A critical issue facing university administrators and faculty, especially in professional schools, is the mismatch between promotion and tenure criteria and daily demands on faculty time. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationships among institutional and personal expectations of faculty about the relative importance of teaching, research, and service activities as criteria for awarding faculty promotion and tenure in a School of Education, and its relationship to faculty work. By documenting the nature and extent of school of education faculty activities and products and relating them to institutional expectations and faculty members own perspectives on the relative importance of the three roles of research, teaching and service, the nature and degree of mismatches were described, and a better foundation for more appropriate promotion and tenure guidelines could be developed. Although individuals varied greatly, overall faculty reported spending 44.4% on teaching-related activities, 35.2% on research, and 20.3% service. They generally agreed that the promotion and tenure process weighted them as 25.6% teaching, 65.6% research, and 8.7% on service. Faculty recommended that these weightings be changed to 37.2% teaching, 49.3% research, and 13.5% service. These suggested changes still kept research as the most highly rated, with teaching second, and service a distant third. Although the changes made teaching more important in promotion and tenure decisions, how the individual school of education faculty spent their time varied greatly. It was recommended that professional schools review these relationships in their settings, and find ways to make promotion and tenure decisions more consistent with the work faculty carry out.

In 2002, the NCAA released the Division I Athletics Administrative Staff Report. One of the most glaring observations of this report was that there was an imbalance in the number of Whites employed in athletic administration compared to Blacks and other minorities. Although Blacks comprise the large majority of student-athletes in the revenue sports of football and basketball, they have not obtained parity in positions within athletic administration. This study explored some of the challenges that stymie Blacks from breaking into athletic administration and rising to decision-making positions in athletic administration. Data from the 2002 NCAA Division I Athletics Administrative Staff Report were used as the basis for this research. From the literature review, five factors were identified that limited Blacks from entering the profession of athletic administration and advancing in the profession: 1). Stereotypical beliefs, 2). Discriminatory acts, 3). Racist attitudes, 4). Old boys network, and 5). Positional segregation. A web-based survey as well as personal and telephone interviews were conducted among Black senior-level athletic administrators at Division I institutions. The survey and interviews measured the current impact of these factors on the careers of Blacks in athletic administration. The results found that stereotypical beliefs, discriminatory acts, and racist attitudes were no longer primary factors limiting Blacks from entering the athletic administration profession or advancing in the profession. Although these factors were still relevant, they were not deemed applicable to the overall concern of the lack of color in senior-level athletic administration positions in Division I institutions. The old boys network and positional segregation were two factors that participants perceived had a significant impact in limiting Blacks from entering the athletic administration profession and advancing. Participants also cited the lack of mentoring as a significant factor.

THE SPECIAL EDUCATION TEACHERS CONCERNS REGARDING THE USE OF THERAPEUTIC STAFF SUPPORT (TSS) IN THE SCHOOL SETTING Mary C. Desmone, EdD University of Pittsburgh [2005] The purpose of this study was to give voice to the special education teachers concerns regarding the use of TSS in their programs. How would special education teachers respond if they were given the opportunity to describe their concerns? They responded eagerly and thoughtfully. The teachers in this study were providing services to students in Autism, Life Skills, and Emotional Support programs at the elementary, middle, and secondary levels. The study employed a mixed quantitative and qualitative methodology including the developmental, expansion, and triangulation of various data. The Stages of Concern questionnaire was utilized to form a developmental baseline of information about the responding teachers. Interviews were conducted and a rubric was developed which provided an expansion of the understanding from the questionnaire. Observations were completed and assessed against the rubrics components. A triangulation of these three data collection methods enabled the researcher to write stories depicting the teachers experiences. Sixty-five teachers completed the demographics and Stages of Concern questionnaire. The most significant finding in the demographics was the lack of training prior to TSS being introduced into their classroom. Results from the questionnaire indicated that the highest level of concern for most of the responding teachers was Stage 5-Collaboration. Thirteen teachers were interviewed and asked to describe their most effective and least effect experiences and to imagine an ideal utilization of the service. From their input, a rubric was developed to depict the continuum of ineffective, effective, and ideal utilization in the components of Professionalism, Preparation, Technique, and Environment. Nine observations were conducted and assessed using the rubric. The ratings found three observations in the ineffective, four in the effective, and two in the ideal categories. Using the data from the interviews and observations, stories were written describing ineffective, effective, and ideal utilization of TSS in the school setting. Implications were found for educational policy, teachers contracts, agency system changes, training, and planning and implementation of TSS in the school setting. The teachers identified training in the roles of TSS, utilization of TSS, and collaboration with TSS as their priorities.

