Apr
2
Officials at the University of Oklahoma and the Oklahoma City School District say they expect a U.S. Department of Education grant will dramatically increase college preparedness among the city’s low-income students.
The school district and OU’s Jeannine Rainbolt College of Education were awarded a seven-year, $26 million grant designed to improve college readiness and boost high school graduation rates.
Staff from OU’s K20 Center for Educational and Community Renewal will work with about 4,500 sixth- and seventh-grade students at 10 low-income middle schools: Centennial, Douglas, Jackson, Jefferson, John Marshall, Northeast, Rogers, Roosevelt, Taft and Webster.
Scott Wilson, OU’s director for innovative technologies, said OU staff will work with school leaders, faculty members, parents and students during the project. The staffers begin working with sixth- and seventh-grade students and follow that cohort until graduation, he said.
Although the program focuses on a single cohort of students, he said, it will still have an impact on classes that follow in later years because it will leave behind teachers who are better equipped and have more resources to draw on. In that sense, he said, the grant’s impact will be sustained for years after the funding period is over.
One of the goals of the program, he said, is to help teachers tailor their instruction to allow students to take a larger role in what they do in class. That style of instruction helps students understand how the lessons they’re learning apply to the real world.
Part of the aim of the program is to make students more comfortable with the idea of going to college, Wilson said. To do that, coordinators will try to get students onto a college or university campus at least once a year.
In the early years, those college visits may not have anything to do with the institution itself, he said. For example, students may go to a college campus to learn to use handheld GPS devices to log longitude and latitude.
While such activities could easily be done nearly anywhere in the city, holding them on campus helps students get a better idea of what college looks like.
“They can see themselves there,” he said. “They can see other students walking around that, maybe, look like them.”
As the students get older and closer to graduation, the campus experience would get more heavily geared toward college preparedness, he said. Coordinators will speak with students about why college is important. Students may go to a campus and complete a miniature college schedule to help them get a better idea of how college life differs from high school, he said.
The program also includes summer experiences, including one that brings students with their parents to a campus to share a dorm room. Not only does that experience give students a better idea of what going to college would be like, it also helps ease the minds of parents who, in many cases, have no experience with college themselves, he said.
That component of the program has the potential to have a major impact in students’ thoughts about college, said Sheli McAdoo, the school district’s executive director of secondary schools and reform.
If the program can get students engaged with campus activities, rather than simply putting them on campus, it will help them get a better idea of how they might fit into a college setting. That could get students, as well as parents who didn’t go to college, more used to the idea of higher education.
“I certainly see it having a big impact on our current sixth- and seventh-graders,” she said.
This article first appeared in the March 8 issue of The Oklahoman.
By Silas Allen, Oklahoman Staff Writer
Mar
26
March 26, 2012
By Caitlin Schudalla The NormanTranscript
NORMAN — A graduate student organization of the University of Oklahoma
Jeannine Rainbolt College of Education is hosting a public panel discussion
titled “The Future of the Professoriate” from 4:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. Friday in
the Oklahoma Memorial Union, 900 Asp Ave.
The discussion, hosted by the Norman chapter of the Oklahoma Educational
Studies Association (OESA-Norman), will be in the Union’s Regents Room.
The panel will include OU Senior Vice President and Provost Dr. Nancy Mergler,
Director of Teacher Education and Oklahoma State Regent Dr. Lisa Holder,
Assistant Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies Dr. Penny
Pasque and Professor of Advanced Professional and Special Services at the
University of Central Oklahoma Dr. Terry Spigner.
Panelists will be invited to contribute their expertise and insight into the
professoriate from such perspectives as administration, policy, research and
practice. They also will field questions from attending education students and
teachers and answer any questions the public may have.
“It is our sincere hope that this panel discussion will enable those who are
considering future careers as professors and provide a chance to learn more
about the potential opportunities and challenges that might affect their role
in higher education,” OESA-Norman president Goldie Thompson said.
Thompson said the organization’s primary goals in coordinating the panel
include providing graduate students with a concrete idea of the administrative
and policy issues that will affect their careers and shedding light on
evaluation assessments and responsibilities that may have been previously
unknown to them.
“This forum will be a great opportunity for graduate scholars to inquire
about current legislative concerns that could potentially affect them as
professors,” Thompson said.
For more information,visit www.ou.edu/oesa.
