A framework for the analysis of teachers' demand and supply

This article develops a general framework for the analysis of education finance reforms. Most of the recent literature concentrates o on the demands and ignores the costs of educational services. Proposed reforms that account for different costs assume that the supply of all educational inputs are infinitely price elastic. The article presents a model for the supply of different types of teachers and an optimization model of the school district which maximizes a general welfare function subject to production function and budget constraints. Derived demand equations are obtained under the assumptions of (1) perfect competition, (2) monopsony, and (3) monopsony plus endogenous property tax rates. The equations are simplified and estimated using data from Pennsylvania school districts. A major policy implication for school finance reform is that present schemes for state equalization aid may be fundamentally flawed because they do not properly account for the effects of demand shifts (with upward sloping supply curves) on education input prices.     

The 5th annual SIETAR conference in Mexico city: An evaluation

The 5th Annual Conference of the Society for Intercultural Education, Training and Research (SIETAR), in Mexico City, was evaluated using both scaled and open-ended questions. Analysis of the scaled responses suggested that the participants found the conference to be personally enjoyable, professionally worthwhile, well organized and intellectually stimulating. Overall, the conference was rated very favorably. On the other hand, however, negative evaluations were received regarding the quality of the presentations, the travel agent, the translations and direct benefits in the areas of intercultural training and research. Demographic analyses indicated that North Americans, researchers and university and government people rated the conference most favorably. Seven recommendations for future conferences were derived from the summarized open-ended responses.     

Reading Island Voices: issues around the primacy of speech and the privileging of literacy,from a Hebridean viewpoint1

ABSTRACT

Divergent views on the relative value or status of spoken and written language skills may contribute to a disconnect between lay community members and language professionals, activists, or academics, and conflicted approaches to language support, teaching and/or revitalisation. Taking the bilingual Outer Hebrides as a case study, an online language capture and curation project is described which attempts to engage with these issues, acknowledging an important place for Reading Aloud in the range of strategies employed.     

Designing and implementing technology collaboration projects: Lessons learned

Conclusion Even though the collaboration between the state university and the government research center ended inconclusively, the authors examined the collaboration with an attempt to provide sound guidance for future collaboration projects. Based upon the findings above, many of the challenges that the technology collaboration faced become clearer. A primary problem was an unclear definition regarding the type of collaboration that was being developed. Goals and project timelines were not agreed upon or clearly communicated between all participants. Many graduate students chose to contribute to the project because it appeared to be an attempt to engage teachers and researchers in working collaboratively to design and develop a usable and engaging product for the classroom. This type of collaboration, however, requires authentic participation by all parties. As the project progressed, many teachers felt that they had increasingly limited input into the design of the multimedia modules. For example, teachers raised many concerns related to interface design and lesson content, but later learned that these items were non-negotiable. Teachers began to feel as though their role was more of an apprentice or an intern learning from rather than with the research center. Lack of clarity regarding roles conspired with a host of issues related to partnership development to obstruct the overall product from being completed. As a result, it is impossible to gauge whether the modules designed via the partnership will have a greater impact on student learning than those created solely by the research center. Furthermore, it is difficult to determine whether participating teacher practices changed. None of them had the opportunity to pilot test the modules within their classrooms and a very small percentage completed all quarters of participation. The greatest challenges of the project related to whether or not the needs of the two institutions involved and of the graduate students were fulfilled. The technology collaboration was an honest attempt to involve teachers in the development of science curriculum and technology on a national scale. There exists great potential in linking the skills of teachers with the resources available through the research center and the authors were personally invested in getting involved in the collaboration. Critical to the success of such collaborations is effectively utilizing the skills of all participants, and essential to the measure of its success is the overall ability of the project to meet stakeholders’ needs.     

Current Tobacco-Smoking and Neural Responses to Infant Cues in Mothers

Objective. Smoking has a detrimental impact on maternal physical health and exposes children to secondhand smoke, but the extent to which it affects maternal brain and behavior is not well-known and may have implications for parent and child development. We examined how current smoking status might relate to maternal neural responses to infant cues using event-related potentials. Design. Current smoking (n = 35) and non-smoking (n = 35) mothers viewed photographs of emotional infant faces while electroencephalography was simultaneously recorded. Results. The latency of the face-specific N170 event-related potential component was delayed in smoking mothers compared to non-smoking mothers, and the P300 was differentiated by smoking status. Conclusions. Postpartum smoking is associated with event-related potential measures that may reflect modulation of infant face perception in motherhood.     

Gender/Technology Relations: Complicating the gender binary

This article is concerned with gender and technology relations in education. More specifically, it focuses on assumptions made about girls' and young women's developing identity within the context of the computing and/or technology classroom in primary and secondary schools. The article argues that we must explore what is invisible yet taken for granted in social-constructionist analyses of gender-technology relations: that these relations are situated within heterosexual social norms. Research studies in computing and technology classrooms are considered in detail in order to explore questions concerned with girls' constructed 'incompetence'. The article concludes that there needs to be an analysis that considers the interrelationship between computing and gender and heterosexuality in the classroom to help broaden our understanding of how girls and women might develop knowledge and skills in locations that are gendered masculine.