Connectedness to the Field of Education

February 16, 1995

The EPS Department is well known for its theoretical, methodological, and substantive contributions to the national dialogue about the philosophical and social dimensions of education. Through its research, writings and publications, as well as through participation in and leadership of scholarly organizations, members of the Department engage other professional educators in an ongoing dialogue about educational theory, policy, and practice. What is less well known, however, is the Department's active and constant application of its theoretical and substantive knowledge to the improvement of educational policies and practices at the national, state, district, and school building levels. Throughout the history of the Department and especially in more recent years members EPS faculty have played key roles in shaping the structure and content of American education in practical and concrete ways.

One important area in which EPS faculty have made a significant impact on the structure of educational opportunity and resources is in the federal district courts. Over the past 12 years members of the faculty have served as key expert witnesses in most of the major federal cases impacting elementary, secondary and higher education. EPS faculty have served as expert witnesses in the following cases: Liddell v. Missouri; Jenkins v. Missouri; Knight v. Alabama; U.S. v. Fordice; U. S. v. State of Louisiana; Sheff v. O'Neill; Podberesky v. Kirwan; and Reed et al v. Rhodes. Agencies ranging from the U. S. Department of Justice, Legal Defense Fund, NAACP, to private law firms have called upon the expertise of EPS faculty to help shape the outcome of critical court cases that will define the structure of equal opportunity and the distribution of educational resources for the twenty first century. Issues such as state responsibility for providing an equal education for school children across all school districts, the use of race based scholarships to remedy the vestiges of past discrimination, the meaning of the "vestiges argument" in a contemporary social context, voluntary interdistrict or metropolitan wide desegregation, the future of historical black public colleges and universities, and the constitutional principles of multiculturalism are some of the important questions addressed in these cases. Some of these cases, particularly Liddell v. Missouri, U. S. v. Fordice, and Podbersky v. Kirwan are landmark cases on questions of public school desegregation, the use of scholarships for minority students as affirmative action recruitment programs, and state responsibility to remedy past discrimination against historically black colleges and universities.

There are many outcomes from involvement in larger legal and policy questions that connect EPS faculty and students to the field of education in the most concrete and practical ways. For example, the Liddell v. Missouri case of the early 1980s led via out-of-court settlement to the establishment of a "voluntary" interdistrict transfer program in the St. Louis metropolitan area. This year Professor Trent has been retained by the Voluntary Interdistrict Coordinating Council as one of two lead investigators to examine components of school life and describe the experiences of transferring students within the various receiving schools to gain a perspective of what might be effective environments and programs. The study aims to describe what seems to be working, and what does not seem to be working and provide evidence that shows how particular programs of particular educators in selected sites (elementary, middle, high, large, small, etc.) have managed to exert a significant positive influence upon transferring students. The study also explores the issues of how students may be actively resisting a particular educational program or how the environment is not particularly conducive to student success. Professor Trent will involve five doctoral students in this important research project and three of them are EPS doctoral students. Such projects involve faculty and students in the improvement of educational practice at the local district, school and curriculum levels and connect them to school settings in profoundly important ways.

The connections of EPS faculty to educational policy and practice at the state level produce similar results. In the recent past Professor Anderson was appointed by the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) to conduct a state-wide study of the disproportionate representation of African-American children in special education classes. As part of this year-long study, teams were organized to conduct on site inspections of the identification, diagnostic, evaluation, and placement procedures in special education at the local school level. Several EPS doctoral students in conjunction with Professor Trent were contracted to participate in these investigations and gained first hand insight into the interaction between special education programs and African-American children at the local school level. The final report was submitted to the special education division of ISBE and used as a foundation for rethinking the relationship between equity concerns at the state level and the practices of special education programs at the local level.

Our faculty have been well connected to state-wide and district-wide educational concerns. Since 1985 Professor Anderson has chaired the ISBE Bias Review Committee, a group of 12 Illinois teachers and teacher educators who advise the state on methods of resolving issues of possible test bias in the Illinois Teacher Certification Tests. At the outset this committee reviewed the framework, objectives, content limits, and test items to determine if they were free of gender, racial, ethnic, religious, age, cultural, economic, and geographic bias. It meets two or three times annually to review the results of cumulative and yearly testing, to consider passing rates , new test items, and cutoff scores in view of possible bias. This model was adopted by the Ohio State Department of Education in 1988 as a critical component of its elementary and secondary school proficiency testing and since the beginning of its adoption in Ohio Professor Anderson has served as the main consultant to the Ohio Bias Review Committee. Similarly, Professor Coombs has served as a consultant to the Illinois Alliance of Essential Schools; Professor Ennis has served as a key expert for the State of Illinois Goal Assessment Program in Science; Professor Trent has advised the State of Minnesota in its efforts to rethink its school desegregation plans and the Ohio Consortium Project on strategies to increase the production of minority teachers.

In the annual rank and pay reports of EPS faculty we find evidence of varied connections to the field of education at the district and local school levels. Professor Trent conducted workshops for teachers and parents in the Cleveland, Ohio schools as part of a district-wide school-community relations program to improve the racial climate and pedagogical practices in desegregated classrooms. Professor Coombs conducted surveys of public preferences for education among parents, teachers, administrators, students, and non-parent residents in the Maine (IL) Township High School District. Professor Trent collaborated with Professor Willis of Curriculum and Instruction to hold a district-wide workshop for principals, assistant principals, and counselors in Urbana on issues of multicultural education and race relations. Professor Alston led a multicultural awareness workshop for elementary school teachers in Sidney, Illinois. Professor Anderson is one of four core faculty that sponsor bi-annual summer institutes for history teachers in the state of Illinois on ways to integrate African-American history and literature into basic courses on American history, civics and government.

As schools seek to address questions of diversity and inclusiveness, equity, desegregation, school-community relations, multicultural education, minority student achievement, citizen participation in the decision making process, and related issues, EPS faculty are called upon to assist in various ways. Indeed, the opportunities for our faculty to participate in the improvement of educational practice and reform far exceeds our capacity to respond to such opportunities. Teaching, research, and escalating service loads within the campus constrain our practical involvement in the field of education at the school district and building levels. Nonetheless, EPS faculty members play an active and persistent role in shaping the field of local, state, and national educational polices and practices. Members get ample opportunities to test their theories and research findings in the most concrete ways. Moreover, faculty members regard such connections to the field of educational practice as consistent with the Department's mission of engaging other professional educators in an on-going dialogue about ways to improve the structure and content of American education.