Abstracts of Articles Published in Volume 3, 1995 |
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Volume 3 Number 1 |
January 2, 1995 |
ISSN 1068-2341 |
Coordinating Family and School: Mothering for Schooling
Alison I. Griffith
Department of Educational Leadership,
Counseling and Foundations
University of New Orleans
aigel@jazz.ucc.uno.edu
ABSTRACT: In this paper I explore the relationship between mothering
work in the family and the social organization of schooling.
In particular, I address the ways in which mothers coordinate
and contest the textually-organized discourse of schooling
In contrast to other studies of the family/school relationship,
this research began in the experience of mothers whose
children attend primary school. The data were collected
through interviews with mothers in two cities in Ontario.
Mothering work constructs families that are differently
connected to schools--a connection strongly shaped by and
constitutive of social class.
Volume 3 Number 2 |
February 3, 1995 |
ISSN 1068-2341 |
Race, Intelligence and Ideology
A Review Essay of Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray's
The Bell Curve: Class Structure and the Future of
America. New York: The Free Press. 1994. $30.00
John C. Culbertson
University of Kansas
jculb@falcon.cc.ukans.edu ABSTRACT:
Since so much has already been written and said about this
book, it would seem redundant to give merely a brief
review of the work. Ironically, with so much being said about its
content and implications, very little depth has been offered
regarding the fundamental presuppositions and implications that the study
entails. I intend to supply such depth here.Volume 3 Number 3 |
February 14, 1995 |
ISSN 1068-2341 |
Beginning Teachers Programs:
Analysis of State Actions During the Reform Era
Carol B. Furtwengler
Department of Administration, Counseling,
Educational and School Psychology
Wichita State University
cfurtwen@WSUHUB.UC.TWSU.EDU ABSTRACT:
This article reports the findings from the conduct of a 50-
state survey to determine the status of state requirements and
state components of beginning teacher programs instituted from
1983 to 1992. The article discusses the implementation of
beginning teacher programs during the 1980s reform movement and
describes the methodology used for the study. An analysis of
seven state policy issues derived from an interpretation of the
information about beginning teacher programs is provided, and four
major themes identified in beginning teacher programs are
presented. Appendices include detailed state-by-state information
about beginning teacher programs and an annotated reference list
of state materials and publications related to these programs.Volume 3 Number 4 |
February 15, 1995 |
ISSN 1068-2341 |
State Actions for Personnel Evaluation: Analysis of Reform
Policies, 1983-1992
Carol B. Furtwengler
Department of Administration, Counseling, Educational and
School Psychology
Wichita State University
cfurtwen@WSUHUB.UC.TWSU.EDU ABSTRACT:
This article is an analysis four major policy issues
associated with state actions for personnel evaluation from
1983 to 1992 and provides descriptive information about state
policy actions taken during those years. Twenty states
enacted their first requirements for performance evaluation,
and states assumed new roles for program development,
implementation, and staff development. Twenty-nine states
passed legislation for performance pay programs, but only
five programs remained viable by 1992. States generally
avoided the issue of teacher tenure when enacting legislation
for teacher evaluation. Thirty-eight states enacted 67
changes in legislation prescribing specific requirements for
personnel evaluation. During the early part of the reform
movement, state actions focused on accountability; toward the
end of the reform movement states actions relinquished
control and returned responsibility for evaluation to local
school districts. Legislation varied across the states in
the purpose for evaluation: improvement, continuing
employment, and performance pay. The study found a positive
relationship (0.48) between state control over personnel
evaluation and state funding of education.Volume 3 Number 5 |
February 24, 1995 |
ISSN 1068-2341 |
Diversifying Finance of Higher Education Systems in the
Third
World: The Cases of Kenya and Mongolia
John C. Weidman
UNESCO Chair of Higher Education Research
Maseno University College, Kenya
and
Professor of Higher Education and of Sociology
University of Pittsburgh, USA
weidman+@pitt.edu ABSTRACT:
In countries throughout the world, there are increasing
pressures to reduce the government share of costs for goods and
services with high payoffs to individuals so that the limited
available public funds can be used for other needs. This paper
suggests several strategies for reducing government expenditures on
higher education, including direct cost recovery, grants from and
contracts with external agencies, income-producing enterprises,
private contributions, and expansion of the private sector. Policy
implications and examples (e.g., student access and financial aid,
tax status of revenues from enterprises, deferred cost recovery)
are presented for both developing and developed countries.Volume 3 Number 6 |
March, 1995 |
ISSN 1068-2341 |
Educational Assessment Reassessed:
The Usefulness of Standardized and Alternative Measures of
Student Achievement as Indicators for the Assessment of
Educational Outcomes
William L. Sanders
University of Tennessee-Knoxville
Sandra P.
