A Study of the Impact of Overage Middle School Students on Middle Schools

A continuing issue in school reform efforts is the need to decrease dropout rates for students. Many dropouts are at-risk students who have failing grades, inadequate academic sills, and low levels of literacy. These students are often retained in grade, and eventually drop out. While students may actually drop out in high school, dropping out behaviors begin to occur in middle school or even earlier, in elementary school. Middle School students who are retained and become overage have the potential for having a negative impact on the school district and the school. More importantly, these students often suffer a decrease in self-esteem, a decrease in attachment to school, an increase in attendance and behavioral problems, and an increase in the likelihood that they will drop out. When students drop out of school, they become unemployed or underemployed during their adult lives and miss the opportunity to become fully-functioning members of society. The intent of this study was to seek means for ameliorating the problems caused by and endured by overage middle school students. The purpose of this study was to collect quantitative and qualitative data to determine, (1) the extent of the problem of overage middle school students; (2) the impact that the problem had on schools, and classrooms; (3) what schools are doing about the problem; and (4) effective strategies for all middle schools. Survey questionnaires were developed and sent to middle school teachers, counselors, principals, and to central office administrators of the seven MERC school districts. A total of 259 participants responded to the surveys. The quantitative data was analyzed with SPSS, and the qualitative data was analyzed with concept formation

Disruptive Students in the Classroom: A Review of the Literature

Classroom discipline and school violence continue to be major issues in American education today. Rose and Gallup (1998) in the most recent Gallup Poll, respondents were asked to identify the biggest problems with which the public schools in their communities must deal. The results showed that concern about fighting/violence/gangs was at the top of the list, followed closely by lack of discipline/more control. The metropolitan Life Survey of the American Teacher (1993) reports that while the majority of teachers (77%) feel safe in their schools, only 50% of students feel that way. A substantial proportion of students say they often witness violent incidents in or around school. More than one-tenth of teachers say they have been victims of acts of violence that occurred in or around school and that 95% of these incidents have involved students. These data indicate that classroom discipline and school violence are very serious problems for American Schools. The general public is concerned, and teachers and students have had first-hand knowledge about dangerous and aggressive acts. Teachers believe that the situation causes both adults and children to be reluctant to go to school. Obviously, such a situation causes stress among all school participants and can be detrimental to the teaching/learning process. Such a situation can hinder all students from achieving academic success

Biochemical and Biophysical Characterisation of Transcription Regulators Associated with Myosin VI

Myosin VI (MVI) is implicated in many biological processes including, cell migration, endocytosis and transcription. MVI achieves its plethora of cellular functions owing to its association with multiple binding partners. Here, two proteins associated with MVI - nuclear dot protein 52 (NDP52), a putative transcription regulator, and the established transcription factor, oestrogen receptor (ERα) - are biochemically and biophysically characterised to further elucidate the role of this motor protein in transcription. Optimisation of expression and purification conditions has enabled the successful purification of full-length ERα using BL21 E.coli. According to current literature, this is the first time this has been reported. This will set the foundation for future purification optimisation required for binding assays between MVI and ERα. NDP52 has only recently been characterised as a putative transcription co-activator, where it was shown to promote RNA polymerase II (RNAPII) transcription by relieving the auto-inhibition of MVI. Here, novel insights into the biochemical and biophysical properties of NDP52 are presented, including DNA-binding characteristics of different structural domains using fluorescence-based binding assays. Expectedly, C- terminal DNA-binding motifs likely confer binding to double-stranded DNA (dsDNA) in vivo. Small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) data for full-length NDP52 is also presented, providing important structural information, given that no full-length crystal structure for NDP52 is currently available. Methods such as total internal reflection fluorescence (TIRF) microscopy, size-exclusion chromatography-multi- angle light scattering (SEC-MALS) and cryogenic super-resolution microscopy have also provided an understanding of the oligomeric state of NDP52 and its tertiary structure. Together, this evidence suggests that NDP52 functions as a parallel homodimer in vivo, which provides important structure-function insights into NDP52's role in transcriptional regulation. For instance, the parallel arrangement of the NDP52 dimer may facilitate tight binding to dsDNA, where each monomer binds either side of DNA, effectively clamping it

