Quarterly Report: January - March 2013

PBS Film on Adventist Education. May 2013 is the projected date for the PBS documentary on Adventist Education to be completed. Currently, the rough editing is half finished. The rough editing, the hardest part of the total process, consists of screening, logging, and writing. A trailer of the film is available for viewing atJourneyfilms.com/portfolio-item/Adventist-education-trailer-2/. Also, Adventist World (March 2013) features a picture of filmmaker Martin Doblmeier interviewing students from Columbine Christian School in Durango, CO, for the upcoming film.

CRAE Webinars. Thambi Thomas led off the webinar series, Adventist Education at the Crossroads,on February 6, with the “5 Percent Solution”-how to make Adventist schools viable again.

For the February 27 webinar, May Oles discussed the mutual benefits to a community and its church school that occur by developing a strong relationship between the two. One of those benefits was the increase in enrollment in Columbine Christian School. This school in Durango, Colorado, went from fewer than 18 students with one teacher to over 100 students with 5 teachers in five years.

On March 13 Dennis Nooner, Jr. presented an innovative solution for providing help to a school in trouble by using skilled community and alumni volunteers for immediate “First Aid.”

There are three more sessions of the webinar series before the middle of June:

May 8^th. Edwin Hernandez “Thinking Outside the Bun: How to Make Adventist Education Accessible to the Children Who Need It Most”

May 22^nd – Dave Lawrence “Funding the Vision: The Relationship Between Expenditure and StudentAchievement in Seventh-day Adventist K-8 Schools”

June 12^th – Elissa Kido “The Role of Pastors and the Future of Adventist Education”

To receive an invitation to attend the next Webinar, go to www.lasierra.edu/crae and subscribe to our mailing list.

Bookazine. The bookazine, a 16-page, color informational/marketing piece has proved to be a very popular item. It is now in its third printing. Available through AdventSource.

Brochure. The one-page brochure with the latest CognitiveGenesis findings is now available through AdventSource in both English and Spanish.

Video Clips. The CognitiveGenesis study found that specific factors are associated with high achievement. Narrated by Dick Duerksen, the first ten of 20 videos about these factors are ready for viewing:

1. Stop and Listen to Your Kids
2. Using Rules to Reach Goals
3. Read for Fun! Open your Mind
4. Making Music Makes Sense
5. Family Chores Can Bring Rewards
6. Aim High and Expect Success
7. Take Time to Connect with Your Child
8. Positive Friends Make a Positive Impact
9. Learning and Homework Go Hand-In-Hand
10. Positive Spiritual Outlook and Academic Success

These video clips are available to stream on our website:  www.cognitivegenesis.org

Late Breaking News!! Study of Adventist Education Outcomes Places Adventist Schools Significantly Ahead of Public Schools. An Adventist Today online article (April 4, 2013) reported that the first analysis of all available research comparing religious, public and charter schools was released recently. The meta-analysis combined data from all 90 available research studies, including the CognitiveGenesis study. The research was conducted by Dr. William H. Jeynes, a senior fellow at the Witherspoon Institute in Princeton, NJ, and professor of education at California State University, Long Beach. It shows that students attending faith-based schools had an academic advantage of approximately one year over their counterparts in both public and charter schools. (Peabody Journal of Education. Vol 87: 305-35.)

In an exclusive interview with Adventist Today, Dr. Jeynes stated, “Students who attend Adventist schools score at an academic level about 11 months ahead of their counterparts. The achievement gap for minority and low-income students in Adventist schools is about 25 percent smaller than in public schools.” He continues by saying, “Adventist education provides a significant path to overcome poverty for the children from inner city and immigrant families.”

He thinks that one of the reasons for Adventist school success is “because they [teachers, parents, community] have higher expectations of students and encourage them to take hard courses. They are more likely to support the notion that ‘God doesn’t make junk’ and that students are often capable of achieving more than they realize.”

Jeynes told Adventist Today, “students who attend Adventist schools have fewer behavioral problems than their counterparts even when adjusting for socioeconomic status, race and gender. In fact, the behavioral advantage is even larger than the scholastic advantage.” He quotes student reports that “there is a greater degree of racial harmony in Adventist schools than one finds in public schools despite the high level of diversity in many of the schools operated by the Adventist Church.”

How to build greater support for Adventist Education through Agent-Based Stakeholder Modeling (ABSM). ABSM is proprietary software used by agencies who deal with high-stakes situations. The CIA, World Bank, and Department of Defense are examples of some of these agencies. Two conferences, Central California and Southeastern California, are participating in this research. It is a four-phase project to analyze the conference’s education landscape and to identify decision-making paths and specific strategies that will lead to desired outcomes.

The four phases of the research are:

• Phase 1: Planning and Framing
• Phase 2: Data Collection and preliminary Analysis
• Phase 3: Gaming/Simulation, Testing Courses of Action and Policy Options. Conferences will be able to observe the impact of different scenarios in real time.
• Phase 4: Final Analysis and Report

Both conferences are about ¾ of the way toward completion of Phase 2.

Each conference has:

• Identified Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) within their region. The ABSM analyst interviewed the SMEs and used the information they provided to develop the data collection matrixes.
• Distributed surveys to pastors, educators, and other general stakeholders. The data has been collected and aggregated. The entire data collection process is expected to be complete soon.

In April, Versacare awarded CRAE $15,000 to help with the ABSM project.

Dr. Elissa Kido’s speaking appointments have taken her from Hawaii to St. Louis during the first quarter of 2013.

January 12. Spoke to the congregation of the Kona Seventh-day Adventist Church, Kona, Hawaii. Her sermon was titled, ‘How Does Adventist Education Measure Up?” In the afternoon, Dr. Kido talked about student/home/parent/school/teacher factors associated with higher achievement.

January 15. Presented to the teachers of the Hawaii conference at Hawaiian Mission Academy; her topic was “Educating for Eternity: The importance of Schools for Evangelism.”

January 31. “Pastors and the Future of Adventist Education” was the topic of a meeting of Hispanic pastors of Southeastern California Conference.

February 13. The Educational Management Team of Southeastern California Conference (school and conference education leaders) met to hear Dr. Kido speak on the role of pastors in supporting Adventist education

March 1. Visited the Hillcrest Seventh-day Adventist Elementary School, Olivette, MO, as a consultant, observing its teachers.

March 2. Spoke to the St. Louis Central Church (St. Louis, MO) congregation on “Educating for Today and Eternity” and “Factors Related to Good Achievement.”

Upcoming. Presentations scheduled for the near future

May 8. North American Division (NAD) Hispanic Advisory

May 20. NAD University Deans of Education

May 21. NAD Education Curriculum and Advisory Committee

June 5. Central California Conference Leadership