Feb
17
Kathleen Evans , Assistant Campus Editor, OU Daily
The percentage of A’s given in OU colleges has increased
over the past 10 years, and A’s were the most common grade given in all but one college during the fall 2011 semester.
July 2011, a team of researchers looked at the percentages of A’s on a national level and found the top grade accounted
for 43 percent of all letter grades in 2008, an increase of 28 percent since 1960, according to research published in the Teachers College Record.
The rise in A’s corresponds with a decrease in C’s, D’s and F’s, according to the research.
The Daily received records of the percentages of A’s in each college over the past 10 years, which takes into account the grades of any students receiving grades in classes offered in those colleges, not necessarily just majors. It also excludes people who did not receive a letter grade in classes.
OU colleges match this national trend, showing a 2 percent average increase in the percentages of A’s in the past 10 years, according to the records. In fall 2002, colleges gave 51.22 percent A’s, opposed to 53.87 percent in fall 2011.
Academic provost Nancy Mergler said the percentage of grades in each college is not an accurate representation of the average abilities of students because it does not take into consideration the weight of each grade.
However, the average GPA has increased from 3.06 in fall 2004 to 3.10 in fall 2010, Mergler said. She does not see this as grade inflation but rather an increase in the academic preparedness of students entering OU.
OU does not have an institutional policy on grades or grade inflation in place, Mergler said. Faculty and staff have varying viewpoints about how to gauge students, so OU does not put restrictions in place.
The Jeannine Rainbolt College of Education had the highest offered A’s in courses 82.9 percent of the time, according to records. The next highest were the OU Honors College with 73.76 percent and the Weitzenhoffer Family College of Fine Arts with 67.41 percent.
The College of Education does not have any policies regarding grade inflation, Communications Director Christine Frank said. The administration credits the high grades to high admission standards within the college.
“We are very concerned about only sending the best and the brightest into Oklahoma classrooms, because of this, our students have to reach high standards to pursue a career in teaching,” said Dr. Teresa DeBacker.
At the lowest end of the scale is the Price College of Business, which gave 31.03 percent A’s in fall 2011 and was the only college to give more B’s that semester, which totaled 43.10 percent.
Even with the lowest percentage of A’s, the college has seen an increase in higher-level grades, according to reports; in fall 2002, As made up 23.74 percent and B’s were 41.90 percent.
The college does not have a policy about grades, but administrators do take grade distributions into consideration when evaluating professors.
“When the faculty are evaluated in the college, vigor, including grading vigor, is among the things looked at when deciding if a faculty member is doing his or her job,” Associate Dean Nim Razook said.
The college also has a culture in which it emphasizes vigor in its courses and training students, Razook said.
However, Razook said he emphasized that this mindset and culture is not only within the business college, but also in
others across campus.
“It’s just a matter of culture, I guess,” Razook said. “In some way I am glad that we’re relatively less lenient in passing out A’s, but I don’t think it’s because of any reason other than culture.”
Feb
15
Minneapolis, MN (PRWEB) February 15, 2012
Free Spirit Publishing brings service learning to the primary curriculum with
Service Learning in the PreK–3 Classroom: The What, Why, and How-To Guide for Every
Teacher (Free Spirit Publishing, $39.99), written by early childhood
education experts Vickie E. Lake, Ph.D., and Ithel Jones, Ed.D.
What is service learning? Service learning is an instructional approach that combines thoughtfully organized community service with experiential student learning in a way that changes and improves both the student and the community. It can be a powerful tool in reaching, teaching, and inspiring young children, and this book presents the background knowledge and skills needed to effectively use service learning in preK and primary
classrooms.
Service Learning in the PreK–3 Classroom is based on field trials the authors conducted with over 2,000 students and 215 educators, during a three year grant funding Drs. Lake and Jones to infuse service learning into their early childhood teacher education program at Florida State University. During this time, Lake and Jones realized the need for a resource written to help teachers of preK–grade 3, administrators, and early childhood professionals increase
their understanding of service learning and its role in the early childhood classroom.
“The idea that a kindergartner can be actively involved in service learning
projects—and understand the impact of their actions on others—is one that often surprises people,” says Jones. “But the fact is, young children can make a big difference in their communities.”
