Search results

The purpose of this exploratory study is to explore parent and school administrator perspectives on the value and nature of parent involvement in the city of Abu Dhabi through their perceptions of roles and responsibilities.

The study is conducted in a random purposive sample of Public–Private Partnership schools during Abu Dhabi Education Council’s school reform.

Findings show that while both administrators and parents agree on the value of parental involvement, the perceptions of their own and each others’ roles and responsibilities means that parent involvement is characterized by unfulfilled expectations.

Recommendations are made to arrive at realistic roles and responsibilities for parent involvement and recommendations for a model of mutually responsive practice to evolve within a policy framework, with the support of ADEC, and informed by international and locally based research.

The paper sheds light on a new educational dimension beyond curricula and instruction.

The chapter examines school administrator responsibilities to special education students and their families from case scenarios based on conflicts between parents and districts regarding services provided by schools to special education students. From these case studies based on real case law, readers are exposed to situations intended to pose questions as to whether administrators met their responsibility to ensure the rights of the special education students. Principals, superintendents, and special education administrators committed to work together to make their school environment and optimal place for children to learn. An equally important role for school administrators is to create and maintain cultures where faculty understand their advocacy role for all children, but in particular, those children most in need of support. Effective administrators hold themselves and other professionals in their district to high standards related to knowledge of school law, particularly special education school law; communication with parents and other professionals; and collaborations based on the value of what is best for the student. This chapter concludes with a section on ethical leadership or the values underlying administrative actions affecting individualized education program students, their families, and all students who are different whether due to socioeconomic status, cultural differences, or race.

One of the most challenging issues facing building level administrators is the supervision of special education programs in their schools. This chapter outlines the role of the building administrator in overseeing the implementation of special education laws and policies from the initial process of referring students for special education services through the implementation and monitoring phases of service delivery at the building level. Detailed topics include dealing with parents, regular education staff, and student privacy issues. This text examines student discipline and due process complaints as well as strategies for dealing with outside agencies, such as child welfare departments and law enforcement officials. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the No Child Left Behind Act, and its impact on special education services at the building level.

Highlights the importance of school reporting to parents and the need for its effective management, as fundamental practices underpinning the central purpose of schools. Argues that, in spite of the centrality of reporting to the core activities of teaching and learning, current efforts to secure accountability appear to focus more on increasing school accountability to central offices and school councils than on addressing much needed and long overdue improvements in parent reporting. Identifies, through a review of literature on school reporting to parents, aspects of reporting on individual student achievement and progress which need to be rethought in order to align with developments in education policy and parental expectations in the latter half of the 1990s. Uses the aspects of reporting in need of improvement, as elicited from the literature review, to generate a set of roles and responsibilities for school leaders and administrators to adopt in improving the reporting process, which, it is argued, needs to be well managed and organized if it is to meet the expectations of all stakeholders.

A sample of 150 school administrators in state primary and secondary schools in Malta completed a self‐administered questionnaire on their perceptions of role‐related stress. About one‐fifth of the respondents found their job as school administrators either very stressful or extemely stressful; 80 per cent indicated that they were fairly satisfied or very satisfied with their job. Some of the demographic characteristics of the sample were related to the level of job stress and satisfaction. Results also showed that respondents who reported greater levels of stress were least satisfied with their role as school administrators. A principal components analysis of 22 listed sources of stress revealed four major stress factors, labelled “lack of support and resolving conflicts”, “inadequate resources”, “workload” and “work conditions and responsibilities”. The demographic variables of “sex”, “type of administrative post” and “type of school” interacted significantly with the four stress factors.

The standards movement, while new in the current NCLB iteration, has been a part of education for almost the last half century (Popham, 2001; Sirotnik, 2004). According to several researchers (e.g., DiPaola & Walther-Thomas, 2003; Fullan, 2001; Lashley & Boscardin, 2003; Marsh, 2000; Villa & Thousand, 2000), there have been significant changes in the roles that school leaders must fulfill to implement a standards-based educational accountability system. The requirements of NCLB will not be a “passing fad” and so will affect the manner in which special education administrators conduct their work (Hochschild, 2003). As it stands, districts and schools are viewed as an amalgam of complex relationships (Harry, Sturges, & Klinger, 2005) that come together as learning communities to meet accountability targets for all students. The requirements for building a learning community involve the skills of collaboration and empowerment of others. Apparently, developing productive partnerships will exceed the previously defined narrow interpretation of collaboration with families and other professionals (Crockett, 2002). Standards-based accountability practices which disaggregate data based on specific subgroups, one of which is students with disabilities, are a result of the concern that exclusion of students from testing distorts the efficacy of educational reform efforts (Heubert & Hauser, 1999; McDonnell, McLaughlin, & Morison, 1997; Schulte & Villwock, 2004). However, concerns have also been raised regarding the validity of conclusions drawn from large-scale accountability data (Schulte & Villwock, 2004; Ysseldyke & Bielinski, 2002). Hargreaves (2003) concluded that “the rightful pursuit of higher standards has generated into a counter productive obsession with soulless standardization” (p. 82).