Unpackaging demand for water service quality : evidence from conjoint surveys in Sri Lanka

In the early 2000s, the Government of Sri Lanka considered engaging private sector operators to manage water and sewerage services in two separate service areas: one in the town of Negombo (north of Colombo), and one stretching along the coastal strip (south from Colombo) from the towns of Kalutara to Galle. Since then, the government has abandoned the idea of setting up a public-private partnership in these two areas. This paper is part of a series of investigations to determine how these pilot private sector transactions (forming part of the overall water sector reform strategy) could be designed in such a manner that they would benefit the poor. The authors describe the results of a conjoint survey evaluating the factors that drive customer demand for alternative water supply and sanitation services in Sri Lanka. They show how conjoint surveys can be used to unpackage household demand for attributes of urban services and improve the design of infrastructure policies. They present conjoint surveys as a tool for field experiments and a source of valuable empirical data. In the study of three coastal towns in southwestern Sri Lanka the conjoint survey allows the authors to compare household preferences for four water supply attributes-price, quantity, safety, and reliability. They examine subpopulations of different income levels to determine if demand is heterogeneous. The case study suggests that households care about service quality (not just price). In general, the authors find that households have diverse preferences in terms of quantity, safety, and service options, but not with regard to hours of supply. In particular, they find that the poor have lower ability to trade off income for services, a finding that has significant equity implications in terms of allocating scarce public services and achieving universal water access.Town Water Supply and Sanitation,Water and Industry,Economic Theory&Research,Water Use,Water Supply and Sanitation Governance and Institutions

Subsurface Oil-Shale Samples of the Upper Pennsylvanian Cline Shale, Midland Basin, West Texas: Core Sampling for Measured Vitrinite-Reflectance (Ro) Determination

This report summarizes activities carried out by the Bureau of Economic Geology (BEG) during fiscal year (FY) 2015 for the National Coal Resources Data System State Cooperative Program (NCRDS project). In a continuation of the sampling strategy for measured vitrinite-reflectance (Ro) determination initiated 6 years ago (Hentz and others, 2009) and conducted during the following five years (Hentz and others, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2014, 2015), this report provides a collection of oil-shale samples from the Upper Pennsylvanian Cline Shale of the Midland Basin in West Texas (Fig. 1).Bureau of Economic Geolog

Developing a capacity building framework for NGOs in the WatSan sector

NGOs have an important contribution to make to the provision of water and sanitation services. Like any organisation they need resources to deliver these services and human resources are vital. Providing quality, targeted and efficient capacity building across the diverse and scattered requires co-ordination and planning. This paper describes the development of a framework for capacity building of watsan NGOs and their umbrella organisation, providing a strategy to improve the ability of NGOs to help meet the challenging targets for coverage of water supply and sanitation services. A participative process was used to engage with NGOs from all regions of Uganda, in order to inform and develop a possible national funding mechanism that included both international and grass roots organisations. This case study provides an example of the participative development of a training strategy

The Development of the WISE (Writing to Inspire Successful Education) Writing Mentoring Program: A University-School Collaboration

Abstract This paper describes the development of a service learning writing mentoring program designed to close the achievement gap in writing proficiency for economically disadvantaged seventh grade students. Compared to writing mentoring studies found in the published literature, this program has three distinguishing components. First, it focused on economically disadvantaged middle school students. Second, it provided writing mentoring through a university-school partnership in which college students provided the intervention in collaboration with a seventh-grade teacher. Third, the program used technology to facilitate the mentoring process. Over the course of an academic year, mentors created videos with feedback on 19 writing assignments. The writing mentoring program was associated with a four-fold increase in the percentage of students who were graded as ‘proficient’ on a state standardized writing exam. These results suggest that semi-virtual, intensive writing mentoring and individualized feedback from college students can close the achievement gap and improve the quality of middle level education provided to economically disadvantaged students