SpedPro

OSERS Director of Research to Practice

By JohnL on Apr. 18, 2008.

Here’s a position announcement for someone to fill the duties of director of the research arm of the U.S. Department of Education Office of Special Education and Rehabilitation Services.

The following OSERS vacancy announcement(s): Supervisory Education Program Specialist, GS-1720-15 located in the Office of Special Education Programs, Research to Practice Division, closes on May 19, 2008 and is open to everyone.

If you are interested in obtaining a copy of the announcement or wish to apply, you must submit your application online through the OPM website which can be accessed through [this location]

We ask your assistance in the recruiting process by providing a copy of the announcement(s) to anyone you believe would be interested in and would be qualified for the position. Please note the above closing date of the vacancy announcement. Applications will not be accepted after that date.

How to read research

By JohnL on Feb. 21, 2008.

I sometimes note how much I’d like to help policy makers learn to discriminate between evidence- and bologna-based educational programs. Apparently, I’m not alone.

The US Coalition for Evidence-Based Policy, a non-profit promoting excellence in government, is offering a workshop for public-sector administrators on understanding research that should form the basis of public policy. Because I couldn’t find a page about the workshop on the Web site, I’m taking the unusual action of reprinting the Coalition’s announcement of the workshop.

How to Read Research Findings to Distinguish Evidence-Based Programs from Everything Else

Tools for Public Officials and Other Stakeholders to Become Independent Experts,

Offered by Recognized Leaders in Evidence-Based Reform

Washington DC, April 8, 2008

Evidence-based policy reform is an important new development in American government, requiring new skills of public officials, staff, and other stakeholders. Requirements for rigorous evaluation and the use of evidence-based programs now appear in Congressional legislation, Office and Management and Budget (OMB) guidance, and federal agency grant solicitations in many diverse areas of policy. These developments offer the potential to bring rapid, evidence-driven progress to areas such as education, employment and training, crime and justice, early childhood programs, substance abuse prevention, and international development assistance. Key precedents include medicine, where evidence-based policy has produced remarkable advances in human health over the past half-century; and welfare, where rigorous evaluations built actionable knowledge about “what works,” setting the stage for the successful, bipartisan welfare reforms of the 1980s and 90s.

Our workshop teaches the core skill needed to be an effective practitioner of evidence-based policy: The ability to read a study and readily assess whether it produced valid evidence of a program’s effectiveness.

This core skill is needed, for example, to –

• Distinguish the few programs in your policy area that are truly backed by valid evidence from everything else that claims to be, without having to rely on outside “experts” whose biases and capabilities are unknown;
• Sponsor a study that is capable of generating valid evidence about a program’s effectiveness; and
• Explain research results to key colleagues and stakeholders in a clear and persuasive way, so as to enlist them as partners in your efforts.

Acquiring this core skill is straightforward: A one-day workshop on key principles, followed by weekly “brown-bag” conference calls providing hands-on, coached experience in reviewing actual studies.

The workshop will take place on Tuesday, April 8, 2008 at the Coalition for Evidence-Based Policy from 9:00 to 4:00, with lunch provided. The weekly follow-up sessions will be held over a 12-week period, via 45-minute conference calls at the noon hour. In these sessions, participants will gain hands-on experience reviewing actual studies in a small-group setting facilitated by Coalition staff, with the goal of becoming independent experts. Participants are encouraged to suggest studies to review in these sessions.

Our background: A nonprofit, nonpartisan organization, we’ve played a leadership role in advancing evidence-based reforms through our work with top Congressional and federal agency policymakers:

Our work with Congress and OMB helped create a new evidence-based home visitation program at HHS in the FY 08 Appropriations Act (Public Law 110-161).
We helped OMB develop new guidance for the federal agencies on What Constitutes Strong Evidence of a Program’s Effectiveness.
Our work with Congress has yielded important advances in Congressional support for rigorous – preferably randomized – evaluations in education, crime prevention, and other areas.
We’ve conducted previous workshops on evidence-based policy for OMB, the Departments of Education and Labor, the Congressionally-established Academic Competitiveness Council, and others.
We developed and manage one of the leading U.S. websites of evidence-based programs – Social Programs That Work (www.evidencebasedprograms.org).
A recent independent assessment of our work found we’ve been “instrumental in transforming a theoretical advocacy of evidence-based policy among certain [federal] agencies into an operational reality.”
Logistics and Cost

When: Tuesday, April 8, 2008, 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., with lunch provided. 12 follow-up sessions via conference call each Tuesday thereafter, starting at noon.

