Education Policy Analysis Archives (EPAA)

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  La Intertexualidad en las Reformas Educativas: Reflexiones Sobre la Equidad en la Reforma Escolar Sueca

  Guadalupe Francia

  This article proposes intertextuality as a conceptual instrument for the deeper understanding of the phenomenon of equity in educational Reform in times of decentralization. This analysis starts from a dynamic vision of education reforms as interactions of texts. To illustrate the use of intertextual analysis of equity in education, this article introduces and discusses the analyzed examples of the educational national policy and of educational practice in the educational reform implemented in the 90's and currently in force in the compulsory school in Sweden. It is argued that the meaning of equity is never a fixed one; it varies according to the interactions between political texts at a national level and texts of educational practice at communal and school levels.

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  De la Exclusión a la Inclusión: Políticas y Prácticas de la Universidad Española Respecto a los Alumnos con Déficit Auditivo

  Manuel López Torrijo

  The educational inclusion of disabled people constitutes one of the most relevant educational and pedagogical innovations in the past decades. This article analyses such inclusion at the university level choosing students with deafness as a representative and extrapolative sample. After specifying the main limitations and needs for this group of students, the study revises the solutions put forward by the current legislation and it details in depth, by way of a comparative study, the services provided now by the newly created University Services for the Integration of students with special educational needs. The study points out conclusively some proposals for the future—principles, strategies, services, resources—which may enable to attain an equalitarian society through an educational integration in this higher stage of education.

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  Modelos de Clase Latente en la Evaluación de la Educación. El Caso del Aprovechamiento Escolar en la Educación Primaria de Zacatecas

  Francisco Muro González

  Based on an advanced statistical method (Latent Class Analysis), the author jointly examines two crucial factors in the assessment of students’ performance in elementary school: School attainment and teacher education (based on teachers’ results in tests taken to earn their teaching credentials). Data from files in the 2001 Archives for the State of Zacatecas, Mexico are used to make this analysis. The author shows that when working with latent class models, one can make a more significant in depth analysis because by virtue of using this method, it is viable to construct suitable clusters and to segment the data files more efficiently in order to find differentiated effects of parameters in the population.

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  Avoidable Losses: High-Stakes Accountability and the Dropout Crisis

  Linda McSpadden McNeil, Eileen Coppola, Judy Radigan, and Julian Vasquez Heilig

  In the state of Texas, whose standardized, high-stakes test-based accountability system became the model for the nation’s most comprehensive federal education policy, more than 135,000 youth are lost from the state’s high schools every year. Dropout rates are highest for African American and Latino youth, more than 60% for the students we followed. Findings from this study, which included analysis of the accountability policy in operation in high-poverty high schools in a major urban district, analysis of student-level data for more than 271,000 students in that district over a seven-year period under this policy, and extensive ethnographic analysis of life in schools under the policy, show that the state’s high-stakes accountability system has a direct impact on the severity of the dropout problem.

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  Achievement Testing for English Language Learners, Ready or Not?

  Sau-Lim Tsang, Anne Katz, and Jim Stack

  School reform efforts across the US have focused on creating systems in which all students are expected to achieve to high standards. To ensure that students reach those standards and to document what students know and can do, schools collect assessment information on students’ academic achievement. More information is needed, however, to find out when such assessments are appropriate for English learners and can provide meaningful information about what such learners know and can do. We describe and discuss a study that addresses the question of when it is appropriate to administer content area tests in English to English learners. Drawing on the student database of San Francisco Unified School District, we examined the effect of language demands on the SAT/9 mathematics scores of Chinese-speaking and Spanish-speaking students. Our results showed that while the English language demands of the problem solving subscale affect all students, they have a larger effect on English learners’ performance, thus rendering the tests inaccurate in measuring English learners’ subject matter achievement.

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  Mídia, juventude e educação: modos de construir o “outro” nacultura

  Rosa Maria Bueno Fischer

  The aim of this paper is to discuss a research project conducted between 2002-2005 in Porto Alegre, Brazil. The focus was exploring how a group of 90 students perceived media’s discourse – especially television – about “youth.” Through the analysis of the discourse of both media and students, the research team selected a main theme for inquiry: the construction of the “other” in the mass media and the perception of differences among these groups in relationship to social, economic, generational, racial, ethnic, and physical appearance dynamics. This research uses Foucaltian categories of analysis, specifically the concepts of normality, abnormality, and modes of subjectivity, and Hannah Arendt conceptualization about public and private spheres – which allows for discussion of the multiple performances and images operating through media mechanisms. This work also uses other concepts like difference and alterity, following Carlos Skliar studies.

