Engaging over-age participants in urban learning and work environments: An empirical demonstration of macro-level efficiency through effective at-risk student and teacher recovery

278 Pages·2011·20.025 MB·English

by  J. Randall Farmer

ENGAGING OVER-AGE PARTICIPANTS IN URBAN LEARNING AND WORK
ENVIRONMENTS: AN EMPIRICAL DEMONSTRATION OF
MACRO-LEVEL EFFICIENCY THROUGH EFFECTIVE
AT-RISK STUDENT AND TEACHER RECOVERY

by

J. RANDALL FARMER

Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of
The University of Texas at Arlington in Partial
Fulfillment of the Requirements for
the Degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT ARLINGTON
AUGUST 2011
UMI Number: 3474012
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I wish to acknowledge Providence in all things; my wife and children; my parents and
siblings; my extended family; as well as the teachers, staff, students, parents, and other
colleagues that I have been privileged to serve in urban public school systems and faith-based
volunteer organizations over the years. I appreciate them all.
At the University of Texas at Arlington, I wish to acknowledge my major professor, Dr.
Cosio-Martinez; members of my dissertation committee, Drs. Sherman Wyman, Jeff Howard,
and Alejandro Rodriguez; and my graduate dean, Dr. Rod Hissong—all of the School of Urban
and Public Affairs. I also wish to acknowledge Drs. Ron Caloss and Kent Gardner from the
College of Education and Health Professions. At Texas Christian University, I wish to
acknowledge Drs. Mike Sacken, Cornell Thomas, and Judy Groulx of the Graduate School of
Education; and at Brigham Young University, I wish to acknowledge Drs. Louis C. Midgley,
David Earle Bohn, and Richard Vetterli of the Political Science Department, Drs. Tom and
Louise Plummer of the Honors Program, Dr. Welsford “Gus” Clark of the School of Education,
and Dr. Richard Cracroft of the Center for the Study of Christian Values in Literature.
At the Dallas Independent School District, I wish to acknowledge Vickie Mitchell,
Executive Director of Administrative Services; Regina Jones, Executive Director of the
Secondary East Learning Community; Dr. Charles Chernosky, Executive Director of School
Improvement; Dr. Deardra Hayes-Whigham, Director of the Alternative Education Learning
Community; and Dr. Dorothy “Dot” Weir, Senior Research Analyst. I also wish to acknowledge
former deputy superintendents Drs. Jim Scales and Lorenzo Garcia; former area
superintendents James Ponce, Miriam Kelley, and Emilio Castro; former Director of Alternative
Programs Karen Ramos; fellow campus administrators Hilario Ramirez, Baudel “Bob” Fonseca,
Ravindra “Ravi” Kamat, Laura Trowbridge, and Clay Friedman; fellow instructional leaders Dr.
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Steve Kirkindall, Jan Cunningham, Carlos Cortez, Mark Feltner, and Mike McClain; Dallas ISD
police officers Robert “Rock” Hardin, Marvin Mooney, Felix Flores, Al Davis, and James Ellison;
former board members Trinidad “Trini” Garza, Jerome Garza, and Ron Price; and concerned
parent and community organizer Vincent “Vince” Murchison.
I also wish to acknowledge the Office of Graduate Studies at the University of Texas at
Arlington for the generous Graduate Dean’s Dissertation Fellowship as well as the HEB Grocery
Company for the Raise Your Hand Texas Leadership Fellowship opportunity to represent the
State of Texas in the inaugural cohort of the National Institute of Urban School Leaders at
Harvard University following the 2007-08 school year at West Dallas (www.ryht.org).
Other mentors and friends who have believed in and inspired me include: Dr. Bill Place
of Albany, New York and Purdue University—in a class of his own; Aaron Bujnowski, Rob
Jensen, Chris Lewis, Sean McAleavy, Brian Tolbert, and Russ Jensen of Frisco, Texas; Dr.
Adam Seegmiller, Robert Folsom, Al Johnson, Wayne Schmidt, David Larson, and Pat Giroux
of Mesquite, Texas; Dr. Richard Zinn, Steve Fairbanks, Mel Lamoreaux, and Garth Isom of
Imperial Valley, California; Van Scott of El Paso, Texas; Matt Crabtree, Virginia Rodriguez, and
Ken Webster of Fort Worth, Texas; Malcolm Turner of Arlington, Texas; Bruce McAllister, Deloy
Young, John Uibel, Brian Team, Tony Gervais, Crystal “Ma” Bell, Luke Call, Steven “Pav”
Pavkov, and Scott McKenzie of Provo, Utah; Dr. Glenda Smith, Dr. Olin Joynton, and Kent
Browning of Houston, Texas; Dr. Larry Elwell, Dr. Brent Wallace, Tom Carver, David Bevilaqua,
Bill and Delda Carter, Ben Hill Jones, Dave McShane, Jay and Robbie Hatch, Chuck Shelby,
and Walter Stafford of Cleburne, Texas; Randy White of Buckhannon, West Virginia; and Dr.
Joseph Raynes, Gordon Romney, David Frischknecht, and Brent Wainwright from our time in
Northern Guatemala.
This dissertation is the culmination of my academic and professional experience to
date. I greatly appreciate any interest in my work.
July 12, 2011
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ABSTRACT
ENGAGING OVER-AGE PARTICIPANTS IN URBAN LEARNING AND WORK
ENVIRONMENTS: AN EMPIRICAL DEMONSTRATION OF
MACRO-LEVEL EFFICIENCY THROUGH EFFECTIVE
AT-RISK STUDENT AND TEACHER RECOVERY

