School Board Members Research Articles

The Dissat-Factor: Recent Discoveries in the Dissatisfaction Theory

During an AERA symposium, Douglas Mitchell (1988) charged dissatisfaction theory to live up to the expectations of it. He suggested that it was perhaps time to abandon the theory because it had not been able to predict the political upheavals it described. Coming from one who has contributed significantly to the theory, and is probably the one who labeled it, his suggestion that it should perhaps be abandoned because of its failure to provide reliable prediction indeed deserves serious consideration. This article deals with that assertion in two ways. First, it reports the first instance of actually predicting school board member incumbent defeat. Second, it suggests why prediction, in its absolute statistical sense, is not the only goal or perhaps even an achievable expectation for such a social/political theory.

The ASHA national HIV education needs assessment of health and education professionals.

The self-reported HIV education needs of teachers, PTA presidents, school administrators, school nurses, school board members, school counselors, and physicians (N = 2,855) were investigated. Resources, policy, training, and knowledge needs were assessed. Greatest reported needs for HIV resources included books, pamphlets, journal articles, films, and videos. More than half the respondents needed information on how to promote school health education programs as well as information on how to coordinate school-based HIV education programs with community, health, religious, and youth agencies. Respondents also indicated a need for model HIV policies on confidentiality, grade level appropriate HIV education, attendance for infected staff and students, and handling blood or body fluids. Training needs included updates on homosexuality and bisexuality, sexually transmitted diseases, risk behaviors for HIV transmission, intravenous drug use, death and dying, safer sex practices, and communicating about HIV with a sexual partner. Knowledge about HIV generally was high, but gaps were apparent regarding effects of HIV on the brain, transmission issues, prevention practices, and HIV antibody testing. Eighty-seven percent believed school-based health education is effective in preventing the spread of HIV. Respondents felt primary responsibility for conducting HIV education should rest with teachers (36%), parents (27%), and school nurses (26%).

This Side of the Mountain

This Side of the Mountain Christmas, 1989 Dear Reader: I recently asked three friends to write something which I could use in our annual appeal for gift subscriptions. Their response was quick and generous . Gurney Norman, a professor at the University of Kentucky, novelist and playwright, is a mountain man himself and, as someone described him recently, "a friend to everybody." He has contributed in many ways to the success of Appalachian Heritage over the years. A. H. Perrin has been a dear friend to the library since he retired and came to Berea more than twenty years ago. Among his many accomplishments is that of doing watercolor paintings. We are proud to use his work on the front cover of this issue. When I was appointed editor ofAppalachian Heritage in 1985, Donna Lakes was employed by the library to work in the Special Collections Department and help with the production of the magazine. She has become an invaluable friend and co-worker. ;Ât^U^{a/??. 3 VVV Dear Reader: Some say Appalachia is over-scholared. By that they mean too many scholars talking only to other scholars and producing overwhelming numbers of reports, digests, interviews, reviews, articles, and taped material . Granted, theirs is heady stuff which is needed and wanted, but unfortunately the people in Appalachia it is written about generally don't read or understand it. It would seem that scholars have lost contact with the men and women who live and work in the mountains. They are neighbors in name only. They don't speak the same language. Instead of a hoped for twin worlds the two are worlds apart. Both sides keep growing in circles like sea shells and ingrown toenails. Their divergent lifestyles, ideas, and speech patterns curl-up tight, dig in, and go no place together. With the best intentions too many Appalachian publications add to the ingrown scholarly problem. In fact, I feel that the only magazine with a broad base of readers and writers is Appalachian Heritage. Through its humanness, its fiction, articles, and poetry Appalachian Heritage has a unique place, but it does need many more subscribers. Do you believe in the magazine as I do? If so, can you help? I feel Jim Wayne Miller was on target with his suggestions in his Christmas letter last year (see the Fall 1988 issue): "You can help Appalachian Heritage ... by (1) subscribing to the magazine yourself (2) giving a gift subscription to a relative, friend, or acquaintance, (3) suggesting that your local library subscribe and (4) calling it to the attention of secondary school superintendents, principals, school board members, teachers, and librarians. Appalachian Heritage is well worth reading and recommending. 6U <4oui* VVV 4 Dear Reader: As someone who has been a reader of Appalachian Heritage through the entire history of publication which is now entering 17 years, I can say that this magazine is indispensable to me as a reader and a writer. The Heritage has been consistent as an outlet for the best writing to come out of the Appalachian Region the last two decades . The list of writers who have contributed in these years, beginning with Albert Stewart, founding editor, and continuing through the work of Sidney Farr, the present editor, is as impressive a list of literary folk as one will find in any part of the country. As an occasional contributor myself, it is an honor for me to be in the company of all the fine writers who have contributed to Appalachian Heritage. In addition to the stories, poems, and articles that have filled the pages of the Heritage, the magazine has also been a showcase for a new generation of artists whose work would otherwise have no outlet in the print media. It has been in the years that we have had Appalachian Heritage that the mountain region has seen its greatest flowering of ideas and artistic expression. This generation of Appalachian writers, painters, and artists of all kinds-including educators-represents the region's most important natural resource. Appalachian Heritage is a remarkable magazine that all thoughtful people in this vast region want to see continue and to grow. &-V

