Public School System Research Articles

Abstract 17020: Education of Children Improves Awareness of Hypertension, a Novel Method to Improve Health Equity

Introduction: Approximately 45% of the U.S. population has hypertension (HTN), with increased prevalence in Black adults in urban areas. HTN is a risk factor for heart disease, stroke, and renal failure. Increasing awareness of HTN during early education may improve health equity. Hypothesis: We hypothesized that a science-based educational program administered to primary school students can increase knowledge of HTN with the objective of increasing awareness and health equity. Methods: We engaged 95 4th graders in an urban, public school system (44% White, 43% Black, 13% Other) with an innovative, experiential educational program administered across four, one-hour sessions as part of their curriculum. We taught and assessed students’ awareness of HTN across four topics: (1) knowledge of BP & HTN, (2) organ systems impacted by HTN, (3) habits to maintain a healthy BP, and (4) their competence to operate a BP monitor according to AHA recommendations. Assessments were completed via surveys of 21 individual data points and administered pre-and post-program with each child as their own control. Paired t-tests were used to analyze the pre- and post-survey data. Results: Of the 95 students who underwent the program, 71 children had both pre- and post-program results. Comparison of pre-and post-program data showed a statistically significant improvement in students’ knowledge about healthy nutrition, organs affected by HTN, and understanding of blood pressure/HTN (53% to 90%, 20% to 75%, and 40% to 77%, respectively)[p<0.001 for all; Table below] Conclusions: Implementing an educational program focused on knowledge of nutrition, organ systems, and BP to 4th-grade students significantly raised awareness of HTN. This innovative program in an urban public school is feasible and may be the first step to decreasing the morbidity of a highly prevalent and modifiable disease in a community.

Reflections on Grief, Joy, and Healing

I never imagined that a frequent negotiation between my doing what I feel is right and protecting my livelihood would be part of my existence as an educator in the public-school system. My days are often filled with mixed emotions that can range from love & joy to frustration & sadness. As I sat to begin to reflect on the past few years, I realized I had to pause and take deep breaths just to get words down on paper. When we began distance learning, I was propelled to reimagine any previous notions I had of what learning would look like, without the constraints of a classroom. These are my reflections on the last few years and on how I make it through my days as an educator in this changed landscape. In the end, what I've learned from these last few years, is que la lucha sigue till the day it’s not necessary.

Constructing Effective Teacher-Training Workshops for Japanese Pre-Service English Teachers

This paper elucidates a research project that aims to understand and support the practical needs of pre-service English teachers who intend to teach at junior and senior high schools in Japan. Each day, novice English teachers who work in the Japanese public school system are facing challenges for which their pre-service training has failed to prepare them. Regrettably, the support structure for English teachers in the public system is sadly lacking. As part of this research project pre-service teachers of English (n=20) were asked through an online questionnaire to identify what topics they would like to be included in teacher-training workshops designed to address their needs. A series of one-day workshops were then developed based on these perceived needs. This paper explores the efficacy of the first two workshops based on the participants’ (n=28) informal and written feedback. The authors map out the design of future workshops and argue that practical support is essential considering the current teacher-training structure in Japan. This research project aims to provide realistic solutions to many of the common problems that Japanese teachers of English encounter in their professional practice. It is hoped that fellow educators will find this paper useful when considering making changes to their own educational contexts.

Policy Solutions: Was the LeBron James school a false promise?

LeBron James’ I Promise School in Akron, Ohio, attracted attention recently for its low test scores for 8th-grade students. Unlike other philanthropic schools. I Promise is neither a private school nor a charter school. Instead, it is part of the Akron Public Schools system and is governed by the school board. Columnist Jonathan E. Collins writes that I Promise is part of the school system and can’t be separated from it. While flawed, school boards are the best way to create a strong and equitable education system and make democracy better. School boards and the districts they govern allow for school improvement at a structural level. They also allow for the public to have a say in the school system, through elections and opportunities for dialogue around how to improve individual schools as parts of a larger system.

Anywhere but Here: Neighborhood Violence and Local School Preferences in Baltimore City

In this study, we examine whether students in violent neighborhoods actively avoid their local school as a form of social and physical protection. Specifically, we use 10 years of administrative data (2010–2020) from the high school choice open enrollment program in the Baltimore City Public School System to evaluate the interaction between neighborhood violence and geographic proximity when predicting choice behavior. We find that, adjusting for observed school characteristics and constant unobserved student characteristics, students from more violent neighborhoods are substantially less likely to choose their closest school than are students in safer neighborhoods; even when the closest school is listed, it is ranked lower for students from more violent neighborhoods than for students in safer ones. These findings have implications for how we think about the relationship between neighborhoods and educational opportunity in an era of choice.

