Victoria J. Maslow
The American high school: Are learning communities an answer to solving inequities?

Camille A. Farrington
The Effect of Competency-Based Course Credit on High School Credit Accumulation and Graduation Rates

Leah Lembo
Preserving Child Centered Education in the Era of NCLB: A Case Study of One School's Efforts

Shannon K'doah Range
Re-Framing Progressive Education: Constructing a New Rhetoric for Progressive Reformers

Bethany Plett
Inclusion of English Language Learners in Conversion Small Schools

Maria Hantzopolous
Small Schools and Social Justice: The Role of Small Schools in the Lives of Youth in New York City.

Alia Tyner-Mullings
Crafting Success: What Alternative School Students Made of Their Educations.

Melissa Chabrán
The Influence of High-Stakes Testing on Student Engagement.

Sarah Brody Shulkind
Middle School Advisory Programs

Victoria J. Maslow
University of Wisconsin at Madison
Awarded Spring 2008
Thesis: The American high school: Are learning communities an answer to solving inequities?
Abstract: The purpose of this case study is to examine the implementation of small learning communities in a large urban comprehensive high school as a mechanism to reduce a significant gap in student performance based on race. The study looks at the extent to which teacher responsibility for student learning, a factor present in small schools, can be replicated in a large high school that has implemented small learning communities. The study also seeks to examine professional learning communities which were developed as a result of the small learning communities, focusing on the extent to which the professional learning communities fostered equity in learning for all students. While the study is of a large comprehensive urban high school that has implemented small learning communities, much of the design and focus is on teacher responsibility for student learning, a factor that is found in small schools, that has applicability to CES and its goals of improving the connections between teachers and students.

Camille A. Farrington
University of Illinois at Chicago
Awarded Summer 2007
Thesis: The Effect of Competency-Based Course Credit on High School Credit Accumulation and Graduation Rates
Abstract: The proposed dissertation focuses on two key questions: Does the traditional Carnegie unit system of awarding course credit contribute to high “off-track” and dropout rates in urban high schools, and does an alternative assessment system developed and implemented by a CES high school help students get back “on track,” resulting in higher graduation rates? The research design includes both quantitative and qualitative components. Quantitatively, I will use a quasi-experimental design to compare students’ annual credit accumulation over four years and subsequent graduation rates under the two systems. Qualitatively, I will interview off-track students in both systems, focusing on student dispositions about their academic performance, their understanding of the credit systems that govern their progress through high school, and their plans for persistence toward graduation. This study seeks to contribute to our understanding of the phenomenon of high urban dropout rates by focusing on potential structural barriers that may impede students’ academic progress toward graduation. I theorize that the Carnegie unit system poses one such structural barrier, and in this study I test whether an alternative method for assessing student learning and awarding credit will contribute to higher rates of recovery for off-track students, resulting in higher graduation rates.

Leah Lembo
University of Delaware
Awarded Summer 2007
Thesis: Preserving Child Centered Education in the Era of NCLB: A Case Study of One School's Efforts
Abstract: Federal and state mandates currently impose undue pressures on teachers and teaching in public schools. The required high stakes tests have stirred an ongoing debate about the importance of teaching beyond basic skills. Curriculum narrowing has become common in thousands of sites forced to relegate large proportions of instructional time to test preparation. In an effort to maintain a balance in instruction, many schools elect multiple programs that are not necessarily compatible and in practice may not be the most beneficial arrangement for students. In one Coalition elementary school the ten common principles compete with the prescriptive curriculum of Reading First. External indicators point to success for this school but preliminary data suggests underlying tensions as the school strives to strike a balance between child centered education and the demands of NCLB. This case study will examine instructional practices in two classrooms to uncover how the competing program goals and structures may overlap, support or hinder each other as the school strives to provide a complete curricular program for students from low income homes in southern Maryland.

Shannon K'doah Range
Stanford University
Awarded Summer 2007
Thesis: Re-Framing Progressive Education: Constructing a New Rhetoric for Progressive Reformers
Abstract: For more than a century, progressive education reforms have ebbed and flowed in American schools, but at no time have they fundamentally changed the goals and practices of American schooling. This dissertation examines this reform failure by looking at a political aspect of the reform process - the rhetoric of progressive education advocates in popular media. I am investigating the rhetoric employed by contemporary progressive education advocates through the lenses of social movement theory and frame analysis. Assuming that rhetoric and ideas play a key role in the political discourse arena, I examine the types of frames and narratives employed by Ted Sizer, Deborah Meier, and Alfie Kohn in recent years, questioning their alignment with “master frames” about education.