Where: The April 8th session will be held at the Council for Excellence in Government (1301 K Street, NW, Suite 450 West, Washington DC 20005)

Who: Public officials and staff, policy analysts, program providers, and other stakeholders. A research background is not required.

Cost: $520 for the one-day workshop and 12 follow-up sessions. As a nonprofit organization, we price our workshops as inexpensively as we can to reach the widest possible audience.

Deadlines: The deadline for registration and payment is Tuesday, April 1st. Space is limited, and our previous workshops have filled up quickly.

How to register: Please register via our website at http://www.excelgov.org/userpreview.php?formid=389.

Payment Information: Credit card payments are preferred; we also accept checks (payable to the Council for Excellence in Government) and purchase orders. To process your payment, please contact David Anderson at (danderson@excelgov.org, 202-530-3284).

Questions?: Please contact David Anderson (danderson@excelgov.org, 202-530-3284).

Development of the workshop curriculum is funded through a grant from the William T. Grant Foundation.

JANE 4 sped?

By JohnL on Feb. 20, 2008.

Given the proliferation of professional journals in special education, it might seem difficult to determine appropriate places to publish one’s work. Of course, we surely don’t have as much difficulty as those in biological sciences, where journals focused on sub-sub-specialities exist. To help folks in those disciplines, perhaps a dose of artificial intelligence would be helpful.

In “Reducing the cost of facilitating peer review,” Peter Suber described and commented on a script that recommends journals that would be suitable outlets for one’s writings. Mr. Suber’s post, which appeared in Nature Network, referred to a Martijn J. Schuemie and Jan A. Kors’ “Jane: Suggesting Journals, Finding Experts” from Bioinformatics. Here’s a snippet from Mr. Steel:

Abstract: With an exponentially growing number of articles being published every year, scientists can use some help in determining which journal is most appropriate for publishing their results, and which other scientists can be called upon to review their work.

Jane (Journal/Author Name Estimator) is a freely available web-based application that, on the basis of a sample text (e.g., the title and abstract of a manuscript), can suggest journals and experts who have published similar articles.

I recall the advice of a writing professor with whom I studied as an undergraduate. He told me I should submit a piece of short fiction to a magazine and then, in preparation for receiving a rejection, address envelopes to other magazine editors where I would hope it would be published and stuff each envelope with a submission letter. I should then stack those envelopes in the order of my estimate of their magazines’ prestige. If it was rejected by one I was simply to put a copy of the ms. in the next envelope in the stack and mail it in the next day’s mail.

I also recall the sage comment of my colleague Mike E., who said something similar. He finished his recommendation with a maxim: “John, for every manuscript, there is a journal.”

More about JANE:
Mr. Schuemie and Mr. Kors’ original. “Jane: Suggesting Journals, Finding Experts”
Mr. Suber’s Reducing the cost of facilitating peer review
Savvy comment from Nature blog by Maxine Clarke (here) and an unsigned note here and >.

Politics and ed research

By JohnL on Feb. 6, 2008.

In “‘Scientific Research’ and Policymaking: A Tool, Not a Crutch,” Frederick M. Hess and Jeffrey R. Henig present concerns about how research affects educational policies and how public policymakers use educational research.

These are heady times for education researchers. The No Child Left Behind Act famously endorses the use of “scientifically based research,” the federal Institute of Education Sciences has elevated the profile of rigorous scholarship, and presidential candidates tout studies on teacher quality, testing, and school choice. Advocates market favorable social science evidence and enlist sympathetic researchers as spokespersons. This attention can tempt researchers to oversell their findings and policymakers to overinterpret them—confusing our understanding of what “scientific research” can and cannot teach us when it comes to education policy.

We write as two individuals housed in very different institutions and frequently on opposing sides in polarized policy debates, both having just published books plumbing the impact of research on education policy. One sits in a school of education; the other in a Washington think tank typically described as “conservative.” Despite our differences, we share the concern that undisciplined claims about the power of research can stand in for careful thinking, foster cynicism, and undermine the long-term contribution of the research community.

Link (subscription may be required): Education Week, 27(22), 26, 36.

Consortium to Prevent School Violence

By mayerma on Dec. 28, 2007.