Rich in both theory and practice, the book reflects the tenets of the National Association for the Education of Young Children’s (NAEYC) developmentally appropriate practices (DAP), combining community service with differentiated curriculum-based learning to meet the academic and social needs of young children in meaningful ways. The sample lesson plans in the book are based on tried and tested classroom projects and correlated to national service
learning, Head Start, and core content standards. An accompanying CD-ROM offers
customizable versions of the book’s dozens of forms and templates for lesson planning, assessment, and more. It also includes a PowerPoint presentation for use in preservice and professional development.
Service Learning in the PreK–3 Classroom provides service learning opportunities that support high academic standards and, at the same time, foster children’s social development by teaching them to be good citizens.
About the authors
Vickie E. Lake, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of early childhood education the Jeannine Rainbolt College of Education at The University of Oklahoma. She holds a master’s degree in education from Vanderbilt University and a Ph.D. in philosophy from The University of Texas at Austin. She has written for the Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education and Childhood Education, among other publications, and presents at professional conferences. A former teacher, staff developer, and early childhood district coordinator, Vickie has a passion
for character education and high-quality education for young children. She lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Ithel Jones, Ed.D., is an associate professor of early childhood education at Florida State University. He earned his M.S. from the University of Wisconsin at Stout and his doctor of education at the University of Georgia. Ithel was a teacher and primary school principal in his native Wales, and he has been a teacher educator at three universities in the United States. He currently teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in early childhood education and has
published more than 30 articles and book chapters. He lives in Tallahassee, Florida.
About Free Spirit
Headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Free Spirit is the leading publisher of learning tools that support young people’s social-emotional health and their educational needs. Free Spirit’s mission is to help children and teens think for themselves, succeed in life, and make a difference in the world. For more information, visit http://www.freespirit.com.
$39.99 / Softcover / 224 pp. / 8½” x 11″ / For teachers of PreK–grade 3, administrators, and early childhood professionals
Service Learning in the PreK–3 Classroom (Book with CD-ROM): The What, Why, and How-To Guide for Every Teacher ISBN 978-1-57542-367-8
Advance praise for Service Learning in the PreK-3 Classroom:
“A wonderfully useful guide [that] belongs on the shelf of every preK–3
teacher interested in bringing learning to life through service.”—Joe Follman,
founding director, Florida Learn & Serve
“Wonderfully comprehensive . . . incredibly practical . . . rich and
innovative . . . includes everything teachers will need to implement projects.”
—Judy Jablon, educational consultant and author of Powerful Interactions:
How to Connect with Children to Extend Their Learning (NAEYC)
“A great resource for educators to embrace their critical role in shaping the
mindset of young students.”—Clifton L. Taulbert, K–12 education consultant and
author of Eight Habits of the Heart for Educators
“Comprehensive . . . remarkably clear . . . a required resource for anyone
who wants to link experiential learning with the development of social
responsibility.”—Elizabeth A. Ethridge, Ed.D., associate professor of early
childhood education, University of Oklahoma
“A helpful guide for educators who want to ensure that our youngest
participants have opportunities to contribute to society.”—Cathryn Berger Kaye,
M.A., author of The Complete Guide to Service Learning
###
Feb
2
By Jerri CulpepperThe Moore AmericanWed Jan 25, 2012, 07:08 AM CST
MOORE — Imagine living in a family, a neighborhood, where no one you know has ever gone to college, or even aspired to it. Imagine knowing from an early age that, more than likely, after graduating from high school, if you made it that far, you are destined to work in the same factory, fast food restaurant or other blue-collar job as your parents, siblings, friends and neighbors.
Then, imagine this. In middle school, you are approached and told that, while it will require you to work hard now and in the coming years, you have a choice. College is a possibility, if you desire it. So is a career. You can aspire to become a journalist, teacher, architect, engineer, lawyer, doctor — the possibilities are endless.
That scenario will become reality for more than 4,500 sixth- and seventh-graders in 10 low-income urban schools within the Oklahoma City Public School district, thanks to a recent seven-year, $26 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education to the University of Oklahoma and the Oklahoma City Public Schools.
The GEAR UP for PROMISE (Promotion of Readiness through Opportunities that Motivate and Increase Student Expectations) project seeks to better prepare urban students for college by increasing the ability of students to meet established performance levels in math, science, literacy and technology. The program also aims to provide students and their families with a better understanding of how to prepare and pay for college.
Gregg Garn, interim dean of the Jeannine Rainbolt College of Education and director of the K20 Center for Educational and Community Renewal — a statewide education research and development center based in the college that promotes innovative learning through school-university-community collaboration — and Scott Wilson, associate director of the K20 Center, say that the implications go far beyond helping the students directly served through this grant. If successful, the model can be used to launch similar efforts in other impoverished areas across the state.
