This annotated bibliography is reformatted and customized by the Center for Positive Practices. Some of the authors featured on this page include Catrin Norrby, Chalane Elizabeth Lechuga, Elissa Wolfe Poel, Maia Connors, Rory Darrah, New Mexico Public Education Department, Jian Gao, Sarah Hornsby, Lea J. E. Austin, and Michele Logan.
(2011). Staff Preparation, Reward, and Support: Are Quality Rating and Improvement Systems Addressing All of the Key Ingredients Necessary for Change? Policy Report, Center for the Study of Child Care Employment, University of California at Berkeley. Reflecting the growing momentum in support of quality rating and improvement systems (QRISs) as a key strategy to improve early care and education quality, significant amounts of public dollars have been devoted to their development and implementation. In this brief, the authors report on their investigation of both quality rating and improvement system supports for professional development and on rating rubrics related to staff formal education, compensation and benefits, and adult work environments in center-based programs. Here, they examine the extent to which these key ingredients for program improvement are included within and vary across quality rating and improvement systems. They anticipated that staff qualifications and professional development, as they have largely been the focus of improvement efforts in the early care and education field, would be consistently included in systems. As QRISs are becoming the primary strategy for quality improvement, they were also interested to learn the extent to which QRISs attend to the other key ingredients–compensation and factors related to work settings–that have been linked to quality. This investigation describes the variety of ways in which different QRISs identify and define these key elements associated with supporting staff, both as individuals and as a group, to improve and sustain quality. The authors used the Child Trends "Compendium of Quality Rating Systems and Evaluations" as their major source of information of QRISs. To gain additional insight into how systems are operationalized, they conducted interviews during spring and summer 2010 with key stakeholders from four jurisdictions with varying QRISs characteristics, Colorado, New Mexico, Wisconsin, and the District of Columbia (D.C.). To clarify particular elements of some QRISs, they also reviewed individual QRIS websites and corresponded with administering agency directors. Four components of QRISs as described in system plans constitute the focus of this investigation: 1) Staff qualifications; 2) Financial incentives for professional development; 3) Direct compensation, including salary and benefits; and 4) Adult learning environments. Appendix includes: Quality Rating and Improvement Systems by Resources and Indicators of Support for Professional Development, Direct Compensation, and Supportive Adult Learning Environments. [More] Descriptors: Early Childhood Education, Child Care, Child Caregivers, Preschool Teachers
(2013). Out-of-School Time in Elev8 Community Schools: A First Look at Participation and Its Unique Contribution to Students' Experiences in School, Research For Action. Community schools are an approach that has been adopted to respond to this educational crisis. By partnering with local agencies, community schools provide students and families with access to healthcare services, educational enhancement and recreational opportunities, family economic supports such as workforce development and income tax assistance, and other programming, like educational advocacy activities, leadership opportunities, child care, and others, to increase student outcomes and overall quality of life. In 2007, The Atlantic Philanthropies (Atlantic) made an investment in its first five community schools in the State of New Mexico. Over the years that followed, Atlantic invested in developing community schools in three additional locations–Chicago, Baltimore, and Oakland–totaling about 20 schools across all four regions. For this initiative, now known as Elev8, Atlantic selected agencies with deep local roots to serve as regional leads. Each of these grantees has developed and implemented flexible, full-service community school models in up to five schools, focusing on middle-grade students in low-performing schools in their region. Elev8 schools employ a team of Out-of-School Time (OST) staff, family advocates, medical professionals, a site director, and others, as dictated by their model. Since 2008, Atlantic's evaluation effort had focused on generating information to help create and sustain the strongest initiative possible. As a result, the first five years of the evaluation were designed to ensure that the model was robustly implemented, and to assist the local sites in utilizing evaluation information to strengthen their efforts. However, Atlantic and their grantees are now seeking to document how students fare in the program, and to contribute to the literature on community schools. With this in mind, the evaluation team set forth to explore what questions they could answer with the data they had in hand. As a significant investment is made in OST activities in Elev8 and other community school models, this report takes a preliminary look inside the "black box" of community schools, thereby providing important information to the field about the relative value of OST within a community school model. This study answers the following questions: (1) Who participates in OST in Elev8 schools? (2) What are their patterns of participation? (3) How do Elev8 OST participants compare to students in Elev8 schools who do not participate in Elev8 OST (called "non-OST" or "non-participants" in this report)? and (4) How is participation in Elev8 OST related to students' experiences of school? To answer these questions, they used data from three main sources: (1) Administrative records containing student demographic data; (2) OST participation data (the "participation data"); and (3) Self-report data from their annual survey of students in Elev8 schools. The following are appended: (1) Data Sources; (2) Survey Methodology; (3) Survey Measures; (4) Demographic Comparisons of Elev8 Participants with Non-Participants; and (5) Regression Analysis. [This report was prepared for The Atlantic Philanthropies by Research for Action and McClanahan Associates, Inc.] [More] Descriptors: Community Schools, Middle School Students, Student Participation, Student Experience
