District Partnership Research Articles

The Development of an Inclusive Charter Elementary School: Lessons Learned

The purpose of this study was to examine the startup of a charter elementary school specifically designed to be fully inclusive. Twenty-one adult stakeholders, including parents, teachers, staff, and an administrator, were interviewed and asked a series of questions designed to solicit information about what they identified as strengths and challenges in the first year of the school. Four major themes emerged from these interviews: Components critical to the operation of the school, initial challenges overcome, positive outcomes, and ongoing challenges. Areas of interest emerging from the study include the distribution of services for students with disabilities, the need for a challenging curriculum for all students, and the university–school district partnership.

Book Study Teams: Empowering Others to Become Leaders in the 21st Century

Over the last five years, the department of Educational Administration and Leadership at Kansas State University has been engaging in a series of university-school district partnerships to improve the training of school leaders.

Title II and Teacher Testing

IT IS NOW almost official policy that high-quality teachers are good test-takers -- but not necessarily anything more. At least, that's the idea you get from reading more than 80 pages of the draft guidance issued by the U.S. Department of Education (ED) on the state grants under Title II -- the Improving Teacher Quality title -- of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act. Like the provisions for school accountability in NCLB, what is all about comes down to performance on single The folks at ED insist that they are not imposing any requirements beyond those in the law, but the guidance they offer makes no attempt to put teaching into context most teachers would find compatible with why they chose teaching as career. The law says that qualified teacher is prepared for the classroom once he or she has bachelor's degree and state certification or has passed the state licensing exam and a state academic subject test. Teachers who obtain their training via alternative routes are considered highly qualified as beginning teachers provided they are being mentored and supervised in program leading to certification. The specific requirements for teachers at various levels of schooling call for new elementary to be certified (no provisional, temporary, or emergency licenses allowed) and to have passed rigorous state test of subject knowledge and teaching skills in reading, writing, math, and other areas of the basic elementary school curriculum. A new middle or high school must have major, graduate degree, or coursework equivalent to an undergraduate academic major in each academic subject to which he or she is assigned and must have passed one of those state tests in each academic area to which he or she is assigned. Teachers in Title I programs who were hired after school started this year must also meet these requirements. Current teachers must meet similar requirements by the end of the 2005- 06 school year. They can take test or demonstrate their competence in all the subjects they teach as determined by state standard of evaluation that is uniform across the state and aligned with challenging state standards. How can that be done quickly and cheaply except with standardized test? Moreover, beginning this school year, local districts must report adequate yearly progress on meeting the deadlines to have all classrooms staffed with qualified teachers. The Title II requirements eliminate the middle school practice of assigning teachers out of field or assigning those with only general elementary certificate to teach specific subject areas. If you teach math, you need major in math or passing grade on the math If you're teaching applied physics to vocational students and they receive credit for physics, then you must have major in physics. As with other components of the new law, professional development funded under Title II (which replaces the Eisenhower grants) must meet scientifically based research standards. Moreover, one-shot workshops or conferences can no longer be paid for with federal funds. Instead, teachers must have high-quality, sustained, intensive, and classroom- focused professional development. If requested, school districts must also provide professional development for private school teachers, tailoring the training to their specific needs. Title II gives higher education institutions role in professional development, but that role is structured to ensure that arts and sciences faculty members are as involved with school district partners as are schools of education. …

The California Center for Effective Schools: The Oxnard School District Partnership