The Dynamics of Superintendent-School Board Relationships

Some school board members are not dominated by the superintendent.

The Changing Idea of a Teachers' Union

It is conventional wisdom among those who study collective bargaining and unionism that labor practices are diverse. From the early studies of private sector unionism to recent studies in education, researchers have found that the character of labor-management interactions, the content of contracts, and the effects of unionism vary widely. To be sure, there are discernible patterns that emerge across sites, but particular practices are so influenced by personalities, history, local values, customs, and financial exigencies, that the outcomes are as different as they are similar. I have argued that this is good news to those who work in and worry about schools, because it suggests that the presence of unionism does not predetermine a particular set of outcomes. Actors still are capable of acting in deliberate and meaningful ways. In their new, provocative book, The Changing Idea of a Teachers' Union, Kerchner and Mitchell reject the diversity theory of unionism and contend that educational labor practices do, in fact, follow predictable patterns. Based on questionnaire data gathered in 73 California and Illinois school districts and subsequent ethnographic studies in four districts from each of the two states, the authors advance a generational theory of unionism. Their analysis of local experiences leads them to conclude that teacher unionism can be expected to move through the same series of stages, no matter what the district. First, during the meet-and-confer generation, teachers advance their collective interests, but defer to administrators and school board members when the parties disagree about the district's purposes and priorities. Second, during the good faith bargaining generation, management comes to accept the teachers' right to represent their own interests and to bargain about economic and procedural matters. Attention centers on conflict management as the parties increasingly routinize their practices. Third, during the negotiated policy generation, the parties stop trying to manage around collective bargaining and, instead, begin to shape school district policy through the contract and the union. Based on both qualitative and quantitative analysis of survey and interview data, the authors conclude that intense, ideological conflicts about the appropriate role of the union erupt toward the end of each generation and these ideological conflicts propel labor relations into subsequent generations. The first conflict results when unions are perceived to be relatively unsuccessful in representing their members' interests, and school boards are viewed to be closed to external influence and insufficiently attentive to important labor relations issues. The second conflict emerges when teacher organizations are seen to be successful in tending to the interests of their members but irresponsible in meeting the needs

The Limits to Citizen Participation in Local Education: A Cognitive Interpretation

The ineffectiveness of citizen participation in local education, commonly attributed to an "information gap" between citizens and administrators, may be exacerbated by the inability of citizens to develop a common cognitive model of local education and educational issues. An analysis of the cognitive models of educational administrators, teachers, citizens, and school board members in two communities supports this explanation and suggests the need for an alternative model of educational governance.

