Showing papers in "Teachers College Record in 2001"

From Preparation to Practice: Designing a Continuum to Strengthen and Sustain Teaching

Abstract: This paper was written to stimulate discussions and debate about what a professional learning continuum from initial preparation through the early years of teaching could be like. Drawing on a broad base of literature, the author proposes a framework for thinking about a curriculum for teacher learning over time. The paper also considers the fit (or misfit) between conventional approaches to teacher preparation, induction and professional development and the challenges of learning to teach in reform-minded ways and offers examples of promising programs and practices at each of these stages. The paper is organized around three questions: (a) What are the central tasks of teacher preparation, new teacher induction, and early professional development? (b) How well do conventional arrangements address these central tasks? (c) What are some promising programs and practices at each stage in the learning to teach continuum that promote standards-based teaching and enable teachers to become active participants in school reform?

Emotional Geographies of Teaching

Abstract: This paper introduces a new concept in educational research and social science: that of emotional geographies. Emotional geographies describe the patterns of closeness and distance in human interactions that shape the emotions we experience about relationships to ourselves, each other, and the world around us. Drawing on an interview-based study of 53 elementary and secondary teachers, the paper describes five emotional geographies of teacher-parent interactions—sociocultural, moral, professional, physical, and political—and their consequences.

Mismatch: Historical Perspectives on Schools and Students Who Don't Fit Them.

Abstract: There have always been students who do not meet the educational expectations of their time—students outside the mainstream mold who do not fit dominant notions of success. The differences between schools and these students can be thought of as a “mismatch” between the structure of schools and the social, cultural, or economic backgrounds of students identified as problems. In this essay we examine the history of these students who have not been able to do what educators wanted them to do. We look at how educators have labeled poor school performers in different periods and how these labels reflected both attitudes and institutional conditions. We then summarize four major historical explanations for why children fail in school—individual deficits or incompetence, families, inefficiency in schools, and cultural difference. Finally, we explore what implications this history has for students in the current standards-based reform movement, including implications for social promotion and the age-graded school. To avoid a mismatch in the standards movement, we argue that educators should focus on adapting the school better to the child, addressing social inequalities that extend beyond the classroom, and undertaking comprehensive changes that take no features of current schools for granted.

The Enduring Effects of Small Classes.

Abstract: The purpose of this investigation was to extend our knowledge of the effects of small classes in the primary grades on pupils’ academic achievement. Three questions were addressed that have not been answered in previous research: (1) How large are the effects of small classes relative to the number of years students participate in those classes? (2) How much does any participation in small classes in K–3 affect performance in later grades when all classes are full-size? (3) How much does the duration of participation in small classes in K–3 affect the magnitude of the benefits in later grades (4, 6, and 8)? Rationales for expecting the continuing impacts of small classes were derived in the context of other educational interventions (for example, Head Start, Perry Preschool Project). The questions were answered using data from Tennessee’s Project STAR, a statewide controlled experiment in which pupils were assigned at random to small classes, full-size classes, or classes with a full-time teaching assistant. Hierarchical linear models (HLMs) were employed because of the multilevel nature of the data; the magnitude of the small-class effect was expressed on several scales including “months of schooling.” The results for question (1) indicate that both the year in which a student first enters a small class and the number of years (s)he participates in a small class are important mediators of the benefits gained. The results for questions (2) and (3) indicate that starting early and continuing in small classes for at least three years are necessary to assure long-term carryover effects. Few immediate effects of participation in a class with a full-time teacher aide, and no long-term benefits, were found. The results are discussed in terms of implications for class-size reduction initiatives and further research questions.

Redefining "public" education: Charter schools, common schools, and the rhetoric of reform

Abstract: This paper examines various claims made by charter-school advocates that charter schools are publicly funded, open to all, are chartered by public entities, and thus are a form of public schooling. It addresses this subject by comparing the rhetoric of Michigan's charter-school reformers with that of the common-school reformers of the 19th century, particularly Horace Mann. The analysis finds conflicting definitions of what constitutes public schooling. Whereas both types of reform support tax-funded schools and open access, the common-school reformers emphasized political-democratic forms of control. Charter-school advocates actively challenge such control and claim that market mechanisms of consumer choice and competition among providers are the primary means of authority. Furthermore, proponents of charter schools seek to "redefine" popular conceptions of what constitutes public and private education. In doing so, they frame education principally as a consumer good, and thus effect a privatization of the purpose of public education that contrasts with the common-school reformers' stated concern for democracy and the public good. The paper suggests that the rhetoric of charter-school advocates promotes depublicization and a redefinition of the "public" in education away from that of an institution of and for the public good. (Contains approximately 120 references.) (RJM) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. Redefining "Public" Education: Charter Schools, Common Schools, and the Rhetoric of Reform

Are Content Standards Being Implemented in the Classroom? A Methodology and Some Tentative Answers

Abstract: Arguably the most notable trend in education policy in the past ten years has been the movement toward a standards-based approach to insuring the quality of education provided to all children. Standards have been set by professional organizations, such as the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM), the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), by the states and strongly encouraged by the federal government. Title I of the ESEA legislation requires all states to adopt challenging content and performance standards in at least reading, language arts and mathematics. The question is whether standards-based reform is making a difference in the type and/or quality of instruction experienced by students. This chapter focuses on the issues that must be addressed and the challenges that must be overcome to provide a credible answer to questions regarding the impact of standards on the quality of instruction received by students. Results from some preliminary investigations are reported. Determining the impact of standards on classroom practice can be viewed as a three-part problem. First, one needs a description of the relevant educational practice that permits

