(2018). Great American High School Campaign: Reforming the Nation's Remaining Low-Performing High Schools. Civic Enterprises Students in America live in two educational nations. In the vast majority of high schools with 300 or more students, the average graduation rate is already at the national goal of 90 percent or more and dropping out is a rarity. In the remaining high schools, the average graduation rate is 49 percent and on-time graduation for students is only a 50-50 proposition. In the land of opportunity, young adult success is too dependent on where they live and what school they attend. This has significant consequences for their communities and the nation. It is time to change that by drawing on the lessons in recent years and new learnings to redesign the nation's remaining low-performing high schools. After more than a decade of progress in significantly reducing the number of low-performing high schools, there remain about 1,300 traditional high schools in need of serious improvement and redesign. All of these low-performing high schools are overwhelmingly located in distressed neighborhoods… [PDF]
(2012). Redesigning Schools to Reach Every Student with Excellent Teachers: Change Management–Key Theories to Consider when Extending Reach. Public Impact As schools, their teachers, and outside facilitators redesign jobs and incorporate technology to extend the reach of excellent teachers to more students and develop an Opportunity Culture for all, choosing the right school models is just one part of the task. The human experience–and experience in education–says that even perfect design will not work if teachers do not grasp it, embrace it, and contribute to its success. Understanding the key theories of organization change management can help schools working in different contexts make changes successfully, for students and teachers. Change management is just what it sounds like: the process of planning and executing major change steps in an organization to achieve the organization's goals, maximize the positive impact on employees who do the work after a change, and help leaders and staff make the new ways become a habit. Theories of change management abound. This brief summarizes the key elements of eight major strands: (1) Job… [PDF]
(2010). Biological Motion Cues Trigger Reflexive Attentional Orienting. Cognition, v117 n3 p348-354 Dec. The human visual system is extremely sensitive to biological signals around us. In the current study, we demonstrate that biological motion walking direction can induce robust reflexive attentional orienting. Following a brief presentation of a central point-light walker walking towards either the left or right direction, observers' performance was significantly better on a target in the walking direction compared with that in the opposite direction even when participants were explicitly told that walking direction was not predictive of target location. Interestingly, the effect disappeared when the walker was shown upside-down. Moreover, the reflexive attentional orienting could be extended to motions of other biological entities but not inanimate objects, and was not due to the viewpoint effect of the point-light figure. Our findings provide strong evidence that biological motion cues can trigger reflexive attentional orienting, and highlight the intrinsic sensitivity of the human… [Direct]
(2009). Children's Ascriptions of Property Rights with Changes of Ownership. Cognitive Development, v24 n3 p322-336 Jul-Sep. Ownership is not a \natural\ property of objects, but is determined by human intentions. Facts about who owns what may be altered by appropriate decisions. However, young children often deny the efficacy of transfer decisions, asserting that original owners retain rights to their property. In Experiment 1, 4-5-year-old and 7-8-year-old children and adults were asked to resolve disputes between initial owners and various types of receivers (finders, borrowers, buyers). Experiment 2 involved disputes both before and after transfers of ownership. At all ages participants privileged owners over non-owners and accepted the effectiveness of property transfers. Overall, children's intuitions about property rights were similar to those of adults. Observed differences may reflect older participants' willingness to segregate property rights from other considerations in assessing the acceptability of actions. (Contains 3 figures and 1 table.)… [Direct]
(2012). Defining Purpose for Policy and Practice. Journal of Jewish Education, v78 n4 p299-301. Jonathan Woocher's \Reinventing Jewish Education for the 21st Century\ presents a vision for a reimagined system of Jewish education. The educational landscape is changing, Woocher says, both because of a myriad of contextual factors (economic, geopolitical, technological, sociological) and because of the very need for Jewish educational decision making to be directed by a revised, updated guiding question. Thus, a redesigned system that supports innovation and integration across settings and age cohorts is needed. In the author's view, the argument behind the vision is intellectually sound and logically presented. In the abstract, the author agrees \mostly\ with the notion that a renewed Jewish education \system\ is needed for an educational enterprise that supports innovation and is characterized by connection and integration across settings. The real point of departure is not about the belief that Jewish educational institutions would have greater impact if they were better… [Direct]