Letter to Our Readers

Christmas 1988 Dear Reader: A story about flatboating on the Tennessee River in the early 19th century suggests something about the relationship between Southern Appalachian writers and readers. Flatboatmen taking a valuable cargo down the river by night watched lights along the riverbank to determine their progress downstream. They passed a house where a great fire burned; they could see people dancing, and hear fiddle music. Soon they passed another house, again with a great fire burning, people dancing, and fiddles playing. After they had passed seven or eight houses, all with fires burning, people dancing, always to the same fiddle tune, the boatmen realized: they were caught in the notorious Boiling Pot, a swift eddy on the river near Chattanooga. Instead of going steadily downriver, they were going around and around in the dark, swinging always past the same house on the bank, where a fire burned and people danced to fiddle music! Much of the writing about Appalachia circulates like the flatboat and its cargo: it goes around in academic circles, repeatedly passing people but never touching their shores. The bibliography on the region is enormous, yet for the most part general readers are unacquainted with this writing and their understanding of the area is still clouded with myth, stereotype, and misinformation. As a rule, Appalachian history and heritage, problems and potential, are known to only a few academic specialists. Writing about southern Appalachia is not readily available to Appalachian people who happen not to be scholars. Over the years I have given my parents in Leicester, North Carolina, copies of magazines and journals in which my poems, stories, and essays have appeared. Appalachian Heritage is the only publication they read regularly, and the only one my mother asks for when her subscription expires! There are millions of people, like my parents, in Southern Appalachia as well as in other parts of the country, who would enjoy Appalachian Heritage, if they should become acquainted with it. But, like the cargo-laden flatboat, the magazine never reaches them. You can help Appalachian Heritage break out of this figurative Boiling Pot by (1) subscribing to the magazine yourself, (2) giving a gift subscription to a relative, friend, or acquaintance, (3) suggesting that your local library subscribe and (4) calling it to the attention of secondary school superintendents, principals, school board members, teachers and librarians. Appalachian Heritage has the potential for beginning a new era of awareness in the lives of hundreds of thousands, even millions, of people throughout the region and the country-by bringing them, with each issue, a cargo of information about Appalachia's history and culture, about current issues and challenges. Won't you help broaden Appalachian Heritage's circulation by making the magazine available to at least one person who doesn't read it now but who would enjoy and profit from it? Sincerely, JiIp Wayne Miller Board of Advisory and Contributing Editors 3 ...

A Public Choice Theory of School Board Member Behavior

The study of educational governance has suffered by being insufficiently concerned with axiomatic-deductive theories. It is behind the times. The theory presented in this paper should move things forward. A public choice theory of school board member behavior makes two major contributions to the study of school governance. First, it provides a theoretical framework for microanalyses of school governance, that is, the focus is on each actor and each school district rather than on aggregates of abstract data. Secondly, the theory has the potential to greatly increase the power to predict behavior and events in school governance. A framework for understanding and predicting the micro, as well as the macro, events of school governance is needed. The theory of school governance proposed in this paper provides such a framework.

The Career Paths of Teachers: Implications for Teacher Supply and Methodological Lessons for Research

these questions matter to various actors in the educational system, including school board members and superintendents evaluating the adequacy of teacher salaries and teacher recruitment budgets and college students assessing the potential attractiveness of careers in teaching. The primary sources of quantitative information for addressing these questions are teacher supply and demand models. In fact, numerical projections of the size of the impending teacher shortage or surplus, based on the National Center for Education Statistics'

Results on Sophisticated Voting in an Experimental Setting

This research explores the extent of sophisticated voting in a simplified agenda setting. We begin from the commonly held presumption that decision makers (whether legislators or school board members) employ sophisticated strategies when voting. This viewpoint has been rigorously modeled under a variety of formal theories. However, given that there is little corroborative empirical evidence that decision makers use sophisticated voting strategies, we turn to a series of laboratory experiments designed to test the extent to which sophisticated voting is relied upon. Our findings are at odds with a general claim that sophisticated behavior is ubiquitous.

Evolution of a Model Homework Policy and Practice Statement

School board members debate the merits of homework. Teachers assign it for various reasons. Parents ask how they can help. And students, for the most part, just do it. A home work policy and practice statement can help ensure that homework is the educational tool it is intended to be.

A Public Choice Theory of School Board Member Behavior

A Public Choice Theory of School Board Member Behavior

Predicting Public Dissatisfaction: A Study of School Board Member Defeat

Using data collected in 95 Ohio school districts by Hunt (1980), this study reanalyzed those data, examined the reasons for Hunt's inability to predict school board member incumbent defeat, and developed a model that would have predicted those Ohio school board ekctions.

