Aoife Ryan

A randomized controlled trial showed that oral nutritional supplements with omega-3 fatty acids resulted in the preservation of muscle mass in patients undergoing surgery for esophageal cancer, a procedure normally associated with significant weight loss and quality-of-life issues.

The lead investigators of the study were John V. Reynolds, professor of surgery at Trinity College Dublin, and Ryan, assistant professor of nutrition at NYU Steinhardt.

Omega 3 fats are essential fats found naturally in oily fish. Recently food manufacturers have begun to add omega 3 to foods such as yogurt, milk, juice, eggs, and infant formula in light of a body of scientific evidence which suggests that they reduce cardiovascular disease risk, reduce blood pressure, reduce clot formations, and reduce certain types of fat in the blood.

Given these health benefits, the researchers were interested to see whether omega 3 supplements could reduce post-operative weight loss among esophageal cancer patients. Previous studies had found that nutritional supplements containing one form of omega 3 fat, eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), significantly reduced weight loss among inoperable cancer patients. Researchers hypothesized that a nutritional supplement rich in calories and a high dose of EPA would stem the debilitating weight loss seen in patients following esophageal surgery.

In a double-blinded randomized control trial, the gold standard in medical research, patients awaiting esophagectomy surgery were randomly assigned to treatment and control groups. While both groups received a 240ml nutritional supplement twice daily starting five days before surgery (which was identical in calories, protein, micronutrients, and flavor), patients in the treatment group received an enriched formula with omega 3 (2.2 gram EPA/day).

Immediately following surgery, the supplement was given through a feeding tube for 14 days while patients recovered in hospital. Once patients could resume oral feeding, they continued drinking the supplement until 21 days post surgery.

The researchers, working at St. James Hospital and Trinity College Dublin, found that patients given the standard feed (without EPA) suffered clinically severe weight loss post-surgery which was all muscle mass, while patients in the treatment group maintained all aspects of their body composition following surgery. Omega-3 fed patients also had better immune function, lower risk of fever post op, and significantly reduced levels of inflammatory markers in their blood.

“The results are intriguing, no previous study of nutritional support in the peri-operative period has revealed such a benefit,” said Ryan.

An accompanying editorial in the journal noted that Ryan’s study “is a significant step forward” in the management of patients undergoing surgery for esophageal and perhaps other complex cancers. “[Omega 3 based nutrition] should no longer be a surgeon’s preference, but the standard of expected norm for the practice of elected complex GI cancer surgery.”

Using specialized nutritional feeds with a highly purified form of EPA, the researchers were able to administer a dose of omega 3 that was much higher than that typically found in food. They noted that treatment with omega 3 enriched supplement is only slightly more expensive than traditional nutritional therapy, and previous studies have yielded significant cost-savings in the form of fewer complications following surgery using immuno-nutrition feeds similar to this.

“Initial treatments like this may be cost-effective for our cash-strapped health care system,” said Ryan.

Commenting on the study Reynolds noted “omega 3 enriched-nutrition appears to prevent the loss of muscle mass by modulating the body’s inflammatory response following surgery. Future studies on the health benefits of EPA supplements in cancer patients should be conducted to determine whether such approaches improve quality of life, reduce complications, and improve patient outcomes, not only after surgery but also through long and complex treatment programs which may include chemotherapy and radiation therapy in addition to surgery. We can speculate moreover that the findings of the study are not unique to cancer and that potential benefits should be explored in trial in patients following major non-cancer surgery, such as liver transplantation, cardiac surgery, and neurosurgery.”

The ability to quickly and easily search a vast catalog of song titles, artists, albums, and genres makes Apple’s iTunes software popular with millions of users. But for Juan Bello, assistant professor of music and music education, the ability to search digital music by its sequential structure opens up exciting possibilities for retrieval, analysis, visualization and composition. Bello has been awarded a $500,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to create a system to decode Western music into its component sequences.

“This study will allow us to understand the ‘building blocks’ of music from the music itself,” explains Bello. “It will allow us to find relationships both within and among songs beyond those provided by a song’s metadata.”

Using computational approaches and tools, Bello aims to break down music audio into its component parts. Analyzing such structural components as chord sequences, harmonic structure, repetition, and rhythm, Bello will be able to produce a map of how an individual song is organized. These maps can then be used to identify patterns across songs, styles, and composers.

