Education In Missouri Research Articles

Music Education and Educators in Missouri, Iowa, and Illinois

The purpose of this survey study was to provide a demographic profile of PK-12 public school music teachers and details about the public school music teaching positions in Missouri, Iowa, and Illinois. An invitation to complete a questionnaire was emailed to all PK-12 public school music teachers in these three states whose email addresses could be gathered via a school district website search or phone call to the district, yielding a 26.1% response rate in Missouri, a 35.1% response rate in Iowa, and a 31.7% response rate in Illinois. The questionnaire contained items used to gather demographic data about the music teachers and details about their class offerings. Results indicate over 93% of music teachers in these three states identify as White and approximately two thirds identify as women. The teachers in these three states who responded to the survey travel less for their positions compared with music teachers in the United States as a whole, and findings were inconsistent between the states with respect to experience level and school location. Further, 28% to 47% of secondary-level educators in these three states teach a music class that is not band, choir, or orchestra.

"You can be a Catholic if you want": Protestant Social Capital and Catholic Education in the Antebellum Era

Contrary to the hostile receptions that greeted elite Catholic schools in the Northeast, Catholic institutions of higher education in Missouri, Kentucky, and Arkansas were often welcomed enthusiastically by their respective communities. Situated in an area of the country where access to higher education was limited, schools like St. Mary of the Barrens Seminary in Perryville, Missouri provided valuable access to social capital in the form of a classical education. Furthermore, letters from students and parents to these schools demonstrate that a Protestant child converting to Catholicism while away at school was sometimes met with acceptance by parents rather than the outrage one might expect. At a time of social transformation in American society, "credentials" in the form of a college or academy education increasingly became necessary to enter the ranks of the rising middle class. Yet even during the high water mark of anti-Catholicism in the antebellum North, frontier families became increasingly attracted to the elite cache a convent school education could provide for their children. Convent schools and seminaries, in turn, took pains to market themselves in a Protestant republic.

Suburban Opposition to District Reorganization: The 1968 Spainhower Commission and Metropolitan Kansas City and St. Louis

The 1968 Spainhower Commission planned extensive changes in the organization of public education in Missouri, proposing larger, comprehensive districts throughout the state. Intended to increase efficiency and reduce inequities, its reform proposals spurred widespread opposition from both rural and suburban communities. In the suburbs hostility was particularly vehement and often was expressed in racial terms, revealing fault lines that came to divide large metropolitan regions in the 1960s. There were differences in the response of suburbanites in Kansas City and St. Louis, however, as resistance was expressed more adamantly in greater Kansas City. In St. Louis, a local tradition of holding meetings to discuss educational problems and inter-district cooperation appears to have helped mediate opposition to the suggestion of change. Eventually districts in greater St. Louis participated in an extensive transfer plan for urban students, while districts in metro Kansas City did not. Despite these differences, suburban residents’ antagonism in both areas toward plans for sending significant numbers of urban students to their schools remains quite high today, suggesting that patterns of conflict revealed in the Spainhower era continue to exist.