The Effective Schools Process began in Oxnard only a little more than a year ago, and three to five years of strenuous work will probably be required before the full benefits for students become apparent. But important changes have already taken place, as Ms. Chrispeels points out. IN THE LATE 1970s Ron Edmonds, one of the pioneers of research on effective schools, asserted that children can learn the intended and that what prevents us from reaching this goal is lack of political will.1 Charles Teddlie and Sam Stringfield, in their longitudinal study of Louisiana schools, found that to become effective requires the mustering of political will as well as new knowledge and skills.2 Outside help and support are often needed to build the political will for change and to enable a district to gain insights into its existing practices and cultural traditions. In the past 20 years we have learned much about what makes schools effective,3 but translating research into action remains a daunting task. The California Center for Effective Schools, which is housed at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and is part of the National Alliance for Effective Schools, is helping schools to become more effective by building on the firm foundation laid by national and international effective schools research of the last two decades.4 From my early work with the Effective Schools Process in the 1980s,5 I learned the critical importance of working simultaneously at the district, school, grade (or department), and classroom levels. Without support from the top and system coherence, individual school change efforts can be quickly undermined. The Partnership with the Oxnard School District (K-8) In this article, I tell the beginning of the story of how the Effective Schools Process works by focusing on our center's partnership with the Oxnard (California) School District (K-8). In 1999 the district adopted a strategic plan for school improvement, which included reaching out for assistance to such local resources as community colleges and universities. In the spring of 2000, the Oxnard School District and the University of California, Santa Barbara, formed a partnership to implement the Effective Schools Process as one way to help the district achieve the goals of its newly adopted strategic plan. The overarching purpose of our partnership is to increase the number of students who meet the California K-8 curriculum content standards and are prepared for college-prep classes in high school. The work has involved all organizational levels: the board of education and administrative staff, the union, school principals, school leadership teams, and classroom teachers. The Oxnard School District (K-8) is a rapidly growing district of 15 elementary schools, three intermediate schools, and one alternative school. It enrolls a total of 16,000 students. Two-thirds of the students are from low-income families, and 52% of the district's Spanish-speaking students need ESL (English as a second language) instruction. The four-track year-round schools are filled to capacity (700 to 1,100 students each). The district spends $5,900 per pupil, which is about average for the state. On the SAT 9 (Stanford Achievement Test), Oxnard students received among the lowest scores in the region, making the district an important test case for the Effective Schools Process. The Effective Schools Process Taking stock. The Effective Schools Process begins with a district profile. Reviewing current district demographic, organizational, and achievement data as well as information about existing instructional or intervention programs is a logical place to begin. Multiple measures of student achievement, including norm-referenced test data and data from other district assessments, are collected and prepared for analysis by teachers and administrators. Effective Schools surveys are administered to teachers, support staff members, parents, and students in order to determine their perceptions regarding the presence of the Effective Schools correlates (e. …

Master's Level Cohorts Combat Teacher Isolation: University/School District Collaboration

This article recounts the first year of a University/School District partnership to create Master's level cohorts of inservice teachers. We describe how the program emerged, how it was organized, and the problems that were encountered. The initial goals of the university planners and the public school administrators are explained, and then, most importantly, we give voice to the views of the participants. Their goals went beyond those specified in planning. They focused on forming teams, overcoming isolation and developing a sense of collegiality.

Rebuilding civil society in Northern Ireland: the community and voluntary sector’s contribution to the European Union’s Peace and Reconciliation District Partnership Programme

English Since 1995, 26 District Partnerships have been established in Northern Ireland - one in each local government area. They are overseen by a Northern Ireland Partnership Board, drawing representation from across the ethnic and political spectrum. Funding of over £80 million (up to the end of September 1999) has been given by the European Commission through its Peace and Reconciliation Special Support Programme. Representatives of voluntary organisations and community groups form one of the largest constituencies within each District Partnership, alongside local government, the business sector and trade unions. This article outlines the work of the partnerships and describes the contribution of voluntary organisations and community groups. Despite the inherent ambiguities of the central terms of ‘peace and reconciliation’ and uneven data, there is evidence that the voluntary and community sector has played a significant role in the rebuilding of civil society in Northern Ireland.

Effective Transportation Demand Management: Combining Parking Pricing, Transit Incentives, and Transportation Management in a Commercial District of Portland, Oregon

The Lloyd District is a high-density commercial and residential district located a short distance from downtown Portland, Oregon. To address parking and congestion problems, the city of Portland implemented a Lloyd District Partnership Plan in September 1997. This plan consists of a number of elements aimed at curbing single-occupancy vehicle use for the commute to and from the district. This plan included parking pricing in the form of meters (whereas on-street parking had been free), discounted transit passes, and other transportation demand management strategies. The effects of these strategies on travel and parking behavior were assessed, with an emphasis on the relationship between parking pricing and mode choice. A random sample of 1,000 employees in the Lloyd District was surveyed about their travel and parking behavior before and after the installation of the new meters. Research found that, during the 1 year that had elapsed between the implementation of the Lloyd District transportation management programs and the survey information collected, the drive-alone mode for the trip to work by employees in the Lloyd District had decreased by 7 percent. For the district as a whole, the drive-alone commute share is now about 56 percent. The program strategies that have emerged as the most significant in effecting this decrease are the installation of the meters and the discounted transit pass program.

