Journal of Academic Perspectives

Volume 2020 No. 4

“The Man in Black: Johnny Cash and the Struggle to Save the Soul of America”--A Study in Religion, Music, and Public Discourse

Frederick Downing, Professor, Valdosta State University and Jonathan Downing, Screaming Shih-Tzu Productions, US

Teacher Turnover in High-Poverty Schools: Unintended or Intended Outcome of Unitary Salary Schedules and Transfer Policies?

Leslie S. Kaplan, Newport News Public Schools (Retired School Administrator) and William A. Owings, Professor, Old Dominion University, US

The Co-existence of Biased Sex Ratio and Crime against Women in India: Examining the Causality

Suparna Das, Assistant Professor, Asian University for Women, Bangladesh

Ineffective Campus Leadership: Why Teachers Leave Bad Principals

Jerry R. Burkett, Assistant Professor, University of North Texas at Dallas, US

“The Man in Black: Johnny Cash and the Struggle to Save the Soul of America”--A Study in Religion, Music, and Public Discourse

Frederick Downing, Professor, Valdosta State University and Jonathan Downing, Screaming Shih-Tzu Productions, US

In the fall of 2019, filmmaker Ken Burns released a sixteen-hour documentary on American country music. As the history of a uniquely American art form, this long narration focuses on the biographies of the characters who brought it into being. One of the central figures in this American drama was Johnny Cash, who in some sense epitomized this music and tradition. His contemporary Emmylou Harris put it this way: “Take every piece of American music. . . . from blues, gospel, bluegrass, rock and roll. . . I mean, that was all in John.” For many, at a time in the 1960s -1980s, Cash was country music. And he would embody everything that this era came to be remembered for—“heedless self-destruction and a concern for social justice; an eagerness to experiment with new ideas, and a yearnin
Downing_Downing.pdf
Adobe Acrobat document [473.4 KB]

Teacher Turnover in High-Poverty Schools: Unintended or Intended Outcome of Unitary Salary Schedules and Transfer Policies?

Leslie S. Kaplan, Newport News Public Schools (Retired School Administrator) and William A. Owings, Professor, Old Dominion University, US

Policymakers wanting to close the well-documented achievement gap between students in high- and low-poverty schools have increasingly focused on teacher quality. Yet experienced teachers tend to leave high-poverty schools, replaced by novice, less effective teachers. Research suggests that this churn creates serious academic and equity issues, jeopardizing these children’s opportunities for an adequate education. Although teachers’ unitary salary schedules and school district transfer policies are not among explicit causes, might turnover be an unintended outcome of such policies? Or might these policies intend to remove experienced educators from high-poverty schools? This article takes a fresh look at this issue.
Keywords: Equity, Teacher Quality, Salary Schedules, Transfer Policies
Kaplan_Owings.pdf
Adobe Acrobat document [576.9 KB]

The Co-existence of Biased Sex Ratio and Crime against Women in India: Examining the Causality

Suparna Das, Assistant Professor, Asian University for Women, Bangladesh

Preference for a son has deep historical roots in India and is evident in its highly skewed sex ratios. The country has recently been on the news often for heinous rape incidences. It registered a 27 percent annual growth rate in crime against women in 2013. The economic theory indicates that the scarcity of girls should make the girls dearer to society, but the reality is the opposite in India. It creates the puzzle that, despite scarcity, India still does not value their women. Instead, the statistics show that crime against women is increasing faster than the overall crime. Therefore, it becomes interesting to explore the puzzle and to examine whether this coincidence of pro-male biased sex ratios and higher crime on women bears any empirical relationship in the case of India. The pape
Das.pdf
Adobe Acrobat document [880.1 KB]

Ineffective Campus Leadership: Why Teachers Leave Bad Principals

Jerry R. Burkett, Assistant Professor, University of North Texas at Dallas, US

Effective school leaders are essential to the success of the school environment. Preparation programs teach principals traits and skills that define what research has determined to be effective school leadership. However, either by attrition or through a lack of personal awareness, some principals may lose or under-develop these essential traits and then knowingly or unknowingly employ ineffective leadership skills and create dysfunction. Teachers have left schools due to poor and ineffective campus leadership but often do not report the reasons why they left or do not have a safety mechanism in place to support their claims and drive campus change. The purpose of this exploratory research was to survey teachers who have left school with poor campus leadership and determine the traits that
Burkett.pdf
Adobe Acrobat document [375.9 KB]

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Volume 2020 No. 4

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