(2007). The State of New Mexico Guidelines for Educators and Administrators for Implementing Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. Section 504 is federal civil rights law under the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. It provides protection against discrimination for individuals with disabilities. Students in school settings fall under the protection of Section 504 and prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability from all school programs and activities in both public and private schools receiving direct or indirect federal funding. Section 504 is the other service option available to students with disabilities, but who are not already eligible and receiving special education services under the eligibility requirements of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). It is designed to provide equal access and fairness in general education to students with disabilities, thereby leveling the playing field for them through what is known as a Section 504 Accommodation Plan. This guide presents: (1) Overview of Section 504; (2) Procedural Requirements; (3) Eligibility and Determination of Section 504 Services; and (4) Strategies, Accommodations, and Services. Appendices include: (1) Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973–Regulations; (2) Sample Forms for Section 504; (3) OCR Questions and Answers: Clarification of Policy for 504; (4) Acronyms and Definitions; (5) A Comparison of IDEA, 504, and ADA; (6) Examples of Disabilities and Suggested Accommodations; (7) Examples of Section 504 Discrimination; (8) Summary of Section 504 Regulations Subparts; and (9) Web Links. [This guide was produced by the New Mexico Department of Education.] [More] Descriptors: Private Schools, Public Schools, Civil Rights, Eligibility
(2011). Greening Community Colleges: An Environmental Path to Improving Educational Outcomes, Jobs for the Future. The emerging and expanding green economy has the potential to create not just jobs, but career opportunities across the United States as green manufacturing, green products, and green services fuel demand for workers at all skill levels. Community colleges are leading the way in defining and addressing these opportunities. They are: developing education and training programs in expanding fields from solar energy to green construction; enhancing existing green-connected programs and creating new training programs for green jobs; and developing educational pathways that lead to the Associate's and Bachelor's degrees that are essential for continued advancement in these emerging careers. In addition, many community colleges are taking steps to raise environmental awareness within the communities they serve. They are greening their own campuses and working on local environmental remediation. Some colleges are integrating their on-campus sustainability efforts into academic programs so that installing solar cells or creating a composting system for campus waste becomes an instructional tool. Often, they undertake this work through innovative partnerships that bring together environmental groups, local employers, and community-based organizations. The continuing recession and the prospect of longer-term changes in local economies provide opportunities for all community colleges to demonstrate their value by helping businesses and individuals adjust to challenging economic environments and increase their resilience and chances of prospering. At the same time, community colleges have the power to be agents for change in other spheres within their communities by developing approaches to both new and long-standing problems. These include the need for renewable energy sources and water conservation, as well as unmet social needs, such as environmental remediation to make areas more habitable to residents and more attractive to potential employers. This brief highlights the approaches of three community colleges to "greening" their operations, curricula, and communities, while simultaneously addressing local and regional employment and environmental needs. The community colleges featured in this brief are: (1) Santa Fe Community College in New Mexico; (2) Central Piedmont Community College in North Carolina; and (3) Clover Park Technical College in Washington State. [More] Descriptors: Water Quality, Water, Technical Institutes, Community Colleges
