The School Experiences and Achievement of Black Males: The Voice of the Students

Problem Black children are not achieving in public schools. What are the challenges of the schooling experience and contradictions of achievement for Black males, according to the students themselves? The answers to these questions are unclear, because they have not been given sufficient attention. Despite decades of research on achievement, few studies specifically address how students themselves define achievement, as well as what students do, feel, and think about in school. Method This qualitative study used focus groups and pre-existing data from 1:1 semi- structured interviews as a means to inquire about the schooling experiences of Black males. Thirty-two Black males in Grades 9-12 from six high schools participated in the five focus groups and six 1:1 semi-structured interviews. Each focus group consisted of approximately six students. Participants were selected by school personnel and participation was voluntary. Results Results of this study indicate that Black males share similar schooling experiences regardless of the school setting. However, some experiences appear to differ based on the context of the school setting. Differences were noted in the perceptions of the students regarding their school experience based upon whether they attend an urban high school with greater racial diversity or whether they are one of fewer Black students in a suburban high school with less racial diversity. The students’ responses are categorized into four broad categories including (a) Black Student Identity, (b) The Importance of the Teacher-Student Relationship, (c) School Climate, and (d) The Importance of Involvement by Families and Other Positive Role Models. Conclusions Efforts to improve the academic performance of Black males must begin by understanding the attitudes that influence how they perceive schooling and academic pursuits. Because students “have been silenced all their lives,” they have singular and invaluable views on education from which both adults and students themselves can benefit. As long as we exclude student perspectives from our conversations about schooling and how it needs to change, our efforts at reform will be based on an incomplete picture of life in classrooms and schools and how that could be improved. When students are taken seriously and attended to as knowledgeable participants in important conversations, they feel empowered and motivated to participate constructively in their education. Student-based inquiry seeks not only to add to the literature by providing reliable and valid information on achievement but also to present an alternative way of doing school research. Student-based inquiry research seeks to empower students in the research process. This qualitative approach attempts to generate data that capture students’ perspectives regarding achievement, while addressing the meanings they attach to life, given their position in the social system

Colorado Native Plant Society Newsletter, Vol. 8 No. 5, October-December 1984

The Colorado Native Plant Society Newsletter will be published on a bimonthly basis. The contents will consist primarily of a calendar of events, notes of interest, editorials, listings of new members and conservation news. Until there is a Society journal, the Newsletter will include short articles also. The deadline for the Newsletter is one month prior to its release.https://epublications.regis.edu/aquilegia/1022/thumbnail.jp

Aquilegia, Vol. 11 No. 5, September 1987: Newsletter of the Colorado Native Plant Society

The Colorado Native Plant Society Newsletter will be published on a bimonthly basis. The contents will consist primarily of a calendar of events, notes of interest, editorials, listings of new members and conservation news. Until there is a Society journal, the Newsletter will include short articles also. The deadline for the Newsletter is one month prior to its release.https://epublications.regis.edu/aquilegia/1036/thumbnail.jp

Nanoparticle-Delivered Multimeric Soluble CD40L DNA Combined with Toll-Like Receptor Agonists as a Treatment for Melanoma

Stimulation of CD40 or Toll-Like Receptors (TLR) has potential for tumor immunotherapy. Combinations of CD40 and TLR stimulation can be synergistic, resulting in even stronger dendritic cell (DC) and CD8+ T cell responses. To evaluate such combinations, established B16F10 melanoma tumors were injected every other day X 5 with plasmid DNA encoding a multimeric, soluble form of CD40L (pSP-D-CD40L) either alone or combined with an agonist for TLR1/2 (Pam3CSK4 ), TLR2/6 (FSL-1 and MALP2), TLR3 (polyinosinic-polycytidylic acid, poly(I:C)), TLR4 ( monophosphoryl lipid A, MPL), TLR7 (imiquimod), or TLR9 (Class B CpG phosphorothioate oligodeoxynucleotide, CpG). When used by itself, pSP-D-CD40L slowed tumor growth and prolonged survival, but did not lead to cure. Of the TLR agonists, CpG and poly(I:C) also slowed tumor growth, and the combination of these two TLR agonists was more effective than either agent alone. The triple combination of intratumoral pSP-D-CD40L + CpG + poly(I:C) markedly slowed tumor growth and prolonged survival. This treatment was associated with a reduction in intratumoral CD11c+ dendritic cells and an influx of CD8+ T cells. Since intratumoral injection of plasmid DNA does not lead to efficient transgene expression, pSP-D-CD40L was also tested with cationic polymers that form DNA-containing nanoparticles which lead to enhanced intratumoral gene expression. Intratumoral injections of pSP-D-CD40L-containing nanoparticles formed from polyethylenimine (PEI) or C32 (a novel biodegradable poly(B-amino esters) polymer) in combination with CpG + poly(I:C) had dramatic antitumor effects and frequently cured mice of B16F10 tumors. These data confirm and extend previous reports that CD40 and TLR agonists are synergistic and demonstrate that this combination of immunostimulants can significantly suppress tumor growth in mice. In addition, the enhanced effectiveness of nanoparticle formulations of DNA encoding immunostimulatory molecules such as multimeric, soluble CD40L supports the further study of this technology for tumor immunotherapy

