Southern Regional Education Board Research Articles

Proposed nurse educator competencies: Development and validation of a model

As the concern for adequate numbers of well-prepared nurse educators grows, the Council on Collegiate Education for Nursing, an affiliate of the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB), has developed and validated competencies to guide the preparation of nurse educators. The 37 competency statements reflect the requisite knowledge, skills, and abilities that all nurse educators must demonstrate within the roles of teacher, scholar, and collaborator. The competencies, together with the ideologies, values, and essential core knowledge from which the competencies were derived, are vital to guide educational programs preparing nurse educators and for structuring recognition and evaluation processes for certifying, credentialing, and accrediting bodies.

Sound and Fury

POLICY makers really sounded off this spring about public education. And while they're not exactly furious, one suspects that, in the end, all the noise will signify nothing much. For example, state legislators derided No Child Left Behind (NCLB) for taking away state prerogatives in setting education policy and issued a report outlining what authority they wanted back, such as deciding what to do with consistently failing Title I schools or how many special education students to test. Considerably more federal money would be necessary, too, they said. Then the Public Education Network (PEN) followed with a report on its hearings on NCLB. PEN found states were failing to do their part in monitoring and guiding NCLB implementation, as well as in providing adequate support for the schools. After two days of hype about reforming public high schools at a summit with business officials and Achieve, Inc., the National Governors Association (NGA) essentially told federal officials to stay away from repeating NCLB at the high school level. The governors will do that job, thank you, and more than two dozen governors signed on to develop high school diplomas that count -- in Achieve's definition, at least. This means that all students would be college-ready by graduation. The governors also asked for more federal money for education and then turned their attention to more pressing problems for them, such as funding Medicaid. Despite presenting a tidy package for high school reform, the Bush Administration was rebuffed by Congress, which crafted a re- authorization of the Perkins Act with few changes. And this was the only lever the Administration had to move forward its agenda for a high school version of NCLB. Meanwhile, in its third report on NCLB, the Center on Education Policy (CEP) found that achievement on state tests has improved, but states have neither the resources nor the expertise to help all schools that are in trouble. In addition, the two major interventions provided by NCLB -- supplemental services and transfer to higher-performing schools -- are being used by very few eligible students. The PEN report also noted that parents and community witnesses at its hearings wanted the emphasis to be on making all neighborhood schools excellent, not on choice provisions. CEP and PEN both reported that the curriculum was being narrowed to focus on NCLB-required progress in reading and math. Meanwhile, the Harvard Civil Rights Project found alarming rates of dropouts in California's schools. Gene Bottoms, head of the High Schools That Work program of the Southern Regional Education Board, told me that in every state in the board's region where vocational and career education had been cut to make room for more college-prep curricula, the dropout rates had increased. All of the considerable ado going on in policy making these days seems so terribly top-down and out of touch with how students see the world. For example, the NGA summit included business leaders as partners in the high school reform enterprise, and they are indeed prominent in the leadership of Achieve, Inc. One of the major documents used to justify the summit was a survey of high school graduates, college instructors, and employers on how well they believed high school graduates were prepared for college and work. Large percentages of each group gave high schools poor grades on this score. …

Policy: The inconspicuous barrier to expanding e‐learning in community colleges

AbstractBased on regional and national perspectives developed by the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB), this chapter examines policy barriers to e‐learning and related challenges community colleges must face if they are to create an open marketplace for e‐learning.

