Dissertation Proposal Draft: TAKE 2

This is just a project. This is just a project.  This is just a project.  It's not the culminating point of my career.  JUST FREAKIN' DO IT.

(my mantra to keep me moving forward without paralysis brought on by being overwhelmed)

I CAN DO THIS!!!!!!!

Dissertation Draft: TAKE 1- School Capacity Conceptual Framework

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Top circle: Coherent School Structures & Instructional Programs
Center-Right Circle: Individual Staff Member's Knowledge, Skills, Dispositions and Will
Bottom Circle: Organizational/Professional Community
Center-Left Circle: Material, Technical and External Human Resources
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Past research helps us to see that the concept school capacity is not uni-dimensional.  Instead, it should be viewed as a set of dimensions that are coherent and interactive (Century, 1999; Newman, King, and Young, 2000).  These theories of school capacity argue that the greater the alignment and coherence of all dimensions of school capacity (i.e. material/technical, structural, organizational and individual) the more overlap with each dimension would exist, as visually depicted in Figure 1. Alignment of the capacities could be shown in the diagram as overlapping circles.   This overlapping Venn would then cover up more and more of the yellow circle in the background.  Thus, as the principal and district work to align their programs and capacities around common goals for learning, the tighter the four circles representing each capacity would become, depicting alignment.  
     Figure 1 above is an example of a school that is theoretically in the early stages of alignment, but still not fully aligned.  Alternatively, a 100% aligned school would show no yellow and one large circle would appear, depicting that all four dimensions of capacity are interacting at all times with one another, aligned with one common purpose for learning.  Conversely, a school whose principal and/or district has not worked to align the capacities, such as can be the case when multiple school improvement initiatives occur simultaneously, would potentially have 0% alignment.  This school’s diagram would show no overlapping circles, but instead each circle would occupy it’s own space outside of the yellow circle, and even quite possibly appear outside of the arrows all together in a sporadic manner.  Thus, this framework graphically depicts that the greater the alignment/integration of all four dimensions of school capacity around a common  purpose, more concentric overlap/less yellow showing, the greater the instruction for all students and staff (Spillane and Thompson, 1997; Century, 1999; Newman, King and Young, 2000).

         Based upon this framework, the purpose of this study is to examine what the material, human, organizational and structural factors are that influence a school’s capacity to inclusively educate all students within their age appropriate general education, or other naturally occurring, environments. Specifically, I will be examining one school's inclusive education capacity development.  This school has spent the last three years shifting their service delivery model for special education.  They went from from educating all students with disabilities in isolated disability specific special education classrooms in trailers behind the school building to educating them all, including those with significant disabilities (i.e. autism, down syndrome, multiple disabilities), in age-appropriate general education classrooms along side their same age peers with and without disabilities.  Thus, they shifted from being a school with segregated special education to an inclusive school.  I will examine the following dimensions:

1.     Human/Staff Capacity- What shift in knowledge, skills, dispositions and will of the staff occur in a school that moves from segregated to inclusive education?

2.   Organizational Capacity- How is the school community organized both within it’s own building (professional community) and in terms of it’s connection to the district and greater community (external supports)?

3.  Structural Capacity- What school structures exists that foster/support inclusive education

4. Material, Technical and External Human Resources Capacity- What material, external human (i.e. outside trainers, university consultants) and financial resources are utilized within the inclusive education classrooms and school?

I couldn't have said this better...

... so I won't try.

Here are the words of Yong Zhao explaining how standardized testing does not promote creative thinking.

Taken from the EdWeek on-line article, "Double Think:The Creativity-Testing Conflict" by Yong Zhao:

....Most important, as the education historian Diane Ravitch observed in The New York Review of Books earlier this year: "The central aim of Finnish education is the development of each child as a thinking, active, creative person, not the attainment of higher test scores, and the primary strategy of Finnish education is cooperation, not competition."

SEE ALSO

For more on Yong Zhao's opinions about education, read Education Week blogger Catherine A. Cardno's interview with the author, "Zhao on Entrepreneurship, the Common Core, and Bacon."

The United States saw a decline of creativity over the past two decades, as a 2010 Newsweek article reported. Titled "The Creativity Crisis," the article cites research by Kyung Hee Kim, an educational psychology professor at the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Va. Kim analyzed performance of adults and children on a commonly used creativity measure known as the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking. The results indicate a creativity decrease in the last 20 years in all categories. This decline coincided with the movement toward more curriculum standardization and standardized testing in American schools exemplified by the No Child Left Behind Act. "NCLB has stifled any interest in developing individual differences, creative and innovative thinking, or individual potential," Kim said in an interview on the Encyclopaedia Britannica blog.

Standardized testing rewards the ability to find the "correct answer" and thus discourages creativity, which is about asking questions and challenging the status quo. A narrow and uniform curriculum deprives children of opportunities to explore and experiment with their interest and passion, which is the foundation of entrepreneurship. Constantly testing children and telling them they are not good enough depletes their confidence, which is the fuel of innovation. So, by any account, what policymakers have put in place in American schools is precisely what is needed to cancel out their desire for creative and entrepreneurial talents.

I don't know how policymakers can hold, simultaneously, these two ideas, creative entrepreneurship and test-driven curriculum standardization, that both research and common sense recognize as contradictory unless they change the slogans of 1984's Oceania, "War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, and Ignorance is Strength" into "Standardization is Innovation, Uniformity is Creativity, and Testing is Enterprising" for education today.

Yong Zhao holds the presidential chair and is associate dean for global education in the college of education at the University of Oregon, in Eugene, and a professor in the department of educational measurement, policy, and leadership. He is the author ofCatching Up or Leading the Way: American Education in the Age of Globalization. His latest book, World Class Learners: Educating Creative and Entrepreneurial Students, was published by Corwin Press in June.

Dissertation is taking off

This summer marks two major milestones:
(1) I passed my qualifying exams
(2) I'm officially writing my dissertation proposal.