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On November 19, 2009, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced that it would invest $290 million to support effective teaching as a means to ensure all students receive the education they need to succeed in high school and beyond. The foundation made six-year grants to support four Intensive Partnership for Effective Teaching (IP) sites that have developed plans to improve teacher effectiveness. Each site has obtained commitments from local organizations to match the foundation grants. Each site has embarked on efforts to develop its own measure of teacher effectiveness and use the measure to manage its teacher workforce in more strategic ways. A team from the RAND Corporation and the American Institutes for Research (AIR) was chosen to conduct a broad, longitudinal evaluation of these strategic human resource (HR) reforms. Beginning in 2010-11 and continuing through 2015-16, RAND/AIR is collecting information annually from the IP sites to explore how reforms are being implemented and to examine the impact of the IP reforms on students and teachers. [Paper presented as part of the Symposium "Improving Teacher Human Capital Management: Interim Findings from the Evaluation of the Intensive Partnership Sites".]

Practitioner papers and research papers on higher education planning and budgeting are presented. "Before the Roof Caves In: A Predictive Model for Physical Plant Renewal" by Frederick M. Biedenweg and Robert E. Hutson outlines a systematic approach that was used at Stanford University to predict the associated costs of physical plant maintenance over a period of years. "Academic Planning in the California State University and Colleges: The Aftermath of Proposition 13," by Sally K. Loyd describes the proposed and actual budgetary impacts of Proposition 13 on the California State University and Colleges and how the system responded to these impacts. In "Faculty Early Retirement: A Planning and Budgeting Issue in Higher Education," Barbara A. Mitchell outlines the steps taken in Oregon to determine faculty members' probabilities for retirement, the cost of alternative plans, and administrative, legal, and other concerns. "Policy-Impact Analysis: An Approach to Planning and Budgeting in Higher Education" by E. Raymond Hackett and James L. Morrison describes a four-stage model involving monitoring, forecasting, goal setting, and policy analysis and implementation. LaRue Tone Hosmer, in "Planning, Control and Motivation Systems: A Conceptual Framework," explains how planning, control, and motivation systems should not be considered separate entities in higher education. "Strategic Planning in the Small, Private, Liberal Arts College," by Raymond L. Siren reviews the literature on strategic planning, and "Doctoral Programs and the Labor Market, or How Should We Respond to the 'Ph.D. Glut'?" by William Zumeta presents an approach to policy analysis in support of decisions about doctoral programs in state universities. (Author/SW)

In the U.S., state guidance to schools in response to the COVID-19 pandemic was politicized. We used state-level political affiliation to explore whether access to curricular resources differed pre-pandemic or during pandemic remote teaching and teachers' reported control over curricular resources during pandemic teaching. We found that pre-pandemic the percentage of teachers in Republican states reported higher levels of resources overall, and use of core and teacher-created curricular resources in particular. They also reported having greater control over their curricular decision-making during the pandemic. There were no state-level differences in teachers' level of preparation for pandemic teaching, but teachers in Democrat states reported a greater proportion of their students had sufficient resources for online learning. We discuss the implications of these findings in terms of teacher control and state policies. [For the complete proceedings, see ED657822.]

According to the US Department of Education, adult learners make up 45% of all part-time enrollment in community colleges, compared to only 27% of full-time students. As the enrollment of adult learners in post-secondary education increases across the US, accountability efforts among higher education institutions has prioritized full-time enrollment as a means to increase degree completion. Utilizing a quasi-experimental research design and regression analysis, this paper isolates the impact of tuition deregulation on adult learners at community colleges. Net of other factors, regression results indicate that tuition deregulation significantly and dramatically reduced the share of adult learners who enrolled full-time, and that this effect persisted for at least five years after the implementation of tuition deregulation in 2003.

Many K-12 teachers struggle to meet the needs of diverse learners as school reforms promote new disciplinary literacy requirements. In response, language education scholars have argued that teachers must develop "disciplinary linguistic knowledge" (DLK), or an understanding of language in their content area and an ability to design curriculum and instruction that is responsive to their professional contexts and students' disciplinary literacy needs. This literature review explores recent uses of systemic functional linguistics (SFL) as a basis for teachers' development of DLK and the implications of SFL-based professional development for teachers' classroom practice. Findings indicate the potential of SFL for this purpose and have implications for the design of future professional development and research in the area of language education.

This paper examines systematic ways in which school districts differ and the implications of these differences for how schools work and for the implementation of reform proposals. Data from the California State Department of Education and Florida State Department of Education were analyzed to examine the effect of organizational and resource variables on decentralization in school districts. Findings suggest that there is wide diversity among school districts with regard to autonomy and resources. District patterns of organizational structure are, to some extent, endogenous. In particular, school organizations facing different external political pressures adopt different structures, with consequent differences in patterns of influence. Districts in politically intense communities are likely to have lower returns on decentralization reforms. The degree of decentralization should be viewed in part as having evolved to respond to differences in the environment, including the political environment. These differences are likely to affect both the resistance to and the effectiveness of decentralization. Effective decentralization requires adaptation of its form and structure to reflect differences among districts. Five tables are included. (Contains 12 references.) (LMI)