This study compares how the U.S. education and Korean education reform documents conceptualize teaching, teachers, and teacher education and examines how, if any, the discourses of one country influence those of the other. Attention is given especially to the ways in which reform documents incorporate the ideology of professionalism in framing the problems with teaching, teachers, and teacher education and in proposing the remedies for them. Eighteen specific reform documents issued by the two countries governmental and non-governmental organizations at the national level since the 1980s were selected and analyzed by employing critical discourse analysis primarily and interpretative text analysis. Both an inductive and a deductive process were used in order to identify the problems identified, the remedies suggested, and versions of the ideology of professionalism articulated. For a cross-country analysis, a juxtaposition approach was employed to classify the similarities and differences with respect to major themes. The findings show that there exist some continuing global convergences and a rare case for local divergence to construct reform discourses on teaching, teachers, and teacher education. A few major common themes found where examining the problems identified and the remedies suggested in the two countries are: The repetition of the weakness of pre-service teacher education; Perpetuation of the image of the teaching occupation as a profession; Extending the length of pre-service teacher education; Increased control; Contesting the idea of teacher autonomy; Failure of the market oriented compensation system; Questioning of differentiating staffing patterns; and Increasing U.S. influence on the Korean education reform. Overall, the way in which the two countries construct educational reform discourse are similar in terms of drawing explicitly on elements from a functionalist (or trait theory) version of the ideology of professionalism. However, the Korean documents put more emphasis on the autonomy of teachers compared to the U.S. documents, where this issue was less visible. Regarding the direction of influence between the U.S. and Korea, Korea shows a tendency to appropriate ideas and move toward a structure and set of practices evidenced in the U.S. at an earlier period.

The central question addressed in this study is How are the conceptualization and operationalization of education for democratic citizenship similar to or different within and across the two Islamic civil society associations. Using qualitative methods, I explored the ideas and experiences (practices) of two large Islamic civil society associations: Muhammadiyah (M) and Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), in Indonesia. M and NU members have similar ideas about democracy, democratic society and educating for democracy. Within both organizations members argue Islam has tenets, such as shura and adl (justice), congruent with democratic ideas, but their responses to the Western conceptions of democracy vary. Accomodationists in both organizations state that Islamic tenets are conglruent with the Western ideas of democracy, while rejetioinists express that Islam has concept of happiness as the goal of democracy, sovereignty, and freedom differ from Western concepts of democracy. Moreover, although most informants from M and NU subscribe to democratic values, such as individual freedom, respect for differences or plurality, tolerance, open-mindedness, and criticism; some see the notions individual sovereignty, accepting of other religious groups beliefs, and gender equality as problematic for Muslims in Indonesia. Adopting these values in certain ways, they argue, can be seen to contravene core/fundamental Islamic beliefs. M and NU work to educate their members and the community at large by promoting democratic or civil values, political awareness, and participation. Both organizations have developed voter education and education for anti-corruption programs. In addition, NU organizes programs to transform orthodox understandings about the fiqh tradition, citizen forums to influence the provision of public services, and workshops to disseminate ideas of inclusive, emancipatory or moderate Islam. Ms programs focus on developing gender sensitivity among officials, candidates, and community members as well as on developing civil values for the students of its schools and colleges through civic education.

This study examined Latino parents perceptions of the nature, purposes, and consequences of their involvement (or lack thereof) in elementary and middle schools and in their childrens education. Parents also provided their conceptualization education as well as the positive and negative factors perceived to affect their involvement: aspects of parents own situation and institutional/contextual factors. This study focused on the views and experiences of parents of the two major Latino groups of Chelsea (Puerto Ricans and Central Americans) with children in different grades in the four regular elementary schools and the two regular middle schools of Chelsea, Massachusetts. Thirteen families were interviewed, including nine couples, three single mothers, and a grandmother. The selection of the participants was guided by my prior involvement in the community and by advice elicited from key members of the Chelsea community. Thematic analysis was employed to analyze the data collected. All parents participating in the study conceptualized education as an integrated process that includes both learning at school (formal education) and learning at home (personal education). They emphasized home/personal education and approached parental involvement in light of this conception of education at home. The majority of parents referred to a cultural clash when describing parents and teachers roles. Roles that are exercised around two domains, parents domain (based on traditional Latino value systems) that for most of the parents has not influence over schooling, and teachers domain (based on the United States value system) that is viewed by the majority of the parents as exercising the major influence in the formal education of their children and parents actions in relation to their involvement in school-related activities. Although this emphasis on home education, the interviewees mentioned different forms of involvement in school-related activities, particularly in those related to their childrens education, though none of the parents reported attending, let alone actively participating in, formal school organizational meetings, such parent teacher organization (PTO) or the district-level school board. Most of the parents expressed their lack of interest and some were skeptical about whether such involvement was worthwhile, since it was unlikely that any changes would happen in relation to school policy.

