E-News—Issue 8, Number 1

Welcome to the January 2005 issue of E-News!

E-News is designed to keep individuals informed of new developments in urban education and inclusive schooling practices in urban schools. In particular, E-News includes brief items of interest around the work of the National Institute and other organizations engaged in similar work, current research, upcoming conferences and events, new online and off-line products and resources, and other news happening in the field.

Features this month:

• NIUSI Update: NIUSI’s Project Director Elizabeth Kozleski to lead telephone seminar on disproportionality (February 17)
• Publication Highlight: Mental Health in Urban Schools
• Web Site of the Month: Education Trust
• Events: Dropout Center telephone seminar (February 28); CEC Convention (April 6-9)
• Resources: Becoming Culturally Responsive Educators; Culturally Responsive Parental Involvement
• NIUSI Support Desk

NIUSI Update

The Disproportionate Representation of Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students in Special Education

A free telephone seminar from the National Center on Secondary Education and Transition featuring NIUSI's Project Director Dr. Elizabeth Kozleski

Thursday, February 17, 2005 • 3:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. EST

The overrepresentation of racially, culturally, and linguistically diverse students in special education and the quality of their educational experiences have been regarded as among the most significant issues faced by the U.S. public school system in the past 30 years. Many of the groups overrepresented in special education are also those overrepresented among dropouts. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) entitles all individuals with disabilities to a free appropriate public education and mandates nondiscriminatory assessment, identification, and placement of students with disabilities. Yet, disproportion in special education persists: just 5% of students identified as Asian/Pacific Islanders are placed in special education; the rate for Hispanics is 11%, for whites 12%, for American Indians 13%, and for blacks over 14% (National Research Council, 2002).

During this teleconference, Dr. Kozleski will focus on the work of NIUSI's partner project, the National Center for Culturally Responsive Educational Systems (NCCRESt):
• Describe issues related to disproportionality
• Discuss what NCCRESt is doing to close the achievement gap between students from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds and their peers
• Communicate how NCCRESt is helping state and local school systems to reduce inappropriate referrals to special education
• Explain how state and local school systems may access this information
For more information, please visit http://www.ncset.org/teleconferences/

Publication Highlight

NIUSI releases “Mental Health in Urban Schools”

Many people hear the term mental health and they think mental illness. Others hear mental health in schools and they think it is only about therapy and counseling. But, it is not just about the activities that mental health professionals do in their offices, such as providing students with therapy or counseling. According to this new On Point from NIUSI, mental health in schools also should be about:

• Providing programs to promote social-emotional development, prevent mental health and psychosocial problems, and enhance resiliency
• Providing programs and services to intervene as early after the onset of learning, behavior, and emotional problems as is feasible
• Supporting the mental health of families and school staff
• Building the capacity of all school staff to address barriers to learning and promote healthy development
• Addressing systemic matters at schools that affect mental health, such as high stakes testing (including exit exams) and other practices that engender bullying, alienation, and student disengagement from classroom learning
• Drawing on all empirical evidence as an aid in developing a comprehensive, multifaceted, and cohesive continuum of school-community interventions to address barriers to learning and promote healthy development

Authors Howard Adelman and Linda Taylor of the University of California, Los Angeles, focus on what mental health programs most urban schools currently provide and what can be done to enhance these programs to create better, healthier school climates.

Free, downloadable copies of this publication are available at http://www.inclusiveschools.org/publications/on_point.htm

Web Site of the Month

Education Trust - http://www2.edtrust.org/edtrust

Founded by the American Association for Higher Education in 1990, the Education Trust encourages colleges and universities to support K-12 reform efforts. Education Trust’s Web site features a number of important reports and materials that focus on closing the achievement gap between high- and low-poverty students and their peers. Some highlights include:
• “Latino Achievement in America”: This brief two-page piece documents the current status of Latino Achievement in America, high-performing schools, and ways communities can help close the achievement gap.
• "Telling the Whole Truth (or Not) About High School Graduation Rates": This report highlights the need for states to better report their high school graduation data. Ultimately, this data should result in greater awareness of the number of students, particularly low-income and culturally and linguistically diverse students, who make it through high school.
• "The Funding Gap Report": This report documents large funding gaps between high- and low-poverty and minority districts in many states. The study reveals that, in most states, school districts that educate the greatest number of low-income and minority students receive substantially less state and local money per student than districts with the fewest low-income and minority students.