Bethany Plett
Texas A&M University
Awarded Winter 2007
Bethany Plett is finishing her Ph.D at Texas A&M University with a research emphasis on English language learners in conversion high schools. She has taught secondary English language learners in a conversion small school for four years.
Inclusion of English Language Learners in Conversion Small Schools
Abstract: This qualitative study investigates, through interviews and observations, the tension produced by the practical challenge of teaching English language learners (ELL) in five conversion small schools. Philosophically and practically, the school programs range between providing limited inclusion of ELL students in mainstream classes to programs that strive to increase ELL mainstream inclusion. Through the theoretical lenses of reproduction and resistance theory, the results of the study examine the CES principle of equity as it applies to English language learners in small schools. The results of the study will also contribute to a set of recommendations for creating ELL programs in conversion small schools.

Maria Hantzopolous
Teachers College, Columbia University
Awarded Spring 2006
Thesis: Small Schools and Social Justice: The Role of Small Schools in the Lives of Youth in New York City.
Abstract: As the small schools movement garners momentum and proliferates throughout the nation, this timely study examines the impact of these schools on the lives of the diverse young people that it is meant to serve. Situated in a climate of standards-based reform, the small schools movement positions itself as a counter-narrative to increasing standardization in education. In particular, this qualitative study endeavors to uncover how both former and current students and teachers at one small CES public school in New York City, grapple with key concepts from the school’s mission, (democracy, peace and social justice), and apply them, in their everyday lives. Because these concepts are explicit in and integral to the school’s mission, I seek to discern how students and teachers understand and attempt to enact them within the school and outside of it. In so doing, my aim is to show what factors, such as race, class, or gender, influence the way that the participants internalize or experience these aspects of the school’s mission. Subsequently, this research could influence educational discourse and policy formation on the role of small schools, as well as fill a gap in educational literature about schooling and the political socialization of youth.

Alia Tyner-Mullings
City University of New York
Awarded Spring 2006
Thesis: Crafting Success: What Alternative School Students Made of Their Educations
Abstract: The educational model practiced at Central Park East Secondary School aimed to teach urban students “habits of mind,” encouraging them to make connections between their assignments and the world beyond. Through this pedagogical perspective, the school sought to create constructive and critical citizens. Few studies have examined alternative school students at stages late enough in their lives to assess the extent to which this model of education achieved that goal. Through web-based surveys and intensive interviews, this research will examine 225 former students’ who are ten years or more beyond high school, and explore how they have incorporated the values of the school into their lives.

Melissa Chabrán
Harvard Graduate School of Education
Awarded Fall 2005
Melissa Chabrán's work focuses on high schools, education assessment and accountability policies, student voice, and equity issues. She has worked as a researcher and analyst in education and policy and with young people and communities in action research.
Thesis: The Influence of High-Stakes Testing on Student Engagement
Abstract: A missing element from the design of high-stakes testing systems is the consideration of how they affect students' educational experiences, persistence, and perceptions of school. Little is known about student responses to high-stakes testing, yet the logic of standards-based reform makes an underlying assumption: that students will be motivated to conform to this challenge. This study investigates, through survey research, high school students' perspectives about high-stakes testing and the relationship between their level of engagement in school and their perceptions of the California High School Exit Exam.

Sarah Brody Shulkind
University of California, Los Angeles
Educational Leadership Program
Awarded Fall 2005
Sarah Shulkind is currently in her first year as the Middle School Principal at Milken Community High School in Los Angeles. For the past five years, she worked at Wildwood, a CES mentor school. Sarah started her teaching career at Fenway High School in Boston while getting her masters degree at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
Thesis: Middle School Advisory Programs
Abstract: Students' connectedness, a concept which refers to a school culture in which students believe that adults in the school care about their learning and about their individual growth and well-being, correlates directly with low instances of student dropout and high academic achievement. Advisory is an common solution to the lack of school connectedness at the middle level because research on 10-14 year-olds shows that when students have a lasting, meaningful relationship with at least one caring adult in the school, academic achievement improves and dropout rates lower. Though it is promoted prolifically in the middle school literature, there is little published research about the effects of advisory. There is no comprehensive study of advisory outcomes and is no accepted basis for identifying best practices in advisory. This study, which will measure the outcomes of advisory by looking at the characteristics of middle school advisory and advisors that foster school connectedness.

To find out more about more about this program, including application information, please click here.