Michael S. Knapp

How Shall We Study Comprehensive, Collaborative Services for Children and Families?

Researchers and evaluators confront difficult challenges in studying comprehensive, collaborative services for children and families. These challenges appear in the interaction of multiple professional perspectives, specification of independent and dependent variables, attribution of effects to causes, and sensitive nature of the programmatic treatment. Given limited knowledge about these complex interventions, they will best be understood through studies that are strongly conceptualized, descriptive, comparative, constructively skeptical, positioned from the bottom up, and (when appropriate) collaborative.

Chapter 4:Professional Development as a Policy Pathway

Want to improve teaching and learning in public education? Mount an improvement initiative that centrally features high-quality professional development, reflecting the latest consensus and research evidence concerning “best practice.” In recent years, the answer is almost taken for granted by many leaders and policymakers, especially those situated in school district central offices and in state education agencies. The lure of professional development is understandable, given how much new learning contemporary reform demands of teachers and administrators and given the drumbeat urging students and school systems to rise to a higher standard of performance (Thompson & Zeuli, 1999). In response, it is natural for those responsible for reform to mount a professional development initiative tied to standards, curricular goals, and even the current assessment system and hope that it will help school staff realize the ambitious goals of the reform in question. It is very likely, however, that the professional development initiative in question will not yield quick or consistent results, at least not where policymakers and stakeholders think to look. The obvious conclusion drawn by many—that efforts to support professional learning were a failure—leaves proponents and bystanders puzzled. What went wrong? To many participants in these reform stories, it is obvious that teachers need help getting up to speed on the latest approaches to assessment, standards-oriented practice, approaches to student learning, and so forth in the context of standards-based reform. And how else to satisfy that need than to set up systems of support for professional learning with targeted resources, aligned professional development curricula, consultants and coaches, and so on? While the logic of such initiatives is generally clear and powerful, the issues these initiatives raise for the design and enactment of policy are anything but clear. Consider the following kinds of issues—each reflecting an important area of decision making— confronting leaders and policymakers in connection with professional development initiatives.

Teacher Mobility: Looking More Closely at "The Movers" Within a State System

This article summarizes the results of a 2-part study using both state databases and teacher surveys to examine teacher retention and mobility in Washingtons teacher workforce. The first part of the research examined individual teacher records during a 5-year period. Statewide analyses were conducted, and 20 districts were selected for in-depth examination. Data were examined in relation to student demographics, measures of student learning, and poverty level of the school, with special attention given to novice teachers and teachers of color. The second part of the study surveyed a representative sample of teachers regarding their views on factors that influence their decisions to stay or leave their school or school district. Findings suggest that focusing on the nature of teacher mobility within a district is a useful way to examine a number of equity concerns.

Managing the intersection of internal and external accountability: Challenge for urban school leadership in the United States

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to direct attention to the intersection of external and internal accountability systems within urban schools, and the role of school leadership, especially that of the principal, in managing this intersection. In particular, the paper explores how school leaders are able to strengthen and sustain the schools internal accountability system, in pursuit of school‐defined learning improvement agenda, and at the same time respond productively to external accountability demands. The paper also seeks to identify consequences of these leaders’ efforts to navigate an often problematic set of converging demands.Design/methodology/approach – This paper draws on findings from a larger multi‐case study of learning‐focused leadership in 15 schools in four urban school districts in the USA. Schools were chosen to represent those that were “making progress” (by local measures). Data were collected over 18 months, spanning two school years, from Spring 2007 to Fall 2008. Data collec...

Teaching Writing to Children Who Are Underserved.

