The history of public education in the United States is replete with attempts to define the purpose, aims, or mission of K-12 public education at the local, state, and national levels. However, given the historical precedent of the local control of schools and the legal precedent of state-level governance of public education, this study sought to address the more limited question of the purpose of K-12 public education in the state of Virginia. Specifically, within the context of the contemporary educational planning theory of strategic planning, this study sought to determine what content characteristics concerning the mission of public education were shared among the school divisions in the state of Virginia. Through content analysis of division-level mission statements, the study identified not only the content but also the degrees at which such content was shared among division-level mission statements. The study further addressed the similarities and differences between the mission statements of school divisions and that of the state itself, a statement written by Thomas Jefferson some two hundred years ago. The findings illuminate the relative presence and absence of de facto consensus concerning the mission of K-12 public education in Virginia.

In this session, attendees will learn the competing behavior pathway and how to document behaviors to determine the best strategies to use with young children with behavior issues. Topics will include visual communication, the use of schedules, and how to collect meaningful data. Handouts on more evidence-based strategies behaviors will be provided.

Participants are encouraged to bring their computers to create a digital storybook with interactive elements. Attendees will participate in the creation of an adapted and squishy book to share in their classrooms, teacher preparation instruction or family workshops.

Despite long-standing debates about the nature of professions and professionalism related to teaching, little consensus has been reached due in large part to an ever-changing political climate and a number of competing ideologies and interests (Bair, 2014; Hargreaves & Goodson, 1996). This lack of consensus fosters variable expectations of teachers, creating opportunities for the generation and implementation of initiatives that ultimately control and undermine teachers’ work (Ingersoll, 2003). While the quality of our nation’s education system depends on teachers' capacity to have professional input regarding their work, concepts of teacher agency and professionalism remain ill-defined, and few studies explore teachers’ experiences in spaces where they are asked for such input. This constructivist study examined teacher agency and professionalism, given the ideal of democracy and the reality of neoliberalism. Utilizing agency theory and participatory democratic theory, this study sought to explore teachers’ perceptions of their professionalism and agency by co-constructing knowledge with 18 members of the Richmond Mayoral Teacher Advisory Council (MTAC). This study took place over seven months and included seven focus group interview sessions, two MTAC meeting debrief sessions, and multiple writing prompts focused on teachers’ narratives of their professional experiences. The study revealed several themes related to teachers’ professionalism, particularly teachers’ focus on student-centered, morally-grounded views of their work. This study’s iterative inquiry process culminated in the development of a Moral Professional Agency framework that may serve useful in future constructivist work with teachers regarding their professional work.

The main objectives of this multimethod exploratory study were to compare parent and college student perceptions of communication patterns, financial/emotional support, family environment, and achieved adulthood during the transition to adulthood while in college. First, focus groups including eight parent figures and 16 students were conducted to provide feedback on important topics as well as on survey instruments. Survey responses from 152 parent figures and their college-age children were then used for the exploratory survey study. Parents reported providing more financial support, more positive family interactions, and less negative family interactions compared to their college-age children. The majority of students as well as parents did not view themselves and their children as having fully completed the transition to adulthood as indicated by the majority using the “in-between” response when asked if their child (or student himself or herself) had reached adulthood.

Latent Class Analysis was used to explore different subgroups of individuals based on identity processes (using the DIDS) and protestant fundamentalism. Results indicate that a 6-group solution provided the best fit for our data. The six groups differed in terms of identity process variables (especially exploration in breath, exploration in depth, and identification with commitment), but only modestly in terms of fundamentalism.

