This investigation is concerned with determining the extent of inservice education provided for special education personnel by the five pilot programs of Plan A. The two methods of determining this involvement are a case study of the pilot programs' inservice education and its relationship to resource agencies such as the Texas Education Agency and Regional Education Service Centers. The purposes of this study include the following: (1) determining the principles underlying the philosophy formulated by school district personnel in regard to the nature and purpose of inservice training for Plan A, (2) identifying the nature, scope, and assessment of a three-year period of inservice education for the pilot Plan A programs, (3) identifying the successful components of and the problems encountered during the three-year period of inservice education, and (4) describing recommendations for future inservice education. Only the five pilot districts are described in the case studies of Plan A programs. Data is reported in the following sequence for each of the pilot districts: background information; philosophy and goals; pre-, in-, and post-service activities for 1970-1971, 1971-1972, and proposals for inservice education for 1972-1973. Also reported is information concerning the role of the Texas Education Agency and the Regional Education …

The problem of this investigation is a case study of parental involvement in the initial Plan A public school districts in Texas. The components of parental involvement isolated for the study are parent education, parent participation, and parent counseling. The major sources of data are questionnaires distributed to parents, teachers, and administrators in the initial Plan A public school districts. Secondary sources of data include interviews with the three categories of respondents to the questionnaires, communication and correspondence with the Regional Education Service Centers, and correspondence and reports from the Texas Education Agency concerning parental involvement. The purposes of the case study of parental involvement are (1) to analyze the various approaches to provide parent education services in the selected Plan A programs, (2) to analyze the various types of parent participation in the initial Plan A programs, (3) to analyze the existing and projected needs for parent counseling in Plan A, (4) to summarize findings into recommendations for effective parental involvement strategies in future implementations of Plan A in Texas, and (5) to suggest modifications or to raise questions for further investigation.

The history of day care licensing standards in Texas was traced from the beginnings in voluntary welfare organizations to the 1976 revisions. The jurisdictional foundations of day care licensing was presented in a summary of the related legislation passed in Texas during the years from 1848 to 1975. Categories of licensing requirements in the different sets of standards promulgated in Texas were compared. The attempt was made to derive a contextual milieu of social, political and educational factors which influenced Texas day care legislation and the development of licensing standards. It was recommended that funds are essential to adequate enforcement of licensing standards. In addition, to facilitate acculturation of day care licensing, consultation and training efforts should expand proportionately to the expansion of day care. The fact that issues related to specific requirements surfaced repeatedly in the different decades studied, a need for carefully controlled research to validate the individual requirements was indicated.

The purposes of this study were to explore the leadership styles and personality types of Texas elementary administrators. The Leader Effectiveness and Adaptability Description-Self (LEAD-Self) assessed the leadership style and adaptability of the administrators. The four identified styles were Telling/Directing, Selling/Coaching, Participating/Supporting, and Delegating. The MBTI measured 16 combinations of 4 personality types which included Extrovert or Introvert, Sensing or Intuition, Thinking or Feeling, and Judging or Perceiving. The sample was 200 Texas elementary administrators: 100 with early childhood certification and 100 without early childhood certification. A chi-square test of independence was utilized. Findings included: (a) A majority of Texas elementary administrators in both groups had a Selling/Coaching or Participating/Supporting leadership style; (b) Leadership adaptability scores of both groups were equivalent; (c) Most Texas elementary administrators had Introvert/Sensing/Thinking/Judging and Extrovert/Sensing/Thinking/Judging personality types; (d) Administrators with early childhood certification had a higher percentage of Intuitive personality types, while administrators without early childhood certification had a predominance of Sensing types; (e) A large percentage of administrators which had Participating/Supporting leadership styles had Feeling personality types; (f) No significant relationship between leadership styles and personality types was found in either group; and (g) No significant relationship between leadership adaptability and personality types was …

This study investigated the impact of the years of teaching experience of classroom teachers on the achievement of third-grade students in inner-city Title I Schools; on the achievement of those third-grade students who were defined as high achievers, average achievers, and low achievers; and on the achievement of boys and girls in the third grade of inner-city Title I schools. An analysis and interpretation of the data revealed that there were no significant differences in reading and mathematics achievement of the third-grade students when the number of years of experience of the teacher was examined. Reading achievement of third-grade boys and third-grade girls did show significant differences. The more-experienced teacher appeared to have the greater increase in reading scores of the students. In addition to data concerning the hypotheses, information about other teacher variables was collected through a teacher self-report questionnaire. One hundred per cent of the teachers in the participating schools responded to the questionnaire. Data were tabulated by frequency of response in groups according to years of teacher experience. Variables included years of teaching experience in Title I schools, classroom size, and demographic data. Analysis of the data indicated that teachers having more years of experience in Title …

This study is concerned with the problem of determining the competencies which inservice kindergarten teachers and kindergarten-teacher trainers consider most important for teaching kindergarten. There are four purposes of the study: to identify specific competencies needed to teach kindergarten, to determine the teacher competencies considered most important by kindergarten teachers, to determine teacher competencies considered most important by teacher trainers, and to compare the rankings of teacher competencies by kindergarten teachers and kindergarten-teacher trainers.

The problem with which this investigation was concerned was that of surveying the attitudes of parents, teachers, and principals toward parental involvement in school activities. The study had a threefold purpose. The first was to determine the attitudes of parents toward involvement in school activities. The second was to determine the attitudes of teachers and principals toward parental involvement in schools. The third was to identify attitudes of parents, teachers, and principals toward various methods of involvement.

The problem of this study was to measure the effectiveness of a public school Montessori program. The purpose of this study was to measure and compare student academic achievement and self-concept, attendance and promotion rates, and level of parental involvement in the schools of students enrolled in public school Montessori and traditional programs. The 95 subjects in this study were third-grade subjects selected from the student populations in Montessori and traditional school sites. The Iowa Test of Basic Skills (ITBS) was used as the pre-test scores, and the Norm-referenced Assessment Program for Texas (NAPT) was used as the post-test scores to compare academic achievement in reading and mathematics. Multiple regression was used to compare the levels of academic achievement and self-concept. Multiple regression was also used to test for possible relationship between the Montessori and traditional programs and gender and ethnicity.