Principal Turnover in Illinois Public Schools, 2001-2008

Analyzes trends in turnover among public school principals in 2001-08 compared with 1987-2001, school-based and personal reasons for the moves, characteristics of their new positions, and the role of school accountability pressures. Examines implications

Laboratories of Reform? Human Resource Management Strategies in Illinois Charter Schools

The purpose of this study was to investigate how Illinois charter schools are leveraging the flexibility they are provided by law to innovate in the area of human resource management, and to explore the relationships between HR practices and school outcomes. To do this, we conducted surveys and interviews with administrators from 27 Illinois charter schools to describe the ways they recruitment, develop, and retain teachers. We create a typology of four broad HR strategies that are utilized to a greater or lesser extent at each school: 1) incentivist reforms; 2) teacher support and empowerment; 3) information-rich decision-making, and 4) mission-driven practice. Next, we compare these HR strategies with data on teacher retention, school climate, and student achievement to measure the relationship between human resources practices and school outcomes. The analysis reveals evidence suggesting that incentivist practices may be associated with increased math achievement, but this is dependent on how achievement growth is measured. The study also shows that the newest charter schools were considerably less likely to use incentivist practices than their more established counterparts, and that teacher empowerment and information-rich decision-making practices were associated with certain measures to school climate.https://spark.siue.edu/ierc_pub/1001/thumbnail.jp

Do principal preparation and teacher qualifications influence different types of school growth trajectories in Illinois?: A growth mixture model analysis

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the independent effects of principal background, training and experience as well as teacher academic qualifications on school proficiency growth through time. Design/methodology/approach – The authors analyzed the entire population of all elementary and middle schools in the state of Illinois, n=3,154 schools, from 2000 to 2001 through 2005-2006 using growth mixture modeling. The authors examined growth at the school level in the percentage of students meeting or exceeding standards on the Illinois Standard Achievement Test, analyzing separate models for Chicago and non-Chicago schools. Findings – The results suggest that there are two statistically significantly different latent school proficiency trajectory subgroups through the six-year time period, one high and one low, for both Chicago and non-Chicago schools. In addition, the models suggest that teacher academic qualifications, principal training, principal experience as a principal and an assistant principal, and experience of the principal as a teacher previously in their schools are significantly related to school proficiency growth over time, dependent upon school context. Practical implications – Recent studies on the independent effects of principal experience, training and teacher academic qualifications have shown inconsistent results on school achievement growth. The authors demonstrate that principal training and background may have an effect on school-level proficiency score growth. Originality/value – This study is one of the first to examine statistically different proficiency growth trajectories using an entire state-wide data set over a long-term, six-year timeframe

Quantifying the Effects of Aircraft Engine Upgrades on Operating and Support Costs

For fixed wing aircraft within the U.S. Air Force, Operating and Support (O&S) costs encompass a large portion of total life cycle costs. O&S costs include fuel, maintenance, and engine upgrades. To the authors’ knowledge, no study to date has attempted to empirically quantify the realized effects of new aircraft engines on sustainment costs. Utilizing the Air Force Total Ownership Cost database, they focused on new engines appearing on the C-5s, C-130s, and C-135s. Although narrow in scope, results suggest newer engines have lower fuel costs. Maintenance costs for newer engines were not consistently higher or lower than the engines they replaced, although Contractor Logistics Support was not tracked by engine in this study. We found that savings from improved fuel efficiency tended to be greater than a potential increase in maintenance costs

Restructuring Principal Preparation in Illinois: Perspectives on Implementation Successes, Challenges, and Future Outlook

The goals of the current mixed methods study—the Illinois Principal Preparation Implementation Review Project (I-PREP)—are to describe how the new policy is being implemented, learning which aspects of the implementation have been challenging and why they present challenges, and how programs are addressing challenges and realizing improvements in the preparation of their candidates. This report presents findings from the first phase of the study. Results of interviews with program representatives and key Illinois education stakeholders showed the majority of those interviewed support the goals of the new policy and have a positive outlook on its future impact of principal preparation in Illinois. Although some concerns about the implementation were expressed, most believe the redesigned principal preparation programs will ultimately create better prepared school administrators, improved student achievement, and more successful schools. The final report, due in summer 2016, will integrate the findings from this interim report, site visits with selected programs, and a survey with all programs to provide research-based insights in how to improve the policy and its implementation.https://spark.siue.edu/ierc_pub/1003/thumbnail.jp

