CURRY ALUMNIWINTER 2013

Influencing Ed PolicyCurry Researchers among First with Access to VLDS

T he impacts of Virginia’s K-12 and higher education sys-tems are now open to an unprecedented level of analysis thanks to a new comprehensive data collection system,

and members of the Curry School’s education policy faculty are among the select few to gain a first crack at the data.

The Virginia Longitudinal Data System, launched in 2012, links data from four state agencies: the Virginia Department of Education, the Virginia Community College System, the State Council on Higher Education in Virginia, and the Virginia Employment Council.

The system was developed to enable examination of student progress from early childhood to postsecondary and beyond. Virginia was one of 20 states to receive a federal Longitudinal Data Systems Grant in 2010, funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

To provide proof-of-concept regarding types of analyses and conclusions that might be devel-oped from the data, the U.Va. Center for Education Policy and Workforce Competitiveness is partnering with the Harris Leadership Institute at Virginia Commonwealth University. They are collaborating with the state agencies in a pilot of the system, says Jim Wyckoff, professor of education policy at Curry and director of the Center.

Although data in the system is scrubbed of all personal identification, the VDLS can tie together K-12 data such as students’ Standards of Learning test scores to their progression into higher education and the workforce.

The system will also allow researchers to match graduates of the state’s teacher preparation programs with their scores on the Virginia licensure test, their placement in Virginia classrooms, and their subsequent students’ Standards of Learning test scores.

Wyckoff, along with Center faculty fellows Dan Player, Heather Wathington, and Luke Miller, are initially heading up two lines of research using VLDS data. They will explore how the data will enable them to inform and improve teacher preparation in Virginia, and they will examine college outcomes data from students who took college courses while in high school.

The Center was established in 2010 and brings together scholars from across the university in the fields of education, public policy, sociology, economics and law to provide rigorous and timely research that can inform the design of education policy.

Wyckoff came to the Curry School in 2008 from the University at Albany in New York. He developed such productive relationships with education officials in New York City that the center continues to conduct research projects using public school data there.

Center faculty are also collaborating with policymakers in the District of Columbia Public Schools to examine the effects of IMPACT, its teacher assessment system, on teacher quality and student achievement in DCPS schools.

Alumni in Print

See what your fellow alumni have been up to! View a list of submitted alumni journal articles, book chapters, and books on the web atcurry.virginia.edu/scholars-newsletter

Also available: Selected 2012 publica-tions by Curry faculty.

Scholars

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Curry Alumni Scholars is published by the Curry School of Education and is sponsored by the Curry School of Education Foundation, P.O. Box 400276, Charlottesville, VA 22904, email: curry-foundation@virginia.edu

curry.virginia.edu/scholars-newsletter

U.Va. Reunions Weekend‘3s and ‘8s

June 6-9, 2013

Curry School Luncheon June 8

For more information, visit

www.alumni.virginia.edu/reunions

/// Jim Wyckoff, director of the Center for Education Policy and Workforce Com-petitiveness at Curry.

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Nearly five years ago a group of Curry doctoral students decided they wanted a local forum in which to

present their own research in a low-stakes col-legial setting.

Inspired by a student-run event at an Ivy League ed school, the group obtained approval for their idea, secured a little funding from the Curry School Foundation, invited 1,000-word proposals, and in January 2010 held the first annual Curry Research Conference.

Now in its fourth year, the conference’s value to busy graduate students is clear.

Christine Hardigree took on leadership of the 2013 conference committee after attending the CRC in 2012.

“I was really impressed by it,” she says, “especially the way the faculty supported this student-run event. It’s a very empowering experience.”

The conference process mirrors a profes-sional meeting, with 15-minute concurrent paper presentations and a poster session. Graduate students serve as proposal reviewers after an initial training session. Accepted pro-posals can describe a class research project or a portion of an advisor’s research project that was conducted by the student, as well as in-progress

or completed dissertation research. Some of the research will never be presented

beyond the CRC, Hardigree says, but the opportunity to prepare for future professional research presentations is invaluable.

The 2013 conference will be held on February 1 in Bavaro Hall from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Registration opens at 9 a.m.

In response to student feedback, a workshop on data management has been added this year. Social psychologist Gregory M. Walton of Stanford University will keynote the event.

Curry alumni living locally are invited to attend all sessions and learn about the new avenues of exploration being pursued by our researchers in training.

Curry Research ConferenceStudent-led event celebrating its fourth year

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/// Students and faculty mingle at the poster session during the 2012 Curry Research Conference.

Where Are They Now?Karen Kuhla Ph.D. ’96 Ed EvaluationExecutive Director of Education, Thayer Leader Development Group, West Point, N.Y.My primary responsibility is to ensure our team exceeds client expectations for program design, delivery, and follow-up.