Dear Colleagues,

The new Consortium to Prevent School Violence website is up and running at: http://www.preventschoolviolence.org (alternate URL: http://www.ctpsv.org).

Consortium Mission: The Consortium to Prevent School Violence is committed to assisting educators and schools in the reduction of school violence.

Consortium Goals: The Consortium seeks to foster high quality research on school violence prevention; communication among researchers, practitioners and policy makers; dissemination of research-based information regarding effective school violence reduction programs; technical assistance and professional development that aid in implementing effective school violence reduction practices; and advocacy of effective research-based solutions to policy makers.

Consortium History: The Consortium grew out of efforts that followed the tragic Amish school shootings of Fall, 2006. A group of 20 researchers and practitioners in the field of school violence prevention collaborated on the creation of a nationally disseminated position statement on the school shootings. In the process, it became apparent that an alliance of researchers and practitioners in school violence prevention to further the common goal of reducing school violence would be highly valuable.

Current Consortium projects include:

• Brief and practical fact sheets for use by teachers, school administrators, parents, and others working in schoolrelated settings, offering concise, understandable, and usable research-based recommendations for practice. Topics will include: screening and referring at-risk students for help; bullying prevention; gangs in schools; threat assessment in schools; working with students with a history of academic failure and behavioral problems; school-family partnerships to address behavioral problems; mentoring programs for at-risk youth; and others as needs are identified.
• Usable research briefs by leading researchers, targeting critical topic areas, such as bullying prevention, zero tolerance, school-accessible evidence-based interventions, youth gun access and guns in schools, and school resource officers. The briefs, which summarize extant knowledge of the topic, will be designed for an end-user audience of school staff, local school and school district administrators, professional training personnel, and policymakers and legislators at the state and federal level.
• Staff training PowerPoints for school violence prevention which include speaker notes and support resources, for use in schools, local youth service agencies, and other organizations concerned with school violence. The PowerPoints will be designed for use by professional trainers who may have general but not highly specific knowledge of school violence prevention. The PowerPoints will be geared to support training sessions for use in in-service programs, workshops, and other professional training venues.
• Effective practices video in which national experts share key lessons learned from school violence prevention research and practice. The video, as envisioned, approximately 35-40 minutes in length, will feature approximately 15 national experts, each briefly highlighting important bottom line findings. The video will be developed along critical themes such as school wide programming, early intervention, fostering connectedness, providing mental health and other supports, threat assessment, and crisis management.

All research-based materials posted on the Consortium website are evaluated and approved by the Consortium’s expert review panel of distinguished scholars.

Please share the URL with colleagues. Thank you.

Matthew Mayer
Rutgers University

Cambridge Center ED

By JohnLloyd on Nov. 30, 2007.

The Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies seeks an experienced behavior analyst to assume the position of Executive Director in July, 2008. Link.

Vouchers and special education

By JohnL on Nov. 9, 2007.

A news story from the Salt Lake (UT, US)Tribune that ran prior to the defeat of the Utah initiative to implement a system of vouchers for K-12 education mentioned concern about private schools refusing to accept students with disabilities.

One thing Utah vouchers foes fear is that private schools will refuse to take expensive special education students, leaving them in public schools with less money to educate them.

This got me thinking (often a dangerous process): What do we really know about implementation of voucher systems? Do schools operating under voucher policies dis- or mis-serve students with disabilities? I searched quickly and found an article by Susan Etscheidt, but little more (abstract appended).

Do any ‘pros know of unpublished studies about this matter?

Etscheidt, S. (2005). Vouchers and students with disabilities: A multidimensional analysis. Journal of Disability Policy Studies, 16, 156-168.

School choice initiatives such as open enrollment, magnet schools, charter schools, and voucher plans have been offered as methods of school reform. A publicly funded voucher plan in Florida targeting students with disabilities was considered as a possible model for the reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Although the model was not adopted in the reauthorized law, the potential impact of such voucher plans must be examined. The empirical evidence regarding the impact of vouchers on parent choice, student achievement, and fiscal school management is inconclusive and incomplete. Further, the impact of voucher plans on educational programs for students with disabilities has not been thoroughly studied. Such an examination requires a multiparadigmatic analysis of legal, economic, academic, sociological, and political dimensions.

Link to the Tribune article.

DLD dissertation award

By admin on Sep. 11, 2007.