Making Use of Summer Time

EVERY WORKDAY morning, I pop in my exercise video and follow whichever one of 20 different sessions is up that day. If I were to go to a gym on my own, I would tend to do my favorite or most familiar exercises, I might have to wait for equipment to be free, and I might have to rest because I was concentrating on the same muscle group for the whole workout. With the video, I'm able to work almost nonstop because while I'm working my biceps, my triceps and shoulders are resting; while I do my shoulders, my biceps are resting. I need regimentation, but I can't afford to waste any time. Such an efficient use of time -- spending it only on effective activities and focusing on particular skills -- contributes to my health. And if there's a particular area I need to strengthen, I dedicate more time to it. So it is with schools and students. Additional time is essential for struggling readers or for those having difficulty with math concepts, but the time spent on extended learning must also be spent effectively. If Tammy attends summer school or an after-school session in which time is spent on material she's already learned, if she is taught in the same way as she was taught when she failed to learn the first time, or if she is presented with material unconnected to or below the level of knowledge expected in next year's classroom, she won't gain as much from her experience. Strengthening Summer School When the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) published Summer School: Unfulfilled Promise in June 2002, it focused on the potential for high- quality summer to help struggling students avoid failure. The report suggests seven features to improve the effectiveness of summer school programs. Here are SREB's seven features, along with some examples of how state policies might support each of them. 1. Summer school should be an integral part of a year-round program of extra time and extra help. Last year, H.B. 626 in Kentucky authorized the commissioner of education to approve district requests for waivers that would allow the district to use grants awarded for extending the day, week, or year to support alternative service delivery options, including offered during the school day. Two years ago, California passed a law (Chapter No. 582) requiring that, when selecting schools to participate in the After School Learning and Safe Neighborhoods Partnerships Program, the state department give primary emphasis to the capacity of applicants to facilitate integration of the program with the regular school day and with other extended learning opportunities. In 1999 Arkansas lawmakers repealed the state's mandatory summer school and replaced it with just in time' remediation (H.B. 1212). One way of delivering that remediation can be summer school. Finally, in Maryland, academic intervention programs are defined as those that take place before or after school, on weekends, or during holidays, vacations, or summer break. The state provides grants to county boards for that meet certain criteria. In his 2003 state-of-the-state address, Mississippi Gov. Ronnie Musgrove proposed bringing kindergartners to the classroom two months before the start of their kindergarten year and keeping them there two months after. He called the program Summer Start. 2. Summer school should be available to all failing students at no cost to parents. Most states that support extended learning time provide grants to districts or schools. In cases where there is no state support, districts have tapped federal and local sources of funds. It appears that most are provided at no charge to parents. However, policies that target failing students can be quite specific about who qualifies for which benefits. For example, North Dakota state board policy 67-24-01-05 specifies that students must be in grades 1 through 8 to qualify for proportionate payments; they must also score below the 60th percentile on a standardized or teacher- developed test or have a grade of C or lower in the previous school term. …

Excellence in school nursing practice: developing a national perspective on school nurse competencies.

Developing a national position on competencies for school nurses can directly influence professional practice, which ultimately affects the well-being and academic success of students. Collaboration between national experts, such as school nurse educators and school nurse consultants, interested in moving this development forward is key. Closely aligning the work done by the Southern Regional Education Board Council on Collegiate Education for Nursing on entry-level competencies with the Standards of Professional School Nursing Practice provides a framework to carry the school nurse competency initiative forward. Continued competency development will provide guidance for the academic programs that design curricula to prepare school nurses and for the practice settings that hire school nurses.

The Middle Level: More Than Treading Water

THERE IS no more frustrating level of education for parents than the middle grades. No other period is so marked with contradictions. Parents who worry about the flashes of anger, belligerence, and unreliability in their adolescent child one moment might be reassured by the compassion, intelligence, and glimpses of maturity in the next. But no matter what emotional changes confront parents, many sit down at the dinner table each night facing children who are bored, unchallenged, and frustrated during the hours they spend in school. Many of these parents remember their own experiences in the wasteland of academic challenge that too often constitutes the middle-grade years. Although educators have worked diligently to incorporate the principles of good middle-grades education into these institutions, many parents are concerned that middle schools have been so focused on the developmental needs of adolescents that they have made academics secondary. For a number of years, these parents have been complaining to principals, school board members, and legislators that this is unacceptable. Making Middle Grades Matter, a project of the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB), is assisting 13 states and 28 school sites by providing publications, technical assistance, and assessment and networking services. At a July 2000 SREB conference on middle-grades education, Gene Bottoms, senior vice president of SREB, suggested that middle schools learn from high schools about how to improve student achievement by giving more students access to an academic The project conducted a broad survey of middle school faculty members, which yielded some surprising findings: Only 33% of the teachers agree strongly that the school pushes students to do their best. In other words, most teachers believe that you have a school climate that allows students to slide through with little effort. Sixty percent of teachers report that they assign one hour or less of homework weekly, a fact that reinforces the picture of a school climate that allows students to get by without making much of an effort. Again, there seems to be deeply embedded in middle-grades thinking the concept that, if you are not a very good student, we will not damage your self- esteem by asking you to make an effort. Student misbehavior as a problem reported by 86% of teachers may be due to boredom; they also may have correctly read the middle-grades setting - a belief they are not worth the school's effort. Only 35% of teachers say they consistently require students to revise their work to meet standards. Again, this suggests to youth that you really can do sloppy work and get by. schools, Bottoms continued, can take some specific actions, such as increasing the percentage of students in accelerated courses. Middle-grades schools should enroll 20% to 30% of students each year in more accelerated courses and provide teachers with the support they need to learn how to teach differently to get more students to master the advantaged academic core. It is an incremental approach that has worked, he said. Bottoms also argued that middle-grades schools could undertake the following types of research: * teams of faculty members could interview failing ninth-grade students and probe what these students wish the middle schools had done for them; * another group of faculty members could interview 10th-grade dropouts, asking what students think their middle-grades school could have done to better prepare them for high school (the interview results would be shared with the entire faculty); * a committee of teachers could meet with teachers of college-prep English, algebra, and science in grade 9 to determine what students need to know and be able to do to succeed in their courses; and * a group of faculty members could keep track of the percentage of eighth-graders who succeed in the college-prep curriculum in ninth grade and report back to the rest of the faculty what actions could be taken to try to increase that percentage. …