Education Leadership: Legal and Social Impacts of Public Schools Leadership and Management on the City of Baltimore Maryland, United States of America

This study assessed the correlation between per student expenditure and academic achievement, examining legal issues, poverty, and crime as chronic factors impacting low academic performance as parents’ legal actions against the City School Board of Commissioners question the effectiveness of public school spending. Ineffective leadership, mismanagement, poverty, and crime contribute to subpar performance, necessitating new strategies for learning, teaching, and meeting high academic standards. The Baltimore City public school system has faced challenges in academic achievement, poverty, and crime over the past decades. Maryland's Blueprint for the Future and meta research emphasize the importance of effective leadership and quality education to enhance student achievement, socioeconomic growth, and reduce crime. The present research analyzed various factors influencing public school performance, including per teacher and pupil expenditure, while correlating SAT and ACT scores with academic improvement in Baltimore City, Maryland. Besides, it is declared that effective educational leadership is imperative in a data driven culture whose challenges lie not in advanced technology itself but rather in the transformation of repressive cultures, teams, and practices.

The Impact of School Infrastructure and Teachers' Human Capital on Academic Performance in Brazil.

To improve one of the lowest rates of literacy and numeracy in the world, the government of Brazil has targeted public education reform, given the strong link between an educated population and economic growth. This study examines the academic performance of the Brazilian public primary school system. It addresses the empirical shortcomings of prior research to examine the dynamics of the relationship between academic performance scores and several demographic and institutional variables, such as socioeconomic characteristics, variations in school infrastructure and school complexity, and teachers' human capital. We employed quantile regression to explore the determinants of academic performance across 35,490 schools in rural and urban environments in Brazil. The dependent variable in our analysis captures the academic performance score, as measured by Brazil's education authorities, of each school in our dataset. The model includes several education-related indices used in prior research and, as explanatory factors, measures of teachers' human capital and the students' socioeconomic level, which synthesizes information on parents' education and household income. The results suggest that several institutional variables, including access to school libraries, computer facilities, projectors, and televisions, are positively and significantly related to the academic performance of primary students in Brazil's system of public education. Furthermore, students' socioeconomic level is positively associated with their academic performance.

A location-routing problem for local supply chains

This study addresses a local Supply Chain problem by proposing the Collection and Delivery Location Open Routing Problem (CDLORP), a variant of the classical location-routing problem that considers both collection and distribution routes to decide where to locate facilities. Collection routes are responsible for picking up the required raw material from local suppliers, while distribution routes deliver the final product to local customers. This study is motivated by a public initiative that desires to seize the by-product generated by the agro-industrial local sector to produce and provide healthy and nutritional snacks to students in the public elementary school system in Saltillo, Coahuila, Mexico. A node-based formulation and a flow-based formulation are proposed to solve instances of the problem. The formulations are valid for the symmetric and asymmetric cases of the problem. Four families of valid inequalities from the literature are adapted for the problem and are used to implement two branch-and-cut algorithms based on the proposed formulations. Computational experiments using 42 benchmark instances of different sizes (25 to 260 vertices) are performed to assess the efficacy of the proposed formulations and algorithms. The best results are obtained by the branch-and-cut algorithm using the node-based formulation. Finally, a case study is also addressed and optimally solved with the branch-and-cut algorithm using the node-based formulation. The results obtained for the benchmark instances and the case study show that the proposed approach can solve real-life problems to develop local supply chains for new products.

State and Religion: The French Response to Jihadist Violence

The five acts of jihadist violence between 2012–2020, particularly the 2015 Paris attacks, combined with an increasingly polarized political discourse in France, have pushed jihadist extremism to the center of government policy and public opinion. Approaches to jihadist extremism in the last decade have comprised two characteristics: claims amalgamating Islam and Muslim religious practice—especially in its stricter forms—with extremist violence, along with the idea that such forms of dangerous religious indoctrination are best battled through education. As a result, there has been a renewed debate concerning the principle of laïcité (secularism) within public schools and other public institutions. One of the leading efforts in this context has focused on processes of “deradicalization”. These projects include various educational tools, rehabilitation attempts inside and outside of prisons, cultural and artistic initiatives, and administrative bans imposed on organizations inciting violence. However, the most ambitious of these efforts have also been subject to the greatest criticism. Projects within the public school system have been accused of securitizing education and stigmatizing Muslim students, whereas measures undertaken in prisons are currently limited to risk assessment of inmates linked with jihadist violence, while lacking more meaningful plans for their rehabilitation. Public–private partnerships have developed more promising initiatives, but their moderate success is still recent and requires further study.