DLD Dissertation Award for Outstanding Doctoral Level Research

(Deadline January 15, 2008)

The Division for Learning Disabilities (DLD) within the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) announces its annual competition for outstanding doctoral-level research in the field of learning disabilities. The purposes of the award are to encourage excellence in doctoral level research and to recognize quality research that contributes to the field of learning disabilities. Refer to TeachingLD.org for additional information.

The Award consists of:

a) A $500 cash award;
b) Up to an additional $500 for travel to receive the award at the CEC Annual Convention;
c) Free one-year membership in CEC and DLD;
d) An opportunity to present the research at the CEC Annual Convention;
e) An invitation to submit the research for publication in the Division journal, Learning Disabilities Research & Practice.

Timeline

Applications for the award must be received no later than January 15, 2008. The recipient will be selected and notified by March 15, 2008.

Eligibility

The competition is open to individuals who have met the eligibility requirements during the two-year period preceding October 1st of each application year. Eligibility will be verified through the applicant’s degree granting institution to protect all applicants, the universities, and DLD. To be eligible, the applicant must have received the doctoral degree between the dates specified, or have received approval by the dissertation committee of the final written form of the dissertation between the dates specified

The competition is intended to recognize doctoral students who have focused their research on learning disabilities or who have conducted related research having clear implications for the field of learning disabilities. Studies employing any research methodology appropriate to the research question(s) addressed are encouraged (e.g., experimental, ethnographic, historical, or survey).

Application

Each applicant must submit an application including:

• an appropriate title page including the dissertation title, author, date of dissertation, approval or awarding of degree, degree-granting institution, name and dissertation committee chair, and applicant’s current address and phone number.
• four copies of a dissertation abstract, not to exceed 150 words, and
• four copies of a manuscript not to exceed 25 manuscript pages (not including references, tables and figures) outlining and summarizing the research, using APA guidelines. Manuscripts submitted for this competition may already have been submitted/accepted for publication. If submitted or accepted, appropriate referencing must be provided.
• Electronic copies of all of the above.

Send applications to:

Dr. Margo A. Mastropieri
College of Education and Human Development
Graduate School of Education
Mail Stop Number 6B2
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA 22030-4444

EU4ALL

By JohnL on Aug. 31, 2007.

The European Unified Approach for Assisted Lifelong Learning (EU4ALL), which is a group of educators and others working on the problems of learners who are atypical, has a survey soliciting people’s views of learning environments. I thought some folks might be interested in participating. Here’s a snippet from the announcement; it includes a link.

The EU4ALL Project is investigating how to better support people with disabilities and older people in education, particularly higher education, using virtual learning environments and other information and communication technologies.
>>snip< <
Surveys for both staff and students are available in English, German, Greek, Italian and Spanish and can be accessed online at http://www.cs.york.ac.uk/hci/eu4all/survey/index.htm.

Characteristics of elementary students receiving special education

By JohnL on Aug. 1, 2007.

Late in July 2007, the National Center for Education Statistics of the US Department of Education released a report by William L. Herring, Daniel McGrath, Jacquelyn Buckley that describes the students who receive special education services during the elementary years. Following a longitudinal cohort across the elementary grades, the report provides data about the disabilities by which students are identified, their ethnicity and socio-economic status, and some characteristics of their schools (school poverty, urbanicity, and geographic location).

Demographic and School Characteristics of Students Receiving Special Education in the Elementary Grades

This Issue Brief provides a detailed description of the proportion of elementary school students receiving special education in kindergarten, first grade, third grade, and fifth grade; the primary disabilities of these students; and the variation in these measures across a range of demographic and school characteristics. Data for this analysis are drawn from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998-99 (ECLS-K). Findings from the analysis indicate that for the cohort of students beginning kindergarten in 1998, specific learning disabilities and speech or language impairments were the most prevalent primary disabilities over the grades studied. The percentage of the student cohort receiving special education grew from 4.1 percent in kindergarten to 11.9 percent of students in fifth grade. The results also indicate that higher percentages of boys than girls and of poor students than nonpoor students received special education.

Special education advocates are almost certain to spin these data in different ways. Some will say it illustrates the wait-to-fail criticism of special education. Others will point to the overlap between poverty, ethnicity, and disabilities as an illustration of the need for more systemic efforts to address problems. Still others may develop an argument against public schooling from the data.

Regardless of the interpretation, it is important to have these data available.

Link to the source of the description I’ve quoted, to the PDF of the report, and to another PDF document that provides the data in tabular form.