Jackson Scholar Call for Nominations

UCEA Member Deans, Chairs and Plenum Session Representatives,

The UCEA Barbara L. Jackson Scholars Program Advisory Committee is pleased to announce the 2012 Call for Nominations for the Barbara L. Jackson Scholars Program. The purpose of the Jackson Scholars Program is to develop future faculty of color for the field of educational leadership and policy.  It provides outstanding students of color mentoring, networking and professional development intended to prepare them to be successful in the professorate.

To submit your nomination(s) for Mentor and/or Scholar, please CLICK HERE.

The Vitality of our Growth for the Field of Educational Leadership and Policy

To posit the title as a question, how should we rather define this vitality and who will contribute to this vitality? Robert Ibarra in Beyond Affirmative Action (2001) provides a critical theoretical contribution to the importance of diversity in the professoriate. Ibarra explains that multicontextuality is an ability to think and function in multiple languages and literacies, contexts or cognitive styles, in order to respond to current trends in economic, civic, and personal spheres. Ibarra further links the need for a diverse professoriate by explaining that those with greater multicontextuality better navigate the complexities of a diverse society. Tara Yosso (2005) in “Whose Culture has Capital? A Critical Race Theory Discussion of Community Cultural Wealth,” reframes social and cultural capital theory by further acknowledging that linguistic, aspirational, navigational, resistance and familial capitals also lead to greater opportunities. As a member of the professoriate in educational leadership and policy, and with a critical consciousness of multicontextuality and community cultural wealth, I believe that these two theoretical contributions explain why programs like the Barbara L. Jackson Scholars and the David L. Clark Graduate Student Seminars are crucial to the vitality of our growth for the field of educational leadership and policy. 

To further elaborate, currently in the state of education politics we face numerous deficit thinking based movements. For example, the U.S. Supreme Court this fall will hear the case of Fischer v. Texas, a revisit to the use of Affirmative Action, where since Grutter v. Bollinger (2003) the use of race is allowable only as an equally valued criterion among other criteria. Fischer v. Texas will challenge the use of race in any dimension in the admissions process, which may also influence the use of race applied to various school desegregation efforts. Furthermore, the state of education politics is currently being overrun in some states, like that of my home state of New Mexico, by what some are calling the Techno-Scholastic Complex. It is this reality that worry many of us in educational leadership where the use of student tests become a much greater tool for profit at the expense of good educators and ultimately a quality educational opportunity for all children. In New Mexico, The Land of Enchantment, or perhaps now disenchantment, Governor Susana Martinez on April 11, 2012 through executive order is now mandating the implementation of evaluating all licensed school personnel using student test scores to inform 50% of their annual evaluation beginning this coming school year. The explanation in the Governor's executive order is that current evaluation statute does not work and is over-simplistic, and more importantly, this is a response to the NCLB Waiver requirements by the Obama Administration. As a side note, the evaluation system that was in place before was deliberatively developed with practitioners, elected officials, and scholars, along with some representing UCEA in the evaluation system of school principals. In context, in a state where slightly over 2/3 of the K-12 student population is ethnically diverse, and the state constitution requires educators to speak both English and Spanish, and in a state where the growth of dual-language programs continue to highlight their success with linguistically diverse students, the new leap into a greater testing environment is unacceptable and ultimately regrettable. Ultimately, listening to the tenets of multicontextuality and community cultural wealth, and in the words of Terry Orr, I believe that “connecting the dots” through the realities and experiences of our children, policy, and our work, our incoming generation of diverse scholars are part of the necessary response to the complexities and realities of the education system.

Nonetheless, given the current state of education politics, and the growing demand to critically prepare educators for the growing education policy complexities that may be devastating for educational opportunity for all children, it is essential for our field to consider and recognize how multicontextuality and community cultural wealth speak to us about the importance of our diverse graduate student recruitment into the professoriate. Time and time again as I visit with our student’s research at events through the David L. Clark Graduate Student Seminars and the Barbara L. Jackson Scholars Program, I recognize that our graduate students, their creativity, their new energy (vitality), are the pulse of educational leadership and policy.

