Using Charter Schools to Alleviate Racial Exclusion in Rural America: An Innovative Idea or a Trojan Horse?

ABSTRACT

Racial segregation has remained a lasting legacy of rural schools in southern states. Our article explains a case where community leaders created a diverse charter school to change its historical practice of an isolated White private school and isolated African American public schools. We scan documents and literature related to this integration strategy to surface key themes when using rural charter schools to alter patterns of school segregation. First, we explain pressing issues in rural schools. Second, we describe how segregation and inequality have evolved in the South. Third, we explain research showing how charter schools maintain patterns of school segregation, but with exceptions and nuances in certain contexts. Fourth, we consider the benefits and tensions surrounding one rural charter school that offers an integrated educational program. Benefits range from societal to individual as the school fosters an environment where students are exposed to diverse educational experiences. Tensions include shifting power and funding dynamics and the possibility of using a good example to shepherd in less effective charter models elsewhere.     

The connection between phonological,syntactic and semantic skills and children’s reading and spelling

In recent years two radically different views have dominated discussions about the way in which children learn to read and write. The first view is that the crucial hurdle in learning to read is the discovery of how to do the correct phonological analysis. The second view is that the crucial factor is the use of context, and that children use what they know about the meaning — and particularly the semantics and the syntax — of the passages that they are reading to help them decipher and learn about difficult written words. Learning to read is ‘a psycholinguistic guessing game’ according to this view and children set about it in much the same way as they set about learning to speak. Thus according to the first view children’s semantic and syntactic skills will determine their progress in reading and according to the second it will be their phonological skills. We present longitudinal evidence about a group of children in their first year at school which shows that both kinds of skill do play a part, but that they make entirely different contributions. Semantic and syntactic skills determine how well children make use of the context of what they are reading. Phonological skills affect their use of letter-sound relationships.     

The neighborhood walk: sources of support in middle childhood

This report documents children's perception of their involvement with self-development, family members, and members of the community and begins to test the relation between that network and aspects of social-emotional functioning during middle childhood. Support was conceptualized to include experiences of both relatedness to and autonomy from others. Three major types of reported support in this study using the Neighborhood Walk were considered: others as resources (e.g., persons in the peer, parent, and grandparent generation; pets), intrapersonal sources of support (e.g., hobbies; fantasies--structured and unstructured; skill development), and environmental sources of support (e.g., places to get off to by oneself; formally sponsored organizations with structured and unstructured activities; informal, unsponsored meeting places). One hundred sixty-eight children (72 7-year-olds and 96 10-year-olds), residing in nonmetropolitan and rural northern California and representing all but the lowest Hollingshead socioeconomic status, participated in this study. To assess their sources of support at home and in the neighborhood/community, each of these 168 children was taken on a Neighborhood Walk, and then several measures of social-emotional functioning were administered. Cross-sectional data form the empirical basis for a developmental perspective on sources of support, the structure of social-emotional functioning, and the relationship between sources of support and social-emotional functioning during middle childhood. The child's perception of support was found relevant to predicting the social-emotional functioning of children growing up in relatively secure and low-stress conditions in modern American society. Furthermore, a broad-based as opposed to a limited network and informal as opposed to formal sources of support were more predictive of social-emotional functioning. The empirical and theoretical relevance of considering middle childhood as a period of active development involving expansion and integration of social and affective phenomena was underscored by the results. First, it appears that the 7-year-olds have not yet developed the underlying response or habit clusters that characterize the 10-year-olds. Second, with respect to reported sources of support, 10-year-olds appear to have more elaborated sources of support than do 7-year-olds. Third, the findings confirm that developing a bridge to extended family and neighborhood resources is related to expressions of social-emotional functioning during middle childhood and that 10-year-olds appear to make effective use of more social support factors than do 7-year-olds.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)     

Ready to learn? Children's pre-academic achievement in pre-Kindergarten programs

We examined children's growth in school-related learning and social skills over the pre-Kindergarten (pre-K) year in state-funded programs designed to prepare children for kindergarten. We expected that children's gains in academic and social skills could be attributed to variations in the structural and classroom process dimensions of program quality. Nearly 3000 (n = 2800) children were randomly selected, four per classroom, from approximately 700 randomly selected, state-funded pre-Kindergarten classrooms in eleven states. Enrollment in pre-K appeared related to gains in academic skills. Children showed larger gains in academic outcomes when they experienced higher-quality instruction or closer teacher–child relationships. Gains were not related to characteristics of the child or program (i.e., ratio, teacher qualifications and program location and length). These findings have implications for a range of state and local policy and program development efforts as well as for theories of contextual influences on development.     

Demonstrating the positive impact of information support on patient care in primary care: a rapid literature review

AIM: To review the literature on the positive impact of information services, or information resources, on patient care in primary care. OBJECTIVES: To identify and summarize key papers on which librarians might draw in making the case for investment, and to highlight gaps in the research evidence Methodology: A rapid literature review was conducted in the summer of 2005. RESULTS: There is a small body of evidence to demonstrate the positive impact of library and information services on the direct care of patients as well as a beneficial impact on the care of future patients through the application of evidence to multiple patients. CONCLUSIONS: There is relatively limited research evidence of the impact of information, and library services, in primary care, in comparison with hospital settings and the research available is generally reliant on small samples. There is a lack of impact studies conducted with non-clinical staff. The review highlights the value of critical incident technique (CIT). It is possible to gather evidence of the potential for information services to deliver cost savings.     

Behavioral self-management of academic test performances in elementary classrooms

The effects of two types of self-determined reinforcement contingencies on children's test performances were investigated and compared to each other and to externally determined contingencies. In Experiment I, fourth-grade children's test performances were measured for three baseline sessions utilizing self-assessment and self-recording and three contingency sessions. Three contingency conditions resulted in significant and comparable increases in total test performances over a noncontingent reinforcement control: externally determined contingencies set in advance of performance, self-determined contingencies set in advance of performance when children were trained in contingency selection, and self-determined contingent points that children awarded themselves after performance. In a condition in which children self-determined contingencies but had no training in how to set contingencies, the results were not significantly greater than the control. In Experiment II, contingencies were introduced for a longer period of time to two fifth-grade classes. The comparable increases in test performance through externally determined and self-determined contingencies set in advance of performance when children were trained in contingency selection persisted over the three weeks. It was suggested that self-management that includes self-determined contingencies of reinforcement procedures may provide useful and cost effective techniques that educational consultants may recommend for classroom implementation.