Unified School Research Articles

Forming Typical School Architecture in the USSR Depending on Educational System Development Process

In the 20th century a design of schools in Russia was subject to critical transformations. Each of them was a response to the development of the system of a comprehensive secondary education. The architecture of school buildings also transformed and changed from the comprehensive schools for the vocational profession training to complex educational institutions with a flexible layout. The objective of the research is to identify the dependence of school architecture on the needs of the state education system. The analysis of correlation processes between the education system and volumetric&spatial composition in the architecture of school buildings (exemplified by typical projects) allows showing the architectural practice response to the education system needs. The development of the unified school architecture in the USSR is justified not only from the positions of economic profit but also from the positions of a country-wide mass school construction. A school building model was formed in typical projects and was intended for providing a necessary space for everybody. The identified interdependence of the school education system and architecture today makes it possible to develop a modern invariant for a volumetric&spatial design of a school building accessible at every Russian region. The issues of modern unification of aschool space will be considered in the future research.

Inside the Black Box of School Autonomy: How Diverse School Providers Use Autonomy for School Improvement

ABSTRACT Districts are relying on school autonomy to help schools differentiate educational programming for students and improve low-performing schools, yet we know little about how schools use autonomy in practice. Drawing on school case study and principal survey data from the Los Angeles Unified School District, we find variation in perceived school leader autonomy stemming from each school model’s governance design, district-provided capacity building, and other organizational conditions. Principal perceptions of autonomy are positively associated with perceived implementation ease of school plans which, in turn, is positively related to reports of teacher collegiality and responsive school practices.

Становление единой трудовой школы в России в 1918–1922 годы (по материалам Государственного архива Курской области)

The relevance of the study is to show the positive experience of the formation of a labor school in Russia. It has a theoretical and practical orientation, because, firstly, this issue has not been thoroughly investigated before and, secondly, the modern school has obvious problems with the organization of labor education. The positive experience of training and labor education in 1918-1922 will allow us to find a solution to today's problems. The purpose of the article is to study the formation of the unified labor school of Kursk province in accordance with the Regulations on the unified labor school and the Basic Principles of the unified labor school. The objectives follow from the purpose of the article and are to reveal the historical conditions of the formation of a unified labor school after October 1917, to characterize the labor method of education, to analyze the organization of the training system in a unified labor school in accordance with the normative documents of the Soviet government. Methodology. The work is based on methods of analysis and synthesis, as well as historical-comparative, his-torical-legal, historical-pedagogical methods. Results. Kursk province, with the advent of Soviet power, actively joined in large-scale changes in the field of education. During the construction of the education system from a "clean slate", there were many problems associated with the devastation and famine in the conditions of the civil war and the policy of war communism. One of the main methods of training was the labor method. The organization of work in the school was built according to the individual characteristics and age of students. Conditions for agricultural work were created at schools. Conclusions. The experience of creating and operating a unified labor school had a positive result. The principles of the labor school laid down in the first years of Soviet power expanded in subsequent years. Labor has firmly entered the system of values of Soviet schoolchildren. The positive experience of education and upbringing in 1918-1922 is still relevant today.

КОНЦЕПЦИЯ ТРИБУТАРНОГО СПОСОБА ПРОИЗВОДСТВА В МЕЗОАМЕРИКЕ В МЕКСИКАНСКОЙ ИСТОРИОГРАФИИ ВТОРОЙ ПОЛОВИНЫ ХХ В.

The article considers the history of the concept of the tributary mode of production in the Mexican historiography between the 1960s and the 1980s. This concept was elaborated by Ion Banu and Samir Amin as an al- ternative to the traditional “Asiatic mode of production”. It entered Mexican historiography in the late 1960s as a result of the spread of Neomarxist ideas. In the mid-1970s various scholars, including Alberto Ruz in the Maya studies and Roger Bartra and Pedro Carrasco in the Aztec studies, became interested in the concept of tributary mode of production to explain the socio-economic nature of Mesoamerican state. Analysis of the ideas of Alberto Ruz (1906– 1979) shows that his interest in tributary mode of production was the result of a search for new theoretical and methodological base and interpretation of the new materials. The problematics of the socio-economic characteristics of the Ancient Maya society became essential for Ruz in the last years of his life. His ideas could develop into an original theoretical model, which would become the basis for the consolidation of Mesoamerican studies in Mexico into a unified school. However, his death and the absence of a comparable figure among the next generation resulted in a denouement of the concept of tributary mode of production during the next decade.