Technology in the Schools

In the Spring of 1995, a university-school district partnership was formed to provide computer hardware, software, and collaborative technology training activities for classroom teachers, student teachers, special area teachers, and parents. The project was designed to expand and enhance the use of computer technology in the classroom, with an emphasis on applications for implementing the curriculum. This study describes the experiences of cooperating teacher and student teacher pairs as they participated in this partnership project. Data sources included journals, interviews and researcher field notes. This experience provided student teachers with a classroom environment in which they had the opportunity to implement technology with children and learn from practicing teachers. Experiences with technology, as well as collaborative exchanges with practicing teachers and support staff, provided an environment rich in encouraging integration of technology in the classroom. The outcomes of this study suggest implications for inservice and preservice teacher technology training.

Fear of Teaching French: Challenges Faced by Generalist Teachers

Most elementary Core French instruction in British Columbia is conducted by generalist teachers. French in Grades 5 to 7 has only very recently become a provincially mandated course rather than a local option. The University of British Columbia offers off-campus second language methodology courses to address the needs of generalist teachers at a local level. A study was conducted concurrent with one such course in 1997 in Surrey, BC's second largest school district. Teachers from Surrey and Delta districts attended. The purpose of the study was to discover some of the challenges faced by generalists who teach core French and the ways in which they improved their practice throughout the course. The biggest challenges these teachers faced were a lack of specialized training, inadequate time to assimilate many curricular changes, and the need to integrate students with English as a second language or with special needs. Teachers reported on the changes in their teaching and the results of classroom research. Recommendations are made for university—school district partnerships as a means of developing professional knowledge and practice.

Developing a University-School District Partnership: Researcher-District Administrator Collaboration for a Special Education Initiative

This case study examined the development of a university–school district partnership designed to support a special education initiative with 156 students of middle socio- economic backgrounds in Grades 4 to 7 using critical-sampling, single-case, and docu- mentation methods. It identified four essential elements of researcher–district administrator collaboration: a developmental process led by the partners’ mutual goals and a gradual building of support for the project, a communication protocol dominated by profession- alism and parity, a collaborative structure marked by complementary relationships and accountability between the partners, and outcomes benefitting all stakeholders (teachers, students, and researcher). The most important outcome was students’ increased under- standing of disabilities and empathy with persons with disabilities. The author proposes a conceptual framework for developing university-school partnerships and makes recom- mendations for future practice and research. Cette etude porte sur l’elaboration d’un partenariat entre l’universite et une circonscription scolaire en vue d’un projet d’education pour des enfants atteints de diverses deficiences. L’auteure identife certains elements essentiels d’une collaboration entre le chercheur et l’administrateur de la circonscription, soit : (a) un processus d’elaboration axe sur les objectifs mutuels des partenaires et l’etablissement progressif d’un appui au projet, (b) un protocole de communication accordant la priorite au professionnalisme et a la parite entre les partenaires, (c) une structure de collaboration caracterisee par des relations de com- plementarite et une responsabilisation de tous les partenaires et (d) des resultats dont tous les interesses puissent beneficier. L’auteure propose un cadre conceptuel pour l’elabora- tion de partenariats entre l’universite et l’ecole ainsi que des recommandations pour des experiences et recherches futures.

Mental Health Center and School District Partnership for Emotionally Disturbed Children

The award winning partnership between a school district and mental health facility to operate a special day program for severely emotionally disturbed children is described. The Northside Independent School District in San Antonio, Texas has contracted with the Southwest Mental Health Center for 15 years to provide clinical program management, counseling, and consultation plus the behavior management services by mental health workers. Over fifty elementary age children participate daily in the Northside Children's Center therapeutic program. The District assigns special education teachers and necessary support staff for this program plus the school facility. Parent satisfaction has been positive and school attendance is congruent with both District and State averages for regular students.