University of Arkansas Conference Fills Education Journal With Researchers’ Best Ideas for Reform

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Papers about education reform submitted at a 2006 University of Arkansas conference make up the latest issue of the Peabody Journal of Education published by Vanderbilt University.

The issue contains papers from some of the nation’s leading education researchers on topics such as merit pay for educators; free, high-quality preschool; expanded testing and improved data systems; and governance and structure of school systems.

The University of Arkansas department of education reform issued a call in early 2006 to the scholars and researchers who make up its technical board of advisers to describe their best idea to improve K-12 education. The department then coordinated a conference in October 2006 in Kansas City, Mo., funded by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation of Kansas City, a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing entrepreneurship and improving the education of children and youth.

The department of education reform was formed in 2005 to focus on research to inform policymakers, scholars, parents, teachers, administrators and the public in five areas: teacher quality, leadership, policy, accountability and transparency, and school choice.

Jay P. Greene, head of the department of education reform, said some of the researchers and scholars initially balked at his open-ended request, asking him instead to give them assignments for their papers. Greene explained his thinking in the introduction he wrote for the special issue.

“They were afraid that the single best idea would be obvious and everyone would write the same paper,” Greene said. “I stuck with the original assignment; if everyone agreed on the same single best idea for school reform I thought we should know what that idea is.”

As it turned out, several ideas were proposed around a few common themes.

“This set of practical proposals should provide policymakers and researchers with the kinds of ideas we need to be considering for making significant improvements in K-12 education,” Greene said.

Contributors came from Harvard, Stanford, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Brown, Vanderbilt and the University of Missouri-Columbia for the daylong meeting in Kansas City. Greene served as the guest editor of the Peabody Journal of Education for this special issue.

The articles address pros and cons of teacher pay based on a market compensation model; mayoral control of large, urban school systems; offering high-quality, free preschool particularly to poor students; heavy reliance on testing to improve performance of educators and students; and vouchers to allow special education students to attend the public or private school of their choice.

The authors described existing research, areas that need additional study, challenges that educators face in implementing particular reform measures and what effect certain measures could have on schools and student performance.

The conference and special issue of the journal further the department’s mission to provide data-driven information about education reform measures, Greene said, and was followed by a second conference this year that brought together educators, policymakers and the public to discuss distance learning opportunities in Arkansas. The department of education reform also offers a working paper archive and video from its yearlong lecture series on its Web site at http://www.uark.edu/ua/der/.

Information about the Peabody Journal of Education can be found online at http://www.leaonline.com/loi/pje.