Horn
University of Tennessee-Knoxville
sphorn@sacam.oren.ortn.edu
(Copyright Sanders & Horn, 1995)
ABSTRACT:
For decades, the assessment of educational entities--school
systems, individual schools, and teachers--has evoked strong and
sometimes violent emotions from the educational community, the
general public, and their legislative representatives. In spite
of attempts to codify standards for the evaluation of these
entities, assessment experts remain denominationalized--often
religiously so. Methods of assessment based on the use of
standardized tests have come under intense fire in recent years
with some critics going so far as to call for their complete
elimination. Those who advocate alternative methods of
assessment have become increasingly outspoken in establishing
exclusive rights to the legitimate assessment paradigm. However,
some of the most respected advocates of alternative assessment
have taken a more moderate view, warning against an "either-or"
mentality (Brandt, 1992, p. 35). Reflecting this more moderate
perspective, this paper strongly advocates the use of multiple
indicators of student learning, including those provided by
standardized tests.Volume 3 Number 7 |
March 31, 1995 |
ISSN 1068-2341 |
Review of Eric A. Hanushek,
Making Schools Work:
Improving Performance and Controlling Costs
(Washington, DC: The Brookings Institutions, 1994)
(200 pp. $34.95, paper $14.95)
Herbert Gintis
Department of Economics
University of Massachusetts
Amherst, MA 01003
gintis@econs.umass.edu ABSTRACT:
There are many problems in
transforming American education into a competitive system attuned to the
needs and wishes of parents and students, and it may very
well be that a fully competitive system would be undesirable.
But it is the job of economists to bring the relevant consid-
erations before the public eye, and to address the issues in
the same format as other issues in the provisionment of pub-
licly financed services. _Making Schools Work_ has simply
ducked these institutional and politically charged issues,
producing a document that points in the right direction, but
allows "political realism" to stand in the way of forthright,
economically defensible, policy advice.Volume 3 Number 8 |
March 31, 1995 |
ISSN 1068-2341 |
Getting a Grip on The Good Life
An Essay Review of Alan DeYoung's
The Life and Death of a Rural American High School:
Farewell Little Kanawha
Craig Howley
ERIC Clearinghouse on Rural Education and Small Schools
Appalachia Educational Laboratory
Charleston, WV
howleyc@ael.org
Paul Theobald
South Dakota State University
College of Education
Brookings, SD
ed08@sdsumus.sdstate.eduDeYoung, A. (1995). The Life and Death of a Rural American High School: Farewell Little Kanawha. New York: Garland. 342 pp. $50.00, hardcover (800/627-6273)
ABSTRACT:
Alan DeYoung's story of the circumstances surrounding the
birth, growth, and death of a high school in rural West Virginia
is an intellectual contribution of the first order. And Farewell
Little Kanawha is certainly one of the best stories to be told by
an educational researcher in recent decades. Its strength derives
in large measure from DeYoung's deftness in crossing disciplinary
borders.Volume 3 Number 9 |
May 3, 1995 |
ISSN 1068-2341 |
Brave New Reductionism:
TQM as Ethnocentrism
Dion Dennis
Department of Criminal Justice, History and
Political Science
Texas A & M International University
diond@igc.apc.org ABSTRACT:
At century's end, practices at institutions of
higher education are regularly subjected to a numbing array of
stresses. Under the umbrella of fiscal austerity, intensified
regimes of surveillance, in the form of corporatist management
philosophies such as Total Quality Management (TQM), have been
widely imposed. TQM proponents now advocate the total
managementof human thought and identity. In a blatantly
econometric and ethnocentric discourse where human variability
is a "virus" to be "eliminated" under a war metaphor, nothing
less than the future of independent intellectual work is at stake.
