The conference looked at school choice issues as top researchers from across the country discussed the topic in its expanding array of forms, including charter schools, magnet schools and vouchers and inter- and intra-district choice programs. The conference explored such questions as: What leads parents to choose charter or private schools over the nearby public school, and how do they make those decisions? What can be done when family choices or district policies increase segregation at both traditional public schools and schools of choice? Do charter schools skim the best students and teachers away from neighborhood public schools? How is school choice playing out in countries other than the United States?

The conference brought together 130 scholars, graduate students and practitioners from 22 states as well as Australia, Ecuador and the Netherlands. Practitioners included teachers, school administrators, state education officials, foundation officers and representatives of advocacy groups. Discussions focused on how place matters in the world of school choice. Choice programs vary greatly across different communities, districts and states and so do their effects on schools, families and expectations about education.

For more, visit National Center on School Choice.

Employee Engagement: A Roadmap for Creating Profits, Optimizing Performance and Increasing Loyalty

Leading Schools During Crisis (Rowman Littlefield Education, 2009) by Matthew J. Pepper, MA’04, EdD’07; with Tim London, EdD’07; Mike Dishman, EdD’07; and Jessica King Lewis, BA’03, EdD’07. Analyzing the leadership and behaviors of principals who face situations threatening the continuing existence of their school, this scholarly and practice-oriented book proposes the first school-specific model of defining and analyzing crises. Through authentic case studies, it offers a detailed theoretical and practical analysis of each crisis and the lessons from it for all school leaders.

Surveillance in the Time of Insecurity (Rutgers University Press, 2010) by Torin Monahan, associate professor of human and organizational development and medicine. By exploring the counterterrorism-themed television show 24, rapture fiction, traffic control centers, security conferences, identity theft, public housing and gated communities and examining how each manifests complex relationships of inequality, insecurity and surveillance, Monahan fuses advanced theoretical accounts of state power with research from the social settings in which insecurity dynamics play out.

Observational Measurement of Behavior (Springer Publishing Company, 2010) by Paul Yoder, MS’79, professor of special education, and Frank Symons, director of the Observational Methods Lab in the College of Education and Human Development at University of Minnesota. Focusing on both group and single-subject research design, it is intended as a text for graduate school courses that teach students how to conduct research using both types of designs. The book also addresses methods now enabled by computer software that many older texts do not address.

Saegert

Peabody housing experts think struggling Nashville neighborhoods will get some relief from nearly $31 million in Recovery Act funding awarded to the Metropolitan Development and Housing Agency (MDHA) by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

“This award is a wonderful opportunity for Nashville and a credit to the reputation of MDHA,” said Susan Saegert, professor of human and organizational development and director of the Vanderbilt Center for Community Studies. The Center for Community Studies assisted with the grant proposal through research and data analysis.

The grant—the only one given in Tennessee—will support efforts to stabilize weakened neighborhoods through purchasing and rehabilitating foreclosed and abandoned properties, redeveloping vacant properties as housing and establishing a financing mechanism for low- to middle-income homebuyers of foreclosed properties.

The award was given under HUD’s Neighborhood Stabilization Program to spur economic development in hard-hit communities and create jobs. Nationally, nearly 60 grantees representing states, local governments and non-profit housing developers received $2 billion in competitive funding.

The new program is focused on improving teaching in urban middle schools and is the result of a partnership between Peabody and MNPS. Sharon Yates, lecturer in education, will direct the new program.

“Peabody College and MNPS both share a goal of improving learning for Nashville’s students, and highly effective teachers make the critical difference,” Dean Benbow said. “We are very excited to be partnering with Metro on an innovative program like this.”

Dean Benbow and Jesse Register, Metro Nashville Director of Schools

The program will prepare students to teach in upper elementary grades through grade eight with a focus on one of three areas: literacy, mathematics or science. It will be open to recent college graduates, as well as new and existing teachers.

“This program will serve multiple purposes,” MNPS Director of Schools Jesse Register said. “It will provide top training to our teachers, which will directly impact classroom instruction, and it will assist in our recruitment of the country’s most talented and promising young teachers.”