A Healthy System

ANYONE who has visited a health food store recently has probably noticed an emphasis on as an alternative to antibiotics in maintaining good health. Many nutritionists contend that, rather than treating infection, the regular ingestion of probiotics such as Lactobacillus acidophilus (the active ingredient in yogurt) keeps the body in condition so that it can fight off invaders. Theory has it that these probiotics - or beneficial bacteria - favorably alter the balance of intestinal microflora, inhibit the growth of harmful bacteria, promote good digestion, boost immune function, and increase resistance to infection. Traditional medical providers have typically treated the infection after it appears. So, too, have schools. Most students must fall demonstrably behind their peers before the education system intervenes. In education, however, the risk of treatment after the fact is amplified, as there is no single medicine that one can order from the local pharmacy that will make these patients better. Nor is there much agreement concerning which interventions might work best. It is hoped that state standards and their accompanying assessments will allow schools to gauge more regularly whether students are ahead or behind what is expected. And it becomes clearer every day that early diagnosis and intervention - before gaps in learning become too large - are necessary. Remediation for Whom? Before addressing state actions, however, one must acknowledge that all remediation and all needs for intervention are not the same. It might be helpful to consider recommendations made by the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) to address the issue of students who enter college without the proper preparation. In Benchmarks 2000, Reducing Remedial Education: What Progress Are States Making, SREB contends: There is no typical remedial student. Students enrolled in remedial courses usually have been out of high school for at least a year or just graduated from high school but didn't take a math course their senior year. The key to reducing college-level remedial education is developing policies and practices that reflect an understanding of who needs remedial education and why. Some remedial assistance and courses are essentially unavoidable and are a wise investment. Other remedial assistance is avoidable. State leaders and parents are justifiably angry about paying for remedial programs for problems that could have been avoided. Understanding who needs additional help and what kind of help they need to be ready to begin college-level work is the key to developing policies and practices that will reduce the need for remedial education. (http://www.sreb.org/main/benchmarks2000/remedial.pdf) The SREB report puts remedial students into the following categories: * a student who graduated years ago and needs a refresher course in mathematics or writing; * a recent graduate who completed a college-preparatory curriculum (perhaps receiving good grades) but whose high school did a poor job of preparation; * a recent graduate who did not take a college-prep curriculum in high school and thus was not prepared for college; * a recent high school graduate who completed a college-prep curriculum but earned low grades; and * a recent high school graduate who was planning to go to college but decided not to take a college-prep math course in the senior year. Although these examples pertain to students who need remediation at the postsecondary level, similar situations occur at the K-12 level. Some possible scenarios in K-12 schools might include: * a student spends summer vacation in a home without books, with no one encouraging reading, and has reading skills that need refreshing when he or she returns to school in the fall; * a student transfers from another school or district where the curriculum and standards were not as strong; * a student puts forth minimal effort over several years and demonstrates weak skills because of that lack of effort, not because of ability; * a student has weak teachers in the second and third grades and is behind when he or she enters fourth grade; * a student chooses not to take the core high school curriculum or cannot take higher-level courses because of prior poor performance; and * a student does not attend high school regularly and fails three out of four classes. …

Projects: Making Schools Work: Mathematics Component

Making Schools Work (MSW) is a comprehensive school-reform effort that focuses on the middle grades. MSW is funded by the United States Department of Education's Office of Educational Research and Improvement. As a part of this project, the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) will design, develop, implement, and refine a comprehensive middle- and secondary-grade model by bringing together its “High Schools That Work” and emerging middle-grades efforts into an integrated wholeschool-improvement initiative for clusters of rural schools.