Exploring Teachers’ Well-being Through Compassion

This mixed methods case study examined teachers’ levels of compassion satisfaction and compassion fatigue, or the combination of burnout and secondary traumatic stress, and strove to understand how teachers experience these phenomena and what supports could be used to alleviate some of the harmful symptoms of compassion fatigue. For this study, I used a healing centered approach and the Compassion Fatigue Theoretical Model, after reviewing previous literature around compassion fatigue and satisfaction, workplace well-being, school well-being, and context specific efforts in the District of Columbia Public Schools system that involved teacher and staff well-being. The final research design produced findings around the importance of qualitative research in understanding well-being and compassion fatigue and satisfaction, suggestions for schools and districts to support teacher well-being, and the effect the pandemic has had, directly on teachers and indirectly through the pandemic’s effects on their students.

Possible effects of obesity on motor development, executive functioning, and academic performance of schoolchildren from a neuropsychopedagogical perspective

Purpose: This study aimed to compare the motor competence, executive functioning, and academic performance of students with adequate weight, overweight, and obesity.
 Design/Methodology/Approach: A total of 1631 children aged between 06 and 08 (±7.58) years old, of both genders (903 girls and 728 boys), students of the public school system in the state of Rio de Janeiro, participated in this study. To achieve the objective, participants were introduced to protocols that assessed body mass index, Motor Competence, Executive Functioning, Reading Comprehension, and Academic Performance.
 Findings: When analyzing the results of the protocols related to motor development, cognitive development, and academic performance, the results show a superiority of children with weights within the expected range in relation to obese children.
 Conclusion: The findings indicate a potential correlation between body mass index (BMI) and the proficiency of children in motor skills, executive functions, and academic performance. Specifically, the results demonstrate that children who are obese exhibit lower scores in all assessed variables compared to children with a BMI within the normal range.
 Research Limitations and Implications: This study did not assess the participants level of physical activity or their eating habits.
 Practical Implications: The research results contribute to the formulation of public policies on obesity as a public health problem, since its impacts go far beyond physical health problems.
 Contribution to the Literature: This research can add to the literature on the impacts of obesity on the cognitive and motor development of children, showing the importance of developing new studies with regard to prevention.

Parents’ sense of coherence in the use of dental services by children aged 12 years old in the city Manaus/AM

Aim: The aim of this study was to evaluate the association between the sense of coherence (SOC) of parents/guardians and the use of dental services by children who are 12 years old. Methods: This is a cross-sectional study conducted in the eastern zone of the city of Manaus, with 358 children enrolled in the 7th grade in the municipal public school system. Data collection was performed through self-administered questionnaires sent to parents/guardians, which contained questions about socioeconomic conditions, use of dental services by children and Antonovsky’s SOC-13 scale. Data were examined by descriptive and bivariate analysis, using the Chi-square test, with a 5% significance level. Results: Of the 358 children, 58.4% were female; in addition, 75.4% of the parents/guardians self-reported to be brown and 39.9% of them had a family income of ½ to 1 minimum wage. SOC was categorized as strong SOC and weak SOC by the median. The association between strong or weak SOC and the use of dental services in terms of frequency (p= 0.839) and reason for last visit (p= 0.384), was not significant. Conclusion: It was concluded that SOC of parents/guardians and utilization of dental services by children were not associated.

Three Keys to Retaining Talented Teachers in the UAE: Leadership, Community, and Work-Life Balance – A Phenomenological Case Study in the Emirate of Ras Al Khaimah

The United Arab Emirates hires many teachers from abroad to work in both the private and public school systems. Recruiting foreign teachers can be exceedingly costly, especially when one considers the financial investment associate with air fare, health insurance, housing, transportation, and a competitive salary, along with the substantial processing time involved in issuing work visas, professional and intercultural training. One way organizations may be able to save on additional expenditures is to retain the teachers who have been hired and are already settled in the country. Naturally, a substantial part of the decision for the teacher to remain working and living in the UAE lies with the expatriate teacher. This exploratory, case study employed a qualitative approach in which descriptive data was collected from six in-depth, semi-structured interviews exploring job satisfaction as one, of what may be other, indicators associated with of length-of-stay among expatriate teachers in the UAE. These descriptive data were analyzed using an interpretive analysis, which culminated with three selective codes: (1) Leadership and community are key to expatriate teacher’s job satisfaction; (2) School leaders’ engagement in improving behavior management would improve satisfaction; and (3) Positive work-life balance may influence expatriate teachers’ length of stay in the UAE. Taken collectively, this data may assist decision-makers, school leaders, and policy-makers on how to foster environments that promote retention among expatriate teachers in the UAE. Keywords: expatriate teachers, UAE, job satisfaction, work-life balance, school leadership