Navigating the Shift to Intensive Principal Preparation in Illinois: An In-depth Look at Stakeholder Perspectives

This report from the Illinois Education Research Council (IERC) at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, in partnership with the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research (UChicago Consortium), assesses the progress of sweeping legislation to redesign the way school principals in Illinois are prepared, with the goal of improving schools statewide through higher quality leadership. The report summarizes findings from a two-year study assessing the progress of these ambitious reforms and describing the changes that occurred as a result of the new policy.https://spark.siue.edu/ierc_pub/1000/thumbnail.jp

Measuring Ωm\Omega_m with the ROSAT Deep Cluster Survey

We analyze the ROSAT Deep Cluster Survey (RDCS) to derive cosmological constraints from the evolution of the cluster X-ray luminosity distribution. The sample contains 103 galaxy clusters out to z=0.85 and flux-limit Flim=3 10^{-14} cgs (RDCS-3) in the [0.5-2.0] keV energy band, with a high-z extension containing four clusters at 0.901 10^{-14} cgs (RDCS-1). Model predictions for the cluster mass function are converted into the X-ray luminosity function in two steps. First we convert mass into intra-cluster gas temperature by assuming hydrostatic equilibrium. Then temperature is converted into X-ray luminosity by using the most recent data on the Lx-T relation for nearby and distant clusters. These include the Chandra data for seven distant clusters at 0.57<z<1.27. From RDCS-3 we find \Omega_m=0.35+/-0.12 and \sigma_8=0.66+/-0.06 for a spatially flat Universe with cosmological constant, with no significant constraint on \Gamma . Even accounting for theoretical and observational uncertainties in the mass/X-ray luminosity conversion, an Einstein-de-Sitter model is always excluded at far more than the 3sigma level.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures, to appear in Astrophysical Journa

Major Merging: The Way to Make a Massive, Passive Galaxy

We analyze the projected axial ratio distribution, p(b/a), of galaxies that were spectroscopically selected from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (DR6) to have low star-formation rates. For these quiescent galaxies we find a rather abrupt change in p(b/a) at a stellar mass of ~10^{11} M_sol: at higher masses there are hardly any galaxies with b/a<0.6, implying that essentially none of them have disk-like intrinsic shapes and must be spheroidal. This transition mass is ~3-4 times higher than the threshold mass above which quiescent galaxies dominate in number over star-forming galaxies, which suggests these mass scales are unrelated. At masses lower than ~10^{11} M_sol, quiescent galaxies show a large range in axial ratios, implying a mix of bulge- and disk-dominated galaxies. Our result strongly suggests that major merging is the most important, and perhaps only relevant, evolutionary channel to produce massive (>10^{11} M_sol), quiescent galaxies, as it inevitably results in spheroids.Comment: Minor changes to match published version in ApJ Letter

A mathematical model of contact tracing during the 2014-2016 west African ebola outbreak

The 2014-2016 West African outbreak of Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) was the largest and most deadly to date. Contact tracing, following up those who may have been infected through contact with an infected individual to prevent secondary spread, plays a vital role in controlling such outbreaks. Our aim in this work was to mechanistically represent the contact tracing process to illustrate potential areas of improvement in managing contact tracing efforts. We also explored the role contact tracing played in eventually ending the outbreak. We present a system of ordinary differential equations to model contact tracing in Sierra Leonne during the outbreak. Using data on cumulative cases and deaths we estimate most of the parameters in our model. We include the novel features of counting the total number of people being traced and tying this directly to the number of tracers doing this work. Our work highlights the importance of incorporatingchanging behavior into one’s model as needed when indicated by the data and reported trends. Our results show that a larger contact tracing program would have reduced the death toll of the outbreak. Counting the total number of people being traced and including changes in behavior in our model led to better understanding of disease management

Stigma narratives: LGBT transitions and identities in Malta

This article is available open access through the publisher’s website at the link below. Copyright @ 2011 A B Academic Publishers.This article considers narratives of transition experiences of a group of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) young people in Malta. The article draws on Goffman's concept of stigma and uses this to explore transitions in a society that retains some traditional characteristics, particularly the code of honour and shame, although mediated by aspects of modernity. Interviews were undertaken with 15 young people with the goal of producing narratives. The article analyses the experience of stigma, its effects and how young people manage its consequences. It concludes by drawing attention to the pervasive nature of stigma and the importance of structure, agency and reflexivity in youth transitions. In particular stigma remains an important feature of societies in which hetero-normative sexuality remains dominant