Syllabus

EAPS 745: Advanced Seminar in Educational Politics

Spring 1996

David Wiles		Monday
Tel.: 442-5089		4:15-7:00 class
e-mail: dkw42@cnsvax.albany.edu		7:00-9:00 lab

Overview

The seminar will focus upon the political connotations of identifying and improving academic performance in New York State's secondary schools. Special attention will be given to the Regents secondary curriculum and the Compact for Learning r eform agenda.

The seminar will be student focused and "hands on" learning. Consequently, each student will be responsible for accounting for the use of his or her time in the conventional 30 hours per semester sense.

Students will be provided opportunities for both classroom discussion and laboratory training to facilitate achieving minimum evaluation expectations.

Minimal expectations (grade of B-) will include a critique of the required text and demonstrating proficiency in the use of Statview software on data provided by the instructor. To achieve a higher grade (A- or better) for the class each student will also complete a major policy study. This analysis will be individ ual or small group. The analysis will either be an extension of the minimal proficiency data analysis or collecting and preparing a new set of educational policy information. In either case, the major study will include both the analysis of data and discu ssing the relationship to political connotations of educational performance and systemic reform efforts.

Required Text

David Wiles, Networking High Performance in New York's Secondary Education (Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America, 1996)

Recommended Supplements

New York State Education Department, New York: State of Learning: Statistical Profiles of Public School Districts (submitted February 1996) Nina Cobb (ed) The Condition of Education (New York: The College Board, 1995) Richard Rottman Measuri ng Up (San Francisco: Jossey Bass, 1996)

Evaluation

1. Critique of Networking High Performance. (completed by mid term, 15 page minimum).

a) the credibility of kieretsu concept for achieving a network of cooperation among highly competitive New York school districts.

b) the use of official state level data and "threshold" decision rules to identify and describe "bulls-eye" (or full points) and "target" (or half points) districts.

c) the difference between use of "points" identification to design a statewide implementation strategy for continuing Compact reform and "points" as a strict rank ordering of 649 districts on Regents performance.

d) the use of Regents "points" identification of secondary performance in "dim" areas of the state.

e) the credibility of the 50-64 variance policy for certain Regents curriculum and the assumption of state wide assessment and evaluation that "what gets measured, gets done."

f) the viability of creating state wide "leagues of like districts" identified by both demographic and organizational features and Regents performance.

2. Proficiency with Excel Spreadsheet, SPSS or Statview software and the "Capital Region" data set. (completed by mid term, no pape other than group report).
Each student will be a member of one of four teams (red, green, blue or purple) and provided a Macintoch formatted floppy disk containing

(a) the Excel Spreadsheet and/or Statview software program,

(b) the details of Regents "points"calculation

(c) Data directory and baseline information about the 79 districts in the Capital Region for five (SED data) or four (comptroller data) years,

(d) data set categories for contingency table analyses. While teamwork is encouraged, each student will be responsible for learning the basics of using Statview (e.g.. entering data in columns, sorting columns, creating category columns) and doing s imple analyses (correlation, chi square, one way analysis of variance and regression) on the Capital Region data set provided.

Demonstration of team proficiency will be by oral report and written supplements based upon data driven analysis. The instructor will demonstrate the analysis of both the Business Review and Regents "points" rankings for the 79 district set to 1994-l995 Regents diploma production indice, the Census Poverty Index wealth "capacity" indice and the $CAADM wealth "effort" indice. Each of the four student teams will demonstrate the policy implications of Business Review and "Points" rankings of districts "performance" to the following set indices:

Red Team	Green Team	Blue Team	Purple Team
k-12 Enrollment	College Bound Intentions	$ Full Value/Enroll Pop.	% spent in Teaching
Pupils/Square Mile	% Teacher Turnover	% Free/Reduce Lunch	% Admin Instruction
% spent Transportation	% dropout	Tax Rate per $1000	% Gen Govt Support

3. Major Policy Analysis (completed by end of semester, form depends on nature of study).

By the end of February each student working to achieve a higher grade will turn in a one page prospectus outlining their major policy analysis venture.

The analysis may take a variety of forms. For example, a student may continue the analysis of the "capital region" in greater depth by collecting new de scriptive indices (e.g., the results of a survey on shared decision making or additional information from the New York State of Learning). A student may take the results of team reports about the capital region and frame hypotheses for comparison of results with other areas of the state (e.g., by region of the state or by delimitation of the meaning of district).

Students are encouraged to use their major activity to create new rationale and data sets of educational performance. For example, a student may wish to create post secondary performance indices, create a New York City set for high school jurisdicti ons (instead of k-12 districts), create a School-to-Work performance measure or work with the 1990 Census information as a community context study. Toward the end of the semester each student will give a presentation of their analytical format and findings to the class.

Instructor Hours
Will be available on Mondays from 4 to 9 pm. other times by
appointment.