(2009). Grant Seekers Go Green, Community College Journal. Looking to put some of its community members–many of whom have seen their jobs evaporate amid a troubled economy–back to work, administrators at Berkshire Community College (BCC) in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, have committed as much as $200,000 in grant money to establish a new job corps that will give low-income or displaced workers free training toward a certificate in energy conservation. At New Mexico's Santa Fe Community College, educators plan to distribute more than $500,000 in state workforce training money to expand opportunities for students in "green" career sectors. Colleges from coast to coast are committed to helping workers retool their careers for success in emerging job fields. Perhaps nowhere is that push more evident than in the alternative-energy and green job sectors, where the corporate appetite for specialized skill sets in such segments as wind, solar, and conservation grows healthier by the day. The question, for many, has been how to subsidize these educational investments, including staff and equipment, during an era of unprecedented fiscal belt tightening. Whether through foundations (Civic Ventures and the MetLife Foundation recently awarded grants to community colleges for green jobs training) or through state or federal agencies (the U.S. Department of Labor is reviewing applications for more than $500 million in job training funds made available through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act), some institutions are discovering that the answer lies not within the depleted line items of fiscal-year budgets, but in the ability to identify and to win grants. [More] Descriptors: Dislocated Workers, Community Colleges, Energy Conservation, Outcomes of Education
(2004). Uncertified (Waivered) Teachers: Who Are They?, Multiple Voices for Ethnically Diverse Exceptional Learners. The authors investigated the status of uncertified (waivered) teachers working in special education classrooms in the state of New Mexico. A survey was developed to gather information about (a) the cultural diversity of teachers and their students, (b) their educational background, (c) the relationship between teacher ethnicity and multicultural programming in the classroom, and (d) views of these individuals on alternative certification in special education. From the 208 surveys returned, information emerged that created a profile of the uncertified (waivered) teacher. The results suggest that there is a need to focus on training more qualified, licensed professionals in the field of special education. [More] Descriptors: Disabilities, Cultural Pluralism, Alternative Teacher Certification, Educational Background
(1970). Tax Credits Proposed in New Mexico, Compact. New Mexico legislator proposes a tuition tax credit plan for individual taxpayers. Descriptors: Educational Finance, Private Schools, School Taxes, State Legislation
(2004). Co-Teaching: Principles, Practices, and Pragmatics. New Mexico Public Education Department Quarterly Special Education Meeting (Albuquerque, New Mexico, April 29, 2004). [Participant's Guide], New Mexico Public Education Department. The No Child Left Behind Act and the reauthorization of federal special education legislation have brought increased pressure for educators. School reformers have set higher standards and teachers are responsible for ensuring that students meet them. Students with disabilities and other special needs generally are expected to achieve the same success as other learners, and so there is an increased emphasis on educating them in general education settings. And all educators are finding that an increasing number of students come to school with any of a variety of problems that make them learners at-risk. Among the many ideas and options for meeting these diverse yet somehow related challenges, one that is receiving widespread attention, is co-teaching. This document presents a participant's guide to the New Mexico Public Education Department Quarterly Special Education Meeting. The guide provides both an overview of co-teaching as well as detailed information about planning, implementing, and evaluating co-teaching programs. Participants in this workshop had the opportunity to explore both the conceptual and the operational aspects of this innovative approach to service delivery, as well as learn other collaborative skills that can help co-teachers succeed in teaching all students. [Report produced by the New Mexico Public Education Department.] [More] Descriptors: Federal Legislation, Public Education, Disabilities, Team Teaching
(1969). New Mexico: Demand but No Dollars, Compact. Legislative and education groups in New Mexico should develop approaches for kindergarten programs. Descriptors: American Indians, Disadvantaged Youth, Dropout Rate, Early Childhood Education
(2009). Has the Texas Revolution Changed? A Study of U. S. History Textbooks from 1897-2003, American Educational History Journal. For more than a century, high school students in the United States have been required to take at least one course in United States History. Almost every U.S. history textbook used for these courses covers the Texas Revolution in one way or another. Since the Texas Revolution is a significant part of American history, the authors chose to focus this study on the way this pivotal event has been presented to students over time. The success of the Texas Revolution initially established a separate country known as the Republic of Texas, but when later annexed to the United States triggered a war with Mexico resulting in the addition of massive territory being added to the United States that included the present day states of California, Nevada, and Utah, and parts of Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Wyoming. This article examines five textbooks published over approximately a one hundred year span in order to determine how the authors of the books portrayed the Texas Revolution. All five books were published on the East coast, specifically New York and Massachusetts. All were designed as secondary school textbooks. The books were published between twenty and thirty years apart. Books published at twenty or thirty year intervals were chosen so that the authors of this article could analyze contextual influences while at the same time avoiding the problem of too much time between publications. After analyzing the way in which the Texas Revolution is portrayed in each of these texts, the authors attempt to identify the source of the changes that become apparent when comparing these five texts. [More] Descriptors: United States History, Intervals, Textbooks, Conflict