This essay primarily explores how the theoretical roots and
contemporary tropes of TQM shape a range of TQM-effects.
Volume 3 Number 10 |
May 17, 1995 |
ISSN 1068-2341 |
Language Choice and Global Learning Networks:
The Pitfall of "Lingua Franca" Approaches
to Classroom Telecomputing
Dennis Sayers
Department of Teaching and Learning
School of Education
New York University
sayers@acfcluster.nyu.edu ABSTRACT: Large-scale policy
How can other languages be used in conjunction with
English to further intercultural and multilingual learning when
teachers and students participate in computer-based global
learning networks? Two portraits are presented of multilingual
activities in the _Orillas_ and I*EARN learning networks, and
are discussed as examples of the principal modalities of
communication employed in networking projects between distant
classes. Next, an important historical precedent --the social
controversy which accompanied the introduction of telephone
technology at the end of the last century-- is examined in terms
of its implications for language choice in contemporary
classroom telecomputing projects. Finally, recommendations are
offered to guide decision making concerning the role of language
choice in promoting collaborative critical inquiry.Volume 3 Number 11 |
June 26, 1995 |
ISSN 1068-2341 |
Inflated Grades, Inflated Enrollment, and Inflated Budgets:
An Analysis and Call for Review at the State Level
A Challenge
for Policy Research
J. E. Stone
The Andrew Jackson Institute
Nashville, Tennessee
stonej@eduserv.east-tenn-st.edu ABSTRACT: Large-scale policy
Reports of the past 13 years that call attention to
deficient academic standards in American higher education are
enumerated. Particular attention is given the Wingspread Group's
recent An American Imperative: Higher Expectations for Higher
Education. Low academic standards, grade inflation, and
budgetary incentives for increased enrollment are analyzed and a
call is made for research at the state level. Reported trends in
achievement and GPAs are extrapolated to Tennessee and combined
with local data to support the inference that 15% of the state's
present day college graduates would not have earned a diploma by
mid 1960s standards. A conspicuous lack of interest by public
oversight bodies is noted despite a growing public awareness of
low academic expectations and lenient grading and an implicit
budgetary impact of over $100 million. Various academic policies
and the dynamics of bureaucratic control are discussed in
relationship to the maintenance of academic standards. The
disincentives for challenging course requirements and responsible
grading are examined, and the growing movement to address
academic quality issues through better training and supervision
of faculty are critiqued. Recommendations that would encourage
renewed academic integrity and make learning outcomes visible to
students, parents, employers, and the taxpaying public are
offered and briefly discussed.Volume 3 Number 12 |
July, 1995 |
ISSN 1068-2341 |
Educational Change in Alberta, Canada:
An Analysis of Recent Events
Charles F. Webber
The University of Calgary
Calgary, Alberta Canada T2N 1N4
cwebber@acs.ucalgary.ca ABSTRACT: Large-scale
policy Alberta, Canada, is the site of large-scale educational change
initiatives legislated by the provincial government. The
mandates have sparked heated public debate over the
appropriateness, wisdom, and utility of the reforms. This
article summarizes the views of representatives of several
educational interest groups and offers suggestions for making
change more meaningful and successful.Volume 3 Number 13 |
July 12, 1995 |
ISSN 1068-2341 |
Charter Schools 1995:
A Survey and Analysis of the Laws and Practices of the States
An Analysis of Recent Events
(Including State By State Summaries, Cross-State Comparisons,
Descriptions of Existing and Proposed Schools, And Lessons Learned)
Thomas Mauhs-Pugh
Dartmouth College
Hanover, NH 03755
thomas.j.mauhs-pugh@dartmouth.eduResearchers and Contributing Authors: Valerie Wrenholt,
Susan Vernal, Lisa Studness, Phaedon Sinis, Lori Shyavitz,
Kelly Roda, Elly Jo Rael, Allison Padavan, Tiayana Marks,
Jennifer Hill, Sarah Godshall, Lester Eggleston Jr., Neal
Dickert Jr., and Candace Crawford
This report cannot provide definitive answers to many of the
questions about charter schools. Legislation is too recent,
and there are too few charter schools which have been in
operation long enough to draw hard conclusions about their
effects. However, we do have sufficient evidence to respond
to many of the claims made by both proponents and opponents
of such legislation. In particular, we provide legislators,
concerned educators and citizens, and policy researchers with
evidence from the field to clarify what questions are being
asked, what predictions are being made, and what answers are
suggested by current practice.