(2014). Gender Bias in Women. Forum on Public Policy Online, v2014 n2. The philosophical anthropologist Dorothy Dinnerstein, in her 1976 work "The Mermaid and the Minotaur: Sexual Arrangements and Human Malaise," argued that in order for us to address the excesses of male-dominated rule in society (militarism, rapacious consumerism), we must attack the root cause of patriarchy–women's domination of early childcare. In Dinnerstein's analysis, dangerous and unsustainable excesses of male and "masculine" authority in adult life (excesses linked to men's domination of political and economic institutions) arise from dangerous and unsustainable excesses of female and "feminine" authority in childhood (women's domination of childcare). Our misogynistic tendency to make women second-class in the highest-status areas of political and professional leadership arises from our lingering, childhood resentment of women's power over us as we experienced it in childhood. Therefore, in order to get rid of our misogyny, we must give men half… [PDF]
(2013). Principals' Approaches to Cultivating Teacher Effectiveness: Constraints and Opportunities in Hiring, Assigning, Evaluating, and Developing Teachers. Educational Administration Quarterly, v49 n5 p838-882 Dec. Purpose: How principals hire, assign, evaluate, and provide growth opportunities to teachers likely have major ramifications for teacher effectiveness and student learning. This article reports on the barriers principals encountered when carrying out these functions and variations in the degree to which they identified obstacles and problem-solved to surmount them. Research Methods: I conducted semistructured interviews with 30 principals in charter or conventional schools in two adjacent northeastern states. State A has been at the national forefront of efforts to raise teacher effectiveness. State B is a particularly strong union setting. Charter school principals constituted 23.3% of the sample; 53% of principals worked in urban schools. After coding interview transcripts, I used thematic summaries, categorical matrices, and analytical memos to identify themes across participant experiences. Findings: Principals encountered barriers to cultivating teacher effectiveness that were… [Direct]
(2013). An Analysis of Chinese High School Students' Attitudes toward Persons with Disabilities. ProQuest LLC, Ed.D. Dissertation, Union University. Disabilities and negative attitudes toward individuals with disabilities permeate human history, from ancient Greece to modern society. The study of attitude toward disabilities, mostly in western countries, has provided information for the development of policy concerning the rights of individuals with disabilities. Complying with international laws, the Chinese government has developed similar policies to protect the rights and benefits of persons with disabilities. Chinese culture has maintained at best a mixed response toward disabilities dating back from the era when Confucius ideology ruled the society. Chinese find raising children with disabilities and associating with individuals with disabilities challenging. The invisibility of disabilities in Chinese society reflects a pervasive avoidance. The Chinese collectivistic culture is particularly less accommodating with respect to accessibility to education for individuals with disabilities. This study examined attitudes of… [Direct]
(2010). The Debreather: A Report on Euthanasia and Suicide Assistance Using Adapted Scuba Technology. Death Studies, v34 n4 p291-317. In response to the general prohibition of euthanasia and assisted suicide, some right-to-die activists have developed non-medical methods to covertly hasten death. One such method is a \debreather,\ a closed system breathing device that laypersons can use to induce hypoxia for persons seeking euthanasia or assisted suicide. This article presents data from nine cases where the debreather was used on humans, resulting in eight deaths. The covert properties of the debreather make it almost impossible for medical examiners and law enforcers to detect its use. Clandestine behavior circumvents legal forms of social control and challenges models for regulated, medicalized euthanasia and assisted suicide. The debreather compromises the ability of forensic investigators to assign an accurate cause and manner of death, and this raises implications for law enforcement, vital statistics, and research into the causes of death. The involvement of lay organizations in euthanasia and assisted… [Direct]
(1990). Human Rights and "Free and Fair Competition"; The Significance of European Education Legislation for Girls in the U.K. Gender and Education, v2 n1 p63-79. British laws on education and sex discrimination do not afford girls equality of education. However, Britain's integration into the European Economics Community (EEC) may result in liberalization of laws as a result of European influence. (DM)…