My experiences and education at the Curry School taught me that having deep content expertise is an important ticket to entry in the field of leadership development, but the intangible skills that the faculty and program required...are the keys to ensuring I can grow, and be happy and fulfilled, in my professional identity, while aiding others in their educa-tional pursuits.

Jennifer S. EdgarPh.D. ’03 Ed ResearchDirector, Behavioral Sciences Research Center, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Washington, D.C.I work on the design and evaluation of national federal surveys and serve as the lead researcher on the survey that informs the nation’s inflation rate.

At Curry I took qualitative and quantitative classes, and the ability to use both has been a significant strength for me....The training we received at Curry gave us the knowledge we need to be able to succeed in our career and the skills we need to be able to work well in any setting with colleagues from any background.

John BroomePh.D. ’11 Soc Studies EdAssistant Professor, Univer-sity of Mary Washington, Fredericksburg, Va.

I direct the secondary education and preK-12 education programs and teach courses in social studies methods, classroom manage-ment and educational research.

The Curry School provided me with the freedom and flexibility to explore the kind of future education professor I wanted to become. While taught by world-renown fac-ulty, I was provided the opportunity to explore and collaborate with others in teaching and research....Curry was about building relation-ships—with your professors and your peers.

Margaret McLaughlin looks back over her just-completed term as president of the Council for

Exceptional Children and easily names the one accomplishment bringing her the greatest sat-isfaction: helping to develop CEC’S Position on Special Education Teacher Evaluation.

The statement, which was released in 2012, describes current research, policy, and practice, as well as identifying challenges and making recommendations for policy makers.

“Many of the field’s top experts contributed to this document,” she says, “but I am proud that I was able to start this initiative and that it is being recognized by other educational orga-nizations as a powerful position.”

McLaughlin arrived at this point of national influence via a nontraditional academic career path. After completing her doctoral work in special education at the Curry School, she spent a year in a post-doctoral internship with the Bureau of Education for the Handicapped at the U.S. Office of Education. She then directed the Program Development Assistance System in the Experimental Education Unit at the University of Washington. In 1982 she became the associate director at the Institute for the Study of Exceptional Children and Youth at the University of Maryland.

Not until 2000 did she take a tenured position, becoming a full professor in the Department of Special Education at Maryland—and not without some trepidation.

“I liked being research faculty,” she says.Yet, her focus on research and policy has

landed her numerous opportunities to make her voice heard. She has served on or co-chaired four National Academy of Sciences Committees that have addressed topics of students with disabilities and standards, assess-ment accommodations, finance reform, and the disproportionate representation of minority students in special education.

She has also consulted with numerous inter-national and national agencies and organiza-tions, as well as with federal and state depart-ments of education and local education agencies.

Her time at the Curry School, she says, was a foundational experience for this career path, and opportunities to explore some of the emerging policy issues of the late-70s piqued her interest.

“The high standards and focus on scholar-ship were exceptional, and respect for both

were instilled in me and have stayed with me as I have moved through my career in higher education,” she says, “both as a faculty member and mentor to numerous doctoral students and in my various professional leadership roles.”

And, as often happens, she found her own doctoral advisor to be most influential. “Frankly, I do not think I would have been able to pursue the career that I have had without the sup-port and personal networks of my advisor, Dr. [Gerry] Wallace, who supported my choices.”

At the University of Maryland, McLaughlin has added Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Education to her duties, and she directs the doctoral program in Special Education Policy Leadership Development and another doctoral program focused on using large-scale data to conduct policy research.

She continues to exert her influence wher-ever she can to shape the direction of education for youth with exceptionalities.

Read more. A list of McLaughlin’s books is available with the online version of this article at curry.virginia.edu/scholars-newsletter

Shaping Special Ed

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McLaughlin’s Advice for Recent Graduates:“Be brave and take some risks and do what feels good in your core. Not everyone needs to follow the same path. In my current position as an associate dean, I talk with many doctoral students and junior faculty, and sometimes I encourage them to step back and consider where they really want to be in their lives the next few years and not just blindly follow a route set down by others.”

/// Margaret McLaughlin (Ph.D. ‘77 Spec Ed) is immediate past president of the Council for Exceptional Children.

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The Changing Landscape of Teacher Preparation:An Interview with Dean Bob Pianta

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Learn more in the latest issue of the Curry Alumni Magazine.

And more...• News from Around Curry• Faculty Research• Alumni Profiles• Class Notes• New Writing Contest Essays

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Preparing to Co-Teach

More than 60 percent of students with disabilities spend 80 percent or more of their school day in general education classes.Many schools use a model in which a special education teacher spends some or the entire school day co-teach-ing in general-education classrooms, which has created an increasing need for training in how to share a classroom.“We are seeing more of these co-teach-ing experiences happen among general and special educators,” said Stephanie van Hover, chair of curriculum, instruc-tion and special education.“We wanted to be sure that the stu-dents in the teacher preparation program at the Curry School were pre-pared for this kind of partnership when they graduated.”