Any practice that has a significant chance of breaking the cycle of poverty is worth close investigation, not only, of course, for the alleviation of human suffering, but because of the tremendous costs associated with welfare programs.
In Oklahoma, as in many parts of the nation, poverty rates are, tragically, rising. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, which recently released new state-level data from the American Community Survey on poverty in 2010, some 616,610 Oklahomans — one out of every six — lived in poverty in 2010. The state’s poverty rate rose from 16.2 percent in 2009 to 16.9 percent in 2010. Oklahoma’s poverty rate remains 1.6 percentage points above the nation’s and was 14th highest among the states. The statistics are worse for children. The poverty rate for children, at 24.5 percent, is higher than that of working-age adults (15.5 percent) or seniors (9.3 percent). And the poverty rate for children rose 2.2 percentage points in 2010.
Poverty is closely correlated with education. An individual with only a high school degree is four times as likely to be poor as a college graduate. And persons without a GED or high school diploma are almost seven times likelier to be poor than college graduates. About a quarter of poor Oklahomans over age 25 did not graduate from high school.
Wilson, who also serves the K20 Center as director of Innovative Technology Partnerships, said the grant will fund the recruitment and employment of 21 professionals, ranging from master teachers, who will mentor cohort teachers on the use of research-based instructional strategies, to a veteran school teacher with knowledge of the schools’ specific needs. In all, he explains, the grant will allow the hiring of 10 professionals with work experience within schools and/or with students from areas with high poverty; five technical staff who will author Digital Game-Based Learning environments that target specific project goals and objectives; and six research, evaluation and support professionals who will help implement project services.
The project will utilize a four-phase model developed by the K20 Center.
In the first phase, Wilson said, each of the schools will send leaders — including teachers, counselors and parents — to a leadership seminar, where they will form teams. These teams will develop an action plan that ties technology integration and school goals and build a community that supports authentic learning that aligns with core standards established by the state. Phase one also includes a “Counselor Academy,” where counselors gain insight from urban-based research and learn best practices to increase students’ and families’ knowledge of and access to college financial aid.
In phase two, school administrators and teachers learn how to involve students in critical thinking through real-world learning scenarios that lead to self-directed student learning. Wilson explains that experience has shown that, as students develop critical-thinking skills, they also gain the confidence to take and succeed in rigorous courses, which increase the likelihood of their graduating from high school.
In the third phase of the project, the teachers will participate in the K20 Center’s Authentic Teaching Experiences summer intervention program, where they will learn how to implement interactive lessons that will engage their students. K20 staff will provide ongoing support through mentoring, debriefing, regional meetings and institutes after they return to their classrooms.
In the fourth phase of the project, the middle school students in the program will be taken to visit several colleges and universities in the state, where they will be exposed to campus life and learn about the different degree paths and/or careers that are available to them. During this visit, the students will have a chance to visit with college representatives and to receive specific information on such issues of concern as entrance requirements, cost, scholarships and other financial aid options.
Students and their parents also will be invited to participate in a two-day college forum, where they will be invited to explore different majors and visit the learning spaces, labs and facilities used by students currently following the major or career path in which they are interested.
Noting that all of the schools selected for the GEAR UP project regularly score very low on the College Readiness Benchmarks — a measurement that predicts success in freshman-level college courses — Wilson said their overall goal will be to move this cohort of students’ performance in mathematics, science reasoning, literacy and technology to the state average. Also in the process, they aspire to a number of other incremental improvements, including an increase in daily attendance and a greater percentage of students who are promoted on time to successive grade levels.
One of the ways they hope to accomplish this is by exposing the teachers to new ways of teaching that have proven to be more effective than relying solely on traditional methods, including lectures and memorization.
“While teachers are not entertainers,” Wilson said, “they should be able to provide the connections from what students are asked to learn to an application in the real world. This type of learning, known as authentic learning, has been shown to improve student achievement for all students and is particularly effective with students of low socioeconomic status.
“When instructional tasks are interesting and require creativity by students, student engagement and achievement are positively impacted,” he added.
The K20 staff also hopes that by providing more guidance on the courses college-bound students need to take and by exposing them to campus life at several colleges, these students will be better armed with the prerequisite skills and strategies to succeed in their studies, both now and when they head off to college.
