School crowding,year-round schooling,and mobile classroom use: Evidence from North Carolina

This study exploits a unique policy environment and a large panel dataset to evaluate the impact of school crowding on student achievement in Wake County, NC. We also estimate the effects of two education policy initiatives that are often used to address crowding: multi-track year-round calendars and mobile classrooms. We estimate a multi-level fixed effects model to identify effects that are not confounded by other school, family, and individual characteristics. Results suggest that severely crowded schools have a negative impact on reading achievement but have no discernable impact on math achievement. Both mobile classrooms and year-round calendars are found to have a small negative impact on achievement in the absence of crowding, but a positive impact in crowded schools, though these policies are only able to partially offset the negative impact of crowding.     

Design of a model-based online management information system for interlibrary loan networks

The inputs to mathematical models of library operations require periodic updating. The data collection effort necessary for such updating can be quite expensive. However, if the data collected can serve multiple purposes, the costs can perhaps be justified. A management information system offers a vehicle for multiple uses of data and thus, offers an appropriate environment for implementation of models of library operations. Within this paper, the design of a model-based management information system is discussed in terms of mathematical /statistical, information processing, and human factors issues. A prototype system for interlibrary loan networks is discussed.     

The value of information and computer-aided information seeking: problem formulation and application to fiction retrieval

Issues concerning the formulation and application of a model of how humans value information are examined. Formulation of a value function is based on research from modelling, value assessment, human information seeking behavior, and human decision making. The proposed function is incorporated into a computer-based fiction retrieval system and evaluated using data from nine searches. Evaluation is based on the ability of an individual's value function to discriminate among novels selected, rejected, and not considered. The results are discussed in terms of both formulation and utilization of a value function as well as the implications for extending the proposed formulation to other information seeking environments.     

Writing to learn in science: Effects on Grade 4 students' understanding of balance

In this study, we randomly assigned 69 Grade 4 students to a writing-to-learn treatment (n = 23), comparison (n = 23), or no-treatment control (n = 23). Treatment and comparison students completed a science experiment involving balance. During the experiment, treatment students wrote four short responses and an extended response to document their learning. To control for writing time, comparison students wrote four short responses and an extended response about topics other than balance. On a 20-item balance knowledge posttest, control outperformed treatment (d = 0.89) and comparison (d = 1.05) on the lowest level balance questions (Level 1). At the highest level questions, Levels 3 and 4, treatment (ds = 1.42 and 0.94) and comparison (ds = 1.62 and 1.37) outperformed control. There were no significant differences in total words written or level of balance understanding on a posttest written response. The performance of individual responders to treatment is also discussed.     

Learning to read: where should early childhood educators begin?

Learning to read is a process that begins well before children commence formal schooling and well before children learn to decode print. Children's early reading skills are, first and foremost, foundationally contingent upon children's oral language and phonological awareness proficiencies – skills that can be mapped across a continuum of development from speech‐to‐print. Nine educators from Victoria, Australia, were interviewed, asked to share their understandings and planning for literacy learning when working with 2–3‐year‐old children. Findings showed that the educators exposed children to opportunities to develop their communication and oral language skills, privileging general conversation and storybook reading. However, some educators appeared unaware of the various stages of phonological awareness and/or appeared to privilege phonics over and above earlier stages of development. The authors recommend that educators, managers and course designers seeking to support young children's emergent literacy development use a framework such as the one presented in this paper to evaluate their knowledges/practices/programmes and that further, larger scale research be conducted that compares educators' interview data with what they do in practice.     

Attitudes to diversity: a cross‐cultural study of education students in Spain,England and the United States

This study explores the beliefs and attitudes that university students enrolled in teacher education programmes in Spain, England and the US (Texas) hold about individuals who differ. A beliefs and attitudes toward difference scale (BATD) was constructed using nine dimensions of diversity; culture, language, socioeconomic status/social class, religion, gender, sexual orientation, political ideology, disability and special talent. A two‐way factorial analysis of variance indicated significant main effects due to the respondent groups on culture, religion and sexual orientation; significant main effects of worldview of difference on political ideology; and no interaction between the two factors on each of the nine domains of difference. An exploratory factor analysis was also performed in order to explore the viability of the theoretical model. The data suggest that attitudes towards people who differ include etic, emic and individual properties. These are discussed in terms of the uses of cross‐cultural data and further research opportunities.     

The inclusive practice project in Scotland: Teacher education for inclusive education

While differences in national contexts are associated with variations in how teachers are trained and school systems are organised, the conceptual and philosophical problems of equity and inclusion in schooling are shared concerns. This paper describes how the structure and content of an initial teacher education programme for primary and secondary teachers has been revised to ensure that social and educational inclusion is addressed within the core programme. A rationale is presented for the development of ‘inclusive practice’, followed by a discussion of the reforms and an outline of the effects that are expected in the classroom practices of teachers in schools.     

Elementary teaming: Learning improvement or administrative ploy

Trends suggest that homeschooling continues to increase among black families. Yet, research on contemporary Black homeschooling remains scarce. Given black educational history, the phenomena of Black families choosing homeschooling over public and private schools in the post-Desegregation era is worthy of investigation. Further, documenting the ways in which black homeschool families engage their children in learning will inform the needs of black education in conventional schools, public and private. The phenomenon of increasing black home education represents a radical transformative act of self-determination, the likes of which have not been witnessed since the 1960s and ‘70s. This work highlights the primacy of agency among black homeschooling families. Thus, contrary to the negative depictions of black families as disengaged from the educational pursuits of their children, we evoke hooks's (1990) notion of homeplace to argue that black home education represents a vehicle of resistance to institutionalized racism and ideological mismatches between black families and their children's educational needs.