A primary goal of the new program, Teaching and Learning in Urban Schools, is recruiting and retaining excellent teachers who will continue teaching in MNPS schools after they graduate. The program will focus on improving instruction, improving student outcomes, changing assessment practices and creating communities of reflective, committed teachers dedicated to working with their MNPS colleagues to foster systemic improvement.

For more, visit Teaching and Learning in Urban Schools.

Bator and Quirk traveled to Uganda to further the work of Kasiisi Project Vanderbilt, which they founded. Kasiisi Project Vanderbilt supports the national nonprofit Kasiisi Project, which aids schoolchildren in rural western Uganda by building schools, funding scholarships and promoting conservation education.

Alice Bator, Moses Musaazi, Ogechi Achuko, president of the African Student Union, and Sarah Quirk

“I have been involved with Kasiisi Project since fifth grade,” said Bator, a Peabody junior majoring in human and organizational development and a member of the Peabody Scholars program. “In 2008, Sarah and I introduced it to Vanderbilt.”

In the summer of 2009, Bator and Quirk traveled to Uganda to meet Kasiisi students and communities and to work on a project that blended invention and economic development to help Kasiisi schoolgirls. That project, led by Moses Musaazi, a professor of electrical engineering at Makerere University, centers on producing affordable, biodegradable sanitary pads.

“In Africa, particularly Uganda, many girls miss school because they don’t have access to sanitary pads. In the past, the pads were 100 percent imported and too expensive. My goal was to find an appropriate napkin, produced by local materials, that was affordable to local girls,” Musaazi said during a November 2009 visit to Vanderbilt.

“Dr. Moses Musaazi is probably the smartest man I’ve ever met,” Bator said. “Having this exposure to appropriate technology was fascinating. All of his solutions are affordable and can be made from local materials.”

Not only are schoolgirls now able to afford pads, enabling them to stay in school, the women constructing the pads have also been transformed.

“Lifestyles have changed—women who had not been earning a single dollar now are making $200 a month,” Musaazi said. “They are economically independent and they can make a better home.”

While in Uganda, Bator and Quirk interviewed girls, gave out samples of pads to receive feedback, conducted research and advocated for the project with both public and private organizations.

“It was an amazing experience,” said Quirk, a junior majoring in human and organizational development who plans to pursue a career in nursing. “We met with people at embassies and banks, wrote a proposal for using white waste paper to make the pads and did public relations work with the community.”

“It was the most independent thing either of us has ever done,” Bator said. “We found an apartment and lived in the city. I had opportunities that I would never have here—meeting with UNICEF, the World Bank and other organizations. We were also asked to give a presentation to the Ugandan government. These are things that 20-year-olds don’t generally get to do.”

Video about the project can be seen on YouTube; search “Vanderbilt Kasiisi Project.”

Special education graduate student Karin Sandmel works with students from Currey Ingram Academy in Nashville who participated in a writing camp held on the Peabody campus in June.

James Fraser, right, associate professor of human and organizational development, testified before the Congressional Subcommittee on Housing and Community Opportunity on July 29. U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters invited Fraser to testify. Fraser’s testimony included his research on public housing, recommendations on federal public housing policy and management, community building, and the future of public housing stock. Fraser studies urban redevelopment, particularly how cities remake themselves in response to globalization, and how citizens participate in these efforts.

Convocation marking founding of the John F. Kennedy Center in 1965. From left, Governor Clement, Rose Kennedy, Eunice Kennedy Shriver and Sargent Shriver

The Vanderbilt Kennedy Center celebrated the life of Eunice Kennedy Shriver, lifelong champion of persons with intellectual disabilities and founder of Special Olympics, who died August 11 at age 88.

The Vanderbilt Kennedy Center is one of 14 Eunice Kennedy Shriver Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Research Centers (IDDRCs) supported by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). The NICHD and its IDDRC national network were renamed in honor of Mrs. Shriver in March 2008 in recognition of the impact that she had for almost five decades on the lives of individuals with developmental disabilities and their families. Her vision and unrelenting efforts helped to establish the NICHD in 1962. Mrs. Shriver was a member of NICHD’s first advisory council, and it was under its guidance that the IDDRCs were established.

