Exploring the Purpose of School after NCLB

Steve Stemler

Lauren Sonnabend

Wesleyan University

Intro

• What is the purpose of school?– Clearly not monolithic– Varies by school type – focus on secondary

• Thesis: The prominent purposes of school shift over time as a result of political, social influences– Empirical way to evaluate prominent purposes?

• Four Specific Research Questions

Do missions vary by State?

• Need different pictures to represent different political influences (red/blue) and different landscapes (cornfields of IA v. City of NY v. Industry of XX v. Microsoft in WA)?

Do missions vary by Urbanicity?

• Show pictures of urban, suburban, rural schools/areas

• Different needs for different schools

• Media statements about what urban schools should do for children– Some evidence that indicates that urban

schools are called upon to be “home”

Do Missions Vary by NCLB Status?

• Failing Schools v. High-Performing Schools

• Show league table ranking high-performing and low-performing schools

• Picture of a multiple-choice test with pencil

Do Missions Change over Time?

• Insert Blank Timeline with Dates from 1900 to today– We can just create this in the draw feature

Background

• Philosophers of Education

• Historical Timeline that shows when civic development was important, when emotional, when social, when cognitive, etc.

Background

• Federal v. Local Control of Education

• Show different Federal educational policies (Goals 2000 with their safe schools, NCLB with their cognitive emphasis) on Historical Timeline– Can you search for something like this on the

web?

Background

• State Influences on Education

• MA Constitution– First US State Constitution– Written by John Adams– Direct quote on purpose of schools

Background

• How this gets translated into legal responsibilities today

• McDuffy 7– Kentucky, MA, other states

Background

• Parental perspectives and student perspectives

• Survey results

Summary

• All conclude that there are multiple purposes to schools

• No one purpose has inherent precedence over another

• Two problems– No systematic voice of the schools themselves!– Can’t all have precedence simultaneously; must change

over time. Influenced by policy?

Our Study

• Look at school’s perspective

• Using Mission Statements

• Why Mission Statements?– Simple, effective, easy to obtain and analyze– Necessary for accreditation (cite)– School Effectiveness Lit shows that more effective

schools show comittment to shared vision– Prior research (Stemler & Bebell; Strobel; Havelauk)

Study 1: Purpose

• Longitudinal Analysis of School Mission Statements

• Research Question: Do they change over time and if so, in what ways?

Study 1: Methods

• Truly random sample of 50 MA secondary schools.

• 90% response rate (n=45)

• Content Analysis of Statements– Give Example with Scoring Rubric

Study 1: Methods

• Example Statements and Scoring Rubrics

• Rubric

• Interrater reliability results:

Study 1: Methods

• Reported in Stemler & Bebell 2001 NEERO paper– Pre-NCLB

• Looked at same schools 5 years later. Had they changed at all?

Study 1: Results• 50% changed, 50% did not

• Graph showing how they changed

• Common argument – NCLB narrow’s schools focus

• Findings = added one more thing on top – didn’t throw anything away!

• Shift in emphasis from civic, emotional, cog to cog, civic, emot

• Qualitative example of loss of “love of learning” in favor of “critical thinking”– Need 2 or so examples here

Study 2: Purpose

• Large-scale empirical analysis– Examine systematic differences by state,

urbanicity, and NCLB status

• Geographically and politically diverse states– Give picture with the states we picked

highlighted

Study 2: Methods

• How we did it– Purposive selection of 10 geographically and

politically diverse states– Random selection of 50 public high schools in each

state– Selection criteria > 70% with mission statements

• Coding Rubric– Interrater reliability– Modification from 2001 to 2006

Study 2: Results

• Table with 10 states and % with mission statements/websites

• Kind of interesting sidenote, probably first study to look at truly random sample and estimate prevalence of school websites

Results

• Systematic differences by state?

• Graph

• Summarize – CO, NY/CA, TX/FL

Results

• Urbanicity

• Table

• Urban schools being asked to do more than most (article lit review/media)

Results

• NCLB

• Confounded with urbancity?– Check this – compare percentage of pass and

fail by urbanicity

• Explanation

Discussion

• Summary of our findings overall as related to major questions

Limitations

• Does mission match practice?– Any influence practice at all?

• Mention phone interviews– Findings – Summary– Qualitative

Broader Implications

• Study presents empirical approach to evaluating school perspective– Currently missing in literature

• Study provides a technique for monitoring social weather and its impact on school