A multilevel Bayesian item response theory method for scaling

A new method is presented and implemented for deriving a scale of socioeconomic status (SES) from international survey data using a multilevel Bayesian item response theory (IRT) model. The proposed model incorporates both international anchor items and nation-specific items and is able to (a) produce student family SES scores that are internationally comparable, (b) reduce the influence of irrelevant national differences in culture on the SES scores, and (c) effectively and efficiently deal with the problem of missing data in a manner similar to Rubin’s (1987) multiple imputation approach. The results suggest that this model is superior to conventional models in terms of its fit to the data and its ability to use information collected via international surveys

Cultural Socialization Process of Effective Educators of Students of Color in an Elementary School District

The purpose of this life history study was to identify the experiences that influence the cultural socialization process of teachers and the factors that contribute to the effective instruction of students of color. Six female teachers who are currently assigned to third, fourth, or fifth grade students in elementary schools participated in this research project. Their experiences range from the second year in the classroom to thirteen years of teaching, and they have all had assignments as language arts teachers. Data for this qualitative research was collected from two face-to-face interviews, principals’ written descriptions about classroom environments, and participant observations. The interviews were transcribed from audio cassettes and the data was analyzed using Burke’s Pentadic Analysis, Linde’s Creation of Coherence and features from Spradley’s Participant Observation. Each teacher claimed unique lived experiences, but there were similar threads of high teacher expectation, meeting the needs of students and affirming the cultural differences of the students of colors that were sewn together in all their narratives. The cultural socialization process of the participants was connected to pivotal events that were linked to creation of coherence in their lives. These epiphanies were identified in their earliest recollection and continued into their instructional practices. The findings of this study indicate that there are deep layers that can emerge when teachers reflect on the events that influence their effectiveness with students of color. The conclusions are that effective teachers of students of color are guided by an agenda that includes the multiple roles that they have to assume in order to achieve the goal of success for all their students. Recommendations for further research and implications for theory and practice were also discussed

Alien Registration- May, Henry S. (Bath, Sagadahoc County)

https://digitalmaine.com/alien_docs/8915/thumbnail.jp

On the marriage-rate

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Recruitment, Retention and the Minority Teacher Shortage

This study examines and compares the recruitment and retention of minority and White elementary and secondary teachers and attempts to empirically ground the debate over minority teacher shortages. The data we analyze are from the National Center for Education Statistics’ nationally representative Schools and Staffing Survey and its longitudinal supplement, the Teacher Follow-up Survey. Our data analyses show that a gap continues to persist between the percentage of minority students and the percentage of minority teachers in the U.S. school system. But this gap is not due to a failure to recruit new minority teachers. Over the past two decades, the number of minority teachers has almost doubled, outpacing growth in both the number of White teachers and the number of minority students. Minority teachers are also overwhelmingly employed in public schools serving high-poverty, high-minority and urban communities. Hence, the data suggest that widespread efforts over the past several decades to recruit more minority teachers and employ them in hard-to-staff and disadvantaged schools have been very successful. This increase in the proportion of teachers who are minority is remarkable because the data also show that over the past two decades, turnover rates among minority teachers have been significantly higher than among White teachers. Moreover, though schools’ demographic characteristics appear to be highly important to minority teachers’ initial employment decisions, this does not appear to be the case for their later decisions to stay or depart. Neither a school’s poverty-level student enrollment, a school’s minority student enrollment, a school’s proportion of minority teachers, nor whether the school was in an urban or suburban community was consistently or significantly related to the likelihood that minority teachers would stay or depart, after controlling for other background factors. In contrast, organizational conditions in schools were strongly related to minority teacher departures. Indeed, once organizational conditions are held constant, there was no significant difference in the rates of minority and White teacher turnover. The schools in which minority teachers have disproportionately been employed have had, on average, less positive organizational conditions than the schools where White teachers are more likely to work, resulting in disproportionate losses of minority teachers. The organizational conditions most strongly related to minority teacher turnover were the level of collective faculty decision-making influence and the degree of individual classroom autonomy held by teachers; these factors were more significant than were salary, professional development or classroom resources. Schools allowing more autonomy for teachers in regard to classroom issues and schools with higher levels of faculty input into school-wide decisions had far lower levels of turnover

The Magnitude, Destinations, and Determinants of Mathematics and Science Teacher Turnover

This study examines the magnitude, destinations, and determinants of the departures of mathematics and science teachers from public schools. The data are from the National Center for Education Statistics' nationally representative Schools and Staffing Survey and its longitudinal supplement, the Teacher Follow-up Survey. Our analyses show that rates of mathematics and science teacher turnover, both those moving between schools and those leaving teaching altogether, have increased over the past two decades, but have not been consistently different than those of non-mathematics/science teachers. Mathematics and science teachers who left teaching were also no more likely than other teachers to take non-education jobs, such as in technological fields, or to be working for private business or industry. The data also show that, like other teachers, there are large school-to-school differences in mathematics and science turnover. High poverty, high minority, and urban public schools have among the highest mathematics and science turnover levels. In the case of cross-school migration, the data show there is an annual asymmetric reshuffling of a significant portion of the mathematics and science teaching force from poor to not poor schools, from high-minority to low-minority schools, and from urban to suburban schools. However, our multivariate analyses showed that a number of key organizational characteristics and conditions of schools accounted for these school differences in turnover. The strongest factors for mathematics teachers were the degree of individual classroom autonomy held by teachers, the provision of useful professional development , and the degree of student discipline problems. For science teachers, the strongest factors were the maximum potential salary offered by school districts, the degree of student discipline problems in schools, and useful professional development

A Policy Analysis of the Federal Growth Model Pilot Program\u27s Measures of School Performance: The Florida Case

As test-based educational accountability has moved to the forefront of national and state education policy, so has the desire for better measures of school performance. No Child Left Behind\u27s (NCLB) status and safe harbor measures have been criticized for being unfair and unreliable, respectively. In response to such criticism, in 2005 the federal government announced the Growth Model Pilot Program, which permits states to use projection models (a type of growth model) in their accountability systems. This article uses historical longitudinal data from a large school district to empirically show the inaccuracy of one state\u27s projection model, to demonstrate how projection models are very similar to NCLB\u27s original status measure, and to contrast projection models with value-added models. As policy makers debate the reauthorization of NCLB, this research can provide guidance on ways to improve the current measurement of school performance

Power utilization of Meramec Spring

Meramec Spring is situated in the east central part of Phelps County, Missouri, about one quarter of a mile west of the county line. The spring proper is in the center of a small natural amphitheatre from which the water flows through a valley which has a bearing of approximately N. 30 degrees W., about one quarter of a mile from the spring the course of the stream is changed about sixty degrees to the east, one quarter mile from this bend the stream joins the Meramec River...The volume of water delivered by the spring is modified to some extent by the amount of rain precipitated in the surrounding district...The improvements contemplated are a dam and sluice to impound and deliver the water from the spring to the turbine in the power house --pages 1 -2

The Minority Teacher Shortage: Fact or Fable?

For several decades, shortages of minority teachers have been a big issue for the nation\u27s schools. Policy makers and recent presidents have agreed that our elementary and secondary teaching force should look like America. But the conventional wisdom is that as the nation\u27s population and students have grown more diverse, the teaching force has done the opposite —grown more white and less diverse