Readers, Realism, and Robert Cormier

Readers, Realism, and Robert Cormier Sylvia Patterson Iskander (bio) The young-adult novels of Robert Cormier—The Chocolate War, I Am the Cheese, After the First Death, The Bumblebee Flies Anyway, and Beyond the Chocolate War—have been criticized for the bleak, hopeless world they describe. Norma Bagnall says of The Chocolate War, "hopelessness pervades the entire story"; "there are no adults worth emulating"; "only the ugly is presented through the novel's language, action and imagery" (214). Anne Scott MacLeod describes Cormier's work as "a world of painful harshness, where choices are few and consequences desperate" (74). Robbie March-Penny states that I Am the Cheese depicts a "completely ruthless" system and The Chocolate War presents "a frightening universe" (81, 83). Some of these comments have been answered in an article by Betty Carter and Karen Harris, who argue that "Cormier does not leave his readers without hope, but he does deliver a warning: they may not plead innocence, ignorance, or prior commitments when the threat of tyranny confronts them" (285). Yet the objections point accurately to problems raised by these novels. The almost universal distress about Cormier's work springs directly from the power and consistency of his imagined world, which convinces readers that it bears a recognizable relationship to the "real world" and yet appears to leave no room for anything but pessimism about the survival of Cormier's protagonists. Because of this, several school boards and parental groups in New York, Massachusetts, South Carolina, and Arizona have tried to ban Cormier's novels from the classroom. Agreement between author and audience is not always possible for readers of Cormier's novels. The conventions of the genre of the young-adult novel, according to MacLeod, may deal with harshness and stern reality, but they must offer some hope, "some affirmative message" (74). She among others does not find any affirmation of the traditional adolescent "themes of adjustment, acceptance, and understanding" (80) in any of Cormier's novels. She feels, for example, that when Jerry, the protagonist of The Chocolate War, is carried off the football field on a stretcher, Cormier "has abandoned an enduring American myth to confront his teenaged readers with life as it more often is—with the dangers of dissent, the ferocity of [End Page 7] systems as they protect themselves, the power of the pressure to conform" (76). She correctly states that the "discussion of political evil [in I Am the Cheese] is cast in fiercely contemporary terms" and that Artkin, Miro, and the general in After the First Death "disavow their humanity in the same moment that they seal their innocence by choosing never to question nor even to contemplate questioning" (77). MacLeod does not, however, mention either Ben Marchand or Kate Forrester, who are positive role models in After the First Death. She comments on Cormier's powerful ability to reach the innermost thoughts of his readers and to make them question the contemporary systems within which they find themselves, but she does not explore this subject. There are, it seems to me, three aspects of this problem. First, who is Cormier's reader, or what are some of the characteristics of young-adult readers? Teenagers stand at a threshold; not fully committed to the adult world, they are uncertain of their own strength, yet they clearly tend toward moral idealism. Second, what do adults consider appropriate reading for adolescents? Many parents and critics feel strongly that literature for teenagers at this vulnerable period in their lives should help them develop their sense of moral choice and responsibility by presenting clear-cut guidelines. Finally, what does Cormier require of his readers? The answer to this question touches on the concerns raised by the other questions, for, rather than asking his readers to endorse simple affirmations, Cormier demands that they respond to ironies and qualifications. The reader—parent, school board member, or young adult—who rejects a Cormier novel as totally without hope has failed to recognize its positive elements because these are presented ironically and indirectly. The successful reader must recognize the various levels of reality present in these novels and extrapolate beyond the novel's close to see an...

Gender Bias in Superintendent Selection: A Projective Analysis

AbstractWomen are traditionally underrepresented in the superintendency in public education. This research investigated the problem: Are school board members inclined to favor male archetypes as su...

Conflict and Frustration for School Board Members

Conflicting role expectations for school board members' roles may cause conflict andfrustration. Role expectations vary from state to state.

