏差的产生有着深刻的主客观原因。剖析产生偏差的原因,并从教育政策质量、政策执行人员的素质、执行资源和监督评估机制四个方面矫正教育政策执行偏差,对于准确、全面地贯彻执行党和国家的教育政策,促进党的教育方针、政策的全面落实,具有重要的作用。     

Individualism,instrumental reason and policy texts: some considerations from the perspective of contemporary political philosophy

This article dialogues with Matthew Weinstein’s paper named “NGSS, disposability, and the ambivalence of Science in/under neoliberalism”, in which he explores the argument that at the same time the NGSS framework is largely identified with neoliberal discourse, it presents points of ambivalence and resistance within. In this dialogue, we focused on two topics that we believe are important for the discussion of the ambivalences highlighted in the author’s argument, namely: the the social production of indifference as a consequence of the neoliberal ideology and the production of a version of science streamlined for the neoliberal technoscientific job market within the ‘neoliberal ecosystem’. Based on the thesis of the Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor on ethics and on the concept of hybridism, we linked Weinsteins’ analysis to issues related to individualism and instrumental reason, pointing out that it is possible that the ambivalences highlighted by Weinstein are, in fact, a component of neoliberal discourse. Nevertheless we agree that this kind of text presents loopholes that allows practices oriented for social change and for the improvement of democracies in progress. We conclude that for those who dedicate themselves to reflect upon educational strategies to cope with the hegemonic model remains the challenge of finding spaces and times in the curriculum in order to explore the gaps in policy texts and, more important, to promote the experience of democratic practices throughout the school communities.     

Mandated team participation: Implications for psychologists working in the schools

Public Law 94-142, Education for All Handicapped Children Act, has had a dramatic impact on the schooling of exceptional children. Yet, rather limited attention has been directed to the one section of the law that mandates a particular decision-making approach for both the diagnosis and intervention tasks. The implications for the training and practice of applied psychologists who work with school-age children could be significant. This paper examines three areas of concern that impact the psychologist's role in working with exceptional children: (a) conditions that are considered crucial for the development of teams, (b) the literature regarding psychologists' input to school-based teams, and (c) reactions of school-based team members to such an approach. Related issues of importance to both trainers and practitioners in the field of psychology are then presented.     

Critical literacy: Beyond reason

In this paper, I argue that critical literacy is essentially a rationalist activity that does not sufficiently address the non-rational investments that readers bring with them to texts and tasks. I begin by looking at playful advertising texts that work with humour and the transgressive in order to consider the role of pleasure rather than reason. Then I examine the force of powerful identifications in relation to reason to show that educational interventions cannot ignore them. Finally, I tentatively suggest that we may need to find ways to combine socio-cultural and psycho-analytic theory in order to imagine new directions for pedagogy in the critical literacy classroom.     

当前我国公共政策执行不到位的综合原因分析

公共政策执行是政策过程的中介环节,是将政策目标转化为政策现实的唯一途径。当前我国政策执行出现偏差、不到位的现象,致使政策效果偏离、预期目标难以顺利实现。其原因主要是政策本身、执行主体和目标群体、正式制度机制、非正式制度机制以及环境资源等方便综合作用的结果。     

论物权行为无因性理论与善意取得制度

中国民法法典化进程中很重要的立法是物权法 ,物权法中极重要的一项制度就是物权行为。物权行为的独立性和无因性是否应该采纳是制定物权法不能回避的问题。本文拟就学者反对物权行为无因性 ,主张由善意取得制度代替的理论予以反驳 ,从而得出物权行为无因性存在的必要性     

Doing without believing – enacting policy in the English primary school

ABSTRACT

This paper explores how six English primary school teachers enact assessment and attainment-focused policy and asks what this performative policy work does and whether it shapes or requires a new kind of primary teacher subjectivity. The paper draws on a small study of policy enactments in two primary schools in Greater London in order to discuss two dimensions of policy enactment that emerged from our data: first, shifting assessment regimes in primary schools which create an enactment environment of second-guessing policy; second, a shift in focus from the individual child to targeted groups that raises questions about more traditional primary school values. The paper concludes with a reflection on the effects of contradictory values and practices and how this policy context creates a form of ‘doing without believing’ in the English primary school.     

Reforming further education teacher training: a policy communities and policy networks analysis

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s teacher preparation for the schools sector in the United Kingdom was subject to a series of reforms and innovations including the establishment of new institutional arrangements to oversee the sector, namely the Teacher Training Agency (TTA – now the Training and Development Agency, TDA). Since 2002 the arrangements for training teachers in the broadly defined learning and skills sector have also been subject to scrutiny and a wide‐ranging reform agenda has been put forward by the Government. This paper examines the key reforms using a three stage model to analyse the policy development process and discusses the functions and status of the sector skills council, Learning UK (LLUK), in order to examine its relationships with external stakeholders. Contrasts are made with the approach adopted by the TTA during the reform of teacher training for school. The paper concludes with a tentative assessment of the progress of the reform agenda and the identification of a number of salient issues that warrant further research.     

