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Dean Penelope Peterson (center) and alumnae mary Larson (left) and Mary nelson (right) enjoyed a concert at the Ravinia Festival in Highland Park, Illinois, this summer. Both alums are Class of 1967. |
New Interdisciplinary Doctoral Program to Focus on Education Research
The School of Education and Social Policy (SESP) has established an innovative interdisciplinary doctoral training program - the "Multidisciplinary Program in Education Sciences" - to develop a cadre of scholars trained to conduct relevant and reliable research on pressing policy and practice issues in education.
Co-directed by SESP Professors James P. Spillane and Greg J. Duncan, the program includes a group of 10 core faculty drawn from Northwestern's departments of economics, psychology, sociology and statistics in collaboration with SESP's departments of learning sciences and human development and social policy.
"Educators today often fly by the seat of their pants and adopt new curricula or teaching practices that seem good but are largely unproven," says Spillane. The scholars trained in Northwestern's new program will be able to help K-12 teachers discern which education practices work and which do not.
Program hallmarks are interdisciplinary teaching and mentoring of fellows by core and affiliated Northwestern faculty engaged in education-focused research. Training activities include required and elective courses in statistics, evaluation, learning and cognition, and policy and implementation. Students will attend biweekly research seminars and fellows' meetings with affiliated faculty.
"Our training program addresses one of the most critical problems in education today - the absence of an empirically sound knowledge based on core education issues," adds Spillane. "Our new training center is intended for students who want to pursue a research agenda that will focus on practical questions in U.S. education from an interdisciplinary perspective."
The new doctoral program is supported by a $3.7 million grant from the Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences and $1.3 million from Northwestern University . The grant will fund 22 three-year fellowships and provide 50 percent funding for a new tenure-line faculty position.
"The Department of Education wants to make sure that educational policies are based on solid, evidence-based research," says SESP Dean Penelope Peterson. "Educational policy, like other policies, should be made on the basis of rigorous evidence, and we want to produce a cohort of scholars who are qualified to conduct the work. Our children deserve nothing less."
| Congratulations, Class of 2004! | ||
 Emily Kissel Photo by Ben Shapiro |
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Of the 99 students graduating in June of 2004, 10 percent received honors, and all are bound for success. Emily Kissel, who earned the highest grade point average - 3.91 - has enrolled in a doctoral program at Washington University in St. Louis. Honors grads Steve Frederick and Tresca Meiling have entered the Teach for America program, Grace Hong received a Fulbright Teaching Fellowship, and Amy Rosenband received a Dunn Fellowship. Convocation speaker and best-selling author Scott Turow greeted the grads "with awe," advising them to "not shun controversy." Their classmates, speakers Laura Beres and Cinaiya Young, agreed that change seldom occurs without a degree of risk and uncertainty and that successes are not final and failures are not fatal. |
Our NU-TEACH Program Shows High Teacher Retention Rates
A study conducted by the Golden Apple Foundation, a partner with SESP, the Inner-City Teaching Corps and the Chicago Public Schools in the NU-TEACH program, shows that NU-TEACH-trained teachers had an average retention rate of 75 percent from 1998 through 2003. This rate contrasts with that found in a 2003 study conducted by Richard Ingersoll at the University of Pennsylvania of 50,000 teachers in schools with high concentration of poverty. Ingersoll reported a one-year attrition rate of new teachers of 15.2 percent, a three-year attrition rate of 45 percent and a five-year attrition rate of 76 percent. Golden Apple attributes the high retention rate of our teachers to careful candidate selection, SESP's strong preparation and ongoing assistance and mentoring by excellent teachers and faculty.
Barbara Ann Sizemore (1927-2004)
Barbara Ann Sizemore's career in education spanned 57 years. As teacher, principal, district superintendent, dean and educational researcher, she aimed to make certain that African American students and those from low-income backgrounds achieved the highest academic levels. She trained hundreds of school leaders who carry on her vision.
Sizemore graduated from Northwestern with a BA in classical languages in 1947 and a master's in elementary education in 1954. She earned a doctorate in educational administration in 1979 from the University of Chicago.
From 1947 to 1972 she was a teacher and principal in Chicago. In 1992 Sizemore became the inaugural dean of the School of Education at DePaul University, where she introduced a doctorate of education program and established the School Achievement Structure to reorganize under-performing schools. She developed the Structured Ten Routines as a model to close the achievement gap based on race, ethnicity and class. Sizemore received numerous awards, including four honorary doctorates and a lifetime achievement award from the Research Focus on Black Education special interest group in American Education Research Association.