Small Districts in Big Trouble: How Four Arizona School Systems Responded to Charter Competition

Abstract: How do district schools respond to competition from charter schools? To explore this question, we examine four small Arizona school districts which lost from a tenth to a third of enrollment to charter schools in a short time period. Districts lost market share to charter schools because they did not satisfy significant constituencies, thus providing demands for education alternatives. District responses to market pressure depend on overall enrollment trends, the quality of the charter competition, the quality of district leadership, and the size of the district. Districts respond to competition in various ways, including reforming curricula, changing leadership, vilifying charter competitors, and attempting to absorb those competitors. Responses suggest that competition improves schools, but that markets do not work quickly or without friction and must be understood in context.

From High School To Teaching: Many Steps, Who Makes It?.

Abstract: In this paper, we focus on the roles that race, ethnicity, and academic skills play in predicting whether high school students persist along each of the various steps of the path into teaching. We show that the challenge of creating a racially and ethnically diverse teaching force is not primarily one of influencing the occupational decisions of minority college graduates. Instead, the critical challenge is to increase the high school graduation, college enrollment, and college graduation rates of minority youth. We use a sequence of four samples originating in the sophomore cohort of High School and Beyond (1992). We explore high school sophomores’ career transitions along each step of the path into teaching—high school graduation, entry into college, college graduation, and entry into teaching.

Cultural Resources and the Gap Between Educational Theory and Practice

Abstract: One source of potential failure in fostering reforms in education is educators’ cap-tivity between an educational manifesto—a conscious ideology or theory, which aimsto guide educational practice—and dominant cultural resources that may prevent theactualization of the manifesto. The aim of this paper is to raise educators’ awarenessof this issue and to illustrate, through the qualitative analysis of an educationalactivity, the dynamics in which an educational manifesto is imprisoned by culturalresources.

John Dewey's Conundrum: Can Democratic Schools Empower?

Abstract: Developed at the end of the 1900s, largely in his short-lived Laboratory School at the University of Chicago, John Dewey’s vision of democratic education has remained influential for over a century. Yet, as he grew older Dewey himself increasingly lost faith in the ability of schools, alone, to create a more democratic society. Drawing on data available from the Laboratory School, this paper expands upon Dewey’s concerns. Ultimately, I argue that Dewey’s educational approach failed to equip students to act effectively in the world as it was (and still is), and, further, that Dewey’s model of democracy, while extremely useful, is nonetheless inadequate to serve the varied needs of a diverse and contentious society.

Career and College Advice to the Forgotten Half: What Do Counselors and Vocational Teachers Advise?.

Abstract: Projections from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Bureau of Labor Statistics suggest that many of the fastest-growing jobs in the U.S. will require some form of postsecondary education — be it technical certification, an associate’s degree, a bachelor’s degree or beyond. And although the vast majority of students (and their parents) express the belief that they will go to college, research indicates that the actual number of young people — particularly low-income and minority youth — entering postsecondary education falls far below these stated expectations.

How Context Mediates Policy: The Implementation of Single Gender Public Schooling in California.

Abstract: In this article, we present findings about the implementation of single gender public schooling in California—a movement that signifies a growing interest in school choice and private sector solutions to public education problems. We analyze qualitative data gathered in a study of 12 single gender academies (6 boys; 6 girls). As well-meaning educators responded to California’s single gender academies legislation, they designed schools and used resources to address the pressing needs of students in each community, such as low achievement, poverty, or violence, rather than to address gender bias. The impetus for single gender schooling in each context affected the organization, curriculum, and pedagogy in each academy, as did educators’ ideologies about gender. In the end, the politics surrounding the legislation, the resource interests of district and school administrators, and the lack of institutional support for this gender-based reform coalesced to structure the demise of most of the single gender academies. We consider the implications of these findings for the viability of single gender schooling as a public school option.

Changing Conceptions of Learning: A Century of Progress in the Scientific Study of Education

Abstract: The National Society for the Study of Education (NSSE) has published an edited Yearbook reviewing one or two selected topics in education each year since 1902. With the arrival of the new millennium, this century-long repository of educational study provides an outstanding resource for anyone interested in looking back over the evolution of key ideas in education. There is, perhaps, no more fundamental topic in education than the nature of learning, for at its core, education means the fostering of learning. As an outgrowth of the National Herbart Society in the late 1890s, the NSSE has deep roots in the study of learning, and learning has repeatedly been highlighted in NSSE Yearbooks during the past one hundred years. The purpose of this chapter is to review changes in the conception of learning in education as discussed in the pages of the NSSE Yearbooks and related NSSE volumes throughout the twentieth century. In particular this chapter explores historical themes concerning changes in the conception of (a) the importance of learning theory in the study of education, (b) the definition of learning, (c) the process of learning, (d) the relation between psychological theory and educational practice, (e) the generality of learning theories, (f) the nature of individual differences in learning, (g) the nature of assessment of learning, (h) the motivational context of learning, (i) the biological context of learning, and (j) the social context of learning. For purposes of analyzing changes in each of these dimensions, I divided the twentieth century into three rough segments—early (consisting of the first few decades), middle (consisting of the middle few decades), and late (consisting of the final few decades). Table 1 summarizes changes in each of these dimensions over the early, middle, and late segments of the twentieth century; each of