“The Kennedy and Shriver families were essential to the founding of the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center,” said Elisabeth Dykens, director of the center. “Named in honor of President John Kennedy, ours was the second founded, made possible not only by a federal construction grant but also by matching gifts from the Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Foundation and Peabody College. Rose Kennedy, Sargent Shriver, and Eunice Kennedy Shriver all attended the Convocation marking our center’s founding on May 29, 1965. The Kennedys and Shrivers have never wavered in their commitment to and advocacy for persons with intellectual and other developmental disabilities.”

“We found that comparing different ways to solve a problem helped middle-school students become more flexible problem solvers and better understand the concepts behind the methods,” Rittle-Johnson said.

Rittle-Johnson

Rittle-Johnson and her colleague and co-author, Jon Star, assistant professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, also found that comparing different solution methods was more effective than comparing different problems solved using the same solution. Overall, students should not just learn one way to solve a math problem; rather, they should learn multiple ways and be encouraged to compare the benefits and drawbacks of each, she said.

The findings are summarized in two studies, one recently published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology and the other in the Journal of Educational Psychology.

“In a past study, we found that seventh graders who compared two different ways to solve equations were both more accurate and more flexible in their equation solving. In our recent studies, we found similar benefits for fifth graders learning about estimation,” Rittle-Johnson said.

Rittle-Johnson has also co-authored a study finding that students benefit more from being taught the concepts behind math problems rather than the exact procedures to solve the problems. The findings offer teachers new insights on how best to shape math instruction to have the greatest impact on student learning.

The research by Rittle-Johnson and Percival Matthews, a Peabody doctoral candidate, was published recently in the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology.

“Teaching children the basic concept behind math problems was more useful than teaching children a procedure for solving the problems. These children gave better explanations and learned more,” Rittle-Johnson said.

“This adds to a growing body of research illustrating the importance of teaching children concepts as well as having them practice solving problems.”

In math class, teachers typically demonstrate a procedure for solving a problem and then have children practice solving related problems, often with minimal explanation for why things work.

“With conceptual instruction, teachers explain a problem’s underlying structure. That type of instruction enables kids to solve the problems without having been taught specific procedures and also to understand more about how problems work,” Matthews said. “When you just show them how to do the problem they can solve it, but not necessarily understand what it is about. With conceptual instruction, they are able to come up with the procedure on their own.”

The study also examined whether having the students explain their solution to problems helped improve their learning. To test this, the researchers used the conceptual teaching approach with all students, and had one group explain their solution while the other did not. They found no discernable difference in performance between the two groups. While self-explanation has been found to be beneficial in previous studies, Rittle-Johnson and Matthews found that when the students were given a limited time to solve the problem, the benefit disappeared. This led them to suggest that part of the benefit of self-explanation may come from the extra time a student spends thinking about that particular problem.

“Self-explanation took more time, which left less time for practice solving the problems,” Matthews said. “When time is unlimited, self-explanation gives students more time to repair faulty mental models. We found conceptual explanation may do the same thing and make self-explanation less useful.”

Rittle-Johnson is an investigator in the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center for Research on Human Development and in the Peabody Learning Sciences Institute. Research for both studies was funded by the U.S. Department of Education.

The research by Judy Garber, professor of psychology at Peabody and professor of psychiatry, was published in the June 3 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. Garber presented the findings at a JAMA media briefing in New York City June 2.

Garber

Garber and her colleagues worked with 316 at-risk teens in the study. Approximately half of the teens were randomly assigned to an eight-week cognitive behavior group program in which they were taught problem-solving skills and ways to identify and challenge unrealistic and overly negative thoughts. The researchers found that the group in the cognitive behavior program had an 11 percent lower incidence of depression than the group that did not receive the intervention.

The second key finding was that those within the cognitive behavior group who had a currently depressed parent were three times more likely to experience a bout of depression than their cohorts in the group who did not have a currently depressed parent.

“Current parental depression could be a marker for several, non-mutually exclusive factors such as higher levels of stress in the family, more chronic or severe parental depression, and/or greater genetic vulnerability,” Garber said. “It is likely that a combination of these and other factors are involved. We are in the process of examining possible correlates of current parental depression.”

Garber and her colleagues suggest clinicians working with depressed parents should also inquire about their children’s well-being, and vice versa.

