More research is needed on the policies structuring coaching and mentoring programs, as well as the implementation of these programs. We lack an understanding of coaches’ role in the dynamics of change, including how their position as intermediaries influences their reform work. We know little about the relationship between forces from the macro-level and coaches or the relationship between coaches’ power and position and their interactions with teachers. Furthermore, more empirical studies are needed that compare the implementation of various coaching models and that consider how a single coaching model is enacted across multiple contexts.

Education Policy Analysis Archives (EPAA) announces a call for papers for a special issue exploring coaching with the goal of speaking to policymakers, reformers, and educators and will contribute to broader discussions about the potential of policy levers to improve classroom practice and educational outcomes.
Research papers using interdisciplinary or mixed media (images/audio/video clips) formats are highly encouraged.

About the Journal: Celebrating its 20th year, EPAA is a peer-reviewed, open-access, international, multilingual, and multidisciplinary journal designed for researchers, practitioners, policy makers, and development analysts concerned with education policies. EPAA/AAPE accepts unpublished original manuscripts in English, Spanish and Portuguese without restriction as to conceptual and methodological perspectives, time or place.

Submission Information: All manuscripts should be submitted electronically through the EPAA website and follow the Journal’s submission guidelines: http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/. Please submit to the “Special Issue” section. We will not consider manuscripts submitted for publication or published elsewhere.
Deadline: December 1, 2013
Publication date: June 2014
Early submissions are encouraged.

Guest Editor: Sarah L. Woulfin sarah.woulfin@gmail.com

Education Policy Analysis Archives has just published its latest issue at http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/1204

Abstract: Developing teaching practices that meet the needs of Second Language Learners (SLL) calls for models of apprenticeship in which teacher candidates acquire competency on how to create learning spaces where students discover, experience and construct knowledge rather than solely practicing skills. The aforesaid argument has an implication when defining the competency of highly qualified teachers as framed by the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act. This article presents a three-step teacher development process requiring teacher candidates first to observe and analyze exemplary teaching practices. Secondly, to help them build expertise on how to question students to ignite their inquiry. And, thirdly, to develop and implement their practices to create a classroom as the we space. The outcomes of this model suggest that highly qualified teachers could be better prepared to work with SLL when they are competent in creating inclusive, participatory learning environments, in which students are able to utilize, experiment, synthesize and evaluate knowledge.

Keywords: questioning; teaching practices; observing; inclusive education; apprenticeship.

Education Policy Analysis Archives has just published its latest issue at http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/1162

Abstract: As Argentina presents problems of malnutrition, the federal in-school feeding program has become a key policy because it provides an important nutritional intervention during a relevant growth period.  This paper estimates the effect of the program on academic performance -measured by standardized test scores- with a difference in difference model which exploits the change over time in the supply of the in-school feeding program during the end of the nineties. We build an original panel using the ONEE corresponding to the years 1997, 1999 and 2000. Our findings suggest that the program has successfully targeted the most disadvantaged schools. However, only partial improvement in school performance has been found. Language test scores were the only ones to show a statistically significant improvement, with no noticeable effects reported in math scores. These results are consistent with the characteristics of the federal in-school feeding program in Argentina, which do not compensate for the nutritional deficit the children bring from their homes. This implies that having an in-school feeding program –even that reaching the most needy populations- does not necessarily address the desired goals of compensating for nutritional deficits and correlating to improved test results for students.

Keywords: School Meals Program, fixed-effects, academic performance, Argentina

Education Policy Analysis Archives has just published its latest issue at http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/884

Abstract: This study investigated the effects of immigration and home language on academic achievement over time. Using data from Ontario’s Assessments of Reading, Writing and Mathematics administered to the same students in Grades 3 and 6, logistic regression was used to predict if students achieved proficiency in Grade 6 if they were not proficient in Grade 3. The results indicate that home language or interactions with home language are significant in most cases. In addition, students who speak a language other than or in addition to English at home are, in general, a little more likely to be proficient at Grade 6. Most students who were born outside of Canada were significantly more likely than students born in Canada to stay or become proficient in Reading, Writing, and Mathematics by Grade 6. These results highlight the importance of considering the enormous heterogeneity of immigrants’ experiences when studying the effects of immigration on academic performance and the dire limitations of datasets that do not collect such data.

