Education Policy Analysis Archives (EPAA)
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Class Pictures: Representations of Race, Gender and Ability in a Century of School Photography
Eric Margolis
This article examines photographs taken of American public school classes between the 1880's and the 1940's. Most of the images were found in two virtual archives: The American Memory site at the Library of Congress and the National Archives and Records Center. These very large photograph collections were searched for representations of race, gender, and physical ability. The photographs were compared and contrasted and analyzed for elements of hidden curricula using techniques drawn from the social sciences and humanities. It was found that these large photo collections have significant gaps and historical amnesias. Collections made under conditions of racial segregation are themselves segregated and continue to reproduce images of hierarchy and dominance. To the extent these sites function as important resources for teachers and students searching for primary source documents for history and social studies projects, the archives convey significantly biased views of the history of education and minority groups in America.
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The Use of Performance Models in Higher Education: A Comparative International Review
Janet Atkinson-Grosjean and Garnet Grosjean
Higher education (HE) administrators worldwide are responding to performance-based state agendas for public institutions. Largely ideologically-driven, this international fixation on performance is also advanced by the operation of isomorphic forces within HE's institutional field. Despite broad agreements on the validity of performance goals, there is no "one best" model or predictable set of consequences. Context matters. Responses are conditioned by each nation's historical and cultural institutional legacy. To derive a generalized set of consequences, issues, and impacts, we used a comparative international format to examine the way performance models are applied in the United States, England, Australia, New Zealand, Sweden, and the Netherlands. Our theoretical framework draws on understandings of performance measures as normalizing instruments of governmentality in the "evaluative state," supplemented by field theory of organizations. Our conclusion supports Gerard Delanty's contention, that universities need to redefine accountability in a way that repositions them at the heart of their social and civic communities.
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Whither Advanced Placement?
William Lichten
This is a review of the Advanced Placement (AP) Program. In disagreement with claims of the College Board, there is firm evidence that the average test performance level has dropped. The College Board's scale and claims for AP qualification disagree seriously with college standards. A majority of tests taken do not qualify. It appears that "advanced placement" is coming closer to "placement." This article recommends that the College Board's policy of concentrating on numbers of participants should be changed to an emphasis on student performance and program quality.
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Government Policy on Teacher Evaluation in Greece: Revolutionary Change or Repetition of the Past?
Michail D. Chrysos
After nearly two decades of freedom from evaluation, teachers in Greece became the focus of a new evaluation system. In 1998, reformers sought to raise the level of student performance by the regulation of teacher performance through a top-down evaluation system administered by the Greek Ministry of Education and Religious Affairs. The probably effects of this evaluation system on teachers' professional roles and development are analyzed.
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The Challenges to Distance Education in an Academic Social Science Discipline: The Case of Political Science
Steffen Schmidt, Mack C. Shelley, Monty Van Wart, Jane Clayton, and Erin Schreck
This article reports the results from a national survey directed to the department chairs of political science to assess the current and future state of distance learning in that discipline. The insights of this research are relevant to all social science fields and offer important insights to other academic disciplines as well. Key findings of the study include the low utilization of distance learning courses, a low degree of importance currently attributed to distance learning and modest expectations of future growth, ambivalent acceptance of a future role for distance learning, the common use of Internet-related technologies, low levels of faculty knowledge and interest about distance learning, limited institutional support, and serious doubts about the appropriateness and quality of instruction at a distance. ...
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From Manpower Supply to Economic Revival: Governance and Financing of Chinese Higher Education
Chengzhi Wang
With an introduction to the overall underdevelopment of higher education in China compared with the American counterpart, this article briefly examines the main trends of over two decades of development of the governance and financing systems of China's higher education sector. This article analyzes the resource allocation from governments and revenue generation in institutions under the reform policies of administrative decentralization and financing diversification. ...
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Mathematics Achievement by Immigrant Children: A Comparison of Five English-speaking Countries
Gary G. Huang
In this study, I examined academic achievement of immigrant children in the United States, Canada, England, Australia, and New Zealand. Analyzing data from the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), I gauged the performance gaps relating to the generation of immigration and the home language background. I found immigrant children's math and science achievement to be lower than the others only in England, the U.S., and Canada. Non-English language background was found in each country to relate to poor math and science learning and this disadvantage was stronger among native-born children—presumably children of indigenous groups—than among immigrant children. I also examined the school variation in math performance gaps, using hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) to each country's data. The patterns in which language- and generation-related math achievement gaps varied between schools are different in the five countries.
