Contradictions and Control in Systemic Reform: The Ascendancy of the Central Office in Philadelphia Schools

The central administrators of school districts have only rarely been the focus of education research. Still, the prevailing attitude is that districts are either irrelevant to or inhibitors of reform. Studies of school-based reform efforts often conclude that central office policies impede innovation. The proposals for school choice, charter schools, vouchers, and contract schools are a response, at least in part, to the perceived ineffectiveness of school districts. States and the federal government, more and more, provide funding directly to schools, rather than via district central offices. And in 1994, the Annenberg Foundation’s $500 million “Challenge” pledge, the largest gift to urban public education ever made, bypassed the school district’s central offices as a mechanism of reform in nearly every site where it operated

Let\u27s talk about ditching plastics at festivals

Student blog series from MSc in Event Management students at TU Dublin. In this blog post Ellen Foley asks is it time to stop using plastic at festivals. She discusses how how Education and collaboration are the two vital ingredients that festival planners must embrace in order to tackle this ever-pressing problem. It’s time to get creative and work together to ditch the plastic

The Impacts of Road Salt on Water Quality and Phosphorus Dynamics in an Urban Lake

Road salt runoff from de-icing applications has notably increased chloride concentrations in lakes throughout north temperate regions of the planet, with negative impacts on freshwater ecosystems. For the past 20 months, I have monitored the water quality of a chloride-impaired lake and associated tributary in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Chloride levels in the deepest part of the lake have reached up to 331 mg/L, above EPA chronic toxicity thresholds. The salt-induced density gradient has prevented the lake from completely mixing during my study period and created persistent hypoxia in the hypolimnion. Total phosphorus (TP) concentrations in the hypolimnion can exceed 7500 µg/L, in contrast to epilimnion TP concentrations of ≤40 µg/L, suggesting internal phosphorus loading may be significant in this lake. I conducted an experiment to examine the impacts of excess chloride on sediment phosphorus release. Sediment cores collected from the lake bottom were brought back to the lab and measured for phosphorus release under different oxygen (present/absent) and chloride (high/low) treatments over the course of 25 days in a controlled environment. Mean maximum TP release was greatest in cores exposed to the high chloride/anoxic treatment (1.71 – 2.23 mg m−2 d−1) compared to low chloride/anoxic treatment (0.83 -1.42 mg m−2 d−1), suggesting that elevated road salt concentrations may exacerbate internal phosphorus loading. However, the release of soluble reactive phosphorus was influenced by the sediment source, suggesting that phosphorus release from salinization is dependent on sediment composition. The results from my study have management implications. Excess phosphorus concentrations in the hypolimnion need to be reduced prior to addressing the elevated chloride, to avoid lake turnover and introduction of high phosphorus concentrations into the upper layers of water, where in combination with higher light levels, algal blooms would form. Once phosphorus concentrations are reduced, perhaps via chemical inactivation, the excess salt issue can be addressed. However, elevated hypolimnetic phosphorus concentrations are a symptom of the larger issue of road salt runoff into the lake. Without a reduction in saline deicer application and associated runoff into the ecosystem, lakes will continue to experience negative impacts from elevated chloride concentrations

Alien Registration- Foley, Ellen (Portland, Cumberland County)

https://digitalmaine.com/alien_docs/23760/thumbnail.jp

Alien Registration- Foley, Ellen (Portland, Cumberland County)

https://digitalmaine.com/alien_docs/23760/thumbnail.jp

Worcester Youth Violence Prevention & Reduction Strategic Plan: Needs and Resources Analysis