The grant, which covers a five-year period, also allows for Bello to conduct outreach to high school students, exploring the use of music and music technologies in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) subjects. Bello envisions using musical equipment that students are familiar with, such as microphones, to illustrate properties of physics. “By using musical objects with which students have familiarity, you can talk about sophisticated concepts without the burden of using scientific language only,” says Bello.

A major component of President Barack Obama’s education reform plan is increased funding for Head Start, the federally financed health and education program for low-income children and families. Now, a new research study suggests that an intervention that provides teacher training, coaching, and mental health consultation in Head Start preschools increases children’s readiness for school by reducing the number of their behavioral problems.

The study, the Chicago School Readiness Project (CSRP), was led by C. Cybele Raver, associate professor of applied psychology at the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development and director of NYU’s Institute of Human Development and Social Change. Raver collaborated with researchers from Loyola University and Harvard. The study appeared in a recent issue of the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology.

The Project was driven by evidence that young children in poor neighborhoods are at greater risk for developing emotional and behavioral problems, due to the social and psychological stressors of poverty. These factors are linked to children’s lower readiness for school. While previous studies have shown that classroom interventions can help reduce older children’s behavioral problems once they are in elementary school, it was unclear whether an intervention targeting low-income children in urban preschools would have a similar effect. The CSRP was intended to address this question.

According to Raver, “the project offered a remarkable opportunity to pursue twin aims: From a theoretical perspective, how much do children’s emotional and behavioral development matter for their later academic outcomes? Second, on the clinical and policy side, we asked: What concrete steps can early education settings such as Head Start programs take, to support children’s adjustment and to lower their behavioral risks over time?”

The study introduced a series of programmatic components to 35 Head Start classrooms in seven high-poverty neighborhoods in Chicago. The components included training Head Start teachers in classroom management; introducing a mental health consultant who supported teachers and conducted stress reduction workshops; and offering mental health consultation for select children.

Researchers studied two cohorts of children for one year, with Head Start classrooms randomly assigned to treatment and control groups. Survey methods in addition to observational methods were employed to assess children’s behavioral problems (such as their sad, withdrawn, aggressive, and disruptive classroom behaviors).

After examining the data, Raver and her team concluded that the multi-component intervention yielded statistically significant reductions in the number of behavioral problems among Head Start children. Children in the treatment group showed fewer signs of sadness and withdrawal than in the control group, as well as fewer instances of aggressive and disruptive behavior.

“Using the ‘gold standard’ in prevention science,” Raver said, “we are able to show that Head Start programs can take a set of clear, concrete steps to support teachers’ ability to effectively manage their classrooms. This research demonstrates that an intervention that helps preschool teachers to support children’s self-regulation can substantially benefit children’s mental health in meaningful and significant ways.”

Funding for the study was provided by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, the William T. Grant Foundation, and the McCormick Tribune Foundation.

Web Extras

• Slideshow: IESP Presentation: Why Do Some Schools Get More and Others Less?
• Faculty Video: Leanna Stiefel

(Pictured: Joel Klein, NYC Schools Chancellor; James Kemple, newly appointed executive director of the Research Alliance; Kathryn Wylde, President and CEO, Partnership for NYC; John Sexton, NYU President; Deborah Glick, NY State Assemblywoman; Leo Casey, VP of United Federation of Teachers)

New York City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein recently joined officials from the teachers union, civic leaders, education researchers, and policymakers in taking a major new step to advance school improvement in New York. The Research Alliance for New York City Schools at New York University, a non-partisan applied research center that is independent of city government and the Department of Education will utilize recent advances in education science and draw on the expertise of the city’s and the nation’s top researchers to be a source of valid and reliable evidence about efforts to provide high quality education for all students.

Housed within NYU’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, the Research Alliance will have close academic connections to other NYU schools—the Faculty of Arts and Science, the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service—as well as to Columbia Teachers College and CUNY, and will work to forge connections with other research universities nationally.

The Research Alliance also named James Kemple as executive director. Kemple, formerly director of K-12 Education Policy at MDRC, a national social policy research organization based in New York City, is a former high school math teacher and program director for a community-based education organization in Washington, D.C. He holds a master’s and doctorate in education from Harvard University.

To support the work of the Research Alliance, Chancellor Klein has committed to ensuring that the new center has access to the Department of Education’s rich databases on student, personnel, and school characteristics and performance and that the Department will collaborate on evaluations of initiatives aimed at improving the city’s schools.