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Education Reform in Hong Kong: Issues of Consistency, Connectedness and Culture
Chris Dowson, Peter Bodycott, Allan Walker, and David Coniam
Since the early 1990s, the pace of educational reform in Hong Kong has accelerated and broadened to incorporate almost all areas of schooling. The reforms introduced during this period can be subsumed under what has generally been labelled the quality movement. In this paper, we review and comment on a number of policy reform initiatives in the four areas of "Quality Education," English Language Benchmarking, Initial Teacher Training and the Integration of Pupils with Special Needs into Ordinary Classrooms. Following a brief description of each policy initiative, the reforms are discussed in terms of their consistency, coherence and cultural fit.
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School-based Standard Testing
Craig Bolon
School-based standard testing continues to evolve, yet in some ways it remains surprisingly close to its roots in the first two decades of the twentieth century. After use for many years as a diagnostic and as a filter for access to education, in the closing years of the century it has been pressed into service for state-run political accountability programs. In this role, it is generating vehement controversy that recalls protests over intelligence testing in the early 1920s. This background article explores primary characteristics and issues in the development of school-based standard testing, reviews its typical lack of qualification for political accountability programs, and suggests remedies to address major problems. In general, the attitude toward new techniques of assessment is skeptical, in light of the side-effects and unexpected problems that developed during the evolution of current techniques.
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The Influence of Scale on School Performance: A Multi-Level Extension of the Matthew Principle
Robert Bickel and Craig Howley
In this study, we investigate the joint influence of school and district size on school performance among schools with eighth grades (n=367) and schools with eleventh grades in Georgia (n=298). Schools are the unit of analysis in this study because schools are increasingly the unit on which states fix the responsibility to be accountable. The methodology further develops investigations along the line of evidence suggesting that the influence of size is contingent on socioeconomic status (SES). All previous studies have used a single-level regression model (i.e., schools or districts). This study confronts the issue of cross-level interaction of SES and size (i.e., schools and districts) with a single-equation-relative-effects model to interpret the joint influence of school and district size on school performance (i.e., the dependent variable is a school-level variable).
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El Sistema de Selección de Alumnos de las Universidades Chilenas: Discusión de sus Fundamentos, Resultados y Perspectivas
Sebastián Donoso and Gustavo Hawes
... This article includes a description of the process of academic selection for entrance into the Chilean university system. Next we analyze the Test of Academic Performance (PAA), the main instrument of this selection. Finally the PAA is analyzed and criticized from two points of view: its psychometric relevance and its implicit model of intelligence.
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La igualdad de oportunidades en el acceso a la educación superior: Una perspectiva socio-familiar para Galicia
Maria Jesús Freire
This work analyzes equality of access to the university in Galicia (Spain) as it was influenced by the political decision to finance higher education at between 80% and 85% of its real cost. The composition of the student body with respect to the level of their parents' education is examined. The analysis confirms that in spite of the significant effort at public financing, the objective of equal access will not be reached.
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Bridging the Gap between Testing and Technology in Schools
Michael Russell and Walt Haney
The widening gap between the increased use of technology in schools and the absence of computers in state-level testing programs raises important implications for policies related to the use of both technology and testing in schools. In this article, we summarize recent development in the use of technology in schools and in state level testing programs. We then describe two studies indicating that written tests administered on paper underestimate the achievement of students accustomed to working on computers. We conclude by discussing four approaches to bridging the gap between technology and testing in U.S. schools.
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Lineamientos de Política Educativa en los Estados Unidos: Debates Actuales; Significados para América Latina
Mónica Eva Pini
The objective of this article is to analyze some of the most relevant debates about current educational policies in the United States, and to explore the universality of some of the ideas and strategies which have already been put in place in Latin America. The policies I will discuss are Goals 2000 and school choice proposals, especially those of charter schools and vouchers. These policies question the key definitions of educational goals, the role of the state, and democratic values. Through the analysis of different documents, reports, and research studies, the political context from which they emerged, and a critical perspective, discourses and policies are interpreted. The market model and the strong forces behind many of these proposals makes it necessary for us to think about how these ideas affect the social distribution of education and democratic ideals, both in the United States and in Latin America.
