Dorinda J. Gallant

The Impact of Literacy Coaches on Teachers' Beliefs and Practices

The field of literacy education has long been concerned with the question of how to help classroom teachers improve their practices so that students will improve as readers. Although there is consensus on what characterizes effective professional development, the reading research on which this consensus is based most often is small scale and involves direct support provided by university faculty. The South Carolina Reading Initiative is an exception: It is a statewide, site-based, large-scale staff development effort led by site-selected literacy coaches. Although university faculty provide long-term staff development to the coaches, the faculty are not directly involved with the professional development provided to teachers. In this study we sought to understand whether site-based, site-chosen literacy coaches could help teachers’ beliefs and practices become more consistent with what the field considers to be best practices. To understand teacher change, we used two surveys (Theoretical Orientation to Reading Profile, n = 817; South Carolina Reading Profile, n = 1,005) and case study research (n = 39) to document teachers’ beliefs and practices. We also had access to a state department survey (n = 1,428). Across these data, we found that teachers’ beliefs and practices became increasingly consistent with best practices as defined by standards set by the South Carolina State Department of Education, standards that were consistent with national standards. This suggests that large-scale staff development can affect teachers when the providers are site-based, site-selected literacy coaches.

High School Students’ Perceptions of School Counseling Services Awareness, Use, and Satisfaction

This article describes high school students’ awareness, use, and satisfaction with academic, college preparation, career, and personal, social, or emotional school counseling services in a large urban school district. A questionnaire was administered to 701 students in Grades 9 through 12 in spring of 2008. Results indicated that a high proportion of students reported awareness of school counseling services at their school, and students who reported visiting the school counselor for specific services were satisfied with services. However, less than 50% reported visiting the school counseling office at least once for college preparation, career, or personal, social, or emotional services.

Consistency and Predictive Nature of Vertically Moderated Standards for South Carolina's 1999 Palmetto Achievement Challenge Tests of Language Arts and Mathematics

This article reports on the consistency of the achievement-level classifications (below basic, basic, proficient, and advanced) established in 1999 for the South Carolina Palmetto Achievement Challenge Tests (PACT; Huynh, Meyer, & Barton, 2000) of English language arts and mathematics. It also utilizes the PACT longitudinal data files of student records from 2000 to 2002 to assess the predictive nature of these classifications. It was found that the proportion of students who obtained a basic or higher level classification, which is considered passing, on the same subject at the next grade level was about 80% for students at the basic category and at 99% for the combined proficient and advanced category. For school accountability purposes, the original below basic category was split into a low category, below basic-1, and a high category, below basic-2. The passing proportion was 17% for below basic-1 students and about 43% for below basic-2 students. It was concluded that the PACT 1999 achievement categories fulfilled the function of identifying and characterizing students prepared for work at the next grade level as formulated in the policy definitions for these categories.

Assessing Ethnicity Equity for First-Grade Male Students on a Curriculum-Embedded Performance Assessment

The purpose of the study was to determine the extent to which indicators on the language and literacy and mathematical thinking domains of a curriculum-embedded performance assessment functioned differently for urban, African American and White male students. A sample of 852 first-grade male students in a large urban school district, located in the southeastern part of the United States, was included in the study. An ordinal logistic regression procedure was used to investigate differential item functioning for indicators on the domains. Results showed differences in the average ratings of African American and White male students on 25 of the 26 indicators. However, the indicators did not function differently for the ethnicity groups when students were matched on ability level.