Said Chancellor Klein, “Many of our reforms reflect the power of data and high-quality analysis, and we believe that the Research Alliance will help us build on our progress by doing independent, high-quality analyses of what programs are working and which aren’t.”

The initial funding for the alliance’s work will be provided by a $3 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and a $500,000 grant from the Ford Foundation. Planning for the research alliance was funded by the Donors’ Education Collaborative, a group of New York City-based funders interested in school reform, the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation, the New York Community Trust, and other local and national foundations.

To read the full press release, click here.

“Technology has the potential to help reinvent the education process, and excite and inspire young learners to embrace science, math and technology,” Mundie said. “The Games for Learning Institute at NYU is a great example of how technology can change how students learn, making it far more natural and intuitive.”

Microsoft Research is providing $1.5 million to the Institute. NYU and its consortium of partners are matching Microsoft’s investment, for a combined $3 million. Funding covers the first three years of the G4LI’s research, which will focus on evaluating computer games as potential learning tools for science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects at the middle-school years (grades 6–8). The institute will work with a range of student populations, yet focus on underrepresented middle-school students, such as girls and minorities.

“Middle school is a critical stage for students, a time when many are introduced to advanced math and science concepts,” said Ken Perlin, professor of computer science in NYU’s Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences and founding director of the Media Research Laboratory at NYU, who will direct the G4LI, to be located at NYU. “Many students become discouraged or uninterested and pour their time at home into gaming. Ironically, we think gaming is our starting point to draw them into math, science and technology-based programs.”

Video games, with their popularity and singular ability to engage young people, are showing promise as a way to excite and prepare the Net generation, the current crop of students who have grown up on technology. This generation, though well-versed in using technology for social networking and Internet research, is continuing a decline in proficiency and interest in math and sciences — the very skills needed to prepare them for the new demands and requirements of the 21st century.

“While educational games are commonplace, little is known about how, why or even if they are effective,” said John Nordlinger, senior research manager for Microsoft Research’s gaming efforts. “Microsoft Research, together with NYU and the consortium of academic partners, will address these questions from a multidisciplinary angle, exploring what makes certain games compelling and playable and what elements make them effective, providing critically important information to researchers, game developers, and educators to support a new era of using games for educational purposes.”

Jan Plass, associate professor of educational communication and technology at NYU’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, will co-direct the G4LI with Perlin. While NYU will serve as the hub of the G4LI in its Computer Science Media Research Laboratory at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, the multi-institutional organization will have a myriad of partner spokes. The G4LI also will evaluate game prototypes and introduce them, along with accompanying curricula, to an existing network of 19 New York City area schools; results in the classroom will be tracked. Based on the findings, the institute’s goal is to expand its research and game development to all K–12 grades. Resulting scientific evidence will be shared broadly with researchers, game developers and educators.

Games for Learning Institute Builds on Previous Efforts

NYU and Microsoft Research bring years of experience in gaming for learning to the joint endeavor. NYU offers deep insight into the design principles that make effective educational games; innovative research methods to study the impact of digital media on learning; and frontline experience in integrating these materials into both classrooms and informal learning settings.

Through its Gaming Initiative, since 2004 Microsoft Research has invested more than
$3 million in gaming kits, assessment studies, academic funding and an academic sponsored event, the Academic Games and Computer Science Game Cruise. Last year, six academic researchers received funding and had access to game-related resources available from Microsoft including Visual Studio, XNA Game Studio and Microsoft “Flight Simulator” ESP. The G4LI will build on these efforts to help improve middle-school math and science skills.

More information on Microsoft Research is available at http://www.research.microsoft.com.

Researchers at IESP, which conducts nonpartisan scientific research on education and social issues, analyzed an array of data measuring city, state, and federal spending on after-school programs. They document that since 1998, every level of government established initiatives to expand the availability and quality of programs that kids can attend every school day, generally for three hours a day, while their parents work. Eight times more city students, in kindergarten through high school, now attend daily, comprehensive programs that provide them with educational, cultural, and recreational opportunities than did a decade ago.

“The data show that all levels of government have provided increased public dollars for after-school programs, not only keeping pace with the increasing number of New York City children participating in these programs, but also increasing the amount of money available for each participant,” said Meryle Weinstein, the Institute’s assistant director.

A turning point came in 2005, when New York City launched the municipally funded Out-of-School Time (OST) Initiative to create a system of high quality programs supported through a sustained funding stream.