(2011). Effects of Cooperative Writing with Embedded Multimedia: A Randomized Experiment, Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness. The present study represented an effort to improve on the outcomes of the Puma (2006) study by creating a writing process program that provided students with compelling video models of effective writing practices in small writing teams. In this method, called Writing Wings with Media (WWM), students worked in 4-member, heterogeneous writing groups to help one another plan, draft, revise, edit, and publish compositions, as in the earlier Writing Wings program. However, in WWM, students were shown a series of humorous, professionally designed puppet skits in which a four-member writing team learns to use writing process elements in a variety of genres. The idea was to communicate directly to the students themselves (as well as to teachers) a vision of how to work in writing teams, in hopes that this would help teachers implement the program with greater fidelity and build enthusiasm and strategic insights among students. The theory of action for the embedded multimedia aspect of Writing Wings with Media focused on the problem of transfer from workshop to classroom (see Joyce, Calhoun, & Hopkins, 1999; Joyce & Showers, 2002). The idea was that instead of teaching teachers to use writing process methods and then hope that they could communicate them to children, the videos would go directly to teachers and students at the same time, demonstrating key behaviors and ideas for effective writing. The study took place in 22 high-poverty schools located in 11 states (Florida, Hawaii, Texas, Louisiana, Illinois, Mississippi, New Mexico, Washington, Wisconsin, Ohio, and Oregon). The findings of this randomized evaluation of Writing Wings with Media indicate small positive effects on ratings of students' compositions at posttest, controlling for pretest measures. The magnitude of the gains in effect sizes are modest, ranging from +0.07 to +0.18, but it is interesting to note that the mean gain from third to fourth grade in the control group was only +0.13 for Style, +0.22 for Ideas and Organization, and +0.29 for Mechanics. From a practical perspective, the findings of the study of Writing Wings with Media suggest that schools can improve writing outcomes for children in the upper-elementary grades using a writing process approach that emphasizes cooperative learning and adds regular video demonstrations of the writing process as played out in various genres. [More] Descriptors: Video Technology, Control Groups, Writing (Composition), Cooperative Learning
(2004). Native Language Teachers in a Struggle for Language and Cultural Survival, Anthropology & Education Quarterly. Language shift among New Mexico Pueblo Indians threatens the loss of their oral-based cultures. Language revival for many Pueblos has resulted in school programs in which students are easily accessible and teachers are accountable to tribes rather than the state. Finding "Pueblo space" for the Native language in school, where it was previously targeted for extinction, poses unique challenges. Personal histories and ethnographic interviews provide language teacher perspectives on teaching in four separate school programs. [More] Descriptors: Language Teachers, Language Maintenance, American Indians, Oral Tradition
(2010). "They'll Expect More Bad Things from Us.": Latino/a Youth Constructing Identities in a Racialized High School in New Mexico, ProQuest LLC. This research explores how Latino/a high school students in New Mexico constitute their racial identities in this particular historical moment, the post-Civil Rights colorblind era. I explore what their chosen nomenclatures and employed discourses suggest about the relationship between their racial identities and academic achievement. The research questions are: "How do Latino/a youth articulate their expressions of racial identity in the post-Civil Rights colorblind era? What discourses or nomenclatures do they employ? How are these discourses distinguished from one another? What do their expressions of racial identity suggest about the relationship between racial identity and gender? What may their expressions of racial identity suggest about the relationship between racial identity and academic achievement?" This study reveals that Latino/as youth are negotiating their racial identities in the context of racialization and gendering processes at school. As part of that process, this study sheds light on the ways that phenotype influences the construction of race and the process of assimilation. Specifically, for Latino/as, I found that phenotype played into their identity negotiation. Many of these youth employed discourses of "off-whiteness," some embraced their ethnic heritage, many worked to deflect racial-stigma by distancing themselves from Mexicanness, while others "straddled" being "American, but still a little bit Mexican." When examining the experiences of the multiracial Latino/as, I found that the multiracial white and Latino boys appeared to be assimilating into white society and that the multiracial Black and Latino/as youth were subjected to the one-drop rule as they were often racialized as Black. I also found that understandings of race and gendered expectations worked together to create opportunity and barriers. That is, I found that the way in which schools mete out discipline is influenced by perceptions of "hegemonic masculinities and ideal femininities". Most of the young Latino/as had been disciplined at school. The Latino boys were subjected to harsh forms of discipline and the Latina girls were disciplined when they engaged in behavior that was in contrast to "ideal femininities". These findings also suggest that there is no clear relationship between racial identity and school achievement among these young Latinos. