Education Policy Analysis Archives (EPAA)
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Negoiated Learning: Union Contracts and Teacher Professional Development
Paul V. Bredeson
In this article, I report the results of an investigation that examined the impact of teacher union contracts on the development of professional learning communities in schools. There are three primary sources of data used in the study: 1) 100 written teacher union contract documents; 2) structured interview data from 21 educators (school superintendents, principals, directors of staff development, and teacher union representatives; and 3) focus group interview data from educational leaders in schools. ...
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Occupational Trends and Program Priorities
Dan Rosenthal and Kitty C. Collier
Institutions of higher education that respond to the economic base in their region will remain competitive and be better positioned to obtain public funds and donor support. In addition to mandated program viability standards based on measures such as graduation rate, individual institutions and state coordinating boards can use ten-year occupational trend data to assess future program viability. We used an occupational demand model to determine whether academic programs can meet projected statewide needs for high demand and high growth occupations. ...
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Alexander v. Sandoval: A Setback for Civil Rights
Kevin G. Welner
This article confronts the serious implications of a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision, Alexander v. Sandoval, which eliminated an important legal avenue for civil rights plaintiffs. For over 35 years, individuals have been allowed to bring lawsuits directly challenging violations of rights set forth in the federal regulations implementing Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Because these actions could be grounded in proof of disparate impact, rather than discriminatory intent, they allowed for some claims that could not go forward under other legal authorities, such as the Fourteenth Amendment. While the author concludes by identifying key remaining options, he highlights the real damage done by this decision.
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La política universitaria argentina de los 90: Los alcances del concepto de autonomía
Adriana Chiroleu, Osvaldo Iazzetta, Claudia Voras, and Claudio Díaz
Although university autonomy was apparently protected during Carlos Menem's government (1989-1999), actually it was gradually undergoing substantial changes. “Intrusive” devices had been prepared by the executive power, thus causing the restriction of its objectives. This kind of state participation was less explicit than in the past, being now associated with the establishment of a system of "punishment and reward," in which financing is subordinated to “performance," evaluated according to the parameters of multilateral credit organizations . In this work, we analyse the way in which this conflict took place under Menem's government, contrasting the meanings given to the idea of autonomy by the government and by the public institution; attention focuses on the case of the National University of Rosario.
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La Participación de las Minorías Nacionales dentro de Sistemas Educativos Pre-Modernos: El Caso de los Garífunas de Guatemala
Carlos R. Ruano
This article presents the results of research carried out on the linguistic and educational needs of Guatemala's national minorities and the responses given to those needs by Guatemala's central government. Specifically, the case of the Garífuna population on the Atlantic Coast is studied with a view to understanding the educational policy dynamics underlying Pre-Modern States towards the multicultural groups' lack of participation and incorporation into the national polity. ...
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Impact of Grants-in-Aid on Collegiate Education: Evidence and Implications of a Regional Study in India
M. R. Narayana
This article estimates the impact of grants-in-aid (GIA) and other variables on students' performance (in terms of pass percentages) in aided private degree colleges, using panel data from sample colleges in Bangalore district of Karnataka State (India) from 1991-92 to 1997-98. ...
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Trasfondo de las diferencias étnicas en la escuela: Un estudio de caso en Soria, España
Serafín Aldea Muñoz
This article attempts to compile those concepts relating to the duality equality—difference, which appears with increasing frequency in our schools. Respect for ethnic minorities, integration, and the need to affirm certain values are part of the rights of children and of all persons. Nevertheless, this work provides evidence of the gap between theory and reality in the classroom. ...
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Género y construcción de identidad profesional: el caso de la maestra en vías de profesionalización (de los años 50 a los 60 en el franquismo intermedio)
Sonsoles San Román Gago
It is my aim in this article to carry out a thorough examination of the basic elements, ideology and symbolic representations which constitute the identity of a generation of schoolmistresses belonging to a crucial period in Spanish history: that of the intermediate Francoism, during the process of modernization which took place at the end of the 1950s. The investigation is based on live testimonies of schoolmistresses between the ages of 65 and 70.
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Thinking Out of the Box: One University's Experience with Foreign-trained Teachers
Belinda Bustos Flores
Texas like many states is facing a teacher shortage. The author suggests that the teacher shortage should be considered in light of the diverse school population. Across states there is a need for well-prepared teachers to work with linguistically and culturally diverse school populations. Thus, areas such as bilingual education continue to be critical shortage areas. While different attempts are currently underway to increase the number of preservice bilingual educators, another way districts have addressed this issue is to employ foreign-trained teachers as paraprofessionals or as teachers.Texas like many states is facing a teacher shortage. The author suggests that the teacher shortage should be considered in light of the diverse school population. ...
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Commen on Ng's Wealth Redistribution, Race, and Southern Public Schools, 1880-1910
Sherman Dorn
Wherein the author raises criticisms and advances qualifications to the conclusions reached by Kenneth Ng is his article "Wealth Redistribution, Race and Southern Public Schools, 1880-1910."
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Wealth Redistribution, Race and Southern Public Schools, 1880-1910
Kenneth Ng
This article measures the wealth redistribution effected by southern public schools and the taxes which supported them. It extends and contributes to the existing literature on this subject in three ways. First, the measurement is based on a larger sample of southern states and over more years than previous efforts. Second, this article establishes that from 1880 to 1910 throughout the South the public schools were a conduit for a consistent and significant flow of resources from whites to blacks. ...