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The Appalachian Rural Systemic Initiative: Improving Science and Mathematics Student Achievement in Economically Disadvantaged Rural Counties in Central Appalachia Through a School-Based, Teacher Partner Approach
Stephen A. Henderson and Wimberly C. Royster
This article was written in response to "Top-Down, Routinized Reform in Low-income, Rural Schools: NSF's Appalachian Rural System Initiative, by Robert Bickel, Terry Tomasek, and Teresa Hardman Eagle which was published in the Education Policy Analysis Archives as Number 12 of Volume 8 on February 21, 2000.
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The Relationship between the Reliability and Cost of Performance Assessments
Jay Parkes
Performance assessments have come upon two major roadblocks: low reliability coefficients and high cost. Recent speculation has posited that the two are directly related such that cost must rise in order to increase reliability. This understanding may be an oversimplification of the relationship. Two empirical demonstrations are offered to show that more than one combination of sources of error may result in a desired generalizability coefficient and that it is possible to increase the number of observations while also decreasing cost.
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Forces for Change in Mathematics Education: The Case of TIMSS
Donald S. Macnab
The results of the Third International Study in Mathematics and Science Education (TIMSS) were published in 1996/7. Snice that time the participating countries have reacted in a variety of ways to the comparative performance of their students. This article investigates the diverse effects these reactions have had on mathematics curricula and teaching methodologies in a selection of these countries, within the context of a wider analysis of the motivations which determine change in education.
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Teachers and Tests: Exploring Teachers' Perceptions of Changes in the New York State Testing Program
S. G. Grant
How do teachers change their pedagogical practices? While many current initiatives seek to raise educational standards and improve student academic performance, there is a curious gap in national and state reforms. Considerable attention is given to defining higher expectations for what students will know and be able to do, yet little attention is given to how teachers should learn new pedagogical ideas and practices. This exploratory study uses focus group interview data collected over two years to examine how cross-subject matter groups of elementary and secondary New York State teachers respond to one way of learning to change their classroom practices: state-level testing. ...
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Top-Down, Routinized Reform in Low-Income, Rural Schools: NSF's Appalachian Rural Systemic Initiative
Robert Bickel, Terry Tomasek, and Teresa Hardman Eagle
Since 1991, the National Science Foundation has funded fifty-nine state, urban, and rural systemic initiatives. The purpose of the initiatives is to promote achievement in math, science, and technology among all students, and to encourage schools and communities to secure the resources needed to maintain such outcomes. The Appalachian Rural Systemic Initiative (ARSI) is a six-state consortium which focuses these efforts on low-income, rural schools. The primary means of accomplishing ARSI's aims is a one-day-one-school site visit, called a Program Improvement Review, done by an ARSI math or science expert. The centrally important Program Improvement Reviews, however, seem to be premised on unsubstantiated assumptions as to the static, easy-to-understand, easy-to-evaluate nature of educational achievement in rural Appalachian schools. As a result, the Reviews resemble exercises in early-twentieth century scientific management, and are unlikely to enhance achievement in science or math. Consequently, even if there is merit to the commonsense human capital approach to economic growth and development on which systemic initiatives are tacitly premised, this first- person account makes a case that desired payoffs are unlikely to follow from the work of ARSI
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A Statewide Professional Development Conference: Useful Strategy for Learning or Inefficient Use of Resources?
Paul V. Bredeson and Jay Paredes Scribner
In an environment increasingly skeptical of the effectiveness of large-scale professional development activities, this study examines K-12 educators' reasons for participating and beliefs in the utility in a large-scale professional development conference. ...
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Collegiate Grading Practices and the Gender Pay Gap
Alicia C. Dowd
Extending research findings by R. Sabot and J. Wakeman-Linn (1991), this article presents a theoretical analysis showing that relatively low grading quantitative fields and high grading verbal fields create a disincentive for college women to invest in quantitative study. Pressures on grading practices are modeled using higher education production functions.
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Gender Related Differences in Career Patterns of Principals in Alabama: A Statewide Study
William A. Spencer and Frances K. Kochan
The purpose of this research was to determine the status of women administrators in the Alabama in terms of demographic and career patterns. A survey was sent to all principals in Alabama. Five hundred-fifty, or 42% of the principals responded. In Alabama, women principals are generally more recent in their position, are somewhat more likely to have come directly from the classroom, and have less mobility in acquiring the position.
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Asymmetry in Dual Language Practice: Assessing Imbalance in a Program Promoting Equality
Audrey Amrein and Robert A. Peña
… Research that explores whether these programs meet the needs of monolingual and bilingual students is limited. The intent of this study is not to criticize dual language practice. Instead, it is to describe a newly implemented dual language immersion program that exists and operates in Phoenix, Arizona. ...