The policy object: a different perspective on policy enactment in higher education

This paper proposes a new perspective for higher education policy research. It introduces the concept of policy object to designate the discrete preoccupation(s) of a policy text (e.g. a new governance regime, a quality system, or new degrees) and suggests that actor conceptualisations of the policy object intersect with other elements in the policy process to shape enactment and outcomes. First, the policy object concept is described. It is argued that the policy object does not have an objective existence and two concepts are proposed to explain it: ontology and enacted ontology. The former refers to what actors believe the policy object is, a socially-construed context-determined conceptualisation, whereas enacted ontology refers to what the policy object becomes further to enactment under the influence of ontology. Second, the paper presents the findings of a comparative study of master degrees further to the Bologna process in different national and institutional settings to illustrate the policy object approach. This research puts forward arguments to suggest that the policy object could be an important variable to consider in policy research. This somewhat different lens, inviting fine-grained attention to a specific policy object (its ontologies and enacted ontologies), could bring additional insight into policy outcomes.     

Expansion without equity: An analysis of current policy on access to higher education in Brazil

Access to higher education in Brazil is to a large extent restricted to the higher socio-economic groups. Public universities have limited places and entry is determined by highly competitive exams, thereby excluding those who have not had a high quality secondary education or attended an expensive preparatory course. There has been considerable growth in the private sector to absorb the excess demand, but the majority of Brazilians cannot afford the fees. This paper develops a concept of equity in higher education in which, firstly, there should be sufficient places in the system as a whole and, secondly, all people should have a fair opportunity of attending the university of their choice regardless of socio-economic background. Recent efforts to expand access are analysed, including incentives for the growth of private universities, student loans and the new Prouni initiative, in which private institutions provide free places to low-income students in return for tax exemptions. While these initiatives have the potential to increase the total number of places, they will not lead to an equitable expansion, as disadvantaged students will still be confined to courses of lower quality or with lower subsequent value on the employment market. Initiatives aimed at the public sector such as the introduction of quotas and changes to entry examinations are also discussed. Finally, some implications for future policy development are outlined. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the World Congress of Comparative Education Societies, Havana, 25th–29th October 2004.     

浅谈"空巢孩子"成因与教育对策

从上世纪80年代初开始，大量的农村劳动力进城务工，这些农民工的孩子大多数都留在了农村，成为留守儿童。这些孩子由于父母双方或单方长期在外打工，往往由父母的长辈或亲属抚养、照管，平时与父母接触和交流、沟通的机会较少，所谓的家就像是“空巢”，人们把这些孩子叫做“空巢孩子”。尽管一些农民工在进城务工的同时把孩子也带到了城市，但这毕竟只是少数。因为经济、住房、入学费用等多方面的原因，大部分农民工的孩子，只能与父母分离，留在家中，由爷爷奶奶或其他亲戚朋友监管，构成了一个庞大的弱势教育群体——“空巢孩子”。     

Teachers' recognition and reporting of child abuse: a factorial survey

OBJECTIVE: The major aim of this study was to determine the effect of characteristics of the case, the teacher, and the organizational setting on recognition and reporting of child abuse. METHOD: A factorial survey design was employed in which a probability sample of teachers (N = 480) responded to vignettes in which case characteristics were systematically manipulated. RESULTS: Analysis using OLS regression showed that case characteristics alone accounted for 50.30% of the variance in recognition and 51.08% of the variance in reporting: the strongest effects were from type and seriousness of abuse, positive behavior of the victim and positive psychology of the perpetrator. The inclusion of variables describing the teachers and the school explained only a very small additional proportion of the variance in teacher's responses. CONCLUSIONS: Teachers responses to child abuse are relatively unbiased by either the extraneous characteristics of the perpetrator or victim, the responding teacher, or the school setting. The findings do not appear to support the problem of "overreporting." There is evidence for "underreporting," particularly in less serious cases involving physical and emotional abuse. Teachers are undeterred by the many problems and fears that may accompany a report of child abuse to Child Protective Services. Teachers use discretion in reporting abuse they recognize.     

AWARE: A Personalized Normative Feedback–Based Group Intervention for Mandated College Students

AWARE is a brief group intervention that was built upon the principles of personalized normative feedback with novel components (Penn State Altoona, n.d.). The purpose of this study was to pilot test the intervention with mandated college students who were referred for alcohol‐related violations (N = 283). Results showed significant postintervention changes. Significant interaction effects between time and race and between time and gender were found. Reduction in the consumption of alcohol use and perception of peer alcohol use were significantly different among non‐White and female participants.     

Revaluing the enlightenment: reason and imagination

In higher education teaching, enhancing learner autonomy has become a key concern for curriculum planners and classroom teachers. The significant body of research about learner autonomy in language learning over the last 20 years (e.g. Holec 1981, 1988; Riley 1985; Dickinson 1987, 1992; Wenden & Rubin 1987; Little, 1991; Dam, 1995; Benson & Voller, 1997) has indicated an on-going search for more understanding of how learner autonomy can be implemented in different contexts. This paper is based on a research study which was conducted in the Hong Kong Polytechnic University in Hong Kong. The study explores learners' attitudes and expectations of language learning, teacher and learner roles, their learning preferences and perceptions of learner autonomy. The paper reports the results and discusses their implication on the development of a learner-centred approach in higher education.