scholarly journals The validity of a performance based assessment for aspiring school leaders

2018 ◽  
Vol 26 ◽  
pp. 163
Author(s):  
Jack Ellyson Leonard
Keyword(s):  
School Leadership ◽  
Department Of Education ◽  
Critical Policy Analysis ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
Student Work ◽  
Licensure Test ◽  
Network Training ◽  
Structure Relation ◽  
Performance Based Assessment ◽  
Critical Policy

This paper introduces the new Massachusetts Performance Assessment for Leaders (PAL) and uses critical policy analysis to re-examine the validity evidence (using the 2014 Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing and a theory of multicultural validity) for the use and interpretation of the PAL in regards to emerging school leadership. Data sources include two years of PAL test documentation plus candidate surveys and interviews with program directors. The author’s role as a test user, faculty instructor, and certified test scorer afforded access to student work, student communications, scorer network training, and state department of education communications and meetings. The paper challenges the content validity, raises questions in regards to evidence based on response processes, internal structure, relation to other variables, consequences, and multicultural validity particularly when the PAL is used as a stand-alone, high-stakes licensure test and offers suggestions to improve the test as a formative assessment.

The English Language Learning Progressions (ELLP): Challenge or opportunity?

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 ◽  
pp. 21-37
Author(s):  
Judith Anthony
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
English Language ◽  
Future Research ◽  
English Language Learning ◽  
Learning Progressions ◽  
Ministry Of Education ◽  
Critical Policy Analysis ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
Critical Policy

This article provides an overview and critical analysis of The English Language Learning Progressions (ELLP) (Ministry of Education, 2008). Identifying main themes through critical policy analysis, this review seeks to place ELLP in context through a comparison with The English Language Learning Framework: Draft (Ministry of Education, 2005) and English Language Learning Progressions (ELLP ) Pathway Years 1–8 (Ministry of Education, 2020a). Within this review, the structure of ELLP is explored along with key ideas and claims. It is argued that there are both challenges and opportunities in ELLP. Finally, the key issues are summarised and suggestions are made for future research.

scholarly journals Diversity for Whom? Gentrification, Demographic Change, and the Politics of School Integration

2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 16-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Diem ◽  
Jennifer Jellison Holme ◽  
Wesley Edwards ◽  
Madeline Haynes ◽  
Eliza Epstein
Keyword(s):  
School Districts ◽  
Economic Integration ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Comparative Case Study ◽  
District Leaders ◽  
Critical Policy Analysis ◽  
School Demographics ◽  
The Face ◽  
Critical Policy

Gentrification and the displacement of low-income residents of color from neighborhoods where they have long resided has accelerated over the last 20 years. In some cities, this process has begun to impact school demographics. Although research shows that school districts experiencing gentrification are responding in ways that fuel segregation and inequality, in some contexts gentrification is viewed by administrators as an opportunity to seek racial and economic integration. In our exploratory comparative case study, we examined districts in gentrifying cities pursuing integration in the face of rapid gentrification. Our critical policy analysis illustrates how district leaders’ diversity efforts can be overshadowed by their desire to appease and attract gentrifying families. Although districts are maintaining or increasing diversity in gentrifying contexts, our study raises broader equity questions that call for further inquiry of within-district equity and the displacement of students.

scholarly journals A Mana Wahine Critical Analysis of New Zealand Legislation Concerning Education: Implications for Addressing Māori Social Disadvantage

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Tagan Wetekia Paul
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Social Disadvantage ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Critical Policy Analysis ◽  
Significant Movement ◽  
The Social ◽  
Common Goals ◽  
Central Argument ◽  
Critical Policy

<p>Theory and practice are intertwined, woven inextricably together by the way that each informs and is informed by the other (Moss 2002, Pihama 2001, Simmonds 2009). This research confronts and analyses the legal bases of gendered and race-based inequalities by critically analysing New Zealand social policy legislation through a mana wahine perspective. Mana wahine and critical policy analysis share common goals to challenge dominant theoretical and methodological norms in order to recognise unequal power distributions, of which colonisation is implicit (Tomlins-Jahnke 1997).  This research has been guided by a reading of literature that suggests Māori social disadvantage has become ingrained and that policies designed to address this inequality and to include Māori people and Māori perspectives in mainstreamed systems are both confusing, and yet to be successful. This study has been designed to explore present policy legislation concerning social development. A case study of the education system has been used, which draws on historic and more contemporary Western political agendas as reflected in legislative shifts.  Key findings of this research include the exclusion of mana wahine through the ongoing processes of colonisation that do not give rise to Māori cultural understandings. To summarise, the social policy context at present is characterised by: Māori demands for greater self-determination; an absence of Treaty rights for Māori; liberal interpretations of Treaty principles, and scant processes to implement them; a devoid of aspects pertinent to mana wahine, and; the contradiction between Government's articulated position on rights and inclusion in social policy and the language used in and concepts enforced by legislation.  The findings are significant and reveal the ongoing complexities of Indigenous inequalities in the context of widespread policy ‘commitment’ to inclusion and equality. The central argument developed throughout this study is that there is an urgent need to shift policy thinking toward Māori if there is to be a significant movement toward justice for Māori women, which will involve Māori-centred decolonisation and the inclusion of aspects pertinent to mana wahine.</p>

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document