“This seven-year partnership helps students and their families explore opportunities and develop plans which can unlock doors to future career options we cannot imagine today,” Garn said. “It’s good for individual students and their families, their schools and our state.”
Jan
25
OU Board of Regents approve new tobacco policy
By Caitlin SchudallaTheNorman TranscriptWed Jan 25, 2012, 01:29 AM CST
NORMAN — The University of Oklahoma Board of Regents approved a policy banning smoking on campus — except in two designated areas — during its meeting Tuesday afternoon.
“We feel morally obligated as an educational example to help save lives in our community and our country,” OU President David Boren said. “Over 500 colleges and universities nationwide have already adopted similar policies to make their campuses tobacco-free.”
The policy will go into effect July 1 and will be enforced by fines of up to $50 for repeat offendors. As a campus policy, the smoking ban will apply to visitors and OU students, faculty and staff.
When the policy goes into effect, it will prohibit all smoking at sports venues, such as the Gaylord Family Okahoma Memorial Stadium and Lloyd Noble Center.
The features of the policy were based largely on the conclusions of Boren’s tobacco policy advisory committee, led by OU College of Public Heath Dean Gary Raskob, Ph.D.
“We truly did seek very broad input from the campus and surrounding community,” Raskob said. “We’ve received enormous support from local and national groups. The timing is right for this step.”
In spite of a committee majority of around 80 percent favoring a completely tobacco-free campus, Boren and the board of regents agreed to designate two smoking areas. The proposed isolated locations in the parking lots of Dale Hall and Lloyd Noble Center are intended to minimize exposure to secondhand smoke.
Boren called these smoking areas a “compromise,” saying he and the committee recognize the difficulty in quitting smoking and wish to make the intended transition to a healthier lifestyle as smooth as possible.
The university will offer free tobacco-use cessation classes beginning February and free quit kits, personal coaching, online tools and up to $500 coverage of prescription drug coverage for those who qualify. Norman Regional Hospital also offers a free, four-session program for tobacco-use cessation called QuitSmart.
In addition to adopting the new tobacco policy, the regents approved the purchase of a warehouse space at 705 E. Lindsey St. They also sanctioned the university to actively attempt to acquire the residential properties at 209, 211, 213 and 215 E. Brooks St.
The warehouse space will continue to serve as shop space for the university’s Facilities Management. The residential spaces will be operated and maintained by University Real Estate Operations, pending their purchase.
Other actions of note include:
· Gregg Garn was approved as the new dean of the Jeannine Rainbolt College of Education.
· The regents approved the purchase a $2.1 million cluster supercomputer for the OU Supercomputing Center for Education and Research.
· The Jimmie Austin OU Golf Course was approved to receive new maintenence equipment, including new service vehicles and golf carts.
· A 24,000 square foot practice facility for the women’s intercollegiate rowing team was added to the Campus Master Plan of Capital Improvement Projects for the Norman campus.
Caitlin Schudalla 366-3541 cschudalla@ normantranscript.com
Jan
23
Regents to weigh tobacco policy
By Caitlin SchudallaThe Norman TranscriptThe Norman TranscriptMon Jan 23, 2012, 01:29 AM CST
NORMAN — The University of Oklahoma Board of Regents will meet Tuesday afternoon at the OU Health Sciences Center in Oklahoma City.
The Regents are expected to approve Gregg Garn as the new dean of the Jeannine Rainbolt College of Education.
Garn is currently the college’s interim dean and has held this position since July 1.
OU President David Boren will present his recommendations for the new campus tobacco policy, based on the suggestions of his tobacco policy advisory committee. These recommendations will include the designation of on-campus smoking areas.
Other items to be addressed are the replacement of the Robert M. Bird Heath Sciences Library roof at the OU Health Sciences Center, the proposed indoor workout facility for the women’s intercollegiate rowing team and the consolidation of Athletics Department storage needs.
The Regents will address a recommendation to hire a company for the Bird Library roof replacement, thereby minimizing disruption of services and potential damage to the building’s furniture and equipment.
The proposed practice facility for the women’s rowing intercollegiate team is approximately 24,000 square feet and will include a rowing tank and workout area, team room, coaches’ offices, lockers, showers and laundry facilities.