School-Based Clinics: A National Conference

On October 9-12, 1985, 250 health personnel, educators, and social service workers attended the 2nd national conference on school based clinics in the US. The conference, held in Chicago, was sponsored jointly by the Center for Population Options (CPO), a Washington based organization which provides technical assistance to groups interested in establishing school clinics, and the Ounce of Prevention Fund, a group of funding agencies in Illinois which works in cooperation with the state government to provide funds for school clinics in Illinois. The growth and accomplishments of the school based clinic movement in the US was reviewed in opening remarks made by the chairperson of the CPO. In 1984, at the time of the 1st national conference, there were clinics in only about 12 communities throughout the nation. Currently, there are clinics in about 50 communities located in 26 states. The clinics provide primary health care, including physical exams, immunizations, treatment for minor illnesses, counseling, nutrition assistance, gynecological exams, and family planning counseling. Some of the clinics dispense contraceptives. Most of the clinics do not provide abortion referrals. The clinics are generally operated by groups outside the educational system, e.g., hospitals, health departments, and nonprofit organizations. The schools furnish space for the clinics. Clinics are usually staffed by a nurse practitioner and a social worker with a backup physician. Topics discussed by the conference participants included strategies for establishing clinics and for gaining community and student acceptance, clinic evaluation, and funding issues. Controversy frequently accompanies the establishment of new clinics. Participants tended to agree that an essential element in launching a successful program is the establishment of a community advisory committee. A concerted effort must be made to address all community concerns about the clinic. Participants noted that it was best to obtain the support of school board members, administrators, and superintendents before approaching the staff at individual schools. Efforts must be made to gain the student's confidence in the ability of the clinics to serve their needs in a confidential manner. This goal can be more effectively met if the clinic is staffed by full-time rather than part-time workers. Some clinics successfully avoided initial controversy by deferring the provision of contraceptive services until their 2nd year of operation. Available but limited evaluation data suggest that clinic utilization is relatively high and that the clinics have had a negative impact on teenage pregnancy and a positive impact on contraceptive use among adolescents. For example, in St. Paul, Minnesota, a school clinic program was introduced in the 1970s, and between 1976-77 and 1984-85, the teenage birth rate declined from 59/1000 to 37/1000. The proportion of female students who used family planning increased from 7%-35% between 1976-77 and 1983-84. During the conference, the CPO announced plans to conduct a much needed large-scale evaluation of school clinics. The 3-year study will cover 7 geographical areas. The cost of operating the clinics is estimated to be US$100-US$125/student. Funding for the clinics comes primarily from the federal government sources including Maternal and Child Health and Social Services block grants, Medicaid, Title X of the Public Health Service Act, and the Adolescent Family Life Act. State governments and private donor organizations also support the clinics. A few clinics offset their expenses by charging minimal student fees. The participants tended to agree that in the long run, public funds should be used to support the programs. There was some disagreement among participants as to whether the primary task of the clinics was to improve the health status of adolescents or reduce the teenage pregnancy rate.

An Exploratory Study of Contextual Factors as Influences on School Board Evaluation Information Needs for Decisionmaking

This investigation examined the effect contextual variables had on school board members’ information needs for decisionmaking. The contextual variables included: (a) the importance of the decision, (b) the amount of conflict involved, and (c) the content of the evaluated program. A national sample of 237 school board members read simulated evaluation vignettes and indicated their information needs and sources. Importance, conflict, and content were found to be associated with board members’ needs for time, information, and consultation, as well as whom they wanted to consult with and what kind of information they needed.

Does the Superintendent's Opinion Affect School Boards' Evaluation Information Needs?

School board members' needs for information depend upon the interaction between importance and setting of the decision, degree of conflict, and superintendent's opinion.

Sex Education and the Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse

AbstractThe current focus on what children can do to prevent child sexual abuse overlooks the power of the offender in determining whether abuse takes place. At the present there is enough known about the offender to begin designing and implementing programs to prevent the development of sexually abusive behaviors in the first place. This paper summarizes information about the offender and outlines the components of a prevention program, including universal sex education, the development of self-esteem, and a clear understanding of what constitutes exploitative behavior. The prevention of child sexual abuse will entail wide-spread social change, and require the cooperation of many individuals from many walks of life: parents, educators, researchers, clinicians, school board members, and legislators.