Warner School of Education

The Western New York Collaboration for ELL Success (Project CELLS) is a collaborative partnership among the Warner School; the Rochester City School District; Mid-West Regional Bilingual Education Resource Network (RBE-RN); and Monroe 2-Orleans, Wayne-Finger Lakes, and Genesee Valley BOCES that aims to provide students who are learning English with access to high-quality instruction across academic subjects and prepare them for success beyond high school. Project CELLS is dedicated to helping school personnel—including teachers, counselors, and leaders—better serve English language learners (ELLs), as well as increase the number of highly-qualified teachers certified in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL). Funded by a five-year (2012-17) National Professional Development grant,  Project CELLS offers the following: 1) scholarships for new and veteran teachers to earn TESOL certification; 2) professional development programs for Warner School faculty as well as current ESOL and content-area teachers, counselors, and school leaders; and 3) curriculum to help refugee and immigrant students with little experience of formal education understand their choices within the U.S. educational system.

A collaborative school-university partnership dedicated to improving the quality of student writing and learning in PK-16 schools across the Genesee Valley region through teacher-centered professional development. The Genesee Valley Writing Project (GVWP) is a local site affiliate of the National Writing Project, a federally funded professional development program with nearly 200 sites across the country. The Summer Institute is the heart of the Genesee Valley Writing Project.

This six week summer enrichment program engages K-8 Rochester City School District students in meaningful and authentic learning experiences. This program creates a unique opportunity for the members of the Warner School to interact with students on the university campus in a non-traditional school setting.

This study strives to frame the skills that secondary school department chairs need to manage effectively their programs. Using a survey of New State Principals, our analysis should provide much needed insights into the nature of the position (e.g., do chairs get course release) and principals' perceptions of the relative importance of a set of leadership skills (e.g., visioning, communication, and resource management).

This study examines equity in the allocation of county sales taxes to component districts in New York State. Currently, county sales taxes are allocated to districts using simple student counts. We will utilize a variety of weighted student formulae (% students with disabilities) and district characteristics (e.g., wealth) to model various ways in which the county could allocate sales tax revenue using various conceptions and measures of equity.

This study uses survey data from Illinois to examine the factors that influence individuals’ transitions into educational administration. With job application and job offer information from the survey, we are able to estimate separate supply and demand models and thereby assess the separate decisions of both stakeholder groups – prospective employees and employers – in this labor market.

This study examines the career movements of Illinois school principals during the 2001 to 2008 period. Using a population dataset constructed from annual administrative files, we determine the rates at which principals stayed in the same school, moved to another school within the same district, moved to another school in a different district, changed to a non-principal position, or left the Illinois public school system altogether during each year of the study. In addition, we examine the personal and school-based factors associated with those decisions.

As education policymakers press for additional security initiatives in schools, it is important to understand the costs borne by school systems for these programs. Thus far, the scholarly literature is silent on this issue and the professional literature and mass media offer only anecdotal accounts. In this study, we use financial data from Texas and the National Center for Education Statistics’ School Survey on Crime and Safety to examine how much districts spend on security, how they use those resources, and the extent to which spending differs across districts. Our intent is to provide a comprehensive and more refined account of school security costs than is presently available.

The Rochester Institute of Technology’s (RIT) Spectrum Support Program (SSP) was designed to provide support to students whom self identify as being on the autism spectrum. The program evaluation has the aim of developing information that tells the story of the how the SSP program is functioning to meet the needs of student program participants.

Finnigan and Daly are exploring the organizational learning processes of schools designated as needing improvement under No Child Left Behind (NCLB). The study focuses on the acquisition and use of different types of research evidence as part of that learning process, as well as the extent to which social networks support or constrain these school improvement efforts. Finnigan and Daly’s goal is to affect change in practice and policy that will have a direct impact on traditionally under-served youth who are disproportionately represented in low-performing schools.

The project aims to better understand the state of Latina/o education in the Rochester City School District. The issue of Latina/o academic underachievement and dropout has been a persistent problem documented nationally and locally. With public schools serving increasing numbers of Latina/o students, it is necessary to understand the factors that promote success as well as the barriers and systems that limit and derail schooling.

This study investigates how engineers write for publication and how students and post-docs learn the professional practices related to disseminating research findings (presentations, publications, etc.). We use a mixed-methods approach (ethnographic, interview, and survey) grounded in a theoretical framework drawing on social practice, social capital, and social network theories.

We are interested in how young people construct identities, how educators and youth teach and learn about issues of writing, performance, and social change through engagement with communicative genres not traditionally explored in schools.

This work is expanding the cultural motivation theory model, which currently includes only self-determination variables (which state that people do better when they are motivated by their own intrinsic interests, instead of external interests like power or prestige), to also incorporate cultural orientations to explain students’ intent to persist (IP) and GPA.

The grant aims to increase the math knowledge of teachers, parents, and community members so that they can help K-12 children develop a deeper, more useful understanding of mathematics. The project creates a series of professional development school programs in four local school districts, including the City of Rochester School District.

Get Real! Science is the Warner School of Education’s science teacher preparation program designed to engage students in real science through an inquiry-based approach.

This study examines Rochester, New York’s Urban-Suburban Interdistrict Transfer Program (USITP) which began in 1965. USITP voluntarily reduces racial isolation in elementary and secondary schools of New York State by allowing minority students to transfer from the Rochester City School District to participating suburban school districts.

The Leadership Coaching Certificate Program is the result of a partnership between the Warner Center and McArdle Ramerman, Inc., a local executive leadership development firm.

Leadership coaching assists the leader in developing specific leadership skills, enhances individual effectiveness, and ultimately secures organizational performance. There are two fundamentals beliefs in leadership; it’s a learnable practice and all leaders have the responsibility to develop others. This program creates a better understanding of ones self as the foundation for leading change and transformation.