Writing instruction for children from low-income famiIies has been dominated by two antithetical views, one emphasizing component sills and drill-and-practice instruction, the other emphasizing natural processes of learning language. A third approach, one that reflects pedagogical principles that are based on a sociocognitive model of writing was investigated. Writing instruction that featured these principles in varying degrees was examined in 26 fourth-grade and 16 sixth-grade classrooms. Regression analysis indicated that more than 40% of the variance in childrens posttest writing-quality scores was accounted for by degree of adherence to the model, and scores in writing mechanics did not suffer from application of the model

Interprofessional Education and Training Transforming Professional Preparation to Transform Human Services

Many universities are experimenting with interprofessional programs to better prepare professionals to tackle the complex problems faced by children and families. Universities face three major challenges: overcoming the compartmentalization of professional schools, which is then reflected in fragmentation of service delivery; learning to function as effective partners with communities; and reconceptualizing the nature of professional expertise to include collaborative scholarship and practice. The authors found that collaborative work can offer scholars substantial intellectual challengers, learning opportunities, and a new kind of access to the community, which can receive increased professional assistance. Interprofessional education is likely to promote alternative conceptions of teaching, scholarship, program design, and community service. However, it is personally and intellectually demanding, costly in time and other resources, and institutionally fragile. The open question is how many university faculty and administrators will take on the challenges of responding is new needs and demands for training human service professionals.

Building Systems of Support for Classroom Teachers Working With English Language Learners

Increasing numbers of English learner (EL) students and corresponding pressures to mainstream them mean that districts around the country are facing new challenges as they adapt to meet the needs of these students. For general education teachers, the challenges stem from a role shift in which they are now primarily responsible for the instructional needs of the EL students in their classrooms. This qualitative case study examined the assistance and support general education teachers received to work with linguistically diverse students. This article addresses the ways these efforts can form a “system of support” for teachers. The analysis focuses on 4 districts that serve different populations and proportions of EL students. Through interviews, classroom observations, and document analyses, this article examines how these districts attempted to provide coherent, sustained support to classroom teachers at all levels and, in doing so, created systems of support.

The Practice of Designing Qualitative Research on Educational Leadership: Notes for Emerging Scholars and Practitioner-Scholars:

This article addresses a gap in methodological writing, concerning typical practice in designing qualitative inquiry, especially in research on educational leadership. The article focuses on how qualitative research designs are actually developed and explores implications for scholars’ work, especially for new scholars and for methods teachers. Working from methodological literature across multiple traditions, combined with the author’s experience designing qualitative studies and guiding emerging scholars and practitioner-scholars, the article describes alternative ways to develop viable designs, noting essential considerations and trade-offs along the way. While noting differences by tradition, the article emphasizes common patterns and implications shared by multiple traditions.

Early Research on the Federal Education Block Grant: Themes and Unanswered Questions:

This paper reviews early research at the national level on the implementation and effects of the Department of Education’s block grant, Chapter 2 of the Education Consolidation and Improvement Act of 1981. The review is intended to synthesize what is known about the block grant in its first two years of operation (the 1982–83 and 1983–84 school years) and to suggest directions for future research on this policy mechanism. Findings from the early studies are summarized under six topics: funds allocation, educational service delivery, program administration, program assessment, decisionmaking, and intergovernmental relations. Although it is preoccupied with short-term impacts, this body of research brings important issues into focus and points the way toward further investigation.

Using Transformative Experiences to Prepare Instructional Leaders Through Doctoral Education

This article examines two questions: (a) In what ways can doctoral-level learning experiences help executive-level P-12 leaders to develop instructional leadership expertise and commitment to high levels of learning among diverse student groups? (b) How can educators be supported in this learning within the context of an Education Doctorate (EdD)? To explore these questions, we first draw on the literature concerning adult professional learning, instructional leadership, and the doctoral education of educators aiming for administrative roles and practice, to create a framework for examining university-based efforts to guide aspiring leaders’ learning in these realms. Then, focusing on the “instructional leadership” strand of an EdD program in which we are instructors, we examine how an appropriate learning environment can be constructed, and then illustrate the nature and evidence of learning with mini-cases of three different kinds of students who participated in the program.