Laudatio

Laudatio Timothy B. Noone (bio) On Sunday, July 26, 2009, the Franciscan Institute was pleased to award to Dr. Girard J. Etzkorn its 22nd Franciscan Institute Medal in recognition of a lifetime of scholarship, editing and publication of texts on medieval philosophy and theology, with a special emphasis on the Franciscan intellectual tradition. The ceremony was held in the Trustees Room of Doyle Hall on the campus of St. Bonaventure University and attended by over 100 scholars, students, friends and members of Dr. Etzkorn's extended families. The award ceremony began with a personal appreciation by Dr. Thomas Shannon, Ph.D., emeritus of the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (Worcester, MA), former member during the 1960s with Dr. Etzkorn of the Sacred Heart Province of Friars Minor (St. Louis, MO). It was followed by the formal laudatio of the honorée presented by former colleague and friend, Dr. Timothy B. Noone, Ph.D., of the Catholic University of America, the text of which is printed here. The event concluded with personal remarks by Dr. Etzkorn on his life as a scholar of the Franciscan tradition. "Let us praise men of renown and our fathers in their generation." Sirach 44:1 The wisdom of Sirach, the last of the Solomonic books of the Old Testament, would seem an appropriate place to begin this evening's festivities. No doubt, Gerry is squirming a bit in his chair, thinking in his customary humility that the words of Sirach are a bit too high for him. But we must learn to acknowledge what is true and great wherever it is, even when (or to put the matter correctly, especially when) the truth and greatness are found in ourselves. So there will be [End Page 259] no holding back on the present occasion, since the text from Sirach points out our path. We should start with a brief sketch of Gerry's life. Born in Kirkwood, Missouri in 1927, Gerry received his primary and secondary education in Missouri before attending the University of Dayton in the fall of 1944. After three semesters studying chemical engineering, he was drafted into the military, serving in the U.S. Army as part of the occupation forces of Japan after the surrender of August, 1945. This seeming irrelevancy actually became quite important in Gerry's life, for it was during his service in Japan that he encountered the Franciscans and decided to enter the Order after returning to the U.S. Once he had completed his degrees in philosophy and theology and been ordained, Gerry was sent to the University of Louvain, where he took his doctorate, producing a thesis that contained a partial edition of Roger Marston's hitherto unpublished Quodlibetal questions. This work at Louvain presaged in many ways the bulk of Gerry's work: he edited and studied a Franciscan medieval text from Latin manuscripts and studied its philosophical and theological doctrines. After returning from Louvain, Gerry taught for ten years at Quincy College and Seminary before leaving the Franciscans in 1971. But the Franciscans and he were far from being through with each other. Within two years Gerry arrived here to work with Fr. Gedeon Gàl on the Ockham Edition, then in the throes of its labors. Initially working as an Associate Editor on the Ockham Edition, Gerry eventually became Chief Editor of the Scotus Project, the successor project at the Institute to the Ockham Edition. During his twenty-two years at the Institute, Gerry kept up a steady pace of editions, some connected with the Institute's research projects and others springing from his own interests. Among the former, we must note three volumes of the Opera theologica of Ockham and four volumes of the Opera philosophica of Scotus; among the latter, we find the complete edition of Roger Marston's Quodlibetal questions, the edition of John Peckham's Quodlibetal questions, numerous articles containing briefer editions of lesser figures, and a volume of manuscript descriptions, analyzing manuscripts never before described in the Vatican Library. [End Page 260] What I have mentioned so far would be enough for any one human being within the scope of one lifetime. But God had more in store for Gerry...

The Indomitable Mary Easton Sibley: Pioneer of Women's Education in Missouri

Review of: The Indomitable Mary Easton Sibley: Pioneer of Women's Education in Missouri, by Kristie C. Wolferman.

A Road Oft Taken: Unaffordable Home Energy Bills, Forced Mobility And Childhood Education in Missouri

Abstract This study explores the interconnection between two seemingly unrelated problems: unaffordable home energy bills and poor educational attainment. The study goes beyond the self-evident observation that if hungry children make bad students, cold children would make bad students as well. Instead, the study focuses on the well-documented relationship between frequent household mobility and poor educational attainment. Looking specifically at a group of low-income households in Missouri, the study evaluates to what extent, if at all, unaffordable home energy bills contribute to frequent household mobility and, therefore, by extension, to the educational problems facing students in those households.

An exploration of gifted programs

This article presents findings on an exploration of gifted programs in the state of Missouri. Over 60 percent of the state supported public school gifted programs participated in the study. The study concludes that the guidelines for gifted education in Missouri create extreme variability in the standards of the programs. Strong national policy for gifted education is needed to insure gifted children are properly served and protected by law.