With that said, I look forward to continue to see growing support from our UCEA member institutions by nominating and financially supporting their diverse graduate students for the Barbara L. Jackson Scholars Program and David L. Clark Graduate Student Seminars and attendance for both the UCEA Conventions and AERA Meetings.  UCEA will soon be accepting nominations for Jackson Scholars and Nominations for the 2012-2014 Cohort through June 22, 2012 via an online form. Please see your PSRs, Chairs or Deans for details and for nominating support. 

Respectfully,

-Cristóbal Rodríguez, UCEA Associate Director of Graduate Student Development

UCEA Launches Graduate Student Summit 2012 - Exploring the Future of Leadership Preparation: Alternative Perspectives, Frameworks and Methods

WHO:             UCEA Graduate Students Council

WHAT:           UCEA Graduate Student Summit 2012

WHEN:           November 14, 2012 – November 15, 2012

WHERE:         Denver Marriott Center City - Denver, CO

The purpose of the First Annual UCEA Graduate Student Summit is to provide a space for graduate students to engage in authentic dialogue about their scholarly work.  As emerging scholars in the field, this summit offers a unique opportunity for graduate students to create new professional and social relationships that allow them to learn from and share their knowledge with each other, while enhancing their work both at and beyond the summit. 

The summit will serve as a pre-conference  the UCEA Convention. The summit will commence on Wednesday, November 14, 2012 at 3 p.m. and conclude on Thursday, November 15, 2012 at 1 p.m.  This summit will offer opportunities to collaborate and network with graduate students from across the country and leading scholars in the field.  Summit participants will have the opportunity to partake in paper sessions, workshop sessions, and networking sessions.  To submit a proposal to the summit, visit the following link: http://www.ucea.org/graduate-student-summit-propos/.  Proposals are due by June 1, 2012. 

ADDITIONAL HIGHLIGHTS:

For only $30, the summit will include:

• A networking reception on Wednesday evening with UCEA Plenary Session Representatives and the UCEA Executive Committee
• A working lunch on Thursday to solicit ideas for how the GSC can better serve graduate students
• The opportunity to develop peer mentors to work with at the convention and beyond
• The opportunity to get additional small group mentoring from faculty during the 2012 UCEA Convention
• The opportunity to have your work published online

For more information,  please feel free to contact Erin Anderson, UCEA Graduate Assistant, ea4f@virginia.edu 

UCEA Announces Graduate Student Fellows for 2012

UCEA is proud to announces the 2012 GSF fellows. The UCEA GSF aims to provide research, mentoring and career development opportunities for an outstanding graduate student who is enrolled in an UCEA member educational  leadership program and intends to enter the professoriate.  The UCEA Program Center fellow will receive a stipend of $5,000.

The 2012 fellows are Brad Davis and Kathryn Torres. Brad Davis is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Texas at Austin. He will be working at UCEA's Center for the Evaluation and Improvement of Leadership Preparation and Practice. Kathryn Torres is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Washington and will be working at UCEA Headquarters on a project geared toward supporting UCEA's Program Center Efforts. 

UCEA Program Centers: 

• UCEA Joint Program Center for the Study of the Superintendency and District Governance


• UCEA Center for Educational Leadership and Social Justice


• UCEA Center for the Study of Leadership in Urban Schools


• UCEA Center for the Advanced Study of Technology Leadership in Education (CASTLE)


• UCEA Center for the Study of Leadership & Ethics


• UCEA Center for the Study of Academic Leadership


• UCEA Center for the Study of School Site Leadership


• The National Center for the Evaluation of Educational Leadership Preparation and Practice

Julian Vasquez Heilig, Ph.D. ▪ Associate Professor, Educational Policy and Planning ▪ Associate Professor, African and African Diaspora Studies (by courtesy) ▪ Faculty Associate, Center for Mexican American Studies ▪ Faculty Affiliate, Center for African and African American Studies ▪ Coordinator, M.Ed. Program in Educational Policy and Planning ▪ University of Texas at Austin ▪ Associate Director of Program Centers, University Council for Educational Administration 

Do Leaders Have Strong Enough Advocacy Skills?