Only about 25 percent of depressed youth receive treatment and at least 20 percent develop recurrent, persistent and chronic depression that is very difficult to treat. Teenagers who experience depressions can have trouble with schoolwork, relationships, substance abuses and are at higher risk of suicide. Adolescent-onset depression also often predicts chronic depression in adulthood.

Garber is an investigator in the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center for Research on Human Development.

A related report from the National Research Council and Institute of Medicine argues that health and social service professionals who care for adults with depression should not only tackle their clients’ physical and mental health but also detect and prevent possible spillover effects on their children. To achieve this new family-focused model of depression care, federal and state agencies, nonprofits and the private sector will have to experiment with nontraditional ways of organizing, paying for and delivering services, the committee that wrote the report said.

Compas

“This report is designed to place the problem of depression and its effects on parents and children on the national health care agenda,” said report co-author Bruce Compas, Patricia and Rodes Hart Professor of Psychology and Human Development at Peabody. “The report summarizes research that documents the adverse effects of parental depression on children’s mental health and outlines an agenda for research and health care services for the prevention of mental health problems in children of parents with depression.”

Emerging evidence for effective preventive interventions is highlighted, including two separate preventive interventions for children of depressed parents tested in randomized clinical trials supported by the National Institute of Mental Health and conducted at Peabody College and other locations (one of which is Garber’s study mentioned above).

Major depressive disorder affects 16 percent of Americans in their lifetime, and young parents are at particularly high risk.

It is estimated that 7.5 million parents in the U.S. suffer from depression, affecting more than 15 million children who live with these parents.

Children of depressed parents are at four times greater risk to develop depression and as many as 75 percent of these children develop some form of mental health problem. Effective tools and strategies exist to treat and prevent depression, but only one-third of adult sufferers get treatment.

For more information on Garber’s research: www.jamamedia.org.
Full report by NRC: www.iom.edu/?ID=69567

“These rankings demonstrate the important work done at Peabody College as well as the extent of expertise among its faculty,” Dean Camilla Benbow said. 

The article, “The Effects of Frequent Curriculum-based Measurement and Evaluation on Pedagogy, Student Achievement, and Student Awareness of Learning,” by Lynn Fuchs, professor of special education, Nicholas Hobbs Professor of Special Education and Human Development and co-director of the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center Reading Clinic, tops the American Educational Research Journal list at No. 1.  

Doug and Lynn Fuchs are responsible for three of the five most cited research articles.

Two articles by Lynn Fuchs and Douglas Fuchs, professor of special education, Nicholas Hobbs Professor of Special Education and Human Development and co-director of the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center Reading Clinic, “Effects of Curriculum-Based Measurement and Consultation on Teacher Planning and Student Achievement in Mathematics Operations” and “Peer-assisted Learning Strategies: Making Classrooms More Responsive to Diversity” are ranked No. 3 and 4, respectively. 

Benbow’s article, “Consequences in High School and College of Sex Differences in Mathematical Reasoning Ability: A Longitudinal Perspective,” is listed as the 26th most frequently cited article, and the Fuchs were acknowledged again at No. 33 for their work, “A Conservative Approach to Special Education Reform: Mainstreaming Through Transenvironmental Programming and Curriculum-based Measurement.”

Three additional Peabody faculty, James W. Guthrie, professor of public policy and education, director of the Peabody Center for Education Policy and chair of the department of Leadership, Policy and Organizations; Kathleen V. Hoover-Dempsey, associate professor of developmental science; and Howard M. Sandler, professor of developmental science, are all listed in the top 50 most cited lists for the Education Evaluation and Policy Analysis and Review of Education Research journals respectively. In the Journal of Educational and Behavioral Statistics, Dale Ballou, associate professor of public policy and education, is ranked among the top 10.

To learn more: http://aer.sagepub.com/reports/mfc1.dtl

Murphy

 Joseph Murphy, professor of education at Peabody, is serving as chairman of a National Board for Professional Teaching Standards’ steering committee overseeing a national effort to develop an advanced certification for educational leaders. This initiative will include an advanced certification for both principals and teacher leaders. 

The National Board, the organization that provides advanced standards and certification for classroom-based teachers and other educators, is creating national core propositions and standards for what educational leaders should know and national evidence-based assessments to measure educational leaders against those standards. 