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  La Atención a la Diversidad: del Modelo del Déficit al Modelo Curricular

  Pilar Arnaiz Sánchez, José-Manuel Guirao Lavela, and Carlos F. Garrido Gil

  This article presents a research study developed in a Primary School (3 to 12 years) in the county of Murcia (South east of Spain). The study’s aim was to establish the educational response carried out with learners with special education needs in the school. The theoretical framework reviews the course of school integration in Spain and establishes the need to work from a curricular model. The results of this study, which follows the qualitative analysis model by Doyle (1979, 1986, 1987), show the organization structures and tasks that promote participation and integration of students with special education needs in mainstream classrooms.

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  School Commitment and Alcohol Use: The Moderating Role of Race and Ethnicity

  Tamela McNulty Eitle and David James Eitle

  Research indicates that lower levels of school commitment may be one potential outcome of policy initiatives such as high-stakes testing and exit exams. Such outcomes may lead these policy initiatives to have unintended consequences for students, particularly racial or ethnic minority students. This study examines whether race of ethnicity moderate the relationship between school commitment and alcohol use or binge drinking among a sample of Florida public middle and high-school students who were surveyed as part of the 2002 Florida Youth Substance Abuse Survey. Low school commitment was found to be associated with a greater likelihood of alcohol use in the past 30 days and a greater likelihood of binge drinking during the past two weeks for Black, Hispanic, and white students. Both the higher average levels of school commitment among Black and Hispanic than among white students and the greater association between low school commitment and the two alcohol use outcomes for Black and Hispanic students compared to white students account for some of the differences in alcohol use and binge drinking among the different groups.

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  Un Modelo Pedagógico en un Contexto No Formal: El Museo

  Maria Begoña Alfageme González and Nicolás Martínez Valcárcel

  Our proposal is to present a model of educational planning for museums. The school cannot be assumed to render all the education that a person needs. Therefore other social institutions are called upon to complement a person’s training. We begin by justifying the interest of including non-formal education in this context. Subsequently, we focus our study on an educational model that can be used as a planning tool in museums, thus expanding its use as a formative institution as well.

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  Equipos Docentes en la Enseñanza Secundaria Obligatoria: Posibilidades e Incertidumbres

  Maria Teresa González González

  This paper is about the constitution of teacher teams in the Educación Secundaria, something proposed in the Ley Orgánica de Educación (LOE, 2006). First, a discussion of the disadvantages of organizing high schools by academic departments is presented, namely, the tendency of teachers to communicate mainly with those colleagues working in the same curricular area, the difficulties involved in the development of curricular projects that translate into globally coherent school experiences meaningful and relevant for the students, and the repercussions of such structures on the caring and support for students. Against this background, it is suggested that one of the alternatives to counteract the effects of departmentalization entails the creation of teacher teams. The new possibilities of coordination offered by teams are then commented, as they are seen as appropriate instruments to articulate the work and reflection of their members on cross curricular issues. Finally, some uncertainties and complexities of this new structure are discussed, namely, the possibility of it being applied only at a formal level, the difficulties involved in the coexistence of teams and departments, or the risk of overlooking the ”instituto” as a globally oriented educational institution.

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  ¿Sirven las Políticas y Prácticas de Formación del Profesorado para Mejorar la Educación? Una Respuesta desde el Análisis de la Construcción Social de la Docencia

  Jesús Romero Morante and Alberto Luis Gómez

  Few people would deny that initial and continuing teacher education are crucial factors in the improvement of education. Nevertheless, one must adopt a certain reservation before offering categorical and knee-jerk responses to the question which heads this article. This is not only a result of the ambiguity of the available evidence, so much the worse if one were to succumb to the temptation of establishing monocausal relationships, but also due to the very complexity of a question whose explicit and implicit terms (‘improvement’ and its conditions, the ‘object’ and the ‘subject’ of the same, the approach to professional preparation, etc.) are all debatable. ... [T]he authors seek to make a modest contribution to this debate, drawing attention to a body of research which focuses on how professional practice is ‘constituted’ de facto. It is a body of research too often passed over within this field, despite the fact that it seems fundamental to us in weighing up the possibilities and limitations of teacher education. Its consideration will give us cause to rethink some of the immediate challenges, and to revise (in the light of our findings) the reforms presently being imposed in an effort to redefine professionalism in teaching.