Putting Homelessness in Context: The Schools and Neighborhoods of Students Experiencing Homelessness

The number of K–12 students experiencing homelessness is increasing across the country. Schools may serve as sources of support and stability for homeless children, but little is known about the types of schools that homeless students attend or about the communities in which they live. We investigate the context of student homelessness in Los Angeles by analyzing student-level administrative data from the Los Angeles Unified School District and publicly available data on neighborhoods and schools from school years 2008–2009 to 2016–2017. Our findings suggest that homeless students tend to be clustered within lower-achieving schools with higher concentrations of disadvantaged student groups and live in neighborhoods with higher concentrated disadvantage. Despite policy provisions to ensure stability, homeless students have high rates of school and residential mobility in the years they are homeless, and mobile students tend to move to less-disadvantaged schools. We conclude with policy implications to strengthen the implementation of the federal McKinney-Vento Act.

Editorial

Welcome to the second issue of the Australasian Journal of Gifted Education for 2021. I am proud to introduce this issue of the journal, which is a special issue of the work of Professor Emerita C. June Maker and her colleagues on the fidelity of implementation of the Real Engagement in Active Problem Solving (REAPS) model. All four studies that form a part of the special issue were undertaken with Australian participants. The institutions that the authors of the articles represent include the University of Arizona, the University of Georgia, the University of British Columbia, the World Health Organization, and the Vail Unified School District in the United States.

Программы профилактики подросткового буллинга в деятельности педагога-психолога

Prevention of adolescent bullying is one of the leading areas of activity of a teacher-psychologist. Being a widespread issue of the modern school bullying in adolescence demands to be separated from other aggressive behaviors by specific criteria. There are: primary prevention, aimed at pre-venting bullying situations in an educational institution, at forming public unacceptance of aggressive behavior, at creating an active position to stop it; secondary prevention, which implies the containment of provocative bullying factors and the strengthening of protective factors (first of all, the optimization of relationships in the adolescent environment and the dyads “adolescent — adult (teacher, parent)”; tertiary prevention, which is a set of measures of psychological assistance to victims, abusers and witnesses of bullying and their social environment. At each level of preventive work, measures are developed in four main directions: work at the school level in general, work at the school class level, work at the family level, work at the individual level (with an adolescent). In each of these areas of work, a teacher-psychologist, classroom teachers of secondary classes, a social teacher, and deputy director for educational work have their own tasks and responsibilities. They take part in the development of a unified school anti-bullying program as members of a single team. There are specifics in prevention programs — depending on the role of an adolescent in bullying: a victim, an abuser or a witness. The basis for the development of a bullying prevention pro-gram at school is to understand and take into account the main patterns of school bullying identified on the basis of the analysis of the results of scientific research in this area, as well as an analysis of the specific situation in an educational institution and school monitoring data on bullying cases.

Google drive y Google classroom en el proceso de enseñanza - aprendizaje en bachillerato general unificado

La investigación tiene por objetivo analizar el uso didáctico del Google drive y Google classroom en el proceso de enseñanza - aprendizaje en bachillerato general unificado como medio de innovación educativa desde las tecnologías de la información y comunicación (TIC). Se abordó desde el enfoque cuantitativo y tipo descriptivo en una muestra poblacional de 65 estudiantes y 13 docentes. En los resultados, se destaca la aceptación de los estudiantes en relación al trabajo cooperativo, situación que contribuye a generar habilidades sociales basadas en el respeto, la equidad y la sinergia, para construir el aprendizaje. El aprendizaje basado en TIC es el enfoque pedagógico del presente y futuro educativo; por lo tanto, su eficaz implementación es más que necesaria. De esta forma, en función de los resultados obtenidos, se confirma su aporte a un aprendizaje cooperativo – colaborativo, ya que promueve competencias creativas para la generación de una educación innovadora.

Making an Impact in Community Athletics: Teaching Sport Psychology to High School Coaches

The Coaches’ Clinic was created in order to 1) serve the community by teaching concepts and techniques in sport psychology to Riverside Unified School District (RUSD) high school coaches, and 2) to provide a training opportunity for students in the Master of Science Sport and Performance Psychology (MS SPP) program at California Baptist University. The Coaches’ Clinic was formed as a result of a collaboration with RUSD and served to support RUSD’s Three C’s Initiative (Community, Character, Conditioning).Three 3-hour workshops were conducted over three different seasons to cover all of the coaches’ off seasons. These workshops were evaluated by the attending coaches. The results of these evaluations are presented followed by a discussion of the benefits of these workshops as well as areas of improvement. Finally, reflection is given to the benefit to the MS SPP graduate students and faculty.