Conventional wisdom suggests effective and timely school communications increase parental involvement. Guided by this wisdom and contemporary parental involvement theory, effective educational institutions have established systems that foster communication and collaboration between school representatives and the local community. Despite such efforts, research has revealed persistent declines in parental involvement within schools. This phenomenological study documented 16 parents' perceptions of communication between teachers and parents at 2 K-8 schools in the American southwest. Semi-structured interviews were used to explore parents' perceptions of the effectiveness of various school-based communication systems and the specific impact these systems had on parental involvement. NVivo software was used to facilitate identification of common themes. Emergent themes addressed (a) communications that elicit parent involvement, (b) effective communications, (c) regular and timely communications, (d) preferred communication mode, and (e) parent communication center. Findings revealed that both schools lacked effective communication tools, inhibiting the ability to reach students' families and negatively impacting participation. Proposed for future consideration was development of a strong foundation for parents' participation in their child's education and enhancement of unrestricted, bidirectional communications. The anticipated social impact of this study is that effective practices could be brought to the forefront, leading to ideas to increase timely communication between home and school and parental involvement.

While much has been written about the conflicts, supposed or actual, between logic and faith, science and religion, few accounts of the personal turmoil these conflicts can cause exist. Likewise, many of these nonfiction accounts are written from a distinctly polarized place leaning either to science or faith. In this thesis, I mix research and history with memoir and a sense of poetry to explore my personal experience with this conflict. At its outset, I hoped for this project to capture my struggle as an orthodox member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) in dealing with the questions my own sense of logic provided that institution. This goal was achieved in part. However, by the end of the project I had also captured a narrative exploration of my experience leaving the LDS Church and learning, instead of trusting the authority provided by a structure of orthodoxy, to feel comfortable trusting my own sense of reason. The first chapter captures my initial struggle with acknowledging questions within a religious structure. This is accomplished, in part, by merging the personal narrative with a researched account of French priest and paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. I show both his struggle with questions and faith, and my desire to lean on his example as someone who acknowledged question without leaving his faith--in Chardin's case the Catholic Church. The second chapter, again following this pattern of mixing research with memoir, explores the feelings of exile I had during the time while I was still an orthodox member of the LDS church. This personal narrative is woven into several historical and literary accounts of exile. In the third chapter, I struggle with the question of what to do with the spiritual experiences I had during my time in the LDS Church after having separated myself from that institution. The short fourth chapter takes a strictly narrative line as I address my spiritual and mental outlook upon the completion of this project.

The Backward Induction strategy for the Centipede Game leads us to a counterfactual reasoning paradox, The Centipede Game paradox. The counterfactual reasoning proving the backward induction strategy for the game appears to rely on the players in the game not choosing that very same backward induction strategy. The paradox is a general paradox that applies to backward induction reasoning in sequential, perfect information games. Therefore, the paradox is not only problematic for the Centipede Game, but it also affects counterfactual reasoning solutions in games similar to the Centipede Game. The Centipede Game is a prime illustration of this paradox in counterfactual reasoning. As a result, this paper will use a material versus subjunctive/counterfactual conditional analysis to provide a theoretical resolution to the Centipede Game, with the hope that a similar solution can be applied to other areas where this paradox may appear. The solution involves delineating between the epistemic systems of the players and the game theorists.

Philosophy of education not only forms the background for curriculum construction and pedagogy but there is a connection between epistemology and education within the economic power structure of society in the United States (Aronowitz & Giroux, 1993/1991, p. 88). Public education in the United States often functions as a propaganda delivery system which conserves the economic power structure by use of a conservative and objectivist philosophy of education which instrumentalizes education into vocational preparation, compliance to a governing ideology and uncritical acceptance of knowledge as absolute truth (Aronowitz & Giroux, p. 22). This project aims to construct a philosophy of education which could transform the education system into a counter-propaganda institution with the potential to transform the power structure of society. A critical postmodern philosophy of education which synthesized critical and postmodern philosophies of education would emphasize epistemological skepticism, counter-propaganda knowledge construction and social transformation (Aronowitz & Giroux, p.22). In addition, the project contains a literature review of critical theory, postmodern theory and critical postmodern theory on education as well as theory on a critical postmodern philosophy of history education, philosophy of correctional education and ideas for the implementation of the philosophy of education into specific pedagogical and curricular practices. Attached to this manuscript is a PowerPoint presentation focused on stimulating discussion of this philosophy of education.