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Descriptors:
Learning Problems; Learning Disabilities; Adult Education; Disability Discrimination; Foreign Countries; Administrators; Interviews; Dyslexia; Employees; Employment

Abstract:
The article explores the professionalism and the standards debate as it relates to teachers with specific learning difficulties in the context of Further Education in England. There is a tension between the government's policy of defining teachers more tightly in terms of entry qualifications and standards whilst espousing a policy of creating a more inclusive profession as promoted by the Equalities and Disability Discrimination legislation. How prepared are leaders and managers in Further Education to address this policy tension and what insights might be drawn from the Further Education context? Interviews with key leaders and managers in a Further Education college and the analysis of college policy documents are used to illuminate the issues surrounding the inclusion of teachers with specific learning difficulties. Suggestions are offered which may provide a way forward to address the policy tension. Note:The following two links are not-applicable for text-based browsers or screen-reading software. Show Hide Full Abstract

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Homosexuality; Phenomenology; Focus Groups; Social Attitudes; Social Behavior; Social Theories; Hermeneutics; Educational Administration; Administrators; Interviews; Fear; Social Bias; Administrator Education; Policy Formation; Anxiety; Emotional Response

Abstract:
Purpose: The article's purpose is to highlight a national qualitative study that generated a model for understanding how society's actions and attitudes affect and inform the lived experiences of lesbian/gay (LG) educational leaders. Research Methods/Approach: Three bodies of literature informed the methods of the study: queer legal theory, critical phenomenology, and poststructural hermeneutics. Seventeen volunteer participants identified as out or closeted LG educational leaders and replied via e-mail (to a safe contact) to a national invitation to participate. To provide anonymity, a virtual laboratory allowed participants to interact anonymously through the use of focus groups, interviews, written responses, and private/public messaging tools. Data analysis was conducted after themes or categories emerged and data was coded and categorized. Findings: The findings culminated in conclusions illustrated in the "Cycles of Fear" model. First, study participants moved from silence to voice and back again, with varying intensity. Second, participants move beyond oppression was extremely difficult. Third, participants conquered fear and oppression, thereby creating gains. Fourth, experiences of fear were integrated into participants' very being--their identity. Fifth, as leaders' strength/visibility increased, society's homophobic fears created increased intolerance and hostility. Finally, when a new fear cycle began, the leaders became stronger and more resilient. Implications for Research and Practice: The discussions, conclusions, and the model drawn from this study's findings are instructive for (a) LG educational leaders who have had very little support in their professional and personal lives, (b) leadership preparation programs/professors that/who in the past have ignored this populations' existence and oppression, (c) policy makers, and (d) further research--the model can serve as a data analysis tool for future studies, and the anonymous research design could be duplicated to lower the risk for LGBT participants. (Contains 1 table, 1 figure, and 9 notes.) Note:The following two links are not-applicable for text-based browsers or screen-reading software. Show Hide Full Abstract

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Racial Discrimination; Racial Bias; Racial Factors; High School Students; Secondary School Teachers; Administrators; Attitude Measures; Cultural Influences; Racial Relations; Educational Environment; Public Schools; African American Students; White Students; Hispanic American Students; Special Education; At Risk Students; College Bound Students; Honors Curriculum

Abstract:
This article uses data drawn from nine months of fieldwork and student, teacher, and administrator interviews at a southern high school to analyze school racial conflict and the construction of racism. We find that institutional inequalities that stratify students by race and class are routinely ignored by school actors who, we argue, use the presence of so-called redneck students to plausibly deny racism while furthering the standard definition of racism as blatant prejudice and an individual trait. The historical prominence of rednecks as a southern cultural identity augments these claims, leading to an implicit division of school actors into friendly/nonracist and unfriendly/racist and allowing school actors to set boundaries on the meaning of racism. Yet these rhetorical practices and the institutional structures they mask contributed to racial tensions, culminating in a race riot during our time at the school. (Contains 2 tables and 16 notes.) Note:The following two links are not-applicable for text-based browsers or screen-reading software. Show Hide Full Abstract

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Administrators; Government Employees; Educational Policy; Administrator Role; Educational History; Policy Formation; Centralization; Educational Vouchers; National Curriculum; Interviews; Longitudinal Studies; Foreign Countries