“This policy brief provides independent confirmation that the creation of an after-school system is one of the most successful private-public initiatives ever to benefit New York City kids,” said Lucy N. Friedman, the president of The After-School Corporation (TASC). “It is a testament both to the vision of the Open Society Institute -- which provided the challenge grant to establish TASC and to advocate for after-school to become a responsibility -- and to the power of government and private institutions working together to achieve transformative public policy change on behalf of the kids and families in New York City.”

She noted that Friday, October 16, is LightsOn Afterschool, a national rally to support the expansion of after-school programs for all kids who need them. The policy brief concludes that about 160,000 of New York’s 1.1 million public school students attend comprehensive after-school programs.

“As we brace for tough economic times, families in distress and working parents need to know their after-school programs will be there for their kids,” Friedman said. “TASC is working to build on this decade of momentum to find new partners and resources to expand these essential programs, and to work with policymakers and our community partners to get the greatest benefits from every dollar spent on programs that support, motivate, and inspire kids.”

The Open Society Institute, led by George Soros, is a foundation that aims to shape public policy to promote democratic governance, human rights and economic, legal and social reform. In 1998, after-school programs in New York were of variable quality, and few public resources were devoted to programs that served kids daily with a variety of activities. OSI issued a $125 million challenge grant to establish TASC, a nonprofit organization. TASC set out to develop after-school programs that demonstrably benefit children and youth, with the goal of demonstrating that large numbers of children can be served in high-quality programs organized into systems. TASC has since advocated for after-school and summer programs to be institutionalized as an essential service for kids in New York City, the state and the nation, with public agencies taking primary responsibility to fund these programs.

New York City now provides about two-thirds of all public funding for after-school programs in New York City. OST programs are administered by the city Department of Youth and Community Development. The federal government provides approximately a quarter of the funding for programs in the city, and state government provides approximately 8 percent.

Josh is a young gay man living in Manhattan who had unprotected sex – and according to research, his story is startlingly effective in motivating other gay men to have safer sex and to get tested for HIV.

Josh is the fictional star of "HIV Is Still a Big Deal," a groundbreaking online video series launching today at www.hivbigdeal.org. Reinventing HIV prevention for the digital age, the series combines the popularity and interactivity of online video with the power of research-based education methods designed to challenge misconceptions and prompt critical thinking.

The series is a unique collaboration between two project directors from the very different fields of epidemiology and learning theory. Dr. Mary Ann Chiasson is an epidemiologist and Vice President for Research and Evaluation with Public Health Solutions, one of the largest nonprofit organizations in New York City that merges research and action to prevent disease and improve community health. Dr. Francine Shuchat Shaw is a faculty member of the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development at New York University and a veteran researcher in learning theory and educational media.

The video series was designed, says Shaw, to promote critical thinking among men who could relate to the plight of the protagonist. Shaw, influenced by social learning theory and cognitive learning theory, wants the viewer to identify with Josh, a victim of his own misconceptions about HIV. By watching Josh work through a difficult experience, viewers will learn vicariously through him.

Since its launch in June, the site has been visited by viewers in more than 100 countries and has had more than 7000 unique visitors. The first episode, "The Morning After," was evaluated for its effectiveness in changing behavior using baseline and follow-up surveys with a group of 500 men. The results showed that the men were three times more likely to disclose their HIV status and about 1.5 times more likely to get tested for HIV three months after seeing the video.

Realistic and riveting, the first two episodes follow Josh as he deals with the social and health-related dilemmas gay men face – from online hookups and unprotected sex to disclosing HIV status and getting tested. New episodes will launch later this year.

"We've found that online video can be a powerful new intervention tool in the fight against HIV," said Chiasson, who leads the Public Health Solutions Internet Research Group. "We are seeing that it can be as effective as one-on-one outreach, but with the Internet's scope, it has the potential to reach and influence thousands of men."

The website includes tools that allow viewers to easily share the videos with friends, as well as links to additional resources on HIV prevention, talking about HIV with partners, testing, and care. Chiasson said that as subsequent episodes are produced and broadcast online, Public Health Solutions will continue to study the effectiveness of the program.

The series was directed by documentary filmmaker Todd Ahlberg ("Meth," "Hooked"), who has been creating innovative video content for the Internet since 1997. "Talking About HIV," a short documentary on HIV by Ahlberg, will also be featured on the site.

In order to ensure widespread viewing of the series, the first episode of "HIV Is Still a Big Deal" is also available on YouTube, MySpace, and other popular sites that host online video.