Most young people in Worcester are healthy, productive, and contribute to their community. They are on a path toward a secure and successful adulthood. However, there is a subset of young people—disproportionately Black and Latino males living in the city’s most distressed neighborhoods—who enter a cycle of violence at an extremely early age. Our aim with this report is to provide Worcester residents and decision-makers with data and frameworks that will help the community prioritize areas for action and identify solutions to reduce youth and gang violence. We acknowledge the excellent prevention work happening in the city and with this report we hope to shed light on the needs of the relatively small percentage of young people who are falling through the cracks of the prevention sector. Key findings of this report include: Community, school, family, and individual risk factors known to contribute to youth violence and gang involvement are quite prevalent in Worcester: Family residential instability and economic stress Youth and adult unemployment Early childhood trauma Generational cycles of gang and criminal involvement Distressed built environment coupled with limited neighborhood recreational activities School climate and punitive discipline policies Youth mental health, substance abuse, and exposure to violence Worcester has a strong prevention sector and emerging programs for proven-risk young men. However, the location and types of community resources and the location of violent crime hotspots have been persistent over time. Business as usual is insufficient to address gang and youth violence. Worcester needs a strategic, coordinated plan to addressing youth and gang violence because currently we have siloes instead of systems. We also need to build trust and respect between families and providers to counter families’ isolation and disconnection from resources. Given these findings, Worcester needs to prioritize the following possible directions for action: A concerted focus on early childhood health, education, and overall wellbeing Restorative Justice approaches in schools and the community that can divert young people from entering the juvenile justice system Significant street outreach presence to interrupt violence and connect young people to resources Effective community-based sanctions for those awaiting trial or on probation in the community Effective reentry programs that support young men coming back into the community and reduce the likelihood of recidivism Trauma-sensitive services and environments There is potential for early identification and diversion at various stages of a young person’s life. Not taking action has costs not only for the victims and perpetrators of violence, but for our community as a whole. We look forward to the community conversations that will take place in response to this report. We hope to incorporate the lived experiences of residents to complement this analysis and help us move towards action. We are convinced that through dialogue and concerted collaborative work, we can transform these community conditions for the betterment of everyone who lives and works in Worcester

An Analysis of the Effects of Children Achieving on Student Achievement in Philadelphia Elementary Schools

Philadelphia’s Children Achieving was a sweeping systemic reform initiative. Systemic reform eschews a school-byschool approach to reform and relies on coherent policy, improved coordination of resources and services, content and performance standards, decentralization of decision-making, and accountability mechanisms to transform entire school systems. Led by a dynamic superintendent and central office personnel, Children Achieving was the first attempt by an urban district to test systemic reform in practice. In 1996, the Consortium for Policy Research in Education (CPRE) at the University of Pennsylvania and its partner, Research for Action (RFA), were charged by the Children Achieving Challenge with the evaluation of Children Achieving. Between the 1995- 1996 and 2000-2001 school years, CPRE and RFA researchers interviewed hundreds of teachers, principals, parents, students, District officials, and civic leaders; sat in on meetings where the plan was designed, debated, and revised; observed its implementation in classrooms and schools; conducted two systemwide surveys of teachers; and carried out independent analyses of the District’s test results and other indicators of system performance. An outline of the research methods used by CPRE and RFA is included in this report

Building and Maintaining Sanctuary Spaces through Face to Face Writing Assessment

Seasoned secondary and college instructors discuss successful face-to-face assessment, especially in virtual settings. F2F assessment frees educators to co-create equitable literacy learning experiences with students, encourages agency, demystifies the grading process, develops the classroom community, and brings meaningful inquiry about writers’ own skills and practices, ultimately disrupting inequities and inequalities of traditional grading and creating “sanctuary spaces” for all writers

Standards for Adult Literacy: Focal Points for Debate

The prospect of developing content, performance, and opportunity-to-learn standards for adult literacy has generated much discussion. However, the lack of a common vocabulary and the relatively narrow range of interests represented in these discussions have been major impediments to progress in developing standards for adult literacy. This paper reviews literature on the theory and practice of education standards and summarizes the progress toward designing content, performance, and opportunity-to-learn standards for adult literacy. This review helps to highlight the technical issues and challenges to standards-based reform of the field. The development of efficient and equitable accountability systems for adult literacy programs will require ongoing efforts to define desirable knowledge and skills and to develop more authentic measures of learning outcomes. The particular challenges posed by issues of equity, diversity, and coordination of service provision call for a broadly based participatory process in developing and implementing adult literacy standards