Racial Representation and Socialization in Bureaucratic Organizational Structures

Organizational scholars employing the theory of representative bureaucracy in their research have found that when public school teacher demographics mirror those of their students, teachers positively affect student performance. Little is known, however, about how organizational socialization affects positive representational effects on student outcomes. Teachers, however, are socialized differently into the organizational structure, largely through organizational social norms based on various professional aspects. This article analyzes the impact of professional socialization on representativeness by teachers’ credentials, employment status, and education levels. Using Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) elementary school data during the 2012–2014 school years, results show that representational effects differ depending on dimensions of student outcomes, and socialization moderating effects vary on the relationship between teacher representation and performance outcomes. Socialization positively moderates the teacher’s representational effect on student outcomes in terms of teachers with advanced degrees, full credentials, and tenure, which depend on the type of school. Charter schools exhibit the positive socialization effect of tenure status, whereas traditional schools show the positive effect of advanced degrees and full credentials. This research enhances our knowledge of the different socialization aspects and how they differ between charter and traditional schools as well as its impact on representation in highly diverse urban elementary schools, contributing to both theory and practice.

Использование математических методов для мониторинга качества успеваемости студентов

The article deals with the statistical analysis of the effectiveness of the educational process at university. The research featured factors affecting the quality of training university students. The authors employed quantitative and qualitative indicators and organizational and pedagogical approaches, as well as methods of correlation and variance analysis. The indicators were systematized and generalized in order to identify the extent of their impact on the effectiveness of the factors under consideration. The reliability of the results was checked using the Pearson test. The methodology of the study was based on the identification of factors that affect the students’ achievements. A factor is a condition for good quality education. Based on the principles of general and professional education of the individual, the authors identified two groups of factors: 1) those related to the performance of the general education stage (academic performance, training profile); 2) those related to the results of higher education (academic performance, areas of training, course of study, academics). The academic performance of the first-year students did not depend on the results of the Unified State Exam and school grades. This dependence began to manifest itself during the second year, i.e. after the adaptation period. Statistical processing provided a mathematical model of the dependence of academic performance on the identified factors. The model can be used to predict the results of academic performance, as well as to adjust the learning process in order to improve the quality of university graduates' training, e.g. additional consultations, new information technologies, changes in the curriculum, level-based differentiation of content, tasks, individualized tasks, etc. The results are of interest for organizers of psychological and pedagogical support of professional self-determination for university students and their socio-psychological adaptation.

Educación inmersiva aplicada a la asignatura de Emprendimiento y Gestión: Una experiencia con Metaverse

El objetivo de la investigación fue analizar la educación inmersiva aplicada a la asignatura de emprendimiento y gestión de bachillerato general unificado de la Unidad Educativa Jadán ubicada en la parroquia Jadán, cantón Gualaceo, provincia del Azuay. Enfoque metodológico mixto. Un 88,5 % de los estudiantes están de acuerdo en experimentar con las tecnologías inmersivas para su proceso de aprendizaje. Los docentes expresaron que tienen dificultad con la utilización de la tecnología por ende surge la necesidad de una capacitación en TIC, plataformas virtuales, sobre el uso y manejo de estos recursos educativos digitales como el Metaverse, para lograr una educación inmersiva dentro de la institución educativa.

Developing and Using Indicators for Continuous Improvement

Background/Context Amidst the complex and fast-paced demands in schools and classrooms, identifying what most deserves educators’ attention can pose a challenge. Indicators help focus attention by highlighting key features that signal important outcomes or opportunities to take action or learn. Purpose Informed by multiple literatures, we offer a conceptual framework that elaborates on the connection between an indicator's development and use. Specifically, the framework proposes that how to develop indicators depends on the answers to several questions about how they will be used: the intended use (why), timing (when), content (on what), and threshold (how much). Research Design To explore this conceptual framework, we present two cases on the construction and use of indicators for continuous improvement in the San Francisco Unified School District. In the first case, we applied statistical process control (SPC) theory to create control charts that visualize district-level outliers on student achievement outcomes to examine potential causes of variation among schools. In the second case, we combined SPC with more basic statistical methods to develop indicators highlighting areas of potential promise across multiple measures and student subgroups within a school. In our exploration of the two case studies, we present the statistical methods applied to construct the indicator, an example of the visualizations created, and descriptions of how central office leaders interpreted and used the results. We document how the intended use informed the indicators’ design, and the ramifications of those decisions for educators’ subsequent use of the indicators for improvement. Conclusions and Recommendations In learning from these cases, we highlight the importance of constructing indicators from the perspective of their intended use and linked with specific conditions and potential actions. This requires including more useful process data in the development of those indicators, as well as more follow-up analysis of the effectiveness of the actions taken based on those indicators, contrasted against alternative actions. We also underscore the importance of developing indicators that distinguish between the need for systemic versus targeted improvement efforts, based on SPC. We believe that combining approaches across disciplines and methodologies holds great promise for the development and use of indicators for continuous improvement in education.