“HIV is Still a Big Deal” has also gotten lots of press attention, from The Advocate, Edge New York, and gaywired.com.

Earlier this year, the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) released a sobering report about an increase in HIV infection rates among young men, age 13-29, who have sex with men. The 2006 incidence estimates show that gay and bisexual men of all races remain the most heavily affected by HIV, accounting for 53 percent of all new infections.

In response, a team from NYU Steinhardt’s Center for Health, Identity, Behavior and Prevention Studies (CHIBPS) has devised a new study, Project Desire, to better understand the sexual behavior and health of this population. The one-year study is spearheaded by professor Perry Halkitis, doctoral candidate Robert Moeller, and recent MPH graduate Daniel Siconolfi, and is funded by the NYC DOHMH Bureau of HIV/AIDS.

Through street surveys of 540 young men and through semi-structured interviews with 70 men, the research team aims to understand the psychological pressures that lead young men to engage in unsafe sex. By studying not only what the youth tell them about their sexual practices, but also how they talk about those experiences, the researchers want to discern the way in which fear and anxiety about HIV can lead to unsafe behavior.

“The pressures of claiming a gay identity pose distinct pressure for young men,” says Halkitis. “Coupled with the fear of contracting HIV, these pressures can be overwhelming for emergent adults, who still struggle with integrating same-sex desires into their adult identities.” Mutually reinforcing risk factors such as depression, unprotected sex and substance abuse are also prevalent among the population.

Project Desire will also offer free HIV testing for the 70 men who participate in the semi-structured interviews. The research team at CHIBPS will collaborate with the NYU School of Medicine to administer confirmatory HIV testing and provide those men who test HIV positive with access to care.

The project’s ultimate aim is to create better prevention strategies for YMSM. Towards that end, the project will assemble focus groups of young men, 13-17, and will craft prevention messages in conjunction with the NYC DOHMH. By using the young men’s own experience to inform the messages, the research team hopes to create relevant prevention strategies that will resonate for this at-risk population.

“Gay men must come together to protect each other,” says Halkitis. “Prevention efforts must be part of a program that considers the totality of our physical and mental health. Our discussions must focus on not only HIV, but also the spectrum of issues gay men face.”

“We’re deeply grateful to the Jim Joseph Foundation for this exceptional grant,” said Mary Brabeck, dean of NYU’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development. “The Foundation’s generosity will allow us to recruit and train even more students, to further strengthen our programs, and to inspire a new generation of men and women to devote their lives to teaching and learning.”

“We are proud to be associated with NYU in supporting these programs,” said Alvin Levitt, the Foundation’s board president.  “The Jim Joseph Foundation believes that NYU’s outstanding Education and Jewish Studies faculty and graduate student community provide an ideal setting in which this kind of training for future Jewish educational leaders can take place.”

Graduate students benefiting from the Foundation’s grant support will be named Jim Joseph Foundation Fellows. The graduate students will be selected from the following programs:

• The current doctoral program in Education and Jewish Studies: Established in 2001, the Ph.D. program in Education and Jewish Studies at NYU is the first of its kind to be offered at a major research university in the United States. Students benefit from the rich resources and course offerings of NYU Steinhardt and the Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies in the Graduate School of Arts and Science (GSAS). Eight Jim Joseph Foundation Fellows will receive full scholarships to complete their doctoral degrees over the course of the six year grant.

• A new double masters program in Education and Jewish Studies and Hebrew and Judaic Studies: Beginning fall 2009, a new masters program will enable students to simultaneously earn an M.A. in Education from NYU Steinhardt and an M.A. in Judaic Studies from GSAS. The program is designed to serve administrators and teachers in the field who would like to enhance their professional qualifications without undertaking the long-term commitment of doctoral studies. Sixteen Jim Joseph Foundation Fellows will receive full scholarships to complete their double masters degrees over the course of the six year grant.

Additionally, the Foundation’s grant will include funding for program administration and will allow for the hiring of adjunct faculty members in both NYU Steinhart and Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies.

“The Graduate School of Arts and Science (GSAS) is deeply grateful to the Jim Joseph Foundation for enabling this historic development in Jewish education,” said Catharine Stimpson, dean of NYU’s GSAS.