Volume 3 Number 14 |
September 15, 1995 |
ISSN 1068-2341 |
Toward a Theory of Thematic Curricula:
Constructing New Learning Environments for Teachers & Learners
Carole Cook Freeman
La Salle University
cfreeman@haverford.edu
Harris J. Sokoloff
University of Pennsylvania
harriss@nwfs.gse.upenn.edu ABSTRACT:
A theory of thematic curriculum emerged during the development of a unit on
pets, entitled Pets & Me. The unit was designed through a
school/university partnership for children pre-school to grade 5. Analysis
of data collected during the unit's development and field tests supports a
dynamic view of curriculum that challenges policy makers to rethink
policies that begin from a view of curriculum as a static list of "facts"
to be learned or "topics" to be mastered. Reflection on the project led
to the differentiation of three distinct constructs: (1) facts and
information, (2) topics, and (3) themes. Each of these three constructs
plays a different role in children's learning. Facts focus on basic
information and narrowly defined ideas understood as discrete items.
Topics provide a context for facts and information, and present a way of
organizing discrete bits of information into classes of experience
recognizable by scholars within traditional disciplines. Themes defined
as broad existential questions, transcend disciplines, allowing learners to
integrate the information and the topic within the full range of human
experience. All three are important elements of thematic curriculum.
Volume 3 Number 15 |
October 12, 1995 |
ISSN 1068-2341 |
Inclusion in Elementary Schools: A Survey and Policy Analysis
Susan Allan Galis
Commerce and Jefferson City Schools
Jefferson, GA 30549
sabgalis@eworld.com
C. Kenneth Tanner
Department of Educational Leadership
University of Georgia
Athens, GA 30602
ktanner@moe.coe.uga.edu ABSTRACT:
This study of reform policy focused on inclusive
education in the 1990s in the state of Georgia, United States of
America. Program modifications including, individualizing
instructional methods, adapting the instructional environment, and
lowering maximum class size emerged as significant issues. We
found that policies related to these areas were compounded by the
less experienced educators not readily accepting change strategies
for serving students. Apparently younger educators are engrossed
in surviving daily routine and have difficulty coping with the
complex demands of change. Regular education teachers have
difficulty with the idea of inclusion. Legal aspects dealing
inclusion need clarification, especially for regular education
teachers.
Volume 3 Number 16 |
November 8, 1995 |
ISSN 1068-2341 |
Pursuit of the Ph.D.: "Survival of the Fittest,"
Or Is It Time for a New Approach?
Scott P. Kerlin
Co-Host, AERA-GSL Graduate Studies Discussion List
Ontario, Canada
spkerlin@flash.lakeheadu.ca ABSTRACT:
The thesis is put forward that changes in public policy which
originally promoted broad access to higher education are leading to
the diminished likelihood that minorities, those from low-income
backgrounds and females in underrepresented disciplines will pursue,
or be able to complete, the doctorate. By reviewing a wide range of
research literature and statistical reports on the status of doctoral
education in the U.S. & Canada, a detailed sociological portrait of
those who pursue the Ph.D. is presented. Recommendations are given
for further research on doctoral education, particularly in areas of
attrition,retention, student indebtedness, social stratification,
and post-doctoral career plans.