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School Reform Iniatives as Balancing Acts: Policy Variation and Educational Convergence among Japan, Korea, England and the United States
Jaekyung Lee
School reform initiatives during the last two decades in Japan, Korea, England, and the United States can be understood as balancing acts. Because policymakers in England and the United States saw their school systems fragmented and student outcomes mediocre, they focused reform efforts on raising educational standards, tightening curriculum and assessment, and improving academic achievement. In contrast, policymakers in Japan and Korea, who saw their school systems overstandardized and educational processes deficient, focused their reform efforts on deregulating schools, diversifying curriculum and assessment, and enhancing whole-person education. ...
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Conceptualizing the Process of Education Reform from an International Perspective
Benjamin Levin
A great deal of comparative work on education reform is now being done, but this work often lacks a clearly articulated conceptual frame. This paper, based on a study of change in five jurisdictions in four countries, develops a model of reform based on four interactive elements - origins, adoption, implementation, and outcomes. Within each of these elements, questions and concepts from the relevant literature are developed with the intent of building a more comprehensive approach to the analysis of reform from political, organizational and educational perspectives.
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Calculating the Benefits and Costs of For-Profit Public Education
Alex Molnar
As a policy initiative, for-profit operation of public schools has not lived up to the claims of its proponents. An examination of issues such as teaching methods, academic achievement, autonomy, local control, and the image and influence of for-profit public schools suggests that "for-profits" are unlikely to succeed in the long term in improving the overall quality of public education. They do, however, seem capable of harming public schools.
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Affirmative Action at Work: Performance Audit of Two Minority Graduate Fellowship Programs, Illinois' IMGIP and ICEOP
Jack McKillip
IMGIP and ICEOP are minority graduate fellowship programs sponsored by the State of Illinois in order to increase the number of minority faculty and professional staff at Illinois institutions of higher education through graduate fellowships, networking and mentoring support. Nearly 850 fellowships have been awarded since 1986. A performance audit examined immediate (areas of graduate study, ethnicity of awards), intermediate (graduation areas and rates), and long-range results (academic job placement). ...
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Constructing Outcomes in Teacher Education: Policy, Practice and Pitfalls
Marilyn Cochran-Smith
… In this article, I argue that teacher education reform over the last fifty years has been driven by a series of questions about policy and practice. The question that is currently driving reform and policy in teacher education is what I refer to as "the outcomes question." This question asks how we should conceptualize and define the outcomes of teacher education for teacher learning, professional practice, and student learning, as well as how, by whom, and for what purposes these outcomes should be documented, demonstrated, and/or measured. ...
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Japanese EFL Teachers' Perceptions of Communicative, Audiolingual and Yakudoku Activities: The Plan Versus the Reality
Greta Gorsuch
… Data resulting from a survey project of 876 Japanese high school English teachers was used to provide empirical evidence of teachers' levels of approval of communicative, audiolingual and traditional (yakudoku) activities. ...
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The Academic Journal: Has It a Future?
Gaby Weiner
This article examines the current state of the academic journal. It does so for a number of reasons: the increasing expense of paper journals; the advent of electronic publishing; the use of publication in journals as an indicator of research quality (in addition to disseminating knowledge within a discipline) and consequent criticisms of systems of peer review and evaluation of scholarship; emergent issues of equity and access; and evidence of malpractice. ...
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The Effects of Vouchers on School Improvement: Another Look at the Florida Data
Haggai Kupermintz
This report re-analyzes test score data from Florida public schools. In response to a recent report from the Manhattan Institute, it offers a different perspective and an alternative explanation for the pattern of test score improvements among low scoring schools in Florida.
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Critique of "An Evaluation of the Florida A-Plus Accountability and School Choice Program"
Gregory Camilli and Katrina Bulkley
In 1999, Florida adopted the "A-Plus" accountability system, which included a provision that allowed students in certain low-performing schools to receive school vouchers. In a recently released report, An Evaluation of the Florida A-Plus Accountability and School Choice Program, the author argued that early evidence from this program strongly implies that the program has led to significant improvement on test scores in schools threatened with vouchers. ...
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Teacher Test Accountability: From Alabama to Massachusetts
Larry H. Ludlow
… The purpose of this article is to highlight some of the psychometric results reported by National Evaluation Systems (NES) in their 1999 Massachusetts Educator Certification Test (MECT) Technical Report, and more specifically, to identify those technical characteristics of the MECT that are inconsistent with the Standards. ...
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How the Internet will Help Large-Scale Assessment Reinvent Itself
Randy Elliot Bennett
… The thesis of this paper is that the largest facilitating factor will be technological, in particular the Internet. In the same way that it is already helping to revolutionize commerce, education, and even social interaction, the Internet will help revolutionize the business and substance of large-scale assessment.
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Factors Influencing GED and Diploma Attainment of High School Dropouts
Jeffrey C. Wayman
This study examined correlates of degree attainment in high school dropouts. Participants were high school dropouts of Mexican American or non-Latino white descent who had no degree, a high school degree, or a GED certificate. This study was unique in that it accounted for sample bias of missing data through the use of multiple imputation, it considered students who had dropped out as early as 7th grade, and it was able to include variables found significant in previous research on returning dropouts. ...
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Impact of U.S. Overseas Schools in Latin America on Political and Civic Values Formation
John J. Ketterer and George E. Marsh II
This study focuses on the attitudinal outcomes of schooling in American Overseas Schools in Latin America with respect to democracy and citizenship, the formation of views about the United States, and student attitudes about the American international school.