“Our graduate students in education and Jewish studies are geographically diverse and come from every sector of the highly diversified Jewish world: Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, Zionist, cultural, and secular,” said Robert Chazan, co-director, with Professor Harold Wechsler, of the Education and Jewish Studies programs. “What’s common among them is the desire to assume leadership positions in Jewish educational enterprises. The excellent programs in education and Jewish studies and Hebrew and Judaic studies represent a real breakthrough in the training of the next generation of Jewish leaders.”

“The Jim Joseph Foundation believes ardently in the importance of Jewish educators and their critical role in ensuring a vibrant Jewish future,” said Chip Edelsberg, executive director of the Foundation. “We are confident this significant investment in NYU supporting these degree programs will produce future Jewish educational leaders.”

Students interested in learning more about the programs should consult http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/humsocsci/jewish. Reporters wishing to speak with faculty or deans related to NYU’s programs in education and Jewish studies should contact Tim Farrell, NYU Office of Public Affairs, at 212.998.6797.

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About The Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development

NYU’s Steinhardt School is a multifaceted institution with 258 full-time faculty in 11 academic departments. Steinhardt offers nearly 20 undergraduate programs and more than 40 graduate programs in fields that include education, applied psychology, health professions, communication, the arts, and music. Nearly all programs, whether undergraduate or graduate, place practical training in locations throughout New York City at the center of our students’ learning—through internships, fieldwork, student teaching, or clinical practica. The School’s mission is to advance knowledge, creativity, and innovation at the critical crossroads of human learning, culture, development, and well-being. Through rigorous research and education, both within and across disciplines, our faculty and students evaluate and redefine processes, practices, and policies in their respective fields, and, from a global as well as a community perspective, lead in an ever-changing world.

About The Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies

The Skirball Department’s primary purpose is to train scholars in the areas of Jewish literature, religion, history, and thought who have mastered both a body of knowledge relating specifically to Jewish Studies and the canons and practices of a general academic discipline. Courses are offered in Biblical studies; post-Biblical and Talmudic literature; medieval and modern Hebrew literature; history of the Jews in the ancient, medieval, and modern periods; Jewish philosophy, religious expression, and mysticism; and related fields. Many courses involve the reading of Hebrew texts, and some are conducted in Hebrew. The Department sponsors lectures and colloquia on current research in Jewish civilization, often in collaboration with the Departments of History, English, and Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies; the Programs in Religious Studies, Medieval and Renaissance Studies, and Near Eastern Studies; and the Center for Ancient Studies. The Taub Center for Israel Studies and the Goldstein-Goren Center for American Jewish History are also housed in the Skirball Department. Course offerings are frequently augmented by outstanding visiting scholars from Israel, and the Department collaborates with resources at NYU such as the Bronfman Center for Jewish Life as well as the many institutions, libraries, museums, and relevant Jewish organizations in the New York City area.

About The Jim Joseph Foundation

The Jim Joseph Foundation, established in 2006, is committed to a sustained program of grant-making in pursuit of a vision that leads to ever-increasing numbers of young Jews engaged in ongoing Jewish learning and choosing to live vibrant Jewish lives. The Foundation manages close to $1 billion, using all of its resources to foster compelling, effective Jewish learning for young Jews in the United States.

Recognizing the importance of education to reconstruction efforts in regions torn by war and conflict, international aid agencies have in recent years increased their focus on education-related projects. Yet very little empirical data exist to help guide the design and implementation of education programs in war-torn countries.

In a two-year study in Afghanistan which began last year, Dana Burde, visiting assistant professor of international education at the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, is researching the role of education in promoting child welfare in times of crisis or transition.

Listen to Dana Burde speak about her work in Afghanistan on the NYU Steinhardt Podcast. (Subscribe in iTunes)

She and co-investigator, Leigh L. Linden, assistant professor of economics and international affairs at Columbia University, have partnered with Catholic Relief Services (CRS), a US-based nongovernmental organization that is implementing approximately 100 community-based schools in Ghor and Herat provinces in Afghanistan. Community-based schools are a common international intervention in developing countries and provide a way for governments to move toward universal primary enrollment in the context of limited budgets. Burde's work is funded by grants from the Spencer Foundation, the National Science Foundation, and the Weikart Family Foundation.

"Our partnership with CRS has allowed us to create a remarkable and rigorous study design, one that has not been used to study educational outcomes like this before in an emergency aid context," said Burde.

The partnership gives Burde, Linden and their team not only access to CRS infrastructure and to experienced fieldworkers, but also the opportunity to structure the intervention in a way that will produce meaningful data. Although all of the children in the study will gain access to a CRS school, Burde and Linden established treatment and control groups by randomizing the timing of the interventions.