Coaching and Districtwide Improvement: Exploring the Systemic Leadership Practices of Instructional Coaches

Background Many school districts are relying on instructional coaches to improve teaching and learning under the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). Yet we know very little about how coaches exercise systemic leadership to support districtwide improvements in instruction. Purpose In this study, I broadly define systemic leadership as efforts to coordinate multiple reform goals with school improvement strategies and classroom instruction, and to build institutional knowledge and collaborative structures for scaling up instructional change. I used social-network theory and the concept of brokering to study the systemic leadership practices of Digital Learning Coaches (DLCs) in the Peterson Unified School District (PUSD, a pseudonym), a midsized urban district that distributed iPads and laptops to schools in the 2014–15 school year for CCSS instruction. Research Design I used an explanatory sequential research design to examine how DLCs engaged educators at all organizational levels of PUSD to support systemic change. I collected social-network data to map communication networks in the district and how DLCs brokered information in these networks. I then conducted a multiple case study of three DLCs in six elementary schools to characterize the quality of systemic leadership exercised by DLCs through their brokering exchanges and the organizational factors informing their leadership. Findings I find that DLCs brokered information in a siloed, top-down manner from the central office into schools, guiding teachers on how to integrate technology with instruction but failing to coordinate this support with other CCSS resources popular among school leaders and teachers. Consequently, DLCs struggled to build coherence around the use of technology with school goals for improvement, provide instructional support to a broad footprint of teachers, and discover and share novel uses of technology developed by teachers. The organizational context of the central office and its schools informed DLC brokering, with top-down hierarchies, organizational silos, principal leadership, and the experience, goals, and training of DLCs influencing how these coaches engaged educators. Conclusions My findings suggest that district leaders should provide explicit guidance, resources, and more time for instructional coaches to demonstrate leadership in support of systemic change. I also show that instructional coaching is dependent on the organizational context of schools, suggesting that there will be local variation in the leadership outcomes that coaches achieve in practice and that district leaders should account for pertinent factors such as principal leadership, school structures for teacher collaboration, and school-reform readiness when developing coaching programs.

Guiding Principals: Middle-Manager Coaching and Human-Capital Reform

Background/Context School leaders are central to state and district human-capital reforms (HCRs), yet they are rarely equipped with the skills to implement new evaluation, professional development, and personnel data systems. Although districts increasingly offer principals coaching and training, there has been limited empirical work on how these supports influence principals’ HCR-related practices. Purpose Drawing on a two-year, mixed-methods study in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), this article examines the role of principal supervisors in HCRs. We ask: What role did principal supervisors (Instructional Directors [IDs]) play in the implementation of human-capital reforms? What did high-quality coaching on the part of IDs look like in this context? Research Design Our two-part analysis draws upon survey and interview data. First, we conducted descriptive analyses and significance testing using principal and ID survey data to examine the correlations among principals’ ratings of ID coaching quality, ID coaching practices, and principals’ implementation of HCRs. Second, we conducted in-depth interviews, using a think-aloud protocol, with two sets of IDs—those consistently highly-rated and those with mixed ratings—who were identified using principals’ reports of coaching quality. Following interview coding, we created various case-ordered metamatrix displays to analyze our qualitative data in order to identify patterns in coaching strategy and approach across IDs, content, and contexts. Findings First, our survey data indicate that receiving high-quality coaching from IDs is correlated with stronger principal support for and implementation of HCRs. Our survey findings further illustrate that IDs support a wide range of principals’ HCR activities. Second, our think-aloud interviews with case IDs demonstrate that coaching strategy and approach vary between consistently highly-rated and mixed-rated coaches: Consistently highly-rated IDs emphasize the importance of engaging in, or defining HCR problems as, joint work alongside principals, while mixed-rated IDs often emphasize the use of tools to guide principal improvement. We find that, on the whole, the consistently highly-rated IDs in our sample employ a nondirective approach to coaching more often than mixed-rated coaches. Conclusions These findings contribute to a growing literature on the crucial role of principal supervisors as coaches to improve principals’ instructional leadership and policy implementation. While exploratory, this study offers the first steps toward building greater evidence of the connections between high-quality coaching and policy implementation, and it may have implications for the design and implementation of professional development for principal supervisors and the selection and placement of supervisors with principals.