Abstract:
Given that elevation to permanent secretary is widely recognised as the apotheosis of a career in the Whitehall bureaucracy, it is remarkable that so few have been the subject of sustained biographical research and that this key role remains largely un-theorised. As such, this paper reports on aspects of a longitudinal study which set out to examine, evaluate, and categorise to what extent, and how, permanent secretaries influence policy. Based on recorded interviews with those who held this office at the DES from 1976 to 2002, along with those they served and others, it argues that if the role of senior civil servants can be labelled "meta-political", they do influence policy in significant ways. As such, it suggests that their praxis can be interrogated in terms of their activities as makers, shapers, takers, sharers, and resisters of policy in education. Focusing on the career of a committed centraliser, James Hamilton, it examines the contribution he made as permanent secretary to a variety of departmental policy initiatives including the pursuit of voucherisation and the case for a national school curriculum. (Contains 1 table and 10 notes.) Note:The following two links are not-applicable for text-based browsers or screen-reading software. Show Hide Full Abstract

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Foreign Countries; Activism; Educational Change; Active Learning; Elementary Schools; Oral History; Interviews; Case Studies; Change Strategies; Educational Administration; Administrators

Abstract:
In 2007, Activity Based Learning (ABL), a child-centered, activity-based method of pedagogical practice, transformed classrooms in all of the over 37,000 primary-level government schools in Tamil Nadu, India. The large scale, rapid pace, and radical nature of educational change sets the ABL initiative apart from most school reform efforts. Interested in understanding how this movement achieved such success, we conducted oral history and ethnographic interviews, as well as an extensive review of reform documentation, to develop a historical case study of the ABL initiative. In this article, we present one of the findings of this study, arguing that the pursuit of ABL in Tamil Nadu was characterized by varied types of bureaucratic activism. State-level administrators, whom we consider bureaucratic activists, engaged strategies for change that combined both movement-building tactics and the conventional tools of administrative power. These reformers became pedagogical experts, expended considerable time and effort promoting the method, and engaged in a participatory, grassroots approach to pursuing the ABL reform within the state education sector. The egalitarian spirit with which ABL was promoted appeared to contribute to a moral authority and good will that generated support even when administrators used traditional tools of bureaucratic power, including top-down mandates, to institutionalize the reform. Ultimately, we argue, in their bureaucratic activism to change the government schools these administrators contributed to visible shifts in the nature of bureaucratic practice itself. Note:The following two links are not-applicable for text-based browsers or screen-reading software. Show Hide Full Abstract

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Descriptors:
Foreign Countries; Higher Education; Educational Change; Administrators; Private Colleges; Humanities; College Curriculum; Tuition; Tutoring; College Instruction; College Faculty; College Students; Student Attitudes

Abstract:
This article profiles A.C. Grayling, a British intellectual who pioneers a new model for college. In his role as founder of the New College of the Humanities, Britain's newest and most controversial institution of higher education, A.C. Grayling could have chosen among several titles. The senior academic officer at most English higher-education institutions is known as vice chancellor, with a few rectors and a provost and a president or two in the mix. In Scotland, the customary title is principal. Mr. Grayling, however, has opted for master, an honorific with long antecedents at the colleges that make up England's two oldest universities, Oxford and Cambridge. In June 2011, Mr. Grayling announced his intention to establish the New College of the Humanities, with the involvement--and investment--of a handful of fellow academic celebrities. His goal was to bridge what he sees as the growing gap between higher education and the needs of contemporary society. Though his concerns are echoed by many other critics of mainstream universities, both in Britain and elsewhere, his solution is unique. Unlike so many other recent ventures, Mr. Grayling's attempt to devise a new higher-education paradigm for the 21st century is rooted in the American liberal-arts model and the individualized tutorial system that once prevailed at Oxford and Cambridge. "This is a college for the humanities," he says, and its emphasis on the study of philosophy, history, literature, law, and economics is designed to provide its students with the intellectual equipment that will enable them to organize ideas and muster arguments, even in the face of challenges that "we can't even envisage yet." In marrying those fundamentals of American liberal-arts education to the rigorous training that the classic tutorial system provides, Mr. Grayling says his goal is to create what is sometimes called the T-shaped thinker, one with both breadth and depth. The premise seems simple enough and, especially for an American audience, relatively uncontroversial. But when Mr. Grayling announced what he was planning, there was an outcry. Critics, calling the venture a vanity exercise, accused him of selling a bill of goods to a set of rich kids and undermining the rest of British higher education while he was at it. Note:The following two links are not-applicable for text-based browsers or screen-reading software. Show Hide Full Abstract