The study seeks to investigate whether community-based programs improve child welfare by comparing villages that receive schools to villages that have not yet received them, and by comparing educational outcomes for children across these villages.
Burde notes that community-based schools are becoming an increasingly popular option for aid agencies working in post-conflict regions such as Afghanistan. In countries whose education system has collapsed or where it was never strong to start with, community-based schools can provide education services quickly. Communities typically provide classroom space, a local teacher, and management support. NGOs consider community involvement a crucial element in strengthening a community's commitment to education and increasing its own internal cohesion.

"NGOs promote community-based schools for the access and quality they provide, but these claims haven't been tested using a randomized design," said Burde.

Using 17 Afghan surveyors and monitors trained in standardized interview techniques, Burde and Linden's team began baseline data collection last May in 37 villages in Ghor province in central Afghanistan. The data was collected prior to the opening of the community-based schools. Dari-speaking researchers interviewed 1,496 heads of households, and asked questions regarding household demographics such as family composition, socioeconomic status, and number of children and years of schooling. All children of primary school age in every household were tested for their academic achievement using Dari and math tests designed by the researchers in conjunction with their Afghan colleagues.

"We are currently completing the final round of data collection and will be analyzing it this summer," said Burde. "We now have a view of the educational landscape that exists in remote areas of Afghanistan-girls' and boys' attendance patterns and educational outcomes, as well as a greater understanding of their parents' participation in school management committees."

The goal of the research is to identify the effects of educational programs on students' well-being and life chances. Burde hopes her research will have significant policy implications for international aid donors, NGOs, and Afghanistan's Ministry of Education.

She notes that when the team is finished with its analysis, it will make the dataset available to other researchers in the field.

"Education in emergencies' has been remarkably underfunded and neglected by humanitarian aid organizations. That is only now starting to be rectified," said Burde. "Parents--even those living in the midst of sporadic civil strife--are typically desperate to get their children-girls and boys-into schools. Community-based schools offer support to their efforts, but we need to understand more about how well these community-schools serve the children they target. We hope our study will help illuminate these questions."

The NYU Noyce Scholarship Program will prepare 26 teachers of science and math over the course of four years. Students admitted to the program as undergraduates will be obligated to teach at a secondary school designated as high-need for a period of four years.

The program is sponsored by a grant from the NSF and is the brainchild of faculty from FAS and Steinhardt, including David Scicchitano, associate professor of biology; Jalal Shatah, professor of mathematics; Karen D. King, associate professor of mathematics education; Pamela Fraser-Abder, associate professor of science education; and Joseph P. McDonald, professor of teaching and learning.

"The ultimate impact of the scholarship program is to produce extraordinarily well-prepared science and math teachers, both in terms of pedagogy and background in their discipline, in high-needs schools," said Scicchitano, principal investigator of the NSF grant. "It's a very attractive package, offering a strong degree program and sound financial support."

Under the terms of the scholarship, undergraduate students in STEM majors (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) who express an interest in secondary education as a career goal will be recruited in their sophomore and junior years to participate in a teaching and learning residency at a high-needs NYC public school.

The semester-long residency will include 40 hours of classroom-based work as well as weekly seminars that expose the students to pedagogical issues of the profession. After completing the residency, students can apply to become NYU Noyce Scholars.

The scholarships will provide a $10,000 undergraduate scholarship in addition to 100% funding for an additional fifth year to complete the master's degree in math and science education.

The creation of the NYU Noyce Scholarship Program complements other recently launched initiatives aimed at increasing the number of highly trained teachers of math and science in public schools.

In a field study in the latest issue of the Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, women at the high end of math ability outperform their male counterparts on tests when the test is described as free of gender differences. The women performed as well as their male counterparts under normal testing conditions. The study, funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation, was conducted by Catherine Good, assistant professor of psychology, Baruch College, CUNY, and Joshua Aronson, professor of psychology, New York University.

Considerable research over the past decade has shown that women's performances on math tests are compromised by stereotypes. In over 200 published experiments, females as young as first graders and as old as 22 have been found to perform worse on math tests whenever the testing environment cues them to think about their gender, a phenomenon named "stereotype threat" by the psychologists Claude Steele and Aronson in the mid 1990s.