Teaching Principles of Economics without “Chalk and Talk”: The Experience of CNU Online

The age of the virtual university has arrived as computer technology, specifically the Internet, offers increased possibilities for higher education. No longer are students necessarily required to come to campus to obtain an education. With computer technology, the education comes to the student; students are freed from the time and space constraints of the traditional classroom. In addition to offering courses via computer, administrative services such as admissions, registration, advising, financial aid, and bookstore orders can be handled by computer, phone, or fax. In the United States, virtual universities have been developed by numerous private and public entities. For example, the University of Phoenix (www. uophx.edu) is a private distance-learning franchise company that provides educational opportunities for approximately 48,000 adult students. The University of California (www.california.edu) has a virtual university that coordinates all of the distance-learning opportunities offered through the state's accredited colleges and universities. Regional bodies, such as the Western Governors' Association (www.wgu.ed) and the Southern Regional Education Board (www.srec.sreb.org), have also entered the virtual university market. The State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV) is currently studying the idea of a virtual university within the Commonwealth. As a step in that direction, five Virginia institutions of higher education are offering courses through the Southern Regional Education Board's electronic campus. This electronic campus is a consortium of 50 colleges and universities throughout the South that enables students to enroll in courses whose credits can be transferred among the member institutions. At Christopher Newport University (CNU), we have been offering courses via computer since the spring 1993 semester. The CNU Online program (www.cnuonline.cnu.edu) began as a pilot system developed by CNU faculty members. In September 1994, the on-line program was formally approved by the Commonwealth of Virginia. At that time, 8 courses were offered on-line to 138 students. Gradually the program has grown to include 50 courses from 15 departments offered to over 500 students (as of the fall 1997 semester). Students can complete their general education required courses on-line and can earn four-year undergraduate degrees without ever coming to campus.

A multistate program to educate physicians

The Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) was formed in 1948 to facilitate multistate contracts for education exchange; at present, 15 states participate in this program. West Virginia is one of four states in the SREB that offer training in osteopathic medicine, and the West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine (WVSOM) is the only professional school in West Virginia that is a member of the SREB program. The authors describe (1) WVSOM's mission to provide primary care physicians to meet the medical needs of Appalachia, and (2) the success that an WVSOM-SREB partnership has had in training primary care physicians for participating states at a fraction of the effort and cost that would otherwise have been necessary. Concern is expressed for the program's future, and suggestions offered for the establishment of similar multistate programs to foster the production of physicians in a variety of specialties throughout the nation, since the WVSOM has clearly been successful in producing primary care physicians and in motivating graduates to return to their home states. For example, through the WVSOM-SREB osteopathic medicine program, students from states that share parts of Appalachia (Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, and Maryland) and Florida have received their education at WVSOM. From 1978 until 1994, WVSOM graduated 148 SREB physicians; 122 of these are practicing physicians, 23 are in internships or residencies, and three have died. Of the 122, 53% have returned to practice in their home states; 85% of these graduates and 84% of all the SREB graduates who have returned to their home states or to other Appalachian states are practicing in primary care fields.

Alton Crews, Director of the Leadership Academy of the Southern Regional Education Board

AbstractAlton Crews2 educational career spans forty‐five years. During that period, he has served as teacher, principal, deputy superintendent, and, for more than three decades, superintendent in four different communities. He is the current director of the Leadership Academy for the Southern Regional Education Board.

The ASA Section on Statistical Education: A Historical Note

The ASA Section on Statistical Education: A Historical Note

Alternative certification: State policies in the SREB states

In 1980, the Southern Regional Education Board's (SREB) Task Force on Higher Education and the Schools, composed of educational and governmental leaders from throughout the SREB region (15 states1), began the job of taking a close look at how teachers are prepared, considered the shortage of science and mathematics teachers, looked at the quality of the work force, and made 25 recommendations for change in education. Half of those recommendations were aimed at improving the quality of teachers for the region's classrooms. Questions were asked by that committee, such as:

A Preliminary Analysis of Black Undergraduate Students' Perceptions of Retention/Attrition Factors at a Large, Predominantly White, State Research University in the South

Both the number of Black students attending colleges and universities and the retention/attrition rates of those who do attend have become major issues of concern to the higher education community. Black enrollment in higher education in recent years has steadily declined despite the increasing number of Black high school graduates.' If the present trend continues, the Southern Regional Education Board has projected that even fewer Blacks will be enrolled in college by 1990.2 The issue of retention/attrition of Black students has increased not only because of the general decline in the number of Black students attending college but also because of the shift of Black enrollment patterns from predominantly Black campuses to pre-

Strengthening Black Students' Academic Preparedness for Higher Education

The educational reform issues currently discussed in our society have special significance for the black community. Successful participation in, or even access to, quality educational opportunities beyond the primary sector have always occurred for black cohorts only as reactive responses to intense demands for racial equality in the educational arena. The 1950s and 1960s confronted blacks and other ethnic minorities with the challenge of just gaining access to nonsegregated institutions in this country's secondary and postsecondary sectors. The 1960s and 1970s challenged unprecedented large numbers of ethnic minorities with curriculum and financial aid issues. At the time, curriculum offerings revealed a dearth of information that was culturally accurate or relevant for nonwhites. Financial aid, too, was a significant issue. Access to higher education for many students was (is) determined by their ability to pay student charges (Southern Regional Education Board, 1982). In