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  Fissures in Standards Formulation: The Role of Neoconservative and Neoliberal Discourses in Justifying Standards Development in Wisconsin and Minnesota

  Samantha Caughlan and Richard Beach

  An analysis of English/language arts standards development in Wisconsin and Minnesota in the late 1990s and early 2000s shows a process of compromise between neoliberal and neoconservative factions involved in promoting and writing standards, with the voices of educators conspicuously absent. Interpretive and critical discourse analyses of versions of English/language arts standards at the high school level and of public documents related to standards promotion reveal initial conflicts between neoconservative and neoliberal discourses, which over time were integrated in final standards documents. The content standards finally released for use in guiding curriculum in each state were bland and incoherent documents that reflected neither a deep knowledge of the field nor an acknowledgement of what is likely to engage young learners. The study suggests the need for looking more critically at standards as political documents, and a greater consideration of educators’ expertise in the process of their future development and revision.

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  Actitudes de los Estudiantes de Odontología de la UAM-Xochimilco Frente a su Formación Profesional

  Laura Sáenz Martínez, Leonor Sánchez Pérez, Isabel Luengas Aguirre, and Edgar Jarillo Soto

  The purpose of this article is to analyze the attitudes of students towards the theoretical and clinical knowledge and about research as part of the Dentistry Program during their professional training at the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana-Xochimilco. A questionnaire with Likert items was applied to students in order to know their answers about these topics. An X2 test was applied to analyze the homogeneity of answers. Results indicate that students’ opinions differ on: a) the amount of theoretical content regarding treatment (p < .003), b) some aspects regarding clinical knowledge (p < .006), and c) research options per school year (p < .05). We conclude that it is necessary to study in depth the achievements and limitations of the program proposed by the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana-Xochimilco.

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  From Policy Design to Campus: Implementation of a Tuition Decentralization Policy

  Michael S. Harris

  This study analyzes the implementation of a tuition decentralization policy in North Carolina. Concepts of organizational culture served as a guiding framework for an interpretive analysis. Qualitative case study data for the research was collected from interviews with key policy makers within the University of North Carolina as well as an extensive collection of documents. The findings demonstrate the importance of shared norms and beliefs in achieving successful policy implementation through a case study where incongruence of stakeholder values, beliefs, and goals created institutional conflict.

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  Reformas Curriculares y Educación Física: los Conocimientos Teórico-Conceptuales de la Población Escolar Española

  Juan Luis Hernández Álvarez, Roberto Velázquez Buendía, and Maria Eugenia Martínez Gorroño

  This article analyses the changes generated by the implementation of a new curriculum in the context of the new Law of Education in Spain. In that context, our interest is centered in the reflection about the influence of educational policies in the development of Physical Education as a subject matter. ...

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  Descentralización, Poderes Locales y Participación Social en Educación en Bolivia. Los Casos de Tarabuco y La Paz (1997-2003)

  Mario Yapu

  Since the Declaration of ministers of education of iberoamerican countries held in Santa Fe de Bogotá, November 4-6, 1992, the decentralization of education has been a recurrent subject of educational reforms in Latin American countries, where in some of them the experiences of decentralization have preceded said Declaration while in others they have followed it. The educational reforms that have come about within the last years associate the decentralization of education with social participation and improvements in the quality of education, among other subjects. This article discusses these topics, questioning what type of decentralization would be effective in Bolivia, which would be the characteristics of social participation and how it is affecting the quality of education. The analysis is done using a micropolitical approach and its emphasis is on the social practices of the actors (i.e., local authorities, teachers and parents), grounding its methodology in two case studies: La Paz and Tarabuco (Bolivia). It is suggested that policies of education decentralization and theoretical social sciences approaches have not been successful in explaining the phenomenon of social relations of power at the local level that affects the nature of any decentralization process, because at the core of State power there is a hegemonic dominance of the managerial approach and a vision of education that is essentially bureaucratic.