Since the 2010 elections, when conservative leaders took control of many states, there has been an upsurge of legislation advancing charter schools, promoting the privatization of public schools and weakening the education profession.  As Julie Underwood and Julie Mead point out in their Kappan Article, this anti-public school, anti-teacher legislation is no accident. It is the work of an advocacy group called the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).  ALEC is an organization made up of close to 2,000 conservative state legislators. It promotes privatization and corporate interests in multiple legislative areas, including education, voting laws, healthcare, the environment, the economy, etc., by drafting model legislation that conservative legislators can take back to their states and introduce as their own "reform" ideas. Close to 1,000 of ALEC’s model bills are introduced each year, and around 1/5 of those become law. The legislation according to Rizzo (2012), is “fast—ready-made, just add water, written in language that can withstand partisan debate and legal scrutiny.” 

In education, ALEC fingerprints can be seen on state-level efforts “to privatize public education and to turn educators into at-will employees who may be fired for any reason.”  For the most part, ALEC’s agenda for education is synonymous with "reform" in education today.  What does ALEC’s reform initiative include? Among others, ALEC’s model legislation promotes: expanding vouchers, charters, and other forms of privatization; lowering standards for entry into the teaching profession; opening up new opportunities for profit-making entities, expansion of for-profit online charter schools.

Those who study ALEC say legislation in the states is rarely identical to ALEC's models, but, in many cases, the bills contain the same core concepts, with minor editing, and are introduced by lawmakers who are ALEC members. Examples of the model legislation as well as the members and supporters of ALEC (among other things) can be viewed on the ALEC Exposed website. 

Although his spokesman, Michael Dreniak, denied any connection to ALEC, a recent article in the Newark Star-Ledger detailed how closely New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's "reform" legislation is modeled on ALEC's work in education. But New Jersy is not, unfortunately, ALEC’s only follower. Numerous states have introduced ALEC’s model education legislation, including Arizona, Wisconsin, Colorado, Michigan, New Hampshire and Maine.  The Michigan state legislature, in fact, just voted to increase the number of cyber-charters in the state and the number of students these schools could enroll.  Cyber charters are only one of the many controversial proposals, and both the New York Times and the Washington Post have published exposes of the for-profit cyber-charter corporations that are benefitting from this legislation.

Diane Ravitch ended a recent blog post for the Horace Mann League by asking where the leadership is to oppose ALEC.  I firmly believe we have many leaders, including teachers, principals, parents, etc., who are willing to oppose ALEC and the other forcers focused on unraveling widespread and high quality public education.  And some leaders, like those in Long Island who opposed the state's unreasonable educator evaluation programs, have begun to stand up and speak out. Others are willing, but they may not be ready.

Do current and future leaders have strong enough advoacy skills to ensure their students, teachers, staff and communities are provided the opportunity to learn, teach and reach their potential?  I think this is unlikely. Contexts are changing and the knowledge and skills that leaders need change are changing right along with them. Leadership preparation and professional development providers as well as community organizations must keep in mind the range of knowledge and skills leaders need, including knowledge and skills around advocacy and the politics of education.  

Resources are available.  Efforts to build advocacy capacity, like that provided by the Save Our Schools group, are significant. Similarly, UCEA’s new curriculum module on developing advocacy leadership is a substantive resource that includes readings, video links and practice-anchored powerful learning experiences.  Finally, the Politics of Education Association has a free syllabi collection.  If you know of other resources available for the preparation of educational leaders around politics and advocacy, now is the time to put them to use and share them widely.