Remediation and Dismissal Policies in Counselor Education: Lessons Learned from a Challenge in Federal Court

Counselor educators today are faced with a difficult dilemma. They are mandated to dismiss students they judged to be unfit and irremediable, yet they risk legal action whenever executing a student dismissal decision. Their duty to protect the public must be weighed against the liabilities of costly litigation to institutions, programs, and themselves. This article describes 1 counselor education program's decision to dismiss a student and endure a lengthy, although unsuccessful, lawsuit and jury trial in federal court. The strengths and weaknesses of the program's remediation and dismissal protocol are examined as they emerged under court scrutiny.     

The more things change,the more they stay the same: African American English,language policy,and African American learners

Abstract

Despite the substantive body of research on African American Language (AAL), designating it a meaningful, rule-governed language system and the first language of many African Americans, schools in the US have systematically failed to integrate a language policy related to African American English learners (AAELs). In this article, we employ a critical discourse and policy analysis to examine two major policies related to AAL and AAELs – the Martin Luther King Junior Elementary School Children et al. v. Ann Arbor School District, a federal district case in Michigan known as the Ann Arbor Decision, and the Ebonics Resolution adopted by the Oakland California Board of the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD). Our analysis reveals three themes across these texts – they affirm AAL as a ‘home and community language’ in its own right, mandate teachers to take ‘appropriate action’ in teaching AAL speakers, and dispel notions that AAL stems from cultural, social, and economic deprivation.     

Adapting to large-scale changes in Advanced Placement Biology,Chemistry, and Physics: the impact of online teacher communities

Over the past decade, the field of teacher professional learning has coalesced around core characteristics of high quality professional development experiences (e.g. Borko, Jacobs, & Koellner, 2010. Contemporary approaches to teacher professional development. In P. L. Peterson, E. Baker, & B. McGaw (Eds.), International encyclopedia of education (Vol. 7, pp. 548–556). Oxford: Elsevier.; Darling-Hammond, Hyler, & Gardner, 2017. Effective teacher professional development. Palo Alto, CA: Learning Policy Institute). Many countries have found these advances of great interest because of a desire to build teacher capacity in science education and across the full curriculum. This paper continues this progress by examining the role and impact of an online professional development community within the top-down, large-scale curriculum and assessment revision of Advanced Placement (AP) Biology, Chemistry, and Physics. This paper is part of a five-year, longitudinal, U.S. National Science Foundation–funded project to study the relative effectiveness of various types of professional development in enabling teachers to adapt to the revised AP course goals and exams. Of the many forms of professional development our research has examined, preliminary analyses indicated that participation in the College Board's online AP Teacher Community (APTC) – where teachers can discuss teaching strategies, share resources, and connect with each other – had positive, direct, and statistically significant association with teacher self-reported shifts in practice and with gains in student AP scores (Fishman et al., 2014). This study explored how usage of the online APTC might be useful to teachers and examined a more robust estimate of these effects. Findings from the experience of AP teachers may be valuable in supporting other large-scale curriculum changes, such as the U.S. Next Generation Science Standards or Common Core Standards, as well as parallel curricular shifts in other countries.     

Two‐dice horse race

We analyse the “two‐dice horse race” task often used in lower secondary school, in which two ordinary dice are thrown repeatedly and each time the sum of the scores determines which horse (numbered 1 to 12) moves forwards one space.     

The Relationship Between Relational Aggression in Kindergarten Children and Friendship Stability, Mutuality, and Peer Liking

The current study examined relational aggression in kindergarten children and how it relates to aspects of their friendships over a 2-month period. Participants were 74 boys and girls (ages 5 and 6). Teacher report and peer nominations assessed relational and physical aggression. Children also rated each child in their class on liking and identified their friends. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses showed that peer nominations of relational aggression were negatively related to Time 1 liking, Time 1 number of mutual friends, and friendship stability even when teacher ratings of physical aggression were controlled. Physical aggression was also significantly related to these variables. Relational aggression (but not physical aggression) significantly predicted declines in the number of mutual friendships and liking two months later.