The purpose of this monograph is to present the first English translation of a unique French colonial report on women living under colonial rule in West Africa.

The issue begins with a discussion of the contribution this report makes to the history of social development policy in Africa, and how it serves the on‐going critique of colonisation. This is followed by the English translation of the original report held in the National Archives of Senegal. The translation is accompanied by explanatory notes, translator’s comments, a glossary of African and technical terms, and a bibliography.

The discussion highlights contemporary social development policies and practices which featured in identical or similar forms in French colonial social policy.

As the report demonstrates, access to basic education and improving maternal/infant health care have dominated the social development agenda for women in sub‐Saharan Africa for over a century, and will continue to do so in the foreseeable future in the Millennium Development Goals which define the international community’s agenda for social development to 2015. The parallels between colonial and post‐colonial social policies in Africa raise questions about the philosophical and cultural foundations of contemporary social development policy in Africa and the direction policy is following in the 21st century.

Though the discussion adopts a consciously postcolonial perspective, the report that follows presents a consciously colonial view of the “Other”. Given the parallels identified here between contemporary and colonial policy‐making, this can only add to the value of the document in exploring the values that underpin contemporary social development practice.

The purpose of this nonexperimental research was to examine the perceptions of state-certified teachers regarding Library Media Specialists (LMS). Through collaboration and the use of social constructivist learning theories, teachers at three high schools in Georgia were interviewed regarding the roles and responsibilities of LMS. The primary research question asked how the perceptions of teachers on the practices of the role of the school LMS differ from the way the teachers perceive these roles to be important at their high schools. The secondary research questions addressed the correlations between high school teachers' demographic information and both the importance of and the practice of the roles of the high school LMS. Quantitative data were collected through a survey developed by McCracken (2000). A paired sample t-test was used to compare the theoretical and practical scales in each category of the LMS roles, and a Spearman rank-ordered correlations test was used to compare the 13 descriptive variables to theoretical and practical scales. Teacher participants reported each of the roles of the LMS to be more important than what is actually being practiced in their school settings and that similar views existed on both the practice scale and the importance scale. Implications include community and educator awareness of the role of the school LMS, an increased educator awareness of the roles of a state-certified school LMS to compliment the high school curriculum, and an increased awareness for the need of a LMS in public schools.

This study was conducted to fill gaps in the literature based on institution type, career level, and gender identity.

Faculty often struggle with achieving work-life balance. This struggle is exacerbated for faculty parents. Most academic parent research has been conducted on early-career women and at research-intensive universities. Although these groups are important, it is also important to understand experiences of academic parents at different career levels and types of institutions. The authors conducted a qualitative thematic analysis from focus groups with faculty from a mid-sized master's level university about work-life balance expectations and experiences in their roles as academics and parents. These four groups included early-career mothers (n = 5), early-career fathers (n = 4), mid-career mothers (n = 4), and mid-career fathers (n = 7).

Faculty expressed having a high workload based on an intersection of high work expectations, unclear work expectations, and lack of equity. Consequences of the high workload included lower work-life balance, dissatisfaction at not doing more, the loss of flexibility as an advantage, and lower organizational commitment.

Although results are limited in generalizability, it is useful to examine one institution, with all participants sharing the same culture and policies, in-depth. The authors discuss recommendations for educational administrators for assisting academic parents and suggest institutions work to examine informal expectations and formal policies at their institutions. Working together, faculty and staff can help enhance alignment of expectations and perceptions of work-life balance, hopefully leading to happier, more satisfied employees.

Aims to develop the conception and theory of school‐based management and map its characteristics of school functioning for facilitating the ongoing discussion and effort for school management reforms in local or international contexts. School‐based management employs theories of “equifinality” and “decentralization”, assumes that “school is a self‐managing system” and regards “initiative of human factor” and “improvement of internal process” as important. When compared with externally‐controlled schools, the characteristics of school‐based managing schools are very different in school functioning. They should have clear school mission and strong organizational culture. In these schools, managing strategies should encourage participation and give full play to members′ initiative; there should also be considerable autonomy of procuring and using resources to solve problems in time; the role of people concerned should be active and developmental; human relationship is open, co‐operative with mutual commitment; administrators should be high quality and always learning; and evaluation of school effectiveness should include multilevel and multi‐facet indicators of input, process and output in order to help the school learn to improve.