Volume 3 Number 17 |
November 8, 1995 |
ISSN 1068-2341 |
Surviving the Doctoral Years: Critical Perspectives
Scott P. Kerlin
Ontario, Canada
Co-Host, AERA-GSL Graduate Studies Discussion List
spkerlin@flash.lakeheadu.ca ABSTRACT:
This article probes the implications of neo-conservative public
education policies for the future of the academic profession through a
detailed examination of critical issues shaping contemporary doctoral
education in U.S. and Canadian universities. Institutional and social
factors such as financial retrenchment, declining support for affirmative
action, downward economic mobility, a weak academic labor market for
tenure-track faculty, professional ethics in graduate education, and
backlash against women's progress form the backdrop for analysis of the
author's survey of current doctoral students' opinions about funding,
support, the job market, and quality of learning experiences.
Volume 3 Number 18 |
November 15, 1995 |
ISSN 1068-2341 |
The Matthew Principle: A West Virginia Replication?
Craig Howley
ERIC Clearinghouse on Rural Education and Small Schools
Appalachia Educational Laboratory
P.O. Box 1348
Charleston, West Virginia
howleyc@ael.orgABSTRACT:
This study extends and interprets a regression technique
used to examine the possible role that socioeconomic status may
have in regulating the effects of school and district size on
student achievement. The original study (Friedkin & Necochea,
1988), with data from California, confirmed an interaction
between size and SES such that large schools benefitted affluent
students, whereas small schools benefitted impoverished students.
This replication applies the model to a very different state,
West Virginia. Results are similar, except that the pattern of
effects is shown to derive in part from the fact that in West
Virginia impoverished students were shown actually to attend
small schools in 1990. Small schools are shown to disrupt the
usual negative relationship between socioeconomic status and
student achievement. These results would be cause for
celebration except that since 1988 West Virginia has, under a
successful consolidation scheme facilitated by the state, closed
nearly 20 percent of its schools, most of them small schools that
had served rural communities in this mostly rural state. The
discussion interprets findings with respect to this context and
interprets the practical significance of studying structural
variables such as those used in the study.
EPAA Editorial Board
John Covaleskie
jcovales@nmu.eduAndrew Coulson
andrewco@ix.netcom.comAlan Davis
adavis@castle.cudenver.eduMark E. Fetler
fetlerctc.aol.comThomas F. Green
tfgreen@mailbox.syr.eduAlison I. Griffith
agriffith@edu.yorku.caArlen Gullickson
gullickson@gw.wmich.eduErnest R. House
ernie.house@colorado.eduAimee Howley
ess016@marshall.wvnet.eduCraig B. Howley
u56e3@wvnvm.bitnetWilliam Hunter
hunter@acs.ucalgary.caRichard M. Jaeger
rmjaeger@iris.uncg.eduBenjamin Levin
levin@ccu.umanitoba.caThomas Mauhs-Pugh
thomas.mauhs-pugh@dartmouth.eduDewayne Matthews
dm@wiche.eduMary P. McKeown
iadmpm@asuvm.inre.asu.eduLes McLean
lmclean@oise.on.caSusan Bobbitt Nolen
sunolen@u.washington.eduAnne L. Pemberton
apembert@pen.k12.va.usHugh G. Petrie
prohugh@ubvms.cc.buffalo.eduRichard C. Richardson
richard.richardson@asu.eduAnthony G. Rud Jr.
rud@sage.cc.purdue.eduDennis Sayers
dmsayers@ucdavis.eduJay Scribner
jayscrib@tenet.eduRobert Stonehill
rstonehi@inet.ed.govRobert T. Stout
stout@asu.edu