Addressing Food Insecurity through a Health Equity Lens: a Case Study of Large Urban School Districts during the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Reduced access to school meals during public health emergencies can accelerate food insecurity and nutritional status, particularly for low-income children in urban areas. To prevent the exacerbation of health disparities, there is a need to understand the implementation of meal distribution among large urban school districts during emergencies and to what degree these strategies provide equitable meal access. Our case study of four large urban school districts during the COVID-19 pandemic aims to address these knowledge gaps. Guided by the Getting to Equity (GTE) framework, we conducted a mixed-methods study evaluating emergency meal distribution and strategy implementation in four large urban school districts (Chicago Public Schools, Houston Independent School District, Los Angeles Unified School District, and New York City Department of Education). We gathered data from school district websites on (1) meal service and delivery sites and (2) district documents, policies, communication, and resources. Using qualitative coding approaches, we identified unique and shared district strategies to address meal distribution and communications during the pandemic according to the four components of the GTE framework: increase healthy options, reduce deterrents, build on community capacity, and increase social and economic resources. We matched district census tract boundaries to demographic data from the 2018 American Community Survey and United States Department of Agriculture food desert data, and used geographic information systems (GIS) software to identify meal site locations relative to student population, areas of high poverty and high minority populations, and food deserts. We found that all districts developed strategies to optimize meal provision, which varied across case site. Strategies to increase healthy options included serving adults and other members of the general public, providing timely information on meal site locations, and promoting consumption of a balanced diet. The quantity and frequency of meals served varied, and the degree to which districts promoted high-quality nutrition was limited. Reducing deterrents related to using inclusive language and images and providing safety information on social distancing practices in multiple languages. Districts built community capacity through partnering with first responder, relief, and other community organizations. Increased social and economic resources were illustrated by providing technology assistance to families, childcare referrals for essential workers, and other wellness resources. Geospatial analysis suggests that service locations across cities varied to some degree by demographics and food environment, with potential gaps in reach. This study identifies strategies that have the potential to increase equitable access to nutrition assistance programs. Our findings can support (1) ongoing efforts to address child food insecurity during the pandemic and (2) future meal provision through programs like the Summer Food Service Program and Seamless Summer Option. Future research should further examine the rationale behind meal site placement and how site availability changed over time.

What Student Positions can be Created on the LBUSD BOE to Increase the Effectiveness of Student Representation?

The Long Beach Unified School District Board of Education and superintendent make efforts to have student representation in the decision making process. However, there are many shortcomings in the student representation structure of the LBUSD BOE. The systems set in place do not encourage consistent and active student participation, and evaluations of recent student board member involvement show minimal to no participation. By comparing LBUSD to other CORE school districts, there are clear differences in the way students are represented on the BOE. Notably, many CORE school districts elect student BOE members and include a Student Advisory Council to advise the Board. Other CORE school districts have experienced valuable student participation with their models. LBUSD can draw from other CORE school districts to create a system of student representation on the BOE that fosters student involvement and values student voice.

Teacher Quality Gaps by Disability and Socioeconomic Status: Evidence From Los Angeles

Although most students with disabilities (SWDs) receive instruction from general education teachers, little empirical work has investigated whether these students have suitable access to high-quality teachers. We explore the differences in teacher quality experienced by SWDs and students without disabilities (non-SWDs) in the Los Angeles Unified School District, examining how access varies within schools as well as across school-level disadvantage rates. We leverage several different indicators of teacher effectiveness for general education teachers who instruct both SWDs and non-SWDs. We find that SWDs are significantly more likely to have teachers with lower math value-added (–0.024 standard deviations) than their non-SWD peers, and we find emerging gaps in teacher evaluation scores and exposure to novice teachers. In general, these gaps do not vary by school-level disadvantage.

Fostering System-Level Perspective Taking when Designing for Change in Educational Systems

A core element of systems thinking is perspective taking. Perspectives help people distinguish between salient and irrelevant information, take particular types of actions, and make sense of the world. In this article, we consider what systems thinking and perspective taking means for designers in education. First, we present a framework, the five spaces for design in education, to illustrate design work in education. The framework presents five spaces for design: artifacts, processes, experiences, systems, and culture. We claim that most—if not all—educators participate in design work; however, the design spaces they work in vary. Consequently, educational designers often fail to consider the perspectives of those working in different spaces, resulting in failed reform efforts. We illustrate this concept through the technology integration attempts of the Los Angeles Unified School District. We argue more effective design in education occurs when designers both recognize their own design perspective and are aware of other perspectives.

Organizational citizenship behavior and teachers’ engagement in Unified Schools of the Archdiocese of Lipa (USAL)

Organizational citizenship behavior and teachers’ engagement in Unified Schools of the Archdiocese of Lipa (USAL)