“Effective leadership is a critical factor in school success,” Murphy said. “Advanced certification for principals and teacher leaders will support excellence within the profession and, most importantly, promote student success.” 

The certification effort is supported by policymakers, administrators, principals and teachers and is expected to launch in 2011. 

“The National Board has built strong standards and assessments for advanced teacher certification, which places our organization in a unique position to carry out the same for educational leaders,” said Joseph A. Aguerrebere, National Board president and CEO. “You can have accomplished teachers in a school building, but creating a collaborative culture of learning and achievement requires the support and leadership of an equally accomplished principal and other teacher leaders.” 

In a recent National Board survey, 83 percent of school leader respondents and 69 percent of district leader respondents expressed interest in advanced principal certification. Both school- and district-level leaders were most interested in a certification that would better prepare principals to lead systemic instructional improvement.

National Board certification for K–12 teachers is part of a growing education reform movement that is reshaping the country’s public schools. In a congressionally mandated report, the National Research Council of the National Academies confirmed that National Board certified teachers advance student achievement and learning, stay in the classroom longer, support new and struggling teachers and assume other school-based leadership roles. The research council acknowledged that students taught by National Board certified teachers make higher gains on achievement tests than students taught by non-board certified teachers.

“The subject of teacher pensions is a critical and understudied area for education reform, both because of the effects on the teacher workforce and on school finance. Districts are looking for new ways to recruit and retain high quality teachers in their on-going efforts to raise student achievement and narrow achievement gaps, and the structure of retirement benefits is a potentially important factor,” said Matthew Springer, NCPI director and research assistant professor of public policy and education at Peabody. “Many states and districts also face increasing costs for their current retirement benefit systems—possibly exacerbated by recent developments in the value of pension funds.”

The conference, “Rethinking Teacher Retirement Benefit Systems Benefits,” was hosted jointly by NCPI, the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas and the University of Missouri-Columbia.

The papers commissioned for the conference, as well as more information about the issue and speakers, are available on the NCPI Web site: www.performanceincentives.org/conference/conference2009.asp. 

Frist was joined at the announcement by Gov. Phil Bredesen, Tennessee Commissioner of Education Tim Webb, Nashville Mayor Karl Dean and other education, community, political and business leaders, including Vanderbilt representatives. 

“Vanderbilt has been asked to serve as the research partner for this innovative effort. In this role, Peabody faculty will have the opportunity to present research on current education challenges and initiatives and to provide input on action plans that may arise out of the commission’s work,” Dean Camilla Benbow said in a message to Peabody College faculty.

Benbow noted that James Guthrie, professor of public policy and education and chair of the Department of Leadership, Policy, and Organizations, will serve as Vanderbilt’s primary liaison to the collaborative and that steering committee meetings will often be held on the Vanderbilt campus. 

Former U.S. Sen. Bill Frist with Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen announce the creation of SCORE, a new statewide education initiative for which Peabody will serve as research partner.

SCORE will have several components. A steering committee of education, community, political and business leaders from across the state will hold 10 public meetings lasting through October to learn about best practices from across the country and within Tennessee. The information gathered will be used to produce a strategic plan for state education reform.

Project teams will initiate statewide and local education projects dealing with such topics as teacher quality, school leadership, technology and community engagement. Project implementation will begin by the end of this year. 

In addition to Vanderbilt, SCORE partners include the Tennessee Department of Education, Tennessee Chamber of Commerce, Tennessee Education Association, Cornerstone Foundation, Hyde Foundation, Ingram Industries, Stand for Children, Niswonger Foundation, Tennessee Farm Bureau, Tennessee Business Roundtable, Tennessee Board of Regents, Tennessee School Board Association and United Ways of Tennessee.

The Susan Gray School for Children dedicated the new Finan Family Playground as part of Peabody homecoming weekend activities last October. Above, Kelly Finan, BS’09, with assistance from David Williams, vice chancellor for university affairs and athletics, cuts the ribbon. The playground was made possible by Tom and Mary K. Finan, parents of Kelly, Vanderbilt Athletics and other donors. It is the school’s first barrier-free, fully accessible playground for preschoolers ages 3-5. It includes wheelchair-accessible swings, a fort, two motor-skill learning centers, rockers, garden boxes, a play station and an outdoor classroom.

