Virginia Commonwealth University awarded the first annual L. Douglas Wilder Award for Scholarship in Social Equity and Public Policy to Drs. Leanna Stiefel, Amy Ellen Schwartz, and Ingrid Gould Ellen, faculty at the Robert F. Wagner School of Public Service at New York University (NYU). The award was presented on February 7, 2008 during the 7th annual Social Equity Leadership Conference (SELC) in Phoenix, Arizona. Held each year in partnership with the National Academy of Public Administration, this conference provides a unique platform for scholars and practitioners to exhange ideas about what’s working in the field of equity analysis. Dr. Leanna Stiefel accepted the award on behalf of her colleagues. The article, “Disentangling the Racial Test Score Gap: Probing the Evidence in a Large Urban District” appeared in Volume 26, Issue 1 of the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management (JPAM).
This year’s selected article, examines a critical indicator of future labor and educational performance – primary and secondary school test scores. For decades now, test scores have been statistically linked to improved welfare as measured by higher income, increased healthfulness, and reduced mortality. Stiefel, Schwartz, and Ellen examine the role of schools in improving racial test score gaps. The question of how individual schools can impact racial gaps in test-scores has become especially salient in the wake of the No Child Left Behind Act. Imposed in 2001, No Child Left Behind is a federal mandate that holds individual schools accountable for gaps in racial and ethnic performance and imposes punitive measures on those schools that do not improve over time. Controversial since its inception, the act has been criticized by educators and administrators alike for providing little direction in how these goals are to be achieved. Steifel, Schwartz, and Ellen provide considerable background on the challenges and an opportunity posed by the act, and presents an important exposition in the research for school-driven solutions. Their overall findings suggest that significant racial gaps exist within schools, many of which are caused or exacerbated by factors outside of the school’s control. Students who performed poorly in last year’s tests, for example, were unlikely to be helped by the efforts of this year’s teachers. Similarly students with poor language proficiency were unlikely to be helped by school-wide efforts.
Stiefel, Ellen and Schwartz have good tidings as well; their work uncovered some interesting patterns that can be used to direct future educational efforts. For example, while all students in primary education were harmed by larger enrollments, only African-Americans were adversely impacted by larger enrollments at the secondary level. The research brings credence to “small school” reform movements being pursued in high schools located in urban centers like New York City and Chicago and suggest the usefulness of earlier applications of the small school configuration.
Awarded annually by the L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs at Virginia Commonwealth University, the Wilder Award honors exemplary published research that advances public understanding of the critical issues of access and equity in the administration of public policy. The award was announced last year during the 6th Annual SELC in Richmond, Virginia with the recognition of professors Philip J. Rutledge and H. George Frederickson. Both Drs. Rutledge and Frederickson were honored for more than 40 respective years of distinguished service to the field of social equity and governance and received a lifetime achievement award.
Nominations for the 2009 L. Douglas Wilder Award for Scholarship in Social Equity and Public Policy are due on November 1, 2008.
For more information on the award, please contact selection committee chair, Dr. Blue E. Wooldridge at bwooldri@vcu.edu.
|