"This research has always carried the positive message that stereotype threat could be overcome-and women's test performance boosted-by small changes in the way tests were presented," says Aronson, a professor of psychology at NYU's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development. "But critics of this research frequently tried to trivialize these findings by claiming that they were merely laboratory studies that said little about performance in the ‘real world,' or that we weren't talking about highly proficient mathematicians, who were immune to stereotypes. These findings should make the critics think again."

The researchers asked male and female students enrolled in a fast-paced calculus course at a large public university to take a practice calculus test in preparation for an upcoming exam. The course was the most rigorous calculus class offered by the university and satisfied requirements for degrees in mathematics, engineering, and many of the natural sciences. One group of students in the study received the test under normal testing conditions; that is, they were informed that the test was designed to measure their math abilities and knowledge. Among these students, the women performed just as well as the men, reflecting the fact that these were high-performing women. The surprise came from the second group of students in the class, who took the test under the same instructions but who were additionally informed that the test was free of gender bias. The researchers found that the women in the no-gender-differences group outperformed all the other test-takers in this high-level math class, even the men.

"We now have really compelling evidence," says, Aronson, "that women at the very highest levels of math ability are held back by cultural images that portray their math abilities as inferior to men's. But it's also clear that small changes by wise teachers and professors can help a lot. Furthermore, we know that stereotype threat is not some artificial laboratory phenomenon. It has real consequences for women who have extremely high abilities and who aspire to be scientists. While this study doesn't prove that sex differences in math ability are not the root cause of the lack of women in math and science, it does prove that biology is far from the whole story."

The researchers hope that their findings will encourage educators to be aware of the degree to which negative stereotypes contribute to the lack of women who succeed in high-level mathematics and to encourage gender-fair testing.

Reporters interested in reviewing a copy of the research paper can contact Tim Farrell in NYU's Office of Public Affairs by phone at 212.998.6797 or email at tim.farrell@nyu.edu.

Catherine Good can be reached at Catherine_Good@baruch.cuny.edu. Ann McGillicuddy DeLisi, the journal's editor, can be reached for comments at mcgillia@lafayette.edu

Karen D. King, associate professor of mathematics education at the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, seeks to re-frame the debate regarding math instruction by focusing instead on how teachers adapt instructional materials in the classroom. Recently, she was awarded a $998,955 grant from the National Science Foundation for a mixed-methods research study of mathematics instruction within a New Jersey school district.

"This project seeks to move the discourse surrounding math textbooks beyond ‘what works?' and toward helping teachers effectively use high quality instructional materials," said King. "While the choice of textbook is important, I would argue that it is not nearly as important as critics or advocates of certain textbooks would have you believe."

Using a sample of 30 schools, the project team will survey all middle school mathematics teachers on how they adapt and supplement the Connected Mathematics Project (CMP) materials and why. CMP is an NSF-funded mathematics curriculum that is widely used in schools. Two schools will serve as case study schools to provide additional qualitative data.

Researchers will observe math teachers over at least two consecutive days and will conduct pre- and post-observation interviews to examine how the teacher uses CMP material in his or her planning and implementation of a lesson.

The project will also collect student data in the form of scaled test scores on state mathematics tests as well as student interviews. Analysis will focus on describing the ways in which teachers use the materials and on determining the relationship between instructional methods and students' achievement.

The research is taking place among a group of students who are underrepresented in mathematics; the study will be of interest to research, policy, and practice communities. King also points out that the results of the study will be of great interest to curriculum developers, who will benefit from the findings as they design instructional materials.

At last month's inaugural conference of the Research Partnership for New York City Schools, a non-partisan research consortium, a team of researchers from NYU and Syracuse presented their study on school-level funding in New York City just prior to the launch of FSF.

Composed of Professor Amy Ellen Schwartz, professor of public policy, education, and economics at NYU Steinhardt and NYU Wagner; Leanna Stiefel, professor of economics, NYU Wagner; and Ross Rubenstein, associate professor of public administration, Syracuse University, the team examined the current distribution of spending across the City's 911 elementary and middle schools. Their study provides a context for understanding FSF and provides a base point against which the impact of the policy can be measured.

Experts and policymakers agree that equitable distribution of resources among schools is critical for improving student outcomes. But evidence suggests that among schools with similar student characteristics, funding varies considerably. Since students who are poor, disabled, or English language learners cost more to educate, it is critical for funding policies to allocate more resources for these student populations.

"Our research seeks to explain to what extent variations in City and state funding were due to the needs of the students in the schools," said Stiefel. "We were surprised to find these factors only explained 33% of the variation in funding from