Fifty reasons why student achievement gain does not mean teacher effectiveness

A study of U.S. school districts conducted 70 years ago reported that 48% of the districts sampled used merit pay (Evendon, 1918). Since then, the quantity as well as quality of teacher compensation systems have fluctuated markedly (for details, see Cohen & Murnane, 1985; Murnane & Cohen, 1986; Porwoll, 1979). At present, 29 states are implementing large-scale teacher incentive programs (a.k.a. career ladder, merit pay, pay for performance), funding local plans, piloting testing models, or using state board of education or legislative mandates to develop programs for teachers and administrators (Southern Regional Education Board, 1986). Teacher performance is at the core of all of the programs in operation or those being considered. Determining who will receive the pay bonuses, which typically range from $1,000 to $3,000 per year, or be promoted up the career ladder hinges on the methods used to evaluate teacher performance. The current trend in measurement procedures is to deemphasize supervisory ratings by the building principal and instead emphasize peer evaluation, classroom observation, student achievement outcomes, and questionnaire data from principals, teachers, and students (for details, see Southern Regional Education Board, 1986).

Editor's Notes

New Directions for Teaching and LearningVolume 1986, Issue 27 p. 1-3 Editor's Note Editor's Notes Eva C. Galambos, Eva C. Galambos Consultant to the Southern Regional Education Board. She served as staff director of that organization's Task Force on Higher Education and the Schools from 1981 to 1985.Search for more papers by this author Eva C. Galambos, Eva C. Galambos Consultant to the Southern Regional Education Board. She served as staff director of that organization's Task Force on Higher Education and the Schools from 1981 to 1985.Search for more papers by this author First published: Autumn (Fall) 1986 https://doi.org/10.1002/tl.37219862702 AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Volume1986, Issue27Autumn (Fall) 1986Pages 1-3 RelatedInformation

Do Not Buy the Conventional Wisdom: Minority Teachers Can pass the Test

Conventional wisdom asserts that raising standards for teachers and using tests to determine who meets the new standards will greatly shrink the pool of Black teachers at the same time that the Black and Hispanic populations are increasing. If the current impact of competency testing continues unabatedly along with normal rates of attrition through retirement and teacher burnout, minority representation in the national teaching force could be reduced to less than 5 percent by 1990, and without question, by the beginning of the twenty-first century, say Martha Bell and McKnight Fellow, quoting G. Pritchy Smith.' Regardless of where you look at the figures, the results will be the same. . . . I don't see the thing turning around, and that's a real problem, says Mark Musick, director of state services for the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB).2 But I think there may be ways to eliminate, or at least reduce, disproportionate failure rates among Black students. The black students who attend schools in the 1980s may not be as harshly affected by raised standards and testing as it appears.

Book Reviews : Report: A Comparison of Teacher Certification Test Scores and Performance Evaluations for Graduates in Teacher Education and in Arts and Sciences in Three Southern States Atlanta, Georgia: Southern Regional Education Board 1984

Book Reviews : Report: A Comparison of Teacher Certification Test Scores and Performance Evaluations for Graduates in Teacher Education and in Arts and Sciences in Three Southern States Atlanta, Georgia: Southern Regional Education Board 1984

Project Re‐ED: From demonstration project to nationwide program

Origins. Project Re-ED (a project for the reeducation of emotionally disturbed children) had its beginnings in the early 1960s at George Peabody College for Teachers, now one of the schools of Vanderbilt University, in Nashville, Tennessee. There a small group of psychologists and educators-in collaboration with mental health officials of Tennessee and North Carolina, the Southern Regional Education Board, and the National Institute of Mental Health-joined together to invent a new social institution in the service of troubled and troubling children. The institution that emerged was inspired by ideas and events of the midcentury, but its character has been shaped over the years by new research and theory in child development; by economic, demographic, and social changes affecting families and children; and, most of all, by practical experience in working with thousands of disturbed children and adolescents and their families, schools, and communities. Two ideas informed early efforts to design a new approach to working with disturbed children, and these ideas have remained central to the evolving institution still known as Project Re-ED. First, the putative role of insight in psychotherapy as a source of behavior change and increased personal integration was questioned; instead, insight was regarded as an epiphenomenon, a possible consequence but not a cause of change in behavior (Hobbs, 1962). This theoretical position made congenial the notion that health or happiness or a sense of self-worth must grow out of