Narrative Building in State Education Intervention: Framing the Takeover Attempt of Houston Independent School District

This case study uses the approach by the Texas government to attempt a state takeover of Houston Independent School District (HISD) to examine the impact of framing on awareness and acceptance of executive action. This work extends recent studies in Georgia and Massachusetts that find stakeholder relationships, the role of Republican governors, and assigning blame as key components of takeover analysis. Using framing analysis, this case study analyzes the impact that framing the takeover action and approach has on these relationships. These findings present an understanding of how narrative construction makes an executive action consistent with administrative and political power to gain acceptability.

A Case Study in Academic and School Nursing Partnerships

School nurses play a vital role in the lives of children and are guided by The National Association of School Nurses’ Framework for 21st Century School Nursing Practice and its five major principles. School nurses practice independently and are often the sole healthcare provider at their designated schools, requiring them to be accomplished clinicians utilizing evidence-based practice in the care of children. When compared with nurses practicing in healthcare settings, school nurses may lack access to evidence-based continuing education and skill enhancement. One strategy proposed is the forming of partnerships with an academic institution, giving school nurses access to academic faculty and resources. This article highlights the collaboration and partnership between Baylor University Louise Herrington School of Nursing and the Dallas Independent School District, demonstrating that an academic partnership for the training of school nurses improves outcomes.

The misguided quest for a constitutional right to education

The Supreme Court ruled in San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez (1973) that there is no constitutional right to education, but that has not stopped families and education activists from arguing that this right is implicit in the Fourteenth Amendment. Nicholas Tampio contends that, based upon the history of federal involvement in education, a constitutional right to education would likely lead to an increase in high-stakes testing. The way to prepare young people for citizenship is to raise them in communities, including communities of color, that govern the schools themselves without the oversight of federal judges.

Educating Students With Disabilities During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Lessons Learned From Commerce Independent School District

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, many school districts have moved from brick-and-mortar instruction to remote instruction with little planning time and limited resources. Rural localities, already facing barriers and hardships, attempted to provide special education and related services in accordance with rapidly changing state and federal guidelines. Despite funding difficulties and challenges with serving students eligible for special education during a pandemic, there are districts that leveraged the strengths of rural communities to meet student and family needs. Commerce Independent School District is one exemplar. The purpose of this article is to highlight successes and lessons learned to offer guidance to districts as we continue to navigate challenges associated with the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Houston, We Have a Lawsuit”: A Cautionary Tale for the Implementation of Value-Added Models for High-Stakes Employment Decisions

Until recently, legal challenges to the use of value-added models (VAMs) in evaluation and teacher employment decisions in federal court had been unsuccessful. However, in May 2017 a federal court in Texas ruled that plaintiff-teachers established a viable federal constitutional claim to challenge the use of VAMs as a means for their termination in Houston Federation of Teachers v. Houston Independent School District. Houston represents a significant departure from prior federal court rulings that upheld the constitutionality of VAMs to terminate teachers on the basis of poor performance. The Houston court found that the districts’ refusals to release the underlying data of VAM ratings used to terminate those teachers violated the teachers’ procedural due process rights. By denying access to the code, teachers could not protect against the government’s making a mistaken deprivation of their property right to continued right to employment. The authors discuss Houston and its potential impact, limitations, and significance.

STEM challenge: two years of community-engaged engineering

PurposeCommunity-engaged partnerships have the ability to combine expertise and resources to enhance the local STEM learning ecosystem, by engaging the actors in communities that can enhance students' experiences in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education. Texas Tech University (TTU) and Lubbock Independent School District (LISD) have partnered to coordinate an annual STEM Challenge to encourage STEM learning and interest among local middle grade students. Each summer, teams of (three to four) students from ten LISD middle schools participate in a week-long engineering design challenge, facilitated by TTU undergraduate mentors and their teachers, structured by the Engineering Design Process (EDP).Design/methodology/approachQuantitative (survey) and qualitative (open-ended responses) data from two years of student glider and hovercraft projects offer insight into how 66 students developed STEM knowledge and leveraged 21st-century skills to accomplish a shared aim (design challenge).FindingsFindings suggest growth in students' 21st-century skills, most among underrepresented (racial, ethnic and gender minority) groups. Data from year one (2018) informed year two (2019) in both programming and the research, including enhanced training for mentors and a deeper exploration of students' experiences during each stage of the EDP during the STEM challenge.Originality/valueSignificant and salient findings are discussed along with recommendations for both programmatic and methodological improvements for year three (2020). This study provides insight into how to structure similar community-engaged partnerships in enhancing the community STEM ecosystem through collaborative STEM experiences for diverse, younger learners.

Methodological Concerns About the Education Value-Added Assessment System (EVAAS): Validity, Reliability, and Bias

The Education Value-Added Assessment System (EVAAS), the value-added model (VAM) sold by the international business analytics software company SAS Institute Inc., is advertised as offering “precise, reliable and unbiased results that go far beyond what other simplistic [value-added] models found in the market today can provide.” In this study, we investigated these claims, as well as others pertaining to the validity or truthfulness of model output, by conducting analyses on more than 1,700 teachers’ EVAAS results (i.e., actual EVAAS output to which no other external scholars have had access prior) from the Houston Independent School District (HISD). We found the EVAAS to perform, overall, in line with other VAMs in terms of validity and reliability, although it yielded possibly more biased value-added estimates than other VAMs due to differences in teacher’s EVAAS scores based on school-level student composition factors.

The Value of Alpha SPF Roofing: An Alpha Case Study at William Lipscomb Elementary School

An Alpha roof is a type of Spray Polyurethane Foam (SPF) roofing system that has been documented to be one of the highest performing roofs in the industry. Despite the high level of performance of the Alpha SPF roofs, owners still try to protect themselves by purchasing warranties. When the Dallas Independent School District (DISD) did not receive enough funding to purchase the Alpha roofs for their school buildings, general contractors started shopping the Alpha contractors. The demand for Alpha roofs during DISD bond programs exceeded the supply of Alpha vendors. DISD lowered the requirements and the contractors and manufacturers delivered lower quality roofs. DISD still required the performance of the Alpha roofing system, even though they bought lower performing systems without the quality control requirements of the higher performing Alpha roofs. DISD was not happy with the lower performance on some of the inexpensive roofs. This paper describes a case study that proposes that high roof performance is a result of expert contractors proving their past performance, detailed preplanning, manufacturers doing quality control, contractors tracking their time and cost deviations and independent third party inspections. The expert Alpha contractor completed the project with the best dimensional stability metrics (dimensional stability is a metric of long lasting roofs). The roof installation was completed in 20 days and saved DISD over 20% of the cost of the roof, despite an increase in the scope of work. It was the first DISD project that had no punch-list items after the final walkthrough. DISD was extremely satisfied with the roof and the Alpha program demonstrated its effectiveness in the installation of roofs.