Environmental Education in Missouri

Environmental Education in Missouri

Some Aspects of Scale Economies Among Missouri Area Vocational Schools

O NE of the most significant contributions of the Vocational Education Act of 1963 was the authorization of federal funds for construction of area vocational-technical school facilities. In Missouri some 37 school districts have in operation or have secured approval for the establishment of area vocational-technical schools. During the 1966-1968 biennium some $42 million was spent on vocational-technical education in Missouri. This expenditure, from local, state, and federal sources, represented a 58 percent increase over the 1964-1966 biennium. Because of the magnitude of resources involved and their rapid growth, inquiry into scale economies in facilities for public vocational education has not received adequate treatment by researchers. This investigation of economies of size was confined to the regular day vocational program offered in the area vocational-technical schools of Missouri. Cost data collected pertained to shared-time type of secondary area vocationaltechnical schools with permanent separate plant facilities in operation during fiscal year 19681969. Fifteen schools met these qualifications. Costs incurred by these schools consisted of current operating expenditures (administrative costs, operation and maintenance cost) and capital outlay expenditures associated with equipment and physical facilities. Annual depreciation of plant and equipment was estimated by the straight-line method, then converted to a per student cost. Plant depreciation was distributed equally among total enrollment; equipment depreciation was allocated by enrollment with respect to curriculum and program area. Current expenditures per student ranged from $387 to $609. The mean and weighted mean were $468 and $455 respectively. Complete equipment inventories was a prerequisite for estimating total cost, and only seven schools had such inventories. Mean and weighted mean for total cost per student were $568 and $545 respectively; the range was from $464 to $735. In short, fixed cost per student was approximately $100. In order to quantify the relationship between expenditures per student and size, expenditures per student (dependent variable) were regressed on selected independent variables hypothesized to be correlated with expenditures. Stepwise regression techniques were used for the analyses. Number of students (X1), number of students squared (X2), average teacher salary (X,), tax levy (X4), assessed valuation per student (X5), studentteacher ratio (X6), and number of classes (X7) were the independent variables chosen. Two separate models were investigated. Model 1: This regression equation included only variables X1 and X2 (size of school and size of school squared). Estimated parameters for the equation were: Y = 764.65 1.808X1 + .00227X2. R2 was .51. The optimum size, or size with the least cost per student, was found to be 398 students, computed by taking the partial derivative of the above equation, setting it equal to zero, and solving for the number of students. Model 2: This model included all the selected

Ivan J. Miller, M.D.

The San Francisco Bay Area sends its fourth son to be President of the Radiological Society of North America and in so doing honors both the Society and Dr. Ivan J. Miller. Dr. Miller was born Jan. 12, 1911, in Bogard, Missouri, and spent his early years in Belton, in that state. His father, the late Robert M. Miller, was a country doctor who practiced in the finest tradition. His mother, the former Lena Jenks, helped to create a warm and sympathetic home. In such surroundings Ivan developed an abiding interest in medicine and it seems never to have occurred to him to enter any other field. Early in the twenties, his father already had an active interest in radiology and used a machine employing a Wantz generator. Ivan was soon assigned to be his father's helper and thus began a long career of the practice of radiology. Dr. Miller received his pre-medical education in Missouri, where he graduated from the state university in 1932. He then attended Washington University in St. Louis, and there received his M.D. in 1936. His internship was served in the Kansas City General Hospital in Kansas City, Missouri, and was marked by an extremely active emergency service as well as by the actions of the Pendergast machine. It was there, also, that he met and later married the gracious and lovely Aletha Denton. While in Kansas City, Dr. Miller came into contact with the late Ira H. Lockwood, who rekindled his interest in radiology and suggested that he seek training under Dr. Robert R. Newell of Stanford. Under this great man and wonderful teacher he finished his formal training in 1940 and was certified in radiology in 1941. He then entered private practice with another great teacher, a former President of the Radiological Society of North America, Dr. L. H. Garland. From 1942 to 1945 Dr. Miller served with the 98th Evacuation Hospital in the Army of the United States, seeing service in New Guinea, the Philippines, and Japan. It was in the latter place that he had his most notorious patient, General Heideki Tojo. After the completion of his Army service, Dr. Miller entered private practice in San Francisco. In the tradition of his mentors, his practice is carried on at the highest level, where each patient is considered as a person, is seen and interviewed. For approximately five years Dr. J. B. McDonald has been associated with Dr. Miller. Dr. Miller is consultant to the Shriners' Hospital and the San Francisco State College and is on the courtesy staff at St. Mary's Hospital. He was one of the founding members of the San Francisco Radiological Society and served as secretary of that organization for several years, later becoming its president. He was moderator of the San Francisco X-ray Study Club. He served on the Executive Board of the California State Radiological Society and is currently Chairman of that Board. In the local medical society he has served on the Minifilm and Medical Insurance Committees.