The purpose of this study was to identify the definition of service-learning used in Philadelphia, recognize the practice as a K-12 teaching methodology in the School District of Philadelphia, examine the vision and leadership practices as a strategy for innovation, and observe implementation for sustainability in three selected middle schools. In this case study, the NUD*IST Version 4 computer software system was used in the process of qualitative data analysis for interviews with 20 middle school-based, central office, community, and state liaison leaders of service-learning. Service-learning in Philadelphia was examined by using the model of shared vision by Conrad and Martinez where school-based activity and practices were reviewed. Suggested leadership models for service-learning by Aguilera included transformational, and catalytic leadership, and cross-role leadership, of Fullan and Miles. Elements for effective service-learning implementation and outcomes with teachers, students, parents, and the community in large-scale efforts of change and reform were presented with suggestions from the voices of Philadelphia leaders. Implications and recommendations for the future in policy and practice of service-learning as a teaching methodology, innovation, and reform effort suggested dialogue reflection, and inclusion of all stakeholder groups; ongoing and frequent professional development with teachers, administrators, and the community; phase in and pilot testing to ensure buy in; connections with The No Child Left Behind legislation; considerations of time and scheduling; and cooperation in preparation and training with universities and school districts.

Dissertation Abstract This research was conducted using a multi-case study analysis of four school districts in Western Pennsylvania. All four of the school districts were placed under the guidelines of the Educational Empowerment Act (Act 16) due to a history of low tests scores and poor student achievement. These school districts were also place on the States Warning List due to the fact that they did not meet the measurable objectives of Adequate Yearly Placement (AYP) on the PSSA. This research focused on strategies used in the four schools in order to improve student performance on the mathematics section of the eleventh grade PSSA. This research utilized a variety of strategies in the process of data collection; interviews, a review of the school district report card as listed with the Pennsylvania Department of Education, a review of newspaper articles, and discussions with my research advisor used in the triangulization process of the data in order to provide case studies that contained depth and would provide a more accurate account of the phenomena that occurred within the districts. In the interview process in all four districts, a member of the central office administration, a member of the building level administration, and a secondary mathematics teacher were interviewed in order to provide accounts of improvement efforts for student achievement from a variety of personnel responsible for decision-making. In order to limit the amount of error within the interview process a documenter was used to provide assistance, as well as all of the interviews were taped. This proved a great deal of assistance in the interpretation of data collected during the interview. Through the research and the analysis of data this researcher was able to provide several conclusion; funds provided from Act 16 that were used to improve student achievement were most useful when the districts involved worked collaboratively with all educational stakeholders in the development of a long range plan to improve student achievement in mathematics; often districts are unable to maintain consistency in teaching and administrative staff and this has a negative effect on student achievement; and there are a variety of pre-packaged programs that are available for district purchase, each district must review these programs with all members of the staff and then decide which programs meet their needs.

Factors Influencing Teacher Attrition In the United Arab Emirates Ali S. Al Kaabi, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2005 The purpose of this study was to examine the factors associated with high attrition rate among the UAE citizen teachers who teach in public schools grades 1-12. The factors that this study investigated are: personal factors, economic factors, teacher preparation, employment factors, and social-cultural factors. The study was guided by five research questions. Data for this study was collected through two methods: a survey questionnaire that was sent to the sample of this study was 594 UAE citizen teachers in the public schools, and a constructed interview with five educational zone directors. To analyze the quantitative data descriptive statistics (means, percentage, and standard deviations), and Chi-Square Test were applied to examine the relation between the most important factors and teachers gender, qualifications, and years of experience. Qualitative analysis was applied to interpret the data obtained from the interviews with five educational zone directors and open-ended questions from the last part of the questionnaire. The result of this study indicated that the most important factors associated with teacher attrition are: (a) The personal factors that have the highest effect on teacher attrition are stress with mean (3.31), and "accountability" with mean (3.19). (b) The economic factor that has the highest effect on teacher attrition is incentives with mean (3.23). (c) The employment factor that has the highest effect on teacher attrition is paperwork with mean (3.07). (d) The social-cultural factor that has the highest effect on teacher attrition is social appreciation with mean (3.07). The result indicated that teacher preparation factors are the least important factors associated with teacher attrition with a very low mean (2.10).

This study examined the perceptions of adolescents from three relatively small school districts with regard to what they have to say about their relationships with teachers within their schools. The primary research interest was to explore the way students describe their relationships with teachers in public high schools. This descriptive, qualitative study was guided by the themes of naturalistic inquiry. The primary method of obtaining information was the on-line, open-ended survey, utilized to access the perspective of each student. The raw data was down loaded and later organized into major and minor themes. The results of this study showed that sixteen year olds perceive that the relationship they have with a teacher does directly impact their academic success and overall learning. While all students surveyed perceived that a positive connection with a teacher does promote their desire to learn, there was a significant number that also took ownership for their learning. This study offers the voice of the student as a contributing factor in ways to not leave any child behind, and concludes with recommendations for: superintendents, principals and teachers.