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No description available.

The focus of this qualitative study was to investigate clinical supervisors’ perceptions about the externship experience in speech-language pathology. This study was designed to investigate the range of supervisors’ preparedness to mentor the extern student, self-perceptions of the role of the externship supervisor, and opinions regarding a possible professional credential. Data was collected from a focus group and individual interviews. All participants were SLPs who supervised a minimum of two graduate student externs from the same large Midwestern university. The results indicated that externship supervisors felt unprepared for their early supervision experiences, vary in their practices of developing and systematizing pre-professional externship experiences, and that a professional credential in supervision would likely contribute to the standardization of graduate students’ training in speech-language pathology.

Education has been a key factor in determining success and societal status in America since its inception. Americans aim to improve their social and economic statuses by obtaining higher education, as it is taught to them in their youth that a high-quality education is essential to survival. However, the historic and systemic racism that has plagued the United States has infiltrated the fairness of equal education. Zero tolerance policies such as the Elementary Education Act of 1965, the Guns-Free School Act of 1994, the No Child Left Behind Act of 2000, and the Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015 have implemented rigorous testing, safety protocols, and punitive punishments throughout the country. The state of Florida has become a major participant with zero tolerance policies implemented in all public schools across the state. This study concludes whether or not zero tolerance policies perpetuate the school-to-prison pipeline in the state of Florida. By utilizing document analysis as a stand-alone approach, each of the four policies are analyzed for biased language, repeating phrases or concepts, and required protocols that result in the practice of implicit or explicit biases in Florida schools. It is concluded that there is an association between the way zero tolerance policies are implemented in Florida schools and the perpetuation of the school-to-prison pipeline. Educating others of the effects of zero tolerance policies on students of color and how it disproportionately affects them is a key factor in eliminating zero tolerance policies from schools as a whole.

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No description available.

This study investigated the transfer pathway between a rural university and a community college to understand what procedural barriers exist for student degree attainment within existing structures. Process mapping was used as the intervention to examine the influence of enrollment and student services processes and investigate the perceptions of process mapping among student affairs staff and allow them to make suggestions for changes to policy and procedure in their work. Participants were selected for their role in the transfer process at one of the two institutions and convergent mixed methods methodology through a constructivist lens was used to collect and analyze the data. A focus group and post-intervention survey were used with participant-established process maps and transcripts of process mapping activities to triangulate the data sources in this study. The findings in this study suggest that process mapping may serve to improve collaboration across institutional partnerships. The benefits of process mapping that were found include new ways of thinking, identifying institutional trends, trust, learning, and transparency. The changes in policy and practice resulting from this study include 1) utilization of Transfer Services 2) revision of a 2-year College Transfer Grant application 3) establishing blanket information sharing between institutions. Equipping professionals at colleges and universities with the skills and knowledge to carry out this method of institutional learning and systematic improvement is influential in improving their overall process and productivity toward institutional goals. Suggestions for the work of practitioners include 1) making process mapping part of routine assessment, 2) providing opportunities for interinstitutional collaboration, 3) considering transfer in process design, and 4) providing strategic transfer programming.

Discipline inequities across racial, gender, and socioeconomic barriers are a constant in the United States, persisting long after the desegregation of schools in the last century. School divisions and schools across the United States have implemented restorative justice as an alternative to traditional punitive discipline as a potential remedy for discipline inequities. To institute whole-school restorative justice, a change in school culture, or reculturing, must occur, per Fullan’s culture of change and coherence models. Using Fullan’s models, this research was a practice-oriented exploratory case study. The following sources of data were collected: interviews with administrators, an at-will survey sent to all teachers, and a content analysis of the student handbook. Data from all the sources supported the finding that the case school is in the early stages of becoming a culture of change and of the reculturing process. Themes important to the implementation of this initiative included: relationships, disrupting the school-to-prison pipeline, preventing harm, building moral purpose and relationships one-on-one, building moral purpose and relationships through group settings, the importance of (positive) leadership traits, instructional collaboration, and lack of collaboration around restorative justice practices. Continuity of leadership proved an important factor in culture change. There is room for improvement and progress in all areas studied. Recommendations in the areas of school/division policy, planning, and leadership to improve implementation and continue the process of reculturing are included.

In 2014 the Virginia General Assembly passed legislation replacing end-of-course, multiple-choice assessments with locally developed alternative assessments in five courses, including two middle school social studies courses. This policy allowed Virginia school divisions the autonomy to develop the format, quantity, and focus of their assessments to meet state accountability. Given the grassroots nature of this policy, there has been little oversight of these local alternative assessments (LAAs). Thus, this exploratory study sought to gain insight into how divisions approached the process of preparing for and developing local alternative assessments and Balanced Assessment Plans, as well as the quality of the assessments created. Through a professional referral sampling process 12 divisions were interviewed and submitted two assessments each to be evaluated against the Virginia Quality Criteria Tool for Performance Assessments (VQCT). The divisions in the study responded to the autonomy granted by the state by first engaging in on-going, quality professional development to build teacher capacity. Using a variety of templates and the VQCT, divisions involved teachers in the process of developing the set of LAAs. The division assessments focus on writing prompts centered around tasks authentic to the social studies which require deeper-learning competencies by students, but the structure of the implementation of the assessments are less consistent potentially lessening the quality of the assessments. The work of these divisions suggest that the success of a grassroots performance assessment policy requires quality, on-going professional development and thoughtful analysis of the assessments and their alignment to desired learning goals.

It is the superintendent's complex role and ultimate leadership responsibility for all district outcomes that suggests superintendents hold the key to successful reform. Research in the wake of the federal accountability and reform movement has focused on the principal as the mediator of school reform. Consequently, there is a dearth of research focusing on the superintendent's role in school reform, superintendent performance evaluation, and the state's responsibility to ensure a fair, equitable, and high-quality superintendent evaluation process through state-level policy. This study is a comprehensive policy analysis of state-level superintendent evaluation policies nationwide using a basic content analysis methodology and a researcher-developed content-analysis rubric. The study investigated the impact of the accountability and reform movement on superintendent performance evaluations, identified the current status of state-level superintendent evaluation policies and policy coherence with the personnel evaluation standards developed by the Joint Committee on Standards for Educational Evaluation (Joint Committee), and determined whether a significant relationship exists between the breadth and depth of state-level superintendent evaluation policy and a state's political culture. Results show that 34 states have superintendent evaluation policies, but states vary substantially on the depth of superintendent evaluation policies and coherence with the Joint Committee standards. More states scored higher on the utility and feasibility standards than on the propriety and accuracy standards. There was no significant relationship, however, between a state's political culture and the breadth and depth of its superintendent evaluation policy as determine by the state's total content analysis rubric score.