“This brings meaning and purpose to the lessons:”

School garden programs (SGPs) offer students opportunities to experience and participate in the processes of nature and agriculture through hands-on learning in a wide variety of outdoor settings. Although the value of school gardens has been well documented, there is little-to-no concrete support for these programs within the public-school system itself, either at the local or the provincial level. Most programs operate through the vision and dedication of community members and organizations and/or the efforts of individual educators.
 The purpose of this study is to investigate how school garden programs are implemented in a variety of educational settings, and to identify the challenges and opportunities that exist within them. Ten semi-structured, open-ended qualitative interviews were conducted in person or by video platform with teachers and community members who acted as school garden program facilitators in south eastern Ontario. Data analysis shows that SGP facilitators had 4 key motivations for implementing SGPs. These include promoting a connection to nature, fostering values of environmental awareness and stewardship, increasing food literacy skills, and introducing students to broader food system issues of inequity and social justice. The major challenges and opportunities included funding, administrative and operational supports (or lack of), partnerships, and long-term visions. The results point to the need for consistent policies, sustained and reliable funding, and other supports from the Ministry of Education.

Memory and National Identity Among Afghan Refugees in Peshawar

Drawing on the literature on nationalism and national attachment, as well as memory studies, we analyze the extent to which Afghan refugees in Peshawar continue to identify strongly with their homeland, or with Pakistan. Based on survey research and in-depth interviews, we find that second generation immigrants have a stronger Pakistani and weaker Afghan identification compared to those who grew up in Afghanistan. This relationship is mediated by a number of factors, including religion. Native Pashto speakers generally have a stronger sense of Pakistani identity compared to non-Pashto speakers, and Urdu fluency also has an impact on their national identity. Interestingly, those who gained their education through a religious seminary, or madrasa, identify more strongly with Pakistan compared to those who studied in the public school system. Furthermore, self-reported regularity in daily prayers and Quranic recitation is also associated with a stronger sense of Pakistani identity.

The Need for Occupational Therapist Eligibility for Formal Administrative Roles in Public School Systems.

In 45 of 50 states, occupational therapists are not eligible to pursue formal administrative positions in public school systems (e.g., director of transition services, special education director) on the basis of state-level legislation and credentialing. Most state boards of education, however, recognize other related service providers (e.g., speech-language pathologists, social workers) as credentialed educators. Most states require education credentials to pursue further administrative credentials and, thus, administrative positions. Occupational therapists and other stakeholders lack awareness of this issue. In this column, I summarize the issue; identify occupational therapists' qualifications for eligibility to pursue these positions; and provide solutions, primarily at the state level, to effect change so occupational therapists can be recognized as equals to their related service provider peers and use their unique skill set to influence public school communities as administrators.

A Comparative Study of Basic Science Process Skills of Science Students at Higher Secondary Level in District Rawalpindi, Pakistan

Science process skills (SPS) had a pivotal role in scientific investigation. SPS are very important to be developed in science learning because with the help of SPS students develop their thoughts to make discoveries using scientific investigation. In the 21st century SPS are needed in science learning. In Pakistan results of many studies showed that private sector institutes’ students were performing better than the public sector institutes’ students in the subject of science. Better performance in science is only possible when students have a high level of science process skills. The main purpose of this study was to determine students’ level of performance on basic science process skill and to compare the performance of public and private school Physics students in science process skills at the H.S.S.C. level. A Simple comparative research design was used to compare the skill level of students. In the present study four aspects, of basic science process skills (Observation, Communication, Measurement, and Relationship) were observed. Through purposive sampling technique two top-level colleges, one from the public school system and one from the private school system of the city of Rawalpindi, were selected for the study. For data collection researcher used an observation sheet and worksheet based on four experiments of physics at higher secondary school certificate level. Measurement of SPS was done when students were performing experiments in practical labs. t-test was employed to compare the performance of public and private school students. The result of the research stated that there was a significant difference in basic science process skills of public and private school physics students at the H.S.S.C level. The mean score of performance of public and private school students was observed to be good in the aspects of observation and relationship skills but still teachers need to improve the performance of students in the aspects of communication and measurement skills. Further it is recommended that exam system may give more weightage to science process skills so that students and teacher of science subjects may be able to concentrate more on this aspect of learning.

