Alan Davis

High-Achieving Middle Schools for Latino Students in Poverty

This study was conducted to examine the characteristics of middle schools in which Latino students from low-income families made substantial achievement gains. Nine schools in Texas were selected where Latino students had shown strong gains in the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills. Data from onsite interviews, focus groups, and documents were reviewed for evidence of 57 characteristics of effective schools. As expected, schools were characterized by strong leadership; a clear focus on achievement; positive climate, including supportive relationships among students and teachers; and good communications with parents. Surprisingly little attention was paid to providing culturally relevant curriculum or bilingual instruction. The schools generally exhibited a strong coherence, marked by articulation of common goals and a strong sense of guiding purpose, shared norms, consistent messages, and consistency of beliefs and practices. The schools could be further improved by drawing more explicitly on the cultural knowledge of home and community.

State Strategies to Support Local School Improvement

In recent years, state departments of education have undertaken strategies to support local school improvement. Some emphasize school wide improvement while others focus specifically on instructional improvement. This study, based on case study methodology, sought to determine what factors were most important in the process of actually putting in place an improvement effort. The study indicated that the implementation within the school could be best thought of in four stages—initiation, initial implementation, complete implementation, and institutionalization. Each stage contained several factors that seemed essential to success. These factors included district support of several types as well as characteristics and actions in the school. Also certain factors/actions on the part of the state helped to support these efforts. These factors are described in this article. The types of school improvement programs reported here were found to work best in local environments that lacked turmoil, were not overloaded with innovation, were small in size and low in complexity at both the school and district levels.

Chapter 1 Program Improvement: Cause for Cautious Optimism and a Call for Much More Research

The program improvement provisions of the Hawkins-Stafford Amendments to Chapter 1 rest on the optimistic premise that school-level accountability pressures directed at Chapter 1 will lead to higher academic achievement for educationally disadvantaged students. Although the legislation may be unrealistic in assuming that improvement is primarily an act of will, it correctly focuses on the school as the appropriate unit for change. Principals of over 200 schools identified for program improvement in three states were surveyed to determine local responses to the new provisions. Over two-thirds of responding schools had begun to implement programmatic changes. Fully 84% supported the legislative provisions. Research is called for to study the effects of the legislation and to provide additional options to low-performing schools.

Upping the Stakes: Using Gain Scores to Judge Local Program Effectiveness in Chapter 1

Since 1978, the national evaluation and reporting system for Title I/Chapter 1 of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act has depended upon a norm-referenced evaluation system to determine the effectiveness of compensatory education programs funded under the act. For a decade, policy directives urged caution in interpreting local results and encouraged use of additional indicators. Since 1988, legislative amendments have required that the national evaluation system serve, without adjustment or interpretation, to identify individual school projects in need of improvement. In this article I argue that the system is technically unsuited for this purpose. Problems with regression and measurement error are illustrated with empirical data. Policy should encourage the use of multiple indicators of program quality at the local level, including applied performance tests and process indicators.

Principles of Collaboration in School‐University Partnerships

* If it is true that all understanding can be rendered as a story, then this story begins with Mary, Jackie, and Barbara, three fourth-grade teachers who have been teachers and touchstones for us since 1990 (Clarke, Davis, Rhodes, & Baker, 1996, 1997; Davis, Clarke, & Rhodes, 1994). These three remarkable teachers consistently achieve success with lowincome, urban minority students under difficult circumstances using dramatically different methods and materials. Mary, who believes that all troubles can be solved by reading and writing, is the epitome of a whole language, process-oriented teacher. Jackie, a bilingual teacher raised in Chicago, uses technology and street smarts in requiring that her students not back down from the realities that assail them. Barbara, calm and confident in her use of choral drill and leveled reading groups, seems to have stepped out of an episode of Leave it to Beaver. Initially, our fascination with them began as a variation on Stevicks riddle:

Use of Social Emotional Learning Skills to Predict Future Academic Success and Progress Toward Graduation

This study evaluated the degree to which a range of social emotional learning skills—academic self-efficacy, academic motivation, social connections, importance of school, and managing psychological and emotional distress and academic stress— could be used as an indicator of future academic outcomes. Using a sample of 4,797 from a large urban school district, we found that high school students classified as performing in the lowest 25% of their grade reported lower social emotional skills than students classified in the top 25% of academic performers by the end of the 8th grade. Two variables, perceived importance of attending college and psychological and physical stress, accounted for nearly 26% of the variance in cumulative high school GPA after controlling for 9th-grade GPA. Finally, the results indicated that a combination of 5 social emotional learning subscales effectively discriminated between students making positive progress towards high school graduation and those identified as having dropped out of or failed more than 14% of their courses.

Educational Gymnastics: The Effectiveness of Montessori Practical Life Activities in Developing Fine Motor Skills in Kindergartners

Research Findings: A quasi-experiment was undertaken to test the effect of Montessori practical life activities on kindergarten childrens fine motor development and hand dominance over an 8-month period. Participants were 50 children age 5 in 4 Montessori schools and 50 students age 5 in a kindergarten program in a high-performing suburban elementary school. Children were pre- and posttested on the Flag Posting Test, an individually administered test of fine motor skill requiring children to place tiny flags mounted on pins into preset pinholes. Students in the Montessori treatment group demonstrated significantly higher accuracy, speed, and consistent use of the dominant hand on the posttest, adjusted for pretest differences and gender. Effect sizes were moderate for accuracy and speed (ds = .53 and .37, respectively) and large for established hand dominance (▵R2 = .35). Longitudinal research on the effects of early childhood programs emphasizing the reciprocal interplay of cognitive and physical aspects of activity is recommended. Practice or Policy: The findings argue for a balanced approach to early childhood education that maintains the importance of physical activity and fine motor development in conjunction with cognitive skills. Montessori practical life activities involving eye–hand coordination and fine motor skills can be integrated into programs.

Critical Friends’ Perspectives on Problems of Practice and Inquiry in an EdD Program

Conversations continue to evolve within the Carnegie Project on the Education Doctorate (CPED) regarding the nature of the dissertation in practice and the associated inquiry skills/coursework (Carnegie Project on the Education Doctorate, 2012). Questions abound, for example, regarding the nature, scope, impact, and format of the dissertation in practice. Because the approach to this culminating project diverges across institutions of higher education involved in the CPED consortium and because there is a commitment to allow flexibility to institutions to address their unique contexts, it is unclear what research/inquiry experiences and coursework are needed to support Doctor of Education (EdD) students to carry out the dissertation in practice with rigor and in a manner that truly develops scholarly practitioners who contribute to advancing problems of practice in contexts such as schools, districts, and community-based organizations.