Education Policy Analysis Archives (EPAA)
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Cultural Differences and the Construction of Meaning: Implications for the Leadership and Organizational Context of Schools
Robert A. Peña
The relationships between student achievement, student culture and practitioners' attitudes and expectations were investigated. Student achievement was defined as academic performance but also included perceptions, rationales and explanations for student behaviors and conduct. Student culture described student's Mexican American origins, customs and beliefs. Practitioners' attitudes described how middle school personnel perceived Mexican American high and underachieving students generally, and practitioners' expectations described how personnel interacted and behaved toward Mexican American students. ...
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The History of the Reserve Officer Training Corps Among the Association of American Universities from 1982 to 1992: Review of Institutional Response to ROTC Policy Regarding Homosexuals
Lee S. Deumer
This is a policy analysis, in a historical context, of how Association of American University institutions responded to Reserve Officer Training Corps policy excluding homosexuals. The time period for this study is 1982 to 1992. Qualitative methods are used to analyze data and arrive at conclusions. Secondary data provide additional depth and background. This study reveals seven different positions institutions have taken in response to ROTC policy, these include: supporting ROTC policy, neutrality, collective action, barring military recruiters from campus, distancing the institution from ROTC, and changing the campus climate. This includes examples taken from AAU institutions and rationales behind making policy decisions.
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Response to Haskell: "Academic Freedom, Tenure, and Student Evaluation of Faculty"
Jeffrey E. Stake
Haskell (1997) argued that the administrative practice of student evaluation of faculty is a threat to academic freedom. However, before that claim can be substantiated, several prior questions must be addressed: To whom does academic freedom belong? Individual faculty? The academy? Whose actions can violate the right? Can any lines be drawn based on whether the substance or form of classroom behavior is influenced? And still another crucial point is whether a body can violate academic freedom without any intent to interfere with or control the substance of what is said to students.
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The Circle of Learning: Individual and Group Processes
Ernest Chang and Don Simpson
We present a paradigm for modeling the processes found in individual and group learning. Using combinations of two dimensions, the first being whether the learner's activities are By-Oneself or With-Peers, and the second whether the process orientation is toward the Person as the focus of the learning or toward the Group as the focus, we derive four quadrants in Activity-Orientation learning space. These four quadrants represent: lectures, individual learning, concurrent learning, and collaborative learning. ...
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Academic Freedom, Tenure, and Student Evaluation of Faculty: Galloping Polls in the 21st Century
Robert E. Haskell
Despite a history of conflicting research on the reliability and validity of student evaluation of faculty (SEF) it has typically not been viewed as an infringement on academic freedom. When it is suggested that SEF may impinge on academic freedom, it is often considered an attack on either student rights, or on the process of evaluating faculty performance in general. Faculty and educational administrator views and surveys are reviewed as SEF is used in salary, promotion and tenure decisions. ...
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Out of Our Minds: A Review
Pat Clifford
A review of the book "Out of Our Minds: Anti-Intellectualism and Talent Development in American Schooling" by Craig B. Howley, Aimee Howley, and Edwina D. Pendarvis.
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Learning from Others: Service-Learning in Costa Rica and Indonesia
David D. Williams and William D. Eiserman
Calls are increasingly sounded for universities to better address their communities' and students' needs through service, as well as research and teaching. This article invites policy makers to re-examine university service, research, and teaching responsibilities by reflecting on roles service-learning plays in universities in Indonesia and Costa Rica. We conclude that service-learning plays a critical role and a key to expanding service-learning for students and understanding the utility of such a policy change is increased faculty involvement. Until more faculty explore the "why" and "how" of service-learning, research and teaching will dominate the university agenda.
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Testing Writing on Computers: An Experiment Comparing Student Performance on Tests Conducted via Computer and via Paper-and-Pencil
Michael Russell and Walt Haney
Computer use has grown rapidly during the past decade. Within the educational community, interest in authentic assessment has also increased. To enhance the authenticity of tests of writing, as well as of other knowledge and skills, some assessments require students to respond in written form via paper-and-pencil. However, as increasing numbers of students grow accustomed to writing on computers, these assessments may yield underestimates of students' writing abilities. This article presents the findings of a small study examining the effect that mode of administration - computer versus paper-and-pencil - has on middle school students' performance on multiple-choice and written test questions.
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Where Have All the Teachers Gone?
Mark Fetler
A rising need for teachers is projected in California and the nation during the next decade. Sound policy for teacher preparation should not only foster a capable workforce, it should also assure that the supply of qualified teachers balances with employment demand. A conceptual model is proposed to describe the flow of individuals through teacher preparation programs and the workplace.
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Markets and Myths: Autonomy in Public and Private Schools
Sandra Rubin Glass
School choice is the most controversial education policy of the 1990s. John Chubb and Terry Moe's Politics, Markets and America's Schools stimulated this investigation. They concluded that teacher and administrator autonomy was the most important influence on student achievement. They assumed that the organization of private schools offered greater autonomy resulting in higher student achievement and that the bureaucracy of public schools stifles autonomy limiting student achievement. The research undertaken here elaborates, elucidates, and fills in the framework of teacher and principal autonomy in public and private secondary schools.