Relationship between Restorative Practices and School Climate at Secondary Level District Lahore

The purpose of the study was to explore and compare the relationships between RPs and SC. The population consists of all public (male/female) and private (male/female) secondary school systems with 10 or more branches in the Lahore district. Multistage sampling techniques were used. The researcher used the cluster sampling approach to split the entire population into five groups (Tehsils). By using the stratified sampling approach, the researcher was able to identify two groups of strata: public/private, as well as male/female. From the private sector, a sample consisting of five male and five female schools from each tehsil in Lahore was selected. 520 teachers as a sample were selected. A questionnaire was used as a data collection tool. The researcher used both descriptive and inferential statistics. The findings revealed a strong positive relationship between restorative practices and school climate, there is no significant difference between RPs and SC of public and private schools and there is a significant difference between RPs and SC of male and female. For future research, it recommended that Schools should invest in training and resources to effectively implement RPs, which can promote a more inclusive, supportive, and positive SC.

Racial and Ethnic Representation in Preventive Intervention Research: a Methodological Study

Individuals who are Asian or Asian American, Black or African American, Native American or American Indian or Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, and Hispanic or Latino (i.e., presently considered racial ethnic minoritized groups in the USA) lacked equal access to resources for mitigating risk during COVID-19, which highlighted public health disparities and exacerbated inequities rooted in structural racism that have contributed to many injustices, such as failing public school systems and unsafe neighborhoods. Minoritized groups are also vulnerable to climate change wherein the most severe harms disproportionately fall upon underserved communities. While systemic changes are needed to address these pervasive syndemic conditions, immediate efforts involve examining strategies to promote equitable health and well-being-which served as the impetus for this study. We conducted a descriptive analysis on the prevalence of culturally tailored interventions and reporting of sample characteristics among 885 programs with evaluations published from 2010 to 2021 and recorded in the Blueprints for Healthy Youth Development registry. Inferential analyses also examined (1) reporting time trends and (2) the relationship between study quality (i.e., strong methods, beneficial effects) and culturally tailored programs and racial ethnic enrollment. Two percent of programs were developed for Black or African American youth, and 4% targeted Hispanic or Latino populations. For the 77% of studies that reported race, most enrollees were White (35%) followed by Black or African American (28%), and 31% collapsed across race or categorized race with ethnicity. In the 64% of studies that reported ethnicity, 32% of enrollees were Hispanic or Latino. Reporting has not improved, and there was no relationship between high-quality studies and programs developed for racial ethnic youth, or samples with high proportions of racial ethnic enrollees. Research gaps on racial ethnic groups call for clear reporting and better representation to reduce disparities and improve the utility of interventions.

A comparative study between traditional and sports school uniforms on cardiorespiratory and muscular fitness and waist-height-to-ratio in adolescents.

Improving health of children and adolescents is crucial for their overall development. Therefore, it is essential to explore factors that may influence their health at both the public health and school system levels. This study compares physical fitness components and waist-height-to-ratio (WHtR) in adolescents according to school uniforms, namely the traditional uniform (i.e., shirt and school necktie in boys and skirt and blouse in girls) and the sports uniform (i.e., polo shirts or t-shirts and sport or short trousers). Additionally, it seeks to investigate potential differences in these measures based on sex and school type (i.e., public, subsidized, and private). This cross-sectional study used data from the Chilean national learning outcome assessment system (SIMCE)-2014 and involved 8,030 adolescents. Cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) and muscular fitness (MF) were measured. WHtR was assessed as a health cardiovascular indicator. Mixed models and ANCOVA were performed to compare uniform types, adjusting for multiple covariates. value of p and effect size (ES) was used to establish significant results. Overall, sports uniforms (SU) were linked to higher CRF (p < 0.001) than the traditional uniform (TU). Boys from private schools wearing SU presented higher CRF (p = 0.016; ES = 0.37), and a positive trend was observed for MF (p = 0.645; ES = 0.21). In subsidized, a trend was found in CRF (p = 0.005; ES = 0.16). Girls wearing SU from private schools showed a positive trend in CRF (p = 0.167; ES = 0.28). Trends in WHtR were found in both sexes from private (p = 0.555; ES = 0.24; p = 0.444; ES = 0.25, respectively). Wearing SU seems a promissory alternative to promote healthy physical fitness and body composition at the educational level. However, the relationship between higher physical activity and CRF, MF, and lower WHtR due to SU must be verified. Finally, when deciding to implement this measure, special attention must be paid to boys from public schools and girls from all types of schools.