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: www.proquest.com/en-US/products/disserta… [More] Descriptors: Racial Factors, Civil Rights, Academic Achievement, Racial Identification
(2011). Uniformity and Diversity in Language Policy: Global Perspectives, Multilingual Matters. This book brings together current research by leading international scholars on the often contentious nature of language policies and their practical outcomes in North America, Australia and Europe. It presents a range of perspectives from which to engage with a variety of pressing issues raised by multilingualism, multiculturalism, immigration, exclusion, and identity. This book contains three parts. Part 1: Language Policy at the Official Level, contains: (1) Language Policy and Citizenship in Quebec: French as a Force for Unity in a Diverse Society? (Jane Warren and Leigh Oakes); (2) Do National Languages Need Support and Protection in Legislation? The Case of Swedish as the "Principal Language" of Sweden (Sally Boyd); (3) Language Policy and Smaller National Languages: The Baltic States in the New Millennium (Uldis Ozolins); (4) Language Policy in Australia: What Goes Up Must Come Down? (Paulin G. Djite); and (5) Regional Languages, the European Charter and Republican Values in France Today (Leigh Oakes). Part 2, Language Policy in Practice: Indigenous and Migrant Languages in Education, contains: (6) Breton Language Maintenance and Regeneration in Regional Education Policy Tadhg O hIfearnain; (7) Language Policy in Spain: The Coexistence of Small and Big Languages (David Lasagabaster); (8) Language Policy and Language Contact in New Mexico: The Case of Spanish (Catherine E. Travis and Daniel J. Villa); (9) Indigenous Languages, Bilingual Education and English in Australia (Gillian Wigglesworth and David Lasagabaster); and (10) Bringing Asia to the Home Front: The Australian Experience of Asian Language Education through National Policy (Yvette Slaughter). Part 3, Language Policy in Real and Virtual Worlds, contains: (11) Testing Identity: Language Tests and Australian Citizenship (Kerry Ryan and Tim McNamara); (12) Language as Political Emblem in the New Culture War in Northern Ireland (Diarmait Mac Giolla Chriost); (13) Language Policy and Reality in South Tyrol (Claudia Maria Riehl and John Hajek); (14) Addressing Policy on the Web: Netiquettes and Emerging Policies of Language Use in German Internet Forums (Heinz L. Kretzenbacher); (15) Language Policy in Practice: What Happens When Swedish IKEA and H&M Take "You" On? (Catrin Norrby and John Hajek); and (16) Regulating Language in the Global Service Industry (Deborah Cameron). An author index and a subject index are included. [More] Descriptors: Language Maintenance, Service Occupations, Language Planning, Citizenship
(2009). "Enemies Like a Road Covered with Ice": The Utah Navajos' Experience during the Long Walk Period, 1858-1868, American Indian Culture and Research Journal. Much has been written of the Navajo Long Walk period when the Navajo people, following what appears to be a fairly short resistance, surrendered in droves to the US military, collected at Fort Defiance and other designated sites, then moved in a series of "long walks" to Fort Sumner (Hweeldi) on the Pecos River in eastern New Mexico. There was much that preceded these events. Stretching back to the beginning of Euro-American occupation of the Southwest, the Spanish initiated a slave trade against the "wild" or unsettled (non-Puebloan) Indians that pitted various groups against their neighbors. Two major players in the arena were the Utes and Navajos. They shared relatively few years of peace, remaining generally in a state of warfare that simmered somewhere between hostility and open conflict. As with so many colonial wars, the beginning of these tit-for-tat reprisals is lost to history, but its constancy is not. Spanning the Spanish, Mexican, and early territorial period of the American Southwest, the slave trade was a prime source of fuel for intertribal conflict and provided the owner of captive Indians with labor to enhance comfort and spur economic development. Much of what characterized this period of history and Navajo/Ute relations is comparable to what happened to other peoples in different settings. This article's focus is to look at the Navajo story, not that of the Utes, and to understand the experience of those who did not go to Fort Sumner. Of primary concern are the Navajos in the north, mostly in Utah, and how they recalled events before, during, and after the "Fearing Time" (Nahonzhoodaa') that extended from roughly 1858 to 1868. During this period Navajo and Ute relations, having previously vacillated between uneasy friendships to outward hostilities, reached their zenith in open conflict. [More] Descriptors: Economic Development, United States History, Navajo (Nation), Slavery