Read more. Find out what they did by reading the online version at curry.virginia.edu/scholars-newsletter

Mark Bardini (Ph.D. '97 Educ Eval) was appointed as Executive Vice President for the Dexis Consulting Group in Washington, DC. Dexis is a government and international devel-opment consulting company serving clients such as USAID, the World Bank, and the UK Government. Sonia Cabell (Ph.D. ‘09 Reading) is cur-rently a research scientist in the Center for Advanced Study of Teaching and Learning at the University of Virginia. Barbara Chamberlin (Ph.D. '02 AV C&I) is associate professor of Instructional Technology and Educational Media Specialist at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces. Timothy Curby (Ph.D. '08 Ed Psych) is an assistant professor at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. Janine S. Davis (Ph.D. '10) is an assistant professor in the department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Mary Washington. Megan Davis (Ph. D. '07 Ed Policy) is a senior progam analyst at Mathematica Policy Research in Princeton, N.J. She married Erik Christianson in 2009. Their son, Gannon William Christianson, was born in 2010.Toby Emert (Ph. '02 Engl Ed) is an associate professor and the chair of the Department of Education at Agnes Scott College in Decatur, Ga. Lisa Foster (Ph.D. ‘11 Admin & Supv) was offered a third year as a fellow with READS for Summer Learning at Harvard Graduate School of Education. Michael Gerber (Ph.D. '81) is a professor at the University of California in Santa Barbara. Paul Gorski (M.Ed. '95 Soc Fdns; Ph.D. '98 Educ Eval) was granted tenure and promotion

in August 2012 and founded a new undergradu-ate program in Social Justice in New Century College at George Mason University, which was rolled out in September 2012. Mark Harrington (M.Ed. '00 Soc Fnds; Ph.D. 02 Educ Eval) is an adjunct professor at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va.Jonathan Hine (Ph.D. '00 Educ Eval) is CEO of Scriptor Services LLC in Charlottesville. He translated Beyond the Age of Oil: the Myths and Realities of Fossil Fuels and their Alternative, by Leonardo Maugeri (Praeger, 2010). He also translated the Italian letters in The Letters of Thomas Jefferson Retirement Series (Princeton University Press, 2011 and continuing). Jane Jarvis (Ph.D. '09 Ed Psych) is a senior lecturer in education and coordinator of the Initial Teacher Education Programs in Special Education at Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia. Dolly Joseph (M.T. '00 Elem Ed; Ph.D. '05 IT) is the program director of Computers 4 Kids in Charlottesville. Sara Kajder (Ph.D. '05 Engl Ed) is on the English faculty at Shady Side Academy in Pittsburgh, Pa. She was awarded the 2012 James Britton Award from the National Council of Teachers of English for her recent book, Adolescents and Digital Literacies: Learning Alongside Our Students. Jackie McDonnough (Ph.D. '02 Sci Ed) is an associate professor of Science Education at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond. She is Co-PI on the Virginia Initiative for Science Teaching and Achievement, a $32 Million grant from U.S. Department of Education focused on systemic change in sci-ence education. She is PI on the VCU Noyce

Initiative, an NSF program focused on preparing highly qualified secondary science teachers for high need schools. She is completing a two-year term as Pre-service Teaching Strand Coordinator for the National Association for Research in Science Teaching.Oskar Scheikl (Ph.D. '09 Admin & Supv) is Director of Information Management for Rockingham County Public Schools in Harrisonburg, Va. William Sterrett (M.Ed. '03, Ph.D. '05 Admin & Supv) is an assistant professor at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. His recent ASCD book, Insights into Action, was selected as 2011 ASCD Member book. Beverly Sweeney (M.Ed. '07, Ph.D. '12 Ed Psych) took a position at the U.Va. Center for Advanced Study of Teaching and Learning immediately after graduation and is working on a grant for the Head Start National Center for Quality Teaching and Learning. James Tuttle (Ph.D. '01 C&I) has been promot-ed to associate professor at Shepherd University in Shepherdstown, W.Va., where he is also the president of the Faculty Senate. Robin Ward (Ph.D. '97 Math Ed) is a professor at Rice University in Houston, Tex. She just pub-lished her fifth book, Math + Art = Fun: Activities for Discovering Mathematical Magic in Modern Art (Bright Sky Press).

CURRY ALUMNI

CLASS NOTES

Curry Alumni ScholarsP.O. Box 400268417 Emmet Street SouthCharlottesville, VA 22904-4268

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Read more. Some class notes were abbreviated due to space limitations. You can read the full versions as well as a listing of 2012 alumni publications at curry.virginia.edu/scholars-newsletter.

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