Reflector Winter 2012

Teacher salaries are largely set by schedules which are neither performance-related nor market-driven and have significant consequences on school staffing and workforce quality, new research from the National Center on Performance Incentives finds. “We know the way in which we currently compensate K-12 public school teachers is incredibly inefficient,” said… Read More

Ellen Goldring New research from the National Center on School Choice reveals little difference among school leaders across public, private and choice schools. Although much research exists regarding the impact of school leaders on school improvement, little is known about whether principals in choice schools exhibit more… Read More

Fort Worth Independent School District is the latest partner in a national center at Peabody that aims to identify programs, practices, processes and policies that make some high schools more effective at reaching low-performing students. Fort Worth Independent School District, or FWISD, officially joined the National Center on Scaling Up… Read More

The Peabody College building that houses the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center, the Department of Special Education and the Susan Gray School has received a new name. Known in recent years as the MRL building, the original Mental Retardation Laboratory located on Magnolia Circle and backing 21st Avenue is… Read More

Bickman Chatman Cho Erickson Ford Hughes Milner Murry Leonard Bickman, Betts Professor of Psychology, received the American Evaluation Association’s 2011 Alva and Gunnar Myrdal Evaluation Practice… Read More

Jason Grissom Carrie A. Kortegast Christine Quinn Trank Carrie Masten Kristopher Preacher Erik Carter The Department of Leadership, Policy and Organizations welcomed three new faculty members this fall: Jason Grissom, assistant professor of public policy and education; Carrie A. Kortegast, assistant professor of the practice of higher education; and Christine… Read More

Avi Richman (left) and Hada Flores (right, speaking) with Xiu Cravens, associate dean of international affairs, at a September poster event at the Wyatt Center highlighting students’ summer internship experiences. Richman and Flores are students in the master’s program in International Education Policy Management for those who… Read More

James Hogge (right), associate dean and professor, emeritus, leads students in Peabody’s annual Hanging of the Green at the Wyatt Center on December 1. Read More

  Guoming Long receives a high five from a Susan Gray School student during a tour of the school for ELLE participants as Gao Guangtang watches. A delegation of Chinese educators visited Vanderbilt University in October and November to learn the latest in U.S. education policy and… Read More

On Monday, Sept. 26, when First Lady Michelle Obama hosted an event at the White House to announce a new program designed to make life easier for women in research careers, Peabody Dean Camilla Benbow was in the audience. Benbow had been invited in her capacity as a member of… Read More

Mark Lipsey, director of the Peabody Research Institute (center), receives the Earl Sutherland Prize for Achievement in Research at the fall faculty assembly from Chancellor Nicholas S. Zeppos (left) and David Weintraub, chair of the Faculty Senate. Mark Lipsey was awarded the Earl Sutherland Prize for Achievement… Read More

Illustration by Sara Tyson Visit Peabody College’s website at peabody.vanderbilt.edu Bonnie Arant Ertelt, Editor Donna Pritchett, Art Director Michael Smeltzer, Designer Nelson Bryan, Class Notes Editor Contributors: Kurt Brobeck, Brent Meredith, Lisa Robbins, David Salisbury, Jennifer Wetzel Camilla Persson Benbow, Patricia and Rodes Hart Dean… Read More

New research from Peabody finds ideology and partisanship do not play a significant role in whether a state considers extending in-state college tuition to undocumented immigrants in a study now published in an American Journal of Education article. Over the last decade 12 states have passed bills… Read More

  In a new study published in the journal Developmental Science, researchers from Peabody and the Kennedy Krieger Institute found that early motor experiences can shape infants’ preference for objects and faces. In the photo below, taken from video of project participants, an infant using “sticky mittens”… Read More

An analysis of the amount, timing and causes of infant mortality among newborns with Down syndrome is the focus of new research by Vanderbilt Kennedy Center investigators Robert Hodapp and Richard Urbano and recent Peabody graduate and Kennedy Center trainee Samantha Goldman. The findings, reported in the Journal of Intellectual… Read More

The first group of graduates from Vanderbilt’s Next Steps program (with thanks to supporter Linda Brooks and the Tennessee Council on Developmental Disabilities) crossed the rotunda stage at Peabody’s Wyatt Center on Dec. 8. The two-year certification program is designed for students with intellectual disabilities, providing individualized… Read More

School Choice and School Improvement (2011, Harvard Education Press) edited by Mark Behrends, Marisa Cannata, senior research associate, and Ellen Goldring, Patricia and Rodes Hart Professor of Education Policy and Leadership, brings together a collection of papers that… Read More

A professor at Peabody once said in class that research is advocacy just as much as handing out a pamphlet is advocacy. On May 26, 2011, we both saw our research turned into advocacy on a scale that few graduate student researchers ever get to experience. Read More

New research from Peabody finds that preschool teachers’ use of sophisticated vocabulary and analytic talk about books, combined with early support for literacy in the home, can predict fourth-grade reading comprehension and word recognition. Read More

Whether in economics, politics or global affairs, we have all been struggling to make sense of a world that no longer feels very stable. Read More