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  Bureaucratic Discretion and Alternative Teacher Certification: Understanding Program Variation in Missouri

  Ethan B. Heinen and Jay Paredes Scribner

  Alternative teacher certification literature has contributed significantly to our understanding of this approach to teacher preparation. However, this literature has more often than not treated alternative teacher certification programs (ATCPs) as a black box, thus ignoring program heterogeneity. The present study examines how and why five ATCPs in Missouri have evolved in different ways. To understand this variation and its potential significance for researchers and practitioners, we use political science literature on bureaucratic discretion to understand programs’ varied responses within the same state policy context. Using a multiple case study design, we present two key findings. First, external factors such as the state’s regulatory approach, programs’ relationships with school districts, and programs’ relationship with external partners shape program coordinators’ perceptions of their discretionary authority. Second, within an environment of limited regulation, programs responded to these external factors in ways that shaped programs in dramatically different ways. These approaches ranged from formal partnerships with large urban school districts and philanthropic funders to alternative certification programs that were at least partially blended with existing undergraduate and post baccalaureate teacher preparation programs. In our discussion, we explore how state attempts to widen the discretionary space between the rules may have allowed external interests (e.g., school districts, and external funders) to backfill that space in ways that limit the potential for programs to provide high quality preparation experiences. This study explores these consequences and trade offs in order to inform policy makers and practitioners who are concerned with fostering innovative and creative ways to prepare high quality teachers.

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  Niveles y Perfiles de Funcionalidad como Dimensión de Calidad Universitaria. Un Estudio Empírico en la Universidad Complutense

  Arturo de la Orden Hoz, Inmaculada Asensio Muñoz, Chantal-María Biencinto López, Coral González Barberá, and José Mafokozi Ndabishibije

  This study comes out as a step forward in a research line focused on validating empirically a systemic model of university quality. The article defines university quality in terms of three dimensions: functionality, effectiveness and efficiency. The focus of the article is on the analysis of the dimension of functionality as a starting point in the process of identifying and validating indicators for the evaluation of university quality. The core of the article integrates the presentation of the level and profile of functionality of the university for the total sample and for three audiences: faculty, students and employers. For each audience the study emphasizes the evaluation of the extent to which the university accomplishes its functions as a whole institution (level) and for each separate function (profile), as well as the differences among different strata of each audience. Finally, the study points out the differences in the profiles of functionality of the university observed by the different audiences, both as a whole institution and for each function. In the conclusions, a global vision of the level of functionality of the university, evaluated by the three audiences, is established.

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  Teacher Community in Elementary Charater Schools

  Marisa Cannata

  The organizational context of charter schools may facilitate the formation of a strong teacher community. In particular, a focused school mission and increased control over teacher hiring may lead to stronger teacher professional communities. This paper uses the 1999–2000 Schools and Staffing Survey to compare the level of teacher community in charter public and traditional public schools. It also estimates the effect of various charter policy variables and domains of school autonomy on teacher community. Charter school teachers report higher levels of teacher community than traditional public school teachers do, although this effect is less than one-tenth of a standard deviation and is dwarfed by the effect of a supportive principal, teacher decision-making influence, and school size. Charter public schools authorized by universities showed lower levels of teacher community than those authorized by local school districts. Teachers in charter schools that have flexibility over tenure requirements and the school budget report higher levels of teacher community. This study reveals that charter schools do facilitate the formation of strong teacher communities, although the effect is small. The analysis also suggests that the institutional origin of the charter school and specific areas of policy flexibility may influence teacher community.

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  Cuatro Concepciones Sobre el Planeamiento Educativo en la Reforma Educativa Argentina de los Noventa

  Flavia Terigi

  This article analyses four patterns of planning in the educational reform in Argentina since the approval of the Federal Law of Education: first, planning focused on change, without enough attention to measures that could be useful to consolidate the educational system; second, planning was anchored in a vision of change that may be described as applicable and progressive, as if the impact that change may have on institutions and agents could be predicted; third, planning focused on centralized policies in order to homogenize and organize the systems, despite the goal of bringing the educational system under the jurisdiction of a federal-government-type system; and fourth, a work division was established between the Nation and the provinces, between planning and execution, and between technical and political issues of the reforms.