Racial Integration in Education in Missouri

Though the state of Missouri has always been a bit reluctant in its extension of the rights of citizenship to Negroes, it has usually been one in which the Constitutional law of the United States has been respected. This pattern has not changed since the May 17, 1954 decision of the United States Supreme Court which declared segregated schools unconstitutional. A Southern state in many of its allegiencies, Missouri, nevertheless, is so closely allied in its interests with the Midwest that the Negro has not fared as poorly as he has in some Southern states. This may partially explain the average citizen's willingness to accept the Supreme Court decision on education. The almost 300,000 Negroes who live within the state have suffered certain limitations which have prevented their full and equal development. Most of this number (261,800) livein the larger cities, with 152,550 in St. Louis and Kansas City. Another 29,000 live in the southeastern section of the state.' The others, for the most part, are scattered into areas surrounding or near the larger cities. Except in some parts of the southeastern section of the state, and principally the Bootheel, train travel and station facilities have been on a non-restricted basis for many years. The general pattern of

Negro Higher and Professional Education in Missouri

The geographical location of the state of Missouri has influenced the direction and the rate of development of her program of higher and professional education for Negroes more perhaps than it has any other level of the state's program of education. Moreover this characteristic appears not to be shared generally by the border states. While it is true that other border states share with Missouri the opportunity to secure advanced training in non-segregated institutions of higher learning of neighhoring states, few other border states show the highly neglibile non-urban Negro population found in Missouri. Similarly, records known to the writer indicate that few, if any, other border states have demonstrated a traditional attitude of indifference on the part of Negroes in metropolitan areas toward the state's provisions for higher and professional education as have those of Missouri in past years. In recent years there have been evidences of a change to a more positive attitude toward the state's program. This attitude is indicated by the increasingly large numbers of city students enrolling in the state university for Negroes; by the appointment of a larger number of graduates of the state school to a variety of positions in the public school systems of large cities, and by the legal action taken by Negroes of the state, including those of the large cities, to gain equality of opportunity in higher and professional education. The assumption has often been expressed that the recent concern for publicly supported higher and professional education in Missouri resulted from the influence of a large number of Negroes from states in the lower South. Be that as it may, the more recent attitude appears to be definitely displacing the traditional one. It gives evidence, moreover, of being permanent and of predicting increased effort on the part of Negroes to unite for the purpose of attaining equality of opportunity in higher and professional education.

PRACTICE OF MEDICINE AND THE PRESS

<h3>To the Editor:</h3> —I presume you have read some of the recent articles in the St. Louis<i>Star</i>, exposing the existence of the "Medical Diploma Mill" and the fraudulent purveyors of fake high school credits. The medical men of Missouri, of course, like all decent men everywhere, are ready to do all they can to help bring criminals of whatever sort to justice. But is this paper's thinly veiled attitude of unfriendliness toward the regular medical profession necessary to rid the state of these shrewd rascals? It is demanding loudly and persistently that the medical profession reform itself. Now let us go back a year or two. When the Missouri legislature was in session in 1922, a bill was introduced for the purpose of lowering the standard of medical education in Missouri. This proposed bill was to open the way by which untrained men could with much less difficulty obtain