Academic Impact of Rural Idaho Schools on the Four-Day School Week: A Quantitative Research Study

A number of school districts throughout the nation have changed their delivery method of a five-day school week to a four-day school week. Between 2009 and 2015, 27 Idaho school districts transitioned to a four-day school week, bringing the total number of school districts on a four-day week to 44 by 2015. This number increased to 45 by 2018. As school districts have become more comfortable with the four-day week schedule, school employees and constituents alike have increased satisfaction. A four-day school week results in about 20% fewer days of student and teacher contact days. This leads to a concern of how a four-day school week impacts academic performance. The purpose of this quantitative research study was to look at student achievement scores, specifically in Idaho rural public schools. The research compared standardized test scores of rural school districts on the four-day school week to the same test scores of rural school districts on the five-day school week. Additionally, sub populations with similar demographics were analyzed. These demographics included economically disadvantaged (free and reduced lunch percentages) and the percentage of Hispanics/Latinos. School districts that had an economically disadvantaged population of at least 45% were also analyzed. Five years of historical standardized test scores were gathered from the Idaho Department of Education beginning with the 2014-2015 school year and ending with the 2018-2019 school year. The standardized test scores that were analyzed included the Idaho Reading Indicator (IRI) and the Idaho Standards Achievement Test (ISAT). While results indicate that school districts on a five-day school week consistently had a higher percentage of proficient/advanced students on standardized tests when compared to four-day week school districts, there was no statistically significant impact (p≥.05) on the academic performance, as determined by the previously mentioned standardized metrics. Only one year (instead of five years) of the Hispanic/Latino sub population was able to be compared because of the significant redactions that took place in order to be compliant with privacy laws

A Self-Instructional Program For the Technical Services of the Utah State University Library

Self-instructional carrels and accompanying programs are being utilized successfully in numerous areas of education . In the field of Library Science the potential is especially great because of the skills and knowledge that can be conveyed in an individualized learning situation. To date in the USU Library, this concept has not been applied. Distinct possibilities exist in the various areas of the Library. The Technical Services of the Library or that area where materials are ordered, received, and prepared for the patron\u27s use, lends itself particularly to self-instruction. The work accomplished in Technical Services is not understood by students, patrons, nor many of the personnel working in the Library. A need for instruction and orientation is seen by the administration of the Library and a self-instructional program may correct this problem

Growth potential of microalgae on ammonia-rich anaerobic digester effluent for wastewater remediation

This spreadsheet contains microalgae growth data for the manuscript "Growth potential of microalgae on ammonia-rich anaerobic digester effluent for wastewater remediation". There are four worksheets which correspond to four different microalgae species C. sorokiniana, C. vulgaris, S. acutus f. alternans, and S. obliquus which were grown in 250 mL flasks on diluted and ultrafiltered food waste digestate (FWP) and ammonia-stripped ultrafiltered food waste digestate (SFWP). Positive controls were utilized for each species with BG-11 or JW media. The spreadsheets contain details on the calculation of growth parameters including biomass accumulation, specific growth rate, and biomass productivity which are available in Table 2 and Figure 3 of the manuscriptTHIS DATASET IS ARCHIVED AT DANS/EASY, BUT NOT ACCESSIBLE HERE. TO VIEW A LIST OF FILES AND ACCESS THE FILES IN THIS DATASET CLICK ON THE DOI-LINK ABOV

Posting Paper on the Web

We present a document processing system that accepts scanned images of paper documents as input and outputs hyperlinked electronic documents. The system segments document images, separating text from graphics, recognizes text, and creates hypertext links between document components (text, images, graphics). By (1) limiting input to popular Times-Roman and Helvetica fonts found in first-generation scans of columnated magazines and tabloids, and using (2) gray scale attributes, (3) multiple character prototypes to recognize kerned and touching characters, (4) a lexicon to find and correct recognition errors, and (5) providing user interaction to recognize problem words, we achieve OCR accuracies up to 99.8%. This compares closely to our measurements of human proofreading accuracy (99.94%) which, however, takes six times longer. A simple method for automated selection of important words in a document and creation of hypertext links from those words to other document components is develope..