Caitlin Schudalla 366-3541 cschudalla@ normantranscript.com
Jan
20
The OU Daily sat down on Thursday with Gregg Garn, the new dean of the Jeannine Rainbolt College of Education. He discussed his background in education, his plans for the college and his approach to his profession’s ethics.
The Daily: What brought you to Oklahoma? More importantly, what brought you to OU?
Garn: This is my 13th year at OU and I came here as an assistant professor because OU is an incredible university… The opportunity to work here as I graduated from graduate school was just a great opportunity for me.
The Daily: As dean, how do you plan to make a mark on your college?
Garn: One of the things I want our college to focus on as much as anything is impact. Our faculty has a tremendous impact on the research in their fields. We have some of the best faculty across the country here. We also have an impact in local classrooms and one of the things I want us to continue to focus on in this college is impacts on both of those levels, making sure we are contributing to that national conversation on what we need to be doing in education and also locally impacting the kinds of good things that are going on in education in the state of Oklahoma.
The Daily: How did you become involved in the field of education?
Garn: Well my undergraduate degree is in education and … the idea that I’ve always had is that this is where you can make an impact. Whether the impact is in a classroom, whether the impact is at a school level, whether the impact is participating on a state level board, just that fundamental idea of how can you help to improve education has been the thing that’s driven me in a lot of the decisions I’ve made about what to participate in.
The Daily: Has any specific ethic or philosophy guided you to this point in your career?
Garn:The thing that I think about a lot in terms of work ethic is that it’s not a single person. I think if one person tries to do everything, you’re not going to be terrifically successful. There are amazing people in this office and across this university and what I’ve found really successful is collaborating with other people helps everybody’s work ethic because you’re able to get a lot more accomplished than if just one person is responsible. It also gives you great insight into the really good things that are going on across campus, so instead of getting siloed just in your department or just in the college of education, you are able to collaborate across campus.
The Daily: What did you want to be when you grew up? (Did you ever think you would be a professor or a dean?)
Garn: I came from a family of teachers so I think education was probably in there somewhere. That’s a good question; you know I was probably the traditional athlete or fireman or something like that. No, you know as soon as I was able to have some insight as to what I wanted to do it was definitely going to be an education related field and I’ve just been blessed in a million ways to be able to do that.
The Daily: How do you plan to balance your duties as director of the K20 Center and as dean of the College of Education?
Garn: I think there is a huge benefit to the things that are going on at the K20 center and the things that are going on in the college of education and being able to blend some of the two activities together … So I think synergy is a word that I use a lot in thinking about bringing those two organizations together to really focus on. Whether it is professional development for a teacher in the classroom or helping a pre-service teacher, someone who wants to be a teacher, making sure that they have skills and mentoring and knowledge to be hugely successful when they go out into their first classroom.
Jan
18
Read More Here – It’s Official!
From: OU News
Sent: Wednesday, January 18, 2012 8:22 AM
Subject: **NEWS RELEASE** GREGG GARN TO BE NAMED DEAN OF OU’S JEANNINE RAINBOLT COLLEGE OF EDUCATION
jc/1-18-12
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: OU Public Affairs, (405) 325-1701
NORMAN – Gregg A. Garn, a teacher and researcher who has worked to improve the quality of education in Oklahoma, is expected to be named dean of the University of Oklahoma Jeannine Rainbolt College of Education, pending approval of the OU Board of Regents at its January meeting. Garn, who has served as interim dean of the college since July 1, 2011, also was named as head of the Division of Teacher Education and as director of the Education Profession Division.
“Nothing is more important than the training of those who will teach and mentor the next generation,” said OU President David L. Boren. “Gregg Garn will provide outstanding leadership to the Rainbolt College of Education. He already enjoys a national reputation as an innovative leader in the field of education.”
Garn also serves as a professor of educational leadership and policy studies and director of the K20 Center for Educational and Community Renewal, a university-wide research and development center focused on teaching and learning innovations for K-12 schools.
Garn joined the faculty of the college’s Educational Leadership and Policy Studies in 1998, becoming the faculty program coordinator for the department’s degrees in educational administration, curriculum and supervision in 2004. Serving in a variety of leadership roles within the college, he was named associate dean for professional studies in 2007 and associate dean for the School of Community Partnerships in 2009. He also was awarded the Linda Clarke Anderson Presidential Professorship.
