Tag » focuses

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  Distinguishing Difference from Disability: The Common Causes of Racial/Ethnic Disproportionality in Special Education

  1/27/10 - Fergus, Edward

  This Equity In Action is intended to provide educators and researchers with the most comprehensive, praxis-oriented information on identifying and reducing disproportionality in schools. Over the course of developing and piloting a data-driven process (2004-2010) for identifying root causes, we’ve gained insight into not only the root causes but also the driving forces (internal and external to district) of these root causes. Our data driven root cause process focused on examining various...

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  Facilitating transformation: A framework for culturally responsive cognitive coaching in schools

  1/5/10 - Mulligan, Elaine, Kozeski, Elizabeth B., Equity Alliance at ASU

  "This coaching framework provides the intent, structure, and processes for providing coaching support to participating NIUSI-LeadScape principals. NIUSI-LeadScape is a federally-funded grant project to support the transformative work of inclusive schools. This project works to provide school leaders with the tools, professional learning, and ongoing dialogue necessary to transform school practices so that all students have full access to educational opportunities. The NIUSI-LeadScape...

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  On Inclusion and the Other Kids: Here’s What Research Shows so Far About Inclusion’s Effect on Nondisabled Students

  1/10/09 - Deb Staub, Equity Alliance at ASU

  Inclusion is receiving lots of attention, both in school districts across the country and in the popular media. Most of that attention is focused on how inclusion affects the students with disabilities. But what about the students who don’t have disabilities?

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  The School Improvement Process

  1/24/09 - National Institute for Urban School Improvement, , University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center, , Equity Alliance at ASU

  Each page of this guide focuses on a different part of the School Improvement Process. You’ll find ideas about how to gather and use information to set your focus areas and action cycles. There’s no one right place to start. If your building already has an active planning process, you may want to proceed directly to the action cycle step.

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  Understanding Culture

  1/10/09 - Shelley Zion, Elizabeth Kozleski, Equity Alliance at ASU

  This OnPoint is the first in a series of three OnPoints that explore issues around culture and teaching. This OnPoint describes the way in which NIUSI defines culture and how to think about educational settings and scenarios from the point of view of culture. The second OnPoint in this series focuses on teacher’s identity. The third OnPoint addresses how classrooms are enriched by the funds of knowledge and assets that children and their families bring with them from their homes and...

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  Understanding English Language Learners' Needs and the Language Acquisition Process

  1/10/09 - Alicja Rieger, Ewa McGrail, Equity Alliance at ASU

  This OnPoint tackles the complexity of English language learners’ needs from our point of view. We are native Polish-speaking teacher educators who use our own experiences and knowledge as English language learners in methods courses that we teach in teacher education programs in the United States. We both were born and raised in Poland, and share our passion for our native language and culture with our students, who are either already practicing public school teachers or in the process of...

• No Child Left Behind: Who Wins? Who Loses?

  1/1/05 - Arce, Josephine, Luna, Debra, Borjian, Ali, Conrad, Marguerite

  The article focuses on the 2002 No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, signed by U.S. President George W. Bush, focusing on policy and distribution of funds to public schools. Proponents of the act claim that it aims to close the achievement gap by holding school districts and states accountable, encouraging the use of flexible educational approaches, and supporting parents' rights to school choice. However, one question arises about the means by which the U.S. administration's public school...

• Race, inequality and educational accountability: the irony of 'No Child Left Behind'

  1/1/07 - Darling-Hammond, Linda

  The No Child Left Behind Act, the major education initiative of the Bush Administration, was intended to raise educational achievement and close the racial/ethnic achievement gap. Its strategies include focusing schools' attention on raising test scores, mandating better qualified teachers and providing educational choice. Unfortunately, the complex requirements of the law have failed to achieve these goals, and have provoked a number of unintended negative consequences which frequently harm...

• A Critical Race Analysis of the Achievement Gap in the United States: Politics, Reality, and Hope

  1/1/06 - Taylor, Edward

  Federal educational legislation in the United States has focused increased attention on the racial achievement gap between minority and majority students. The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation has forced high-stakes accountability in public schools, with the assumption that these policies will create performance pressures on schools to improve achievement. Yet, there is considerable evidence that performance pressures alone are unlikely to reverse long-standing racialized policies and...

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  A reading-focused early childhood education research and strategy development agenda for African Americans and Hispanics at all social class levels who are English speakers or English language learners

  1/3/09 - L. Scott Miller, Eugene Garcia

  This report addresses the need for a much expanded early childhood education research and strategy development agenda concerned with making substantial, ongoing improvements in the reading readiness and reading achievement of Latinos and African Americans. The focus is on the early childhood years because the achievement patterns of racial/ethnic groups are largely established in the period from birth through the end of the third grade (ages eight or nine for most children). The emphasis is...

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  A State Profile of Efforts to Create Culturally Responsive Educational Systems: Connecticut

  1/5/09 - Elizabeth Kozleksi, Amanda Sullivan, Kara Sujansky

  This report provides a snapshot of Connecticut’s efforts to provide for the education of students identified as having disabilities and students identified as CLD.2 We use NCCRESt’s conceptual framework for culturally responsive educational systems, which focuses on the connections between people, policies, and practices, to provide a schema for analyzing the relationships between federal, state, LEA, and school policies.

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  A Stitch in Time: Calculating the Cost of School Unreadiness

  1/12/09 - Charles Bruner

  This report presents information and approaches to support investments in early childhood by focusing on the investment potential of early childhood services in school readiness and other areas.

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  AfterZones: Creating a Citywide System to Support and Sustain High-Quality After-School Programs

  1/23/10 - Laura J. Kotloff

  "Building on a long history of investments in OST learning, The Wallace Foundation launched an out-of-school learning initiative in 2003. The initiative was created to support citywide system-building efforts that could advance three interrelated goals for the OST field: improving program quality, making programs accessible to youth who need them most, and improving youth participation so more children can realize benefits. The Foundation granted funds to five cities to support their...

• Another Look at the Achievement Gap

  1/1/08 - Ford, Donna Y., Grantham, Tarek C., Whiting, Gilman W.

  Many studies have been conducted on the achievement gap, with most findings pointing to how school and family variables affect Black students' achievement. Another body of work focuses on how social variables (i.e., peers) impact Black students' achievement, including how accusations of "acting White" affect the performance of Black students and contribute to the achievement gap. The current descriptive and exploratory study extends this work by examining peer pressure among Black students...

• Another look at the achievement gap: Learning from the experiences of gifted black students

  1/1/08 - Ford, Donna Y., Grantham, Tarek C., Whiting, Gilman W.

  Many studies have been conducted on the achievement gap, with most findings pointing to how school and family variables affect Black students' achievement. Another body of work focuses on how social variables (i.e., peers) impact Black students' achievement, including how accusations of "acting White" affect the performance of Black students and contribute to the achievement gap. The current descriptive and exploratory study extends this work by examining peer pressure among Black students...

• Another Look at the Achievement Gap: Learning From the Experiences of Gifted Black Students

  1/1/08 - Ford, Donna Y., Grantham, Tarek C., Whiting, Gilman W.

  Many studies have been conducted on the achievement gap, with most findings pointing to how school and family variables affect Black students' achievement. Another body of work focuses on how social variables (i.e., peers) impact Black students' achievement, including how accusations of "acting White" affect the performance of Black students and contribute to the achievement gap. The current descriptive and exploratory study extends this work by examining peer pressure among Black students...