A second-year evaluation of Texas’ statewide performance pay program, the largest in the nation, reveals insights into whether these programs are beneficial and attractive to teachers. 

Springer

“We found that most eligible schools—90 percent—participated in the voluntary Texas Educator Excellence Grant program, indicating teachers and schools are very interested in this concept,” said Matthew Springer, lead author of the report and director of the National Center on Performance Incentives at Peabody. “We also found that continuity is important. Turnover in the schools eligible to participate in the program is high from one program cycle to the next, which caused some teachers to feel uncertain about its benefits. We found that the program has been received most favorably in schools where the program was implemented for two consecutive years.”

Not surprisingly, the size of the award was also important, as revealed by teacher turnover rates. “The probability of turnover increased sharply among teachers receiving no bonus award or a relatively small award, while it greatly decreased among teachers receiving large bonus awards,” Springer said. 

In addition to data about the Texas grant program, the report includes background information about the new District Awards for Teacher Excellence (D.A.T.E.) program. Both programs are state-funded and provide grants to schools and districts to design and implement performance pay plans. The Texas grant program distributes almost $100 million annually in one-year grants to about 1,000 schools. The D.A.T.E. program provides $147.5 million annually; about 200 districts are participating in D.A.T.E. These districts comprise about 50 percent of public K-12 students enrolled in Texas.

Springer and his colleagues studied how differences in program design impacted teachers’ attitudes toward performance pay policies, their reported satisfaction with the Texas grant program and their professional practice. 

Springer cautions about placing too much weight on year two results. “We need to remain patient, remembering what looks promising in the short run may not be the case in later years.  More time is needed to determine the full potential of bonus programs like these.

“Future evaluation initiatives will continue to explore how the unique characteristics of these state-funded programs—and the plans designed by their participants—influence the quality of teaching and student learning within Texas public schools,” Springer said.

To learn more:  www.tea.state.tx.us/opge/progeval/TeacherIncentive/index.html.

“We are offering a competitive program for Ph.D. students who have defended their dissertations and anticipate or may not be having success in the current job environment,” said Craig Anne Heflinger, associate dean for graduate education and associate professor of human and organizational development. “This would involve their staying on as Ph.D. students at Peabody while working on further professional development.”

The program will allow Ph.D. candidates up to two years of additional study and involves full-time effort in four areas: scholarship of teaching, research apprenticeship, systematic advanced methods training, and writing for publication. In addition to the more advanced training, the fellows will receive a monthly stipend, health insurance and activity fees.

All Peabody Ph.D. students seeking faculty positions at research universities nationally are eligible to apply for the fellows program. Students must have successfully defended dissertations but not yet been awarded degrees to start the fellowship. The fellowship positions are competitive and require an application, nominations by a faculty member and the director of graduate studies of the department as well as approval by Heflinger or James Hogge, associate dean for faculty and programs and professor of psychology. 

“The goal of the program is to have Ph.D. students who are more competitive when they enter the job market and better situated for more prestigious offers,” Heflinger said.

For more information: http://snipurl.com/vupredoc

Springer is a research assistant professor in the Vanderbilt Peabody Department of Leadership, Policy and Organizations and director of the National Center on Performance Incentives at Vanderbilt University. The center, led by Executive Director James Guthrie, is a $10 million project funded by the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences to determine if financial incentives for teachers, administrators and schools affect the quality of teaching and learning.

The committee held its initial meeting July 25 in Washington, D.C. Its aim is to develop an understanding of the fundamental components that go into making a successful performance pay system.

More than 1,000 teachers nationwide applied for the fellowships, which offer highly motivated, innovative public school teachers the opportunity to contribute their knowledge and experience to the national dialogue on public education. Eckert was one of 25 teachers selected for a fellowship and one of five who was selected as a Washington fellow. 

“Jon’s selection as a Washington Fellow places him at the heart of what this program does best, which is to foster dialogue between policy makers in the Department of Education and teachers in the field,” said Dean Camilla Benbow. “Jon’s experience as a teacher, complemented by his training in educational leadership at Peabody, will surely make him a valuable asset to this program.” 