Events

Dropout Prevention: The (Ex)Students’ Perspective

A telephone seminar from the National Dropout Prevention Center for Students with Disabilities featuring Dr. Larry Kortering, Professor of Special Education, Appalachian State University
Monday, February 28, 2005 • 12:00 noon - 1:30 p.m. EST

Schools are confronting increased pressure to improve the school completion rates for youth with disabilities. This session will examine youth perceptions of high school and the role these perceptions might play in developing interventions that hold promise for keeping more youth, with and without disabilities, in school until graduation. Dr. Kortering’s current research focuses on helping high school teachers develop programs that are more responsive to the needs of youth at risk of dropping out and helping them to succeed in today’s high-stakes testing environment. He has conducted interviews with school dropouts and annually surveys more than 1,000 high school students. These efforts help provide a unique perspective on the high school experience of students with and without disabilities.

Participants can invite as many people to participate as one telephone connection can accommodate. When you register, you will receive instructions on how to access the seminar from your telephone and how to receive participant materials by mail or e-mail. The seminar registration fee includes access from one telephone line and one set of reproducible participant materials. The site registration fee is $75.00.
Register by calling 1-800-775-7654 or online at http://www.dropoutprevention.org/NDPC-SD/ (Seminar Code: NDP9177-0).

NIUSI’s Co-Principal Investigator Dr. Cheryl Utley to offer Positive Behavior Support (PBS) workshop at CEC’s annual convention

April 6-9, 2005 • Baltimore, MD

The Council for Exceptional Children’s (CEC’s) annual convention will provide ample opportunities to learn about and master current instructional methods and strategies for working with children and youth in special and gifted education. Sessions will focus on progress monitoring, autism spectrum disorders, preparing students for transitions, positive and safe learning environments, and more.

Dr. Cheryl Utley, NIUSI’s Co-Principal Investigator, will hold a pre-convention workshop, “Implementing Positive Behavior Support in Urban Multicultural Schools: Research and Realities.” The day-long session on Wednesday, April 6 (9:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. EST) will include presentations from Dr. Utley’s colleagues Amy McCart, Festus E. Obiakor, and Lisa Bowman. The workshop is designed so that participants will gain an understanding of issues related to the disproportionate representation of culturally and linguistically diverse students in special education and racial disparities in office referrals, suspensions, and expulsion rates in urban school districts. The presenters will share examples of successful urban schools that are implementing PBS.

For more information, visit http://www.cec.sped.org/conventions/maryland_2005/

Resources

Becoming Culturally Responsive Educators: Rethinking Teacher Education Pedagogy

Despite the steadily increasing numbers of culturally and linguistically diverse student populations in schools, not all teacher education programs readily embrace multicultural education or culturally responsive teacher education pedagogy. This new practitioner brief from NCCRESt has a twofold purpose: 1) to demonstrate the need for rethinking current approaches to teacher education pedagogy and 2) to provide guidelines for developing culturally responsive teacher education pedagogy. Authors Dr. Cathy Kea of North Carolina A&T State University, Dr. Gloria D. Campbell-Whatley of University of North Carolina-Charlotte, and Dr. Heraldo V. Richards of Austin Peay State University provide direct and thoughtful answers to a number of key questions:

• What are the key challenges related to diversity in teacher education programs?
• What should be done to create teacher education programs that are mindful of diversity?
• What are the characteristics of culturally responsive teachers?

Downloadable copies of this practitioner brief may be obtained from NCCRESt’s Web site: http://www.nccrest.org/publications.html

Culturally Responsive Parental Involvement: Concrete Understandings and Basic Strategies

This booklet, produced under an American Association of Colleges for Teacher Preparation-MetLife Foundation Project at Hofstra University, explains that strong parental involvement in a child's education is essential to the success of both the child and the school. It explores culturally biased beliefs many educators have toward their students and students' families, examining a variety of ways in which educators and parents can work together to benefit students. The authors describe key assumptions, examine common misconceptions, and recommend steps for initiating culturally responsive parental involvement.

To download a free copy, please visit http://www.aacte.org/Publications/default.htm

NIUSI Support Desk

For more information about the National Institute for Urban School Improvement, please feel free to contact us.