Hello Division H Members:
There is a chill in the morning air as those of us in the mid-Atlantic region are starting our days and the leaves are starting to show their Fall colors! This is one of my favorite times of the year. I hope that you are enjoying this time as well and that you are doing well.
Announcements are provided below. As I was preparing this Blast I learned from Nancy Baenen of the Wake County Schools that our colleague David Holdzkom passed away. David was director of the research and evaluation offices in the Durham and Wake County Public Schools in North Carolina for many years (most recently in Wake). Click here to learn more about David’s life, work, family and his service to the community.
Best,
DIVISION H CANDIDATES FOR SECRETARY ANNOUNCED
You may recall that in one of the Summer Blast’s I mentioned that we were starting the process of nominating candidates to run for the position of Division H Secretary. I asked that interested Division H members let Judy Arter (Nominations Chair) or I know if you wished to be considered for that position. We did not receive any volunteers. The charge of the Nominations Committee is To provide a slate of officers for Division H elections. The Nominations Committee (Judy, Faith Connolly, Joe O’Reilly and I) met via email, discussed the criteria for selecting candidates that has been used over the years, and identified members who met those criteria.
The nominees for election during early 2015 are Ildicko Laczko-Kerr, Brad McMillan and Anh Thy Nguyen. Ildy is the Vice President of Academics, Arizona Charter School Association. Brad is the Assistant Superintendent for Data, Research, and Accountability, Wake County Public School System (North Carolina). Thy is the Senior Coordinator, Assessment, Research, and Accountability, Norfolk City Public Schools (Virginia).
Their profiles will be included in an upcoming issue of Educational Researcher.
REVIEWERS NEEDED FOR THE OUTSTANDING PUBLICATIONS COMPETITION
Stacey Merola, our Outstanding Publications Committee Chair is asking for volunteers to serve as reviewers for this year’s competition. Each year Division H conducts an Outstanding Publications competition where we use the peer review process to recognize our colleagues' work in several areas that typically are not submitted to journals. To accomplish this, we depend on our members to review submissions. We are currently recruiting members to serve as reviewers for the 2014-2015 competition. The work will involve reviewing between 1 and 5 submissions during January and February 2015. If you are interested in being a reviewer, please indicate your interest by completing the following brief survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/OPReviewSurvey2015.
CALL FOR MANUSCRIPTS—TEACHERS COLLEGE RECORD
The editors invite submissions for a special issue of Teachers College Record devoted to the intersection of high-stakes testing accountability practices and special education services.
The theme of this special issue focuses on the ways in which high-stakes testing accountability systems interact with special education instructional and referral practices. We already know that minority students and English Language Learners are disproportionately identified for special education services—identification practices that can have deleterious effects on academic outcomes. However, we do not know the extent to which consequential standardized testing systems influence how these students are identified or treated, and what types of educational opportunities are offered/withheld. Therefore, a primary goal of this special issue is to look at how high-stakes testing pressures influence special education labeling, expectations, and instructional practices and to examine their impact on students’ psychological and motivational processes and associated phenomena such as the stereotype threat, learned helplessness, and self-fulfilling prophecies.
We welcome theoretical/empirical submissions in the following areas: (a) Analyses on the ways in which high-stakes testing accountability systems inform/influence special education referral, identification, and instructional practices; and (b) The social, psychological, motivational, and academic effects of special education identification/determination in high-stakes testing contexts.
We are especially interested in these topics as they relate to students of culturally and linguistically diverse background and English Language Learners.