by

J. Randall Farmer, PhD

The University of Texas at Arlington, 2011

Supervising Professor: Maria Cosio-Martinez
This study reviews data-driven appraisals of No Child Left Behind (2001) as well as the
nation’s at-risk student- and teacher dropout problems. Little, if any, evidence is found that
troubled, over-age teens or struggling, first-year educators are overly concerned with the
enhancement of federal and state accountability measures, rigorous performance standards,
college preparatory curricula, or formative or summative assessments—let alone the academic
credentials, continuing education credits, or even combined years of work experience of their
teachers and colleagues. Rather, at-risk students and teachers in the nation’s urban learning
and work environments are most concerned with their want and need to be led (rather than
‘managed’) as human beings. In fact, it appears that the 3Rs of ‘rigor, relevance, and
relationships’ are exactly backward—that the superficial, structural reforms grandfathered into
the current reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 from No
Child Left Behind will continue to produce extremely modest enhancements of student learning
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outcomes without personalized ‘relationships’ to make rigorous classroom instruction ‘relevant’
to over-age or novice-level participants. Without a new, service-oriented paradigm in urban
public education and public administration that defines the limit to technical-rational
administrative behavior by centering on individuals rather than organizations as the unit of
analysis, teacher attrition and student dropout rates will continue to rise, costing school districts
and the nation billions of dollars over the long run and weakening the country’s collective
competitiveness in today’s global economy.
Inspired by the New Public Service leadership paradigm that values ‘people, not just
productivity’ and affirms humanity as the preeminent value of public administration, this study
borrows from the fields of education, public administration, philosophy, psychology, and even
the natural sciences to create and then test an original theory of responsive, service-oriented
instructional leadership. This New Public Service Theory of Urban Public Education opens the
‘black box’ of what occurred in one dropout prevention program of the Dallas ISD when the
theory’s scope conditions were met and its instrumental variable, character-driven, caring ‘I-
You’ interaction, was implemented. Instructional leadership teams were created and faculty
members were given one paid, 90-minute class period per week during the spring semester of
2008 in which to walk classrooms and build relationships of trust with students as well as share
findings with colleagues. The objective was simple: become acquainted over-age students and
promote self-directed behaviors that would enhance lifelong learning and success. Within a
five-month time period, it is likely (p > .70) that African American (p = .72) and Hispanic male (p
= .74) distributions of student GPAs positively diverged as an intact group, and will continue to
do so over time, from previous academic performance due to implementation of the
instrumental variable. Hispanic females also demonstrated progress, but appeared to need a
bit more time. Over 90 percent of at-risk students re-enrolled in school and 100 percent of at-
risk teachers secured their teaching credential; and due to the resultant increase in Average
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Daily Attendance, these school-wide results came within a single semester at absolutely no cost
to the district—actually generating a small surplus over $2,000.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ......................................................................................................... iii

ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................................ v

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS...................................................................................................... xiv

LIST OF TABLES ................................................................................................................... xvii

Chapter Page

1. INTRODUCTION……………………………………..………..….. .............................. 1

1.1 Introduction and Overview ........................................................................ 1

1.2 Research Questions: ‘That Beheld In My Mind’s Eye’ .............................. 4

1.3 At-Risk Student Dropouts: The High Cost of Perceived
Anonymity and Educator Indifference ................................................ 5

1.4 Demographic Changes Among the Nation’s Urban
School Districts................................................................................... 9

1.5 At-Risk Teacher Dropouts: The Wasteful Consumption
of Finite Human and Financial Capital ............................................. 15

1.6 Rationale for this Study ........................................................................... 15

1.7 The Need to Check Short-Sighted Financial Decisions
Made by Local Education Agencies (LEAs) ..................................... 18

1.8 Mutatis Mutandis: Policy Considerations ................................................ 20

1.9 Nervus Probandi: Proposed Education Reform
through 2020 ................................................................................... 21

1.10 Dum Tacent Clamant: Theoretical Considerations ............................... 22

1.11 Conclusion............................................................................................. 24

2. THEORY ................................................................................................................ 26

2.1 Introduction and Overview ...................................................................... 26

2.2 The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001: The Previous
Reauthorization of the ESEA of 1965 .............................................. 27
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2.3 Alia Tentanda Via Est: National Assessment of
Educational Progress (NAEP) Test Data ......................................... 29

2.4 ACT and SAT College Readiness Indicators: Other
Data-Driven Appraisals of NCLB...................................................... 35

2.5 A Nation Still At Risk ............................................................................... 36

2.6 Marshmallows, Metacognition, and the SAT:
The Mischel Experiments of 1968 .................................................... 38

2.7 Implications of the Mischel Experiments for At-Risk
Student and Teacher Recovery ....................................................... 39

2.8 Educators and EMTs: Klein and Klein’s (1981) Paramedic
Experiment and the Dreyfus Model .................................................. 41

2.9 Implications of the Paramedic Experiment for the
Current Paradigm in Urban Public Education .................................. 43

2.10 The Stanford Prison Experiment of 1971 and the
Milgram Experiments of 1974 .......................................................... 44

2.11 Implications of the Stanford Prison and Milgram
Experiments for the Current Paradigm in
Public Administration ........................................................................ 46

2.12 Major Reform Movements of Public Administration .............................. 47

2.13 Implications of the New Public Service Framework
for At-Risk Student and Teacher Recovery ..................................... 50

2.14 Kant’s (1785) Categorical Imperative: The Link
Between Character and the Duty to Serve ...................................... 50

2.15 Theoretical Rationale for a New Paradigm in Urban
Public Education and Public Administration ..................................... 51

2.16 The Art of Transferring New Ideas into
Scientific Knowledge ........................................................................ 53

2.17 The Campus Administrator of the Lyceum’s Peripatetic
School on the Youth of Ancient Athens ........................................... 54

2.18 A Testable Theory of the Role that Character
Caring Interaction Play in Human Organizations ............................. 56

2.19 The Reynolds (1971) Framework for Viable,
Original Theory Construction ........................................................... 57

2.20 Kuhn’s (1962) Paradigms ...................................................................... 58
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