(2010). How to Explain Receptivity to Conjunction-Fallacy Inhibition Training: Evidence from the Iowa Gambling Task. Brain and Cognition, v72 n3 p378-384 Apr. Intuitive predictions and judgments under conditions of uncertainty are often mediated by judgment heuristics that sometimes lead to biases. Using the classical conjunction bias example, the present study examines the relationship between receptivity to metacognitive executive training and emotion-based learning ability indexed by Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) performance. After completing a computerised version of the IGT, participants were trained to avoid conjunction bias on a frequency judgment task derived from the works of Tversky and Kahneman. Pre- and post-test performances were assessed via another probability judgment task. Results clearly showed that participants who produced a biased answer despite the experimental training (individual patterns of the biased [right arrow] biased type) mainly had less emotion-based learning ability in IGT. Better emotion-based learning ability was observed in participants whose response pattern was biased [right arrow] logical. These findings… [Direct]
(2012). Learning Support Policy in Australia (New South Wales) and New Zealand; Discourses of Influence. Australian Association for Research in Education (NJ1), Paper presented at the Joint Australian Association for Research in Education and Asia-Pacific Educational Research Association Conference (AARE-APERA 2012) World Education Research Association (WERA) Focal Meeting (Sydney, New South Wales, Dec 2-6, 2012). This paper presents a comparative discourse analysis of the learning support policy in New South Wales, Australia and New Zealand. The dominant discourses in both policies are identified and analysed in terms of how they determine the manner in which students experiencing difficulties with learning are included in schools. It is argued that the possibilities of inclusion are constrained by constructions of learning difficulties which in turn justify the models of support provided. Three types of discourses were identified in the two policy documents; "inclusion discourses" related to placement, rights and needs; "historical discourses," that refer to a deficit model of disability, professionalism and human capital in education, and "other discourses in education" referring to external but implicit discourses of managerialism, marketisation and academic excellence. The analysis revealed that the policies not only construct students experiencing… [PDF]
(2013). Building Bridges: A Case Study of the Perceptions of Parents of Students with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) towards Family. ProQuest LLC, Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Pittsburgh. This qualitative case study examines the perceptions of parents of students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) towards family/school partnerships. Interviews were conducted with parents of children with autism that belonged to a parent support group in western Pennsylvania. The resulting interviews cast light on the motivators and barriers that influence parental decisions to enter into partnerships with educational professionals. The parents were motivated towards family/school partnerships through the concepts of invitation to involvement, trust, emotional connect, and parental efficacy. Role construction, team approach, parent's knowledge, and "it's the law" served as lesser motivators. The motivators toward family/school partnerships also have the ability to serve as barriers against family/school partnerships. Whether a concept serves to motivator or stand as a barrier depends on how the interactions occur between families and educational professionals. Furthermore,… [Direct]
(2012). Measuring and Understanding Public Opinion on Human Evolution. ProQuest LLC, Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Cincinnati. The theory of evolution has long generated controversy in American society, but Americans' attitudes about human evolution are often neglected in studies of "culture wars" and the nature of mass belief systems more generally (Berkman and Plutzer 2010; Freeland and Houston 2009). Gallup and other survey organizations have polled about evolution, but offered limited response categories that mask complexity in public opinion (Bishop 2006; Moore 2008). The main problems concerning the leading survey questions about evolution are: first, questions measure only a single dimension, thus they ignore the potential for multidimensionality in people's attitudes. Second, depending on question wording and response options, the results of public opinion surveys vary by polling groups. This is an example of measurement error which misleads the interpretation and impression of American public opinion on the origin of humankind. A number of studies have analyzed Americans'… [Direct]
(2012). Children's Participation in Child-Protection Processes as Experienced by Foster Children and Social Workers. Child Care in Practice, v18 n2 p107-125. Children in foster care often have no means of influencing matters that concern them, and can easily become outsiders in their own lives. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child enshrines the rights of capable children to express their views freely in matters affecting them and to be heard in any judicial or administrative proceedings concerning them. The aim of this study is to analyse foster children's participation in child welfare processes in different time periods and contexts from the perspective of children and social workers. The data comprise semi-structured interviews of eight children and young people aged seven to 17 in family foster care, as well as interviews of four child welfare social workers. Ethical questions were taken carefully into account. The results suggest that participation in matters concerning them is very significant to children, although they do not always want be active participants (e.g. in meetings). The children hoped that social… [Direct]