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  Examining the Streams of a Retention Policy to Understand the Politics of High-Stakes Reform

  Christopher P. Brown

  Using John Kingdon’s (2003) multiple streams approach to agenda setting, I analyze how key actors within the state of Wisconsin understood the need to construct and implement the state’s No Social Promotion statutes to improve students’ academic performance. Policymakers within the state focused their standards-based reforms on the issue of improving students’ academic performance through increasing accountability. In doing so, they did not see these high-stakes policies as a form of punishment for those who fail, but rather, as a tool to focus the education establishment on improving the academic skills and knowledge of all their students. Thus, the retained student is not the primary concern of the policymaker, but rather, the retained student demonstrates the state’s system of accountability works. Raising the question as to whether those who support or oppose high-stakes policies such as these should focus their efforts on the agenda setting process rather than analyzing effects of such policies. I contend that while evaluating a policy’s effects is important, education stakeholders must pay attention to all three streams of the agenda setting process as they promote particular reforms to improve students' academic performance.

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  Making Use of What Teachers Know and Can Do: Policy, Practice, and National Board Certification

  Julia E. Koppich, Daniel C. Humphrey, and Heather J. Hough

  This paper is the culmination of a three-year study that sought to frame an initial answer to the question, “What are the circumstances and conditions under which National Board Certified teachers (NBCTs) can have a positive impact on low-performing schools?” The study, funded by Atlantic Philanthropies, was part of the National Board’s more comprehensive effort to answer a number of research questions about the impacts of board certification and board certified teachers in schools and districts across the country.

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  Efectos Contextuales del Nivel Socioeconómico sobre el Rendimiento Académico en la Educación Secundaria Obligatoria en la Comunidad Autónoma Vasca (España). Estudio Diferencial del Nivel Socioeconómico Familiar y el del Centro Escolar

  Luis Lizasoain, Luis Joaristi, José Francisco Lukas, and Karlos Santiago

  The aim of this paper is to analyze the contextual effect of the socioeconomic status (SES) on the academic achievement in Mathematics and Language in Compulsory Secondary Education at the Basque Autonomous Community (Spain). We have carried out a differential study taking into account family SES and school SES in a multi-level study context. First, via tested hierarchical models, the hypothesis of the contextual effects (i.e., double jeopardy) is accepted, showing that the academic achievement of students from low SES families tend to worsen when they attend low SES schools. In order to illustrate the different effect of both SES, a new variable is generated so that, for each student, it combines the values of the previously categorized family and school SES. Using statistical segmentation techniques (regression and classification trees, CART), the present study has found that low family SES students attending high SES schools obtain the best academic achievement results, only outperformed by high family SES students who are studying at high SES schools, and also, even better than the sample subgroups who were expected to get much better scores. The study ends with some explanatory hypotheses about the findings and with some suggestions for further research.

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  Heterogeneidad en el Acceso a la Educación Media y el Trabajo Infantil

  Facundo Luis Crosta

  This paper presents an innovative way of analyzing the effects of child labor on the access to the educational system. The results show that an integrated analysis of achievement in the educational system allows for a more precise identification of the heterogeneities involved in access to such system. To this end, an index of orderly categories is built, allowing us to show some of the different ways that the relation of individuals with the system can take. The analysis is based on microdata withdrawn from the ECV 2001 for Argentina. It is shown that child work is a significant variable to explain why some individuals are not at grade level corresponding to their age. What’s more, the interactions between occupation and age, gender, and poverty reveal that this effect increases for males 15 years or older and poor. It is shown that observable individual characteristics such as age and sex are the ones that establish differences in access to the educational system, thus becoming relevant instruments for public policy. Besides, this result suggests that policy that allots the same amount of money to all secondary school students without considering age and gender does not seem to be the best answer to solve the problem of academic achievement at this level. A more in-depth study is necessary to be able to evaluate the simultaneity of decisions about work and study and their relationship with the availability of financial resources at home.