Findings reported in this paper derive from data in state curriculum documents, reports, and phone interviews with state officials in New York, California, Florida, and Texas. Evidence from the burgeoning state-level curriculum control systems for high school mathematics and social studies in these states suggests that both advocates and critics of state top-down reforms might be exaggerating the effects of state curriculum policies. When analyzed in terms of prescriptiveness, consistency, authority, and power, these state curriculum control policies seem to leave considerable discretion to school districts, schools, and teachers. All four states present unfinished pictures of curriculum control and have yet to link all the curriculum policies. Only California and Texas have linked curriculum policies consciously around their curriculum guidelines. New York, the most prescriptive state, specifies content and skills at the unit level for required courses. California prescribes subject content and student skills in curriculum guidelines more generally. Texas' and Florida's prescriptions are limited mainly to identifying desired basic skills loosely connected with various courses. States might not have achieved the uniformly high authority necessary to claim pervasive influence on practice. Five data tables support observations and conclusions. (6 references) (MLH)

On July 28, 2006, a panel of experts briefed members of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights on the putative benefits of racial and ethnic diversity in elementary and secondary education. Four experts presented written statements to the Commissioners that assessed the social science literature on this issue. They also addressed whether or not racial and ethnic diversity in public schools should be mandated by the state and whether the net benefits of state-mandated diversity are different from the benefits that this diversity may yield when achieved through purely voluntary behavior. The experts also presented a number of studies to the Commission assessing the putative educational and social benefits of racial and ethnic diversity in elementary and secondary education. This volume presents the following papers: (1) The Outcomes of School Desegregation in Public Schools (David J. Armor); (2) Testimony Prepared for the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights Regarding the Educational Benefits of Diversity in Elementary and Secondary Education (Arthur L. Coleman); (3) The Benefits of Racial/Ethnic Diversity in Elementary and Secondary Education (Michal Kurlaender); and (4) Demographic Perspectives on Diversity, Racial Isolation, and the Seattle School Board's Plan to "Cure" Residential "Segregation" (Stephan Thernstrom). A bibliography is included. (Individual papers contain figures, tables, exhibits, footnotes, appendices, and references.)

Does the ethnic and immigrant composition of a community and existence of immigrant enclaves or barrios influence community level drug violence? This study explores the relationship between these and other factors in Miami and San Diego census tracts. We employ data about the distribution of Cubans, Central Americans, Haitians, Mexicans and Southeast Asians, controlling for social and economic influences of drug versus non-drug violence. We also analyze the impact of various waves of immigration and immigrant communities to understand the circumstances under which drug violence occurs or is limited at the census tract level. The findings lend some support to the positive and negative aspects of Portes and Rumbaut's (2001) segmented assimilation hypothesis in Miami and San Diego neighborhoods. The strength of this conclusion varies and is contingent on ethnic composition, new versus old immigration and the all encompassing effects of economic deprivation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This chapter introduces the concept of reproductive body projects: the collection of body-care practices that mothers deliberately choose and enact during and after pregnancy, aimed at cultivating babies' development by working on the maternal body. Drawing on in-depth interviews I conducted with 70 mothers from diverse class backgrounds during 2010-11 in California and Florida, I examine how both the contents of these reproductive body projects and the social relationships through which women seek support for these projects are shaped by class. Middle-class women sought out highly personalized body-care practices and expertise by cultivating horizontal social relationships (particularly with peers selected for their shared health priorities). In contrast, poor and working-class women tended to receive body-care advice primarily through vertical, unidirectional relationships with medical professionals and their own mothers, often eschewing peers or valuing peers only for generalized emotional support. The case of mixed-class women--those who were high education/low income or low education/high income--illuminates how class comes to matter in the adoption of reproductive body projects: highly educated (but low resourced) mothers tended to resemble middleclass mothers, albeit on a budget, whereas higher income (but lower education) women had the means but not the knowledge to pursue middle-class health practices. All told, these findings suggest that reproductive body projects enable women with middle-class cultural capital to demonstrate their expertise and moral commitment to health, thereby using the care of their bodies to assert high social status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The "ISSS Annual Conference Proceedings" is a peer-reviewed professional publication published once a year following the annual conference. (Individual papers contain references.) [For the 2009 proceedings, see ED504973.]

Prospective teachers in many states must pass a competency test prior to receiving an initial teaching certificate. Because of the high stakes associated with them, educator competency tests can play a major role in modifying the nature of teacher training programs. To investigate the nature and extent of such changes, deans and faculty at teacher education institutions in four states that require testing for teacher certification were interviewed (California, Louisiana, Florida, and Georgia). It was found that a number of program modifications have been made in reaction to the requirement that prospective teachers pass competency tests. The modifications have been made in three areas: entrance requirements; curricula (e.g., courses added or modified); and student evaluation (e.g., more testing). (Author/JD)

Remarks made at the conference are summarized in seven sections of this narrative report: (1) update: recent events concerning testing,--representing the viewpoints of school districts, professional associations, government agencies, and research organizations; (2) National Institute of Education (NIE) study of school districts' use of test and evaluation information (Mary Ann Millsap); (3) Florida minimum competency testing case: Debra P. versus Turlington (Diana Pullin and George Madaus); (4) relationship between testing and curriculum (a panel: Joel Weiss, Decker Walker, Ann Cook, Andrew Porter, and Amity Buxton); (5) recent legislation to regulate testing (Walt Haney, Rex Brown); (6) test coaching controversy and the Federal Trade Commission report (Walt Haney); and (7) summary and discussion (Walt Haney, Eugene Radwin, and Vito Perrone). The appendices include the Speech Communication Association's criteria for evaluating tests and assessment guidelines; "The Essentials of Education," a statement from 12 organizations; a description of the Math/Science network; Banesh Hoffman's criticism of mathematics test items; a summary of the court decision, Larry P. versus Riles; a description of the NIE study and of further grants; sample materials from a school district's program; and a description of the impact of New York state's La Valle bill. (GDC)