In addition to teaching, Eckert serves as basketball and tennis coach at Poplar Grove. A teacher for 12 years, Eckert also founded and serves as director of Ultimate Sports and Science Camp, which focuses on inquiry-based science experiments and sports activities for middle school students. In 2008, he earned an Ed.D. from Vanderbilt in educational leadership and policy; his master’s degree is in curriculum and technology-integrated instruction.

Called for by the 2007 America COMPETES Act, the summit examined the direction of the U.S. science and technology enterprise and reviewed the progress made toward and challenges associated with meeting the goals set out by America COMPETES and the President’s American Competitiveness Initiative. 

Dean Benbow served as a panelist on the panel titled “K–12 Education: Sparking Student Interest and Teacher Training Programs” which explored factors not previously considered for improving U.S. K–12 education and the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) pipeline. Successful models that could be better disseminated or more broadly incorporated were reviewed and specific actions necessary to achieving consensus goals on K–12 education were recommended.

Assistant Professor Stella Flores discusses issues pertaining to college access at the roundtable held at Peabody in June.

The panel was hosted by the U.S. Department of Education’s Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance, which recently released data that show millions of college-qualified high school graduates encounter significant financial barriers that may worsen considerably over the next decade. 

John Gaines, director of enrollment management for Vanderbilt, introduced the roundtable. Stella Flores, assistant professor of public policy and higher education, participated in the roundtable’s first session, which examined how deteriorating economic conditions may affect institutional financing, state appropriations, charitable giving, grant aid from all sources, and work and loan funds.

In addition to Flores, the first session panelists included: Eduardo J. Padron, president, Miami Dade College; Nancy Moody, president, Lincoln Memorial University; Brett Lief, president, National Council of Higher Education Loan Programs; John Nelson, managing director for health care, higher education and infrastructure, Moody’s Public Finance Group; Charles S. Lenth, vice president for policy analysis and academic affairs, State Higher Education Executive Officers; and Harris Miller, president, Career College Association.

The second session focused on additional steps that federal, state, institutional and private parties may need to take to ensure student access and success moving forward. Panelists for this session were Hazel O’Leary, president, Fisk University; David Gregory, vice chancellor for administration and facilities management, Tennessee Board of Regents; Richard G. Rhoda, executive director, Tennessee Higher Education Commission; Philip R. Day, Jr., president and CEO, National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators; Patrick M. Callan, president, National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education; Sarita E. Brown, president, Excelencia in Education; and Deanne Loonin, director, Student Loan Borrower Assistance Project, National Consumer Law Center.

“We are delighted to collaborate with Discovery Education on the development and distribution of this new service. VAL-ED builds a picture of principal effectiveness by providing a detailed assessment of a principal’s perceived performance,” Dean Camilla Benbow said. “This assessment empowers administrators to effectively evaluate staff, diagnose strengths and weaknesses, and recommend pertinent professional development.”

VAL-ED was developed by Peabody faculty Joseph Murphy, Ellen Goldring and Stephen Elliott, and Andrew Porter, dean of the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education, to provide detailed, evidence-based assessment of principals’ performance. It has been tested at more than 300 schools nationwide and is aligned with the national leadership standards set by the Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium. 

VAL-ED assesses principals in six core components related to student learning, including high standards, rigorous curriculum and performance accountability. Six additional evaluation areas of key processes measure leadership skills such as planning, advocating and communicating.

“VAL-ED is a clear improvement over previous evaluation instruments,” Discovery Education Assessment Director William Dycus explained. “Many school districts have created various instruments to measure the performance of principals, but few have been as meticulously researched and rigorously tested. By providing accurate and reliable data, VAL-ED aids administrators in making decisions that impact student achievement.”

Field-tested in 100 elementary schools, 100 middle schools and 100 high schools in 53 districts within 27 states, VAL-ED shows how a principal’s performance compares with his or her peers nationwide, and determines if a principal is performing at a “basic,” “proficient,” or “distinguished” level. The VAL-ED assessment can be completed in 20-25 minutes, in either online or pencil and paper formats. It can be used annually to facilitate a data-based performance evaluation, or it can be used more frequently to measure performance growth or provide principals ongoing feedback throughout the school year.

For more information on VAL-ED, please visit www.thinklinkassessment.com/corporate/valed.html.