Keywords: Student Achievement; Immigrant Education; Standardized Testing

Education Policy Analysis Archives has just published its latest issue at http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/1166

Abstract: The aim of this article is to analyze the public-private relation and its consequences for the democratic management of schools in Brazil. It displays the current context, because it comprehends the inclusion of private logic in public schools as part of changes in this particular period of capitalism, which redefine the role of social policies, and presents an example of a partnership between the public schools and third sector, which was the subject of research recently completed. The theoretical framework, which supported the research was based on authors who analyze the current period, David Harvey and Istvan Meszaros, and the concept of democracy based on Ellen Wood. The data, mostly qualitative, were collected through interviews with managers of the policy document analysis, observations and interviews with school teachers, principals and teaching staff. Overall, it was concluded that the relationship between public and private are manifested in the current period both in terms of change of ownership (public non-state), and in relation to what remains in state ownership, but rearranges educational processes in the logic of the market.

Keywords: Public / private partnership in education, Brazilian educational policy, Democratic management

Education Policy Analysis Archives has just published its latest issue at http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/1214

Abstract: Early college high schools are a promising but expensive pathway to college readiness. Most such schools are supported with state funds and/or grants. This descriptive case study presents an early college program, now in its fourth year in a traditional high school, in which the families, high school and local community college shared the entire cost. Data from document analysis and interviews with administrators, parents, and students clarified the funding plan and participant reactions. Joint ownership increased parental engagement, student academic commitment, and administrator attention. The results suggest that learning to cope with the cost of college, which this program necessitated, is an important aspect of college readiness for both students and parents. The model of shared responsibility is contrasted with the “hold harmless” model of government/foundation support that relieves schools and families of the cost of early college programming. The findings and policy recommendations are applicable to LEA and SEA leaders, philanthropies, and scholars in educational financial policy.

Keywords: advanced placement programs; college readiness; dual enrollment; financial policy; learner engagement; Massachusetts; parent financial contribution; philanthropic foundations; private financial support; school support; state aid.

Dr. Sarah Robert on Incentives, Teachers, and Gender at Work

Education Policy Analysis Archives has just published its latest issue at http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/1353

Abstract: The text explores the contributions of studies on resilience to social pedagogy. The reflections on the screen are the result of research conducted with urban working children, their teachers and their schools. The research, in the municipality of Duque de Caxias, located in the metropolitan area of the State of Rio de Janeiro, involved the monitoring of children living in situations of social risk, schools and teachers. We tried to detect the conceptions of school and that populate the imaginary world of these individuals. In the methodological approach, we focused on building experience reports and life stories. The article seeks to establish a dialogue between the concept of resilience and researched theme, seeking approaches, connections, and especially to establish a reflective attitude that enables a practice that contributes to enhance school students and teachers.

Keywords: education; social pedagogy; inclusion; resilience.

Education Policy Analysis Archives has just published its latest issue at  http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/1362

Abstract: With over 150 years of history, social pedagogy is both an interdisciplinary scholarly field of inquiry and a field of practice that is situated in the intersection of three areas of human activity: education, social work and community development. Although social pedagogy has different emphases and approaches depending on particular historical and geographical contexts, a common theme is that it deals with the connections between educational and social dynamics, or put in a different way, it is concerned with the educational dimension of social issues and the social dimensions of educational issues. The first part of this paper analyzes the history of the field of social pedagogy since its origins until today, with a focus on transnational flows between Europe and the Americas. The second part of the paper discusses the main issues raised in this special issue of EPAA, and extracts the main threads and connections among the different papers included in the volume.

keywords: social pedagogy; historical traditions; community education; transnational flows.

Education Policy Analysis Archives has just published its latest issue at http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/1309

Abstract: Both the German and the international discourses on social pedagogy are shaped by a diachronic perspective on its history, which takes differing national developments as its starting point, and thus sees socio-pedagogical thinking as having its roots in particular nation states. In our article, however, we take a synchronic perspective to show, by means of the transnational development of the settlement movement, that a socio-pedagogical constellation has developed transnationally. After considering examples of the transnational development of the settlement movement in the USA, Germany and Canada, we will reconstruct variants of socio-pedagogical thinking using key publications from the settlement movements. Rather than focusing on historical attempts at definition undertaken by those regarded as the classic proponents of social pedagogy, this essay is concerned with identifying a socio-pedagogical constellation in which various definitions are present simultaneously and can be read from different national, disciplinary, and theoretical positions. The socio-pedagogical constellation, as we derive it from the transnational settlement movement, concentrates on the relationship between a diagnosis of societal conditions, the pedagogical organization of social relations, and the expansion of normatively defined agency. This socio-pedagogical constellation is presented at the end of the essay and positioned in relation to other socio-pedagogical attempts at definition.

Keywords: Social Pedagogy, Transnational History, Settlement Movement, 1880-1930, Germany, USA.