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Descriptors:
Tenure; College Faculty; College Administration; Administrators; Data; Educational Finance; Cost Effectiveness; Higher Education

Abstract:
For years, faculty members have pointed to the sluggish growth in the number of tenured professors and complained that university payrolls are filled with too many administrators. This, they maintain, adds unnecessary costs and takes the focus away from teaching and learning. But whether such "administrative bloat" is really occurring and how much it matters on campuses are complex questions to answer. The proportion of administrative and other nonfaculty employees has grown, but the reality of "administrative bloat" depends on the data. Note:The following two links are not-applicable for text-based browsers or screen-reading software. Show Hide Full Abstract

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Descriptors:
Governance; Review (Reexamination); Change Strategies; Organizational Change; Position Papers; Laws; Board of Education Policy; Governing Boards; Higher Education; Individual Characteristics; Institutional Characteristics; Organizational Objectives; Meetings; Administrators; Committees; Conflict of Interest; Resources; Legal Responsibility; Administrative Policy; Administrator Guides; Policy Formation

Abstract:
"Updating Board Bylaws: A Guide for Colleges and Universities" represents the latest thinking on good governance in higher education by providing a concise deconstruction of the essential clauses in college, university, and system bylaws. Written by Robert O'Neil, former professor of law and president of the University of Wisconsin System and the University of Virginia, this publication includes: (1) sample clauses; (2) insightful commentary; (3) practical tips for reviewing and revising bylaws; and (4) differentiated advice for public and independent boards. Individual sections contain additional resources. (Contains 10 exhibits and 9 general resources.) Note:The following two links are not-applicable for text-based browsers or screen-reading software. Show Hide Full Abstract

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Descriptors:
Community Colleges; Educational Change; Administrators; College Administration; Case Studies; Institutional Autonomy; Student Evaluation; Student Placement; English Curriculum; Mathematics Curriculum; Grade Point Average; Writing Tests; Academic Standards; Prediction

Abstract:
This practitioner packet is designed to help community college administrators implement reforms to developmental education at their colleges. It reviews common impediments to developmental reform and presents data that supports directions colleges can take to create a system of developmental education that might serve students more effectively. Included in the packet is a Research Overview that synthesizes data from CCRC studies of developmental education and describes three case studies; FAQs About CCRC's Assessment Validity Studies, which addresses effective placement practices; and a PowerPoint presentation of key data points that can help guide discussions with stakeholders. (Contains 12 sources and 23 endnotes.) Note:The following two links are not-applicable for text-based browsers or screen-reading software. Show Hide Full Abstract

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Descriptors:
Disabilities; Music; Music Education; Special Education; Special Needs Students; Singing; Educational Research; Literature Reviews; Musicians; Administrators; Educational Legislation; Federal Legislation; Academic Accommodations (Disabilities); Student Placement

Abstract:
Despite long-standing antidiscrimination laws, such as the Americans with Disabilities Act and Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, which are meant to guarantee equal access, many school and community choirs appear to be populated primarily by students with typical physical, cognitive, and behavioral abilities. The purpose of this article is to review research and professional literature on integration of individuals with significant cognitive, speech/language, physical and/or behavioral challenges into school and community choirs. Because of the small amount of literature specifically pertaining to choirs, this review also includes pertinent literature from other performance ensembles and from elementary general music classrooms. Based on this review of literature, I will identify and describe common features or approaches of successfully integrated general music, instrumental, and choral programs. Finally, I will summarize these findings specifically with regard to their utility in school and community choral settings, with the aim of illustrating how choral directors might better include singers with special needs in their choirs. (Contains 1 note.) Note:The following two links are not-applicable for text-based browsers or screen-reading software. Show Hide Full Abstract

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