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The Bell Curve: Corrected for Skew
Haggai Kupermintz
This commentary documents serious pitfalls in the statistical analyses and the interpretation of empirical evidence presented in The Bell Curve. Most importantly, the role of education is re-evaluated and it is shown how, by neglecting it, The Bell Curve grossly overstates the case for IQ as a dominant determinant of social success. ...
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Inclusive Education in the United States: Beliefs and Practices Among Middle School Principals and Teachers
C. Kenneth Tanner, Deborah Jan Vaugh Linscott, and Susan Allan Galis
School reform issues addressing inclusive education were investigated in this nationwide (United States) study. A total of 714 randomly selected middle school principals and teachers responded to concerns about inclusion, "degree of change needed in" and "importance of" collaborative strategies of teaching, perceived barriers to inclusive, and supportive activities and concepts for inclusive education. There was disagreement among teachers and principals regarding some aspects of inclusive education and collaborative strategies. ...
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Review of Michael W. Apple "Cultural Politics and Education"
Dieter Misgeld
A review of Michael W. Apple's Cultural Politics and Education. New York, 1996. Teachers College Press. Columbia University.
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"What Does the Psychometrician's Classroom Look Like?: Reframing Assessment Concepts in the Context of Learning" and Commentary
Catherine S. Taylor and Susan Bobbitt Nolen
We question the utility of traditional conceptualizations of validity and reliability, developed in the context of large scale, external testing, and the psychology of individual differences, for the context of the classroom. We compare traditional views of validity and reliability to alternate frameworks that situate these constructs in teachers' work in classrooms. We describe how we used these frameworks to design an assessment course for preservice teachers, and present data that suggest students in the redesigned course not only saw the course as more valuable in their work as teachers, but developed deeper understandings of validity and reliability than did their counterparts in a traditional tests and measurement course. We close by discussing the implications of these data for the teaching of assessment, and for the use and interpretation of classroom assessment data for purposes of local and state accountability.
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A Review of Computers as Tutors: Solving the Crisis in Education
Greg Sherman
A review of Frederick Bennett's 1996 book "Computers as Tutors: Solving the Crisis in Education."
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A Review of Dorn's Creating the Dropout
Aimee Howley
A review of Dorn Sherman's 1996 book "Creating the Dropout: An Institutional and Social History of School."
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Actual Schools, Possible Practices: New Directions in Professional Development
Rebecca Novick
There is increasing recognition that school reform and staff development are integrally related. Yet, despite a rich literature on adult learning and human development which supports teachers' need for a wide array of opportunities to construct their own understandings and theories in a collaborative setting, top down mandates have frequently left teachers out of the reform process. It is argued here that effective staff development should be tied directly to the daily life of classroom and grounded in the questions and concerns of teachers. ...
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Implementing AIDS Education: Policies and Practices
Grace C. Huerta
The world has been challenged by the AIDS epidemic for 15 years. In 1985, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control, allocated funds to all state departments of education to assist schools in the development of AIDS education policies and programs. Yet, these policies do not ensure that all students receive effective AIDS education. ... By examining the perspectives of the Arizona educators (representing three school districts), this qualitative study reveals how teachers ultimately controlled the delivery and nature of AIDS instruction based upon personal values, views of teacher roles, and their interpretation of the mandate itself.
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Public School Reform: Potential Lessons from the Truly Departed
J. Dan Marshall and James P. Vale
In this article, the authors present data from a small study of 19 families who educate their children at home in rural Pennsylvania. Findings relative to why they opted out of the public education system and whether they would return are analyzed in light of a previously established construct (Idealogue/Pedagogue) before being used to critique and expand it in light of broader cultural concerns. The authors argue, overall, that home educators are asserting their historical option of cultural agency and schooling.
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National Education 'Goals 2000': Some Disastrous Unintended Consequences
Robert H. Seidman
"Goals 2000: Education America Act" aims to, among other things, increase the high school graduation rate to at least 90% and eliminate the graduation rate gap between minority and non-minority students. However well intentioned, this goal is doomed to failure. ...
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Being Popular about National Standards: A Review of National Standards in American Education: A Citizen's Guide
Michael W. Apple
A review of Diane Ravitch's 1995 book "National Standards in American Education: A Citizen's Guide."
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Markets Versus Monopolies in Education: The Historical Evidence
Andrew Coulson
A common point of contention among educators and economists is the likely effect a free market would have on modern education. Most supporters of public schooling maintain that the field would either be adversely affected by competition and choice, or that the effects would be insubstantial. Conversely, a significant number of critics argue that education, like all other human exchanges, would respond to market incentives with improved performance, increased attention to the needs of families, and greater innovation. ...
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Developmentalism: An Obscure but Pervasive Restriction on Educational Improvement
J. E. Stone
Despite continuing criticism of public education, experimentally demonstrated and field tested teaching methods have been ignored, rejected, and abandoned. Instead of a stable consensus regarding best teaching practices, there seems only an unending succession of innovations. A longstanding educational doctrine appears to underlie this anomalous state of affairs. Termed developmentalism, it presumes "natural" ontogenesis to be optimal and it requires experimentally demonstrated teaching practices to overcome a presumption that they interfere with an optimal developmental trajectory. ...
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Respecting the Evidence: The Achievement Crisis Remains Real
Lawrence C. Stedman
Wherein Stedman answers Berliner and Biddle's reply to his review of "The Manufactured Crisis"
