The School for Science and Math at Vanderbilt: An Innovative Research-Based Program for High School Students

The School for Science and Math at Vanderbilt (SSMV) is an innovative partnership program between a Research I private university and a large urban public school system. The SSMV was started in 2007 and currently has 101 students enrolled in the program, with a total of 60 students who have completed the 4-yr sequential program. Students attend the SSMV for one full day per week during the school year and 3–6 wk in the summers following their ninth- to 11th-grade years, with each grade of 26 students coming to the Vanderbilt campus on a separate day. The research-based curriculum focuses on guiding students through the process of learning to develop questions and hypotheses, designing projects and performing analyses, and communicating results of these projects. The SSMV program has elevated the learning outcomes of students as evidenced by increased achievement scores relative to a comparison group of students; has provided a rigorous research-based science, technology, engineering, and mathematics elective curriculum that culminates in a Summer research internship; has produced 27 Intel and Siemens semifinalists and regional finalists over the past 4 yr; and has supported the development of writing and communication skills resulting in regional and national oral presentations and publications in scientific journals.     

Where the buck stops: class differences in support for education

There has been little critical scrutiny of the extent to which the members of different social classes support current public educational institutions. This paper explores the attitudes toward education of class groups in relation to the declared agendas of class leaders, using public opinion surveys conducted regularly in Canada's economic heartland of Ontario between 1978 and 1996.

An analysis of class leaders’ public discourse indicates that corporate leaders stress the waste and inefficiencies of the current school system, the need for market‐driven initiatives to overcome these problems, and a general belief that such reforms coupled with cost reductions and lower government deficits can lead to economic growth and job creation. Some labour union and other leaders associate declining school quality with spending cuts, defend equal access to education, and promote measures such as a reduced normal workweek to address the education‐jobs gap rather than continuing deficit reduction and more reliance on private and individual initiative.

Corporate executives are shown to hold much more strongly consensual, fiscally restrictive views on education than other class groups. Other classes hold less consensual but equally coherent and fiscally responsible attitudes on education spending. Professional and managerial class groups, whom some analysts predict to be most disaffected, have only decreased their degree of support for increased education spending and taxes. Support for education funding among working‐class groups has increased since the early 1980s. There is also now at least plurality support for a shorter workweek in all class groups except corporate executives. Corporate business attempts to resettle the social contract with a downsized state education system are so far failing in the realm of public opinion.

It is a question of whether we can grasp the real nature of our society, or whether we persist in social and educational patterns based on a limited ruling class, a middle professional class, a large operative class, cemented by forces that cannot be challenged and will not be changed. The privileges and barriers, of an inherited kind, will in any case go down. It is only a question of whether we replace them by the free play of the market, or by a public education designed to express and create the values of an educated democracy and a common culture (Williams 1961: 155)     

Crossing the Divide: A Survey of the High School Activities That Best Prepared Students to Write in College

Learning is a concept that is routinely used in various educational settings, and the enhancement of learning is the primary goal of many, if not all, educators and administrators. People involved in education, however, may not necessarily have extensively explored this commonly cited notion, and some may not have subsequently realized the conceptual depth and variations that learning entails in developing classroom materials and practices. For example, learning may be domain specific, and may involve a wide variety of processes and expressions. Additionally, it is linked to an array of factors, including individual differences, such as temperament, and culturally relative dimensions, such as value priorities. This article discusses implications for classroom practices to facilitate educators’ application of this complex concept.     

The Differential Effects of Repeating Kindergarten

We use the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study to investigate national patterns addressing (a) who repeats kindergarten, and (b) the subsequent cognitive effects of this event. Using OLS regression techniques, we investigate 1st-time kindergartners who are promoted, 1st-time kindergartners who are retained, and children who are already repeating kindergarten. Boys, children from low socioeconomic backgrounds, and children who enter kindergarten younger than typical age standards are consistently at risk for repeating kindergarten, but racial/ethnic patterns differ across the 2 cohorts of kindergarten repeaters. Evidence suggests that repeating kindergarten rarely leads to cognitive benefits in literacy or mathematics performance. On average, kindergarten repeaters continue to perform below their peers in terms of literacy skills both at the end of kindergarten and at the end of first grade (effect size [ES] = ?0.20 and ?0.24, respectively). In mathematics, the performance differentials are smaller but remain statistically significant. Evidence suggests that these differences vary somewhat by children's background and the school setting. Most children appear to receive little or no cognitive benefit from repeating kindergarten, suggesting the need for a careful reconsideration of current retention practices.     

The Key to Developing America's Workforce

Central Community College (CCC; Columbus, Nebraska) has taken the lead in several business, industry, and educational collaborations, beginning locally, then expanding statewide. This article shares two models that other community colleges may wish to replicate. The first describes the development of a collaborative team. The second shows that, by using the collaborative team approach, community colleges can generate substantial increases in both funding and full-time equivalents (a basis for community college funding inNebraska)while serving business andindustry.For example, since June 1998 CCC has generated nearly $1.4 million for its business and industry training programs. As a result of collaboration among CCC, the Nebraska Community College System, government agencies, and business and industry, the Statewide Interactive Multimedia Training Library was established.     

A Radical Approach to the Administration of Education

The specialist schools programme is currently seen by policy makers as a way of transforming the comprehensive education system, and meeting the local needs of parents for diversity and excellence. Insofar as this policy has an evidence-base this has been provided by studies showing higher levels of attainment among existing specialist schools. This article shows that if these advantages occur then there is a danger that they do so at a cost in terms of inclusion. The existing specialist schools have also shown a greater tendency to take proportionately fewer children from poor families over time, especially where these schools are also their own admission authorities. If this trend continues it will exacerbate the pre-existing social and economic segregation in the education system. The article ends by considering some of the implications for school organisation.