Garn is active in several national organizations, including the Politics of Education Association, the University Council for Educational Administration and the American Educational Research Association. He has been a part of multiple externally funded projects focused on K12 education and has worked with state policymakers and professional associations to improve the quality of education in Oklahoma. Garn’s research focuses on school choice, policy development and implementation, and the politics of education. He has been published in such scholarly journals as Educational Administration Quarterly, Education and Urban Society, Education Policy Analysis Archives
and Educational Leadership.
Garn earned his bachelor’s degree in history and education from the University of Northern Iowa and his master’s and doctoral degrees, in social and philosophical foundations of education and educational leadership and policy studies, respectively, from Arizona State University.
The Jeannine Rainbolt College of Education, which celebrated its 75th anniversary in 2005, has an enrollment of 1,587 (829 graduate and 758 undergraduate students) and offers degree programs that prepare educators for the classroom as well as for careers in such diverse fields as administration, counseling, literacy and advocacy. The college is home to more than a dozen centers and institutes that directly help Oklahomans in their daily lives. The college is nationally recognized for its programs in counseling psychology, educational psychology, continuing education, school improvement, early childhood literacy, school leadership and multicultural issues in education. Last year, the college attracted $6 million in external funding for research.
###
Jan
12
- A new study finds that good teachers have a lasting positive effect on their students
- William Bennett: Study is one of most consequential educational surveys in recent years
- The study shows that having better teachers can affect students’ future earning potential
- Bennett says it’s time to reward good teachers and fire the lowest-performing teachers
Editor’s note: William J. Bennett, a CNN contributor, is the author of the newly published “The Book of Man: Readings on the Path to Manhood.” Bennett, the Washington fellow of the Claremont Institute, was U.S. secretary of education from 1985 to 1988 and was director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy under President George H.W. Bush.
(CNN) — A good teacher not only improves a child’s test scores in the classroom, but also enhances his or her chances to attend college, earn more money and avoid teen pregnancy, according to a new seminal study.
The study, conducted by economists Raj Chetty and John N. Friedman of Harvard and Jonah E. Rockoff of Columbia, tracked 2.5 million students over 20 years from a large urban school district from fouth grade to adulthood, making it one of the largest and most consequential educational studies in recent years.
Their findings focus on the long-term impact of teachers based on their “value-added” ratings. This refers to the average test-score improvement for a teacher’s students, adjusted for differences across schools and classrooms such as prior test scores. Evaluating teachers based on student performance has been the subject of much debate among teachers, unions and policymakers.
Teachers and teachers’ unions have been largely critical of the value-added approach, arguing that test scores are not good indicators of teacher quality. However, many reformers, like Stanford’s Eric Hanushek, argue that value-added ratings are some of the most accurate indicators for evaluating teachers and improving student performance.
This study puts the value-added approach to the test in a new way, measuring the short-term impact in the classroom as well as long-term impact, like a student’s collegiate, career and family success. The authors found that “when a high VA teacher joins a school, test scores rise immediately in the grade taught by that teacher; when a high VA teacher leaves, test scores fall.”
Most importantly, the study discovered that “students assigned to higher VA teachers are more successful in many dimensions. They are more likely to attend college, earn higher salaries, live in better neighborhoods and save more for retirement. They are also less likely to have children as teenagers.”
The effect of a good teacher on a child’s life is monumental. In financial terms, the study notes that replacing a teacher whose true value-added is in the bottom 5% with a teacher of average quality would generate lifetime earnings gains worth more than $250,000 for the average classroom.
On the other hand, “If you leave a low value-added teacher in your school for 10 years, rather than replacing him with an average teacher, you are hypothetically talking about $2.5 million in lost income,” said Friedman.
The authors, two of whom were skeptical at first of the merits of value-added metrics, conclude the study by recommending that schools adapt value-added measures and fire the lowest-performing teachers.
Given the enormous contribution of good teachers to the lives of students, one would think the organizations that represent teachers would hail this study and disseminate its findings. This is not so.
Predictably, the teachers’ unions have been silent. Acknowledging the realities of this study would require the unions to make distinctions between good and bad teachers and hold them accountable for their performance, something they seem incapable of practicing, much less institutionalizing.
It is ironic that a report that praises great teachers seems to be ignored by teacher organizations.
This study shows that, second only to parents, teachers are the most important part of a child’s education. Great teachers make a great difference; poor teachers hurt a child’s life chances. Isn’t that all we need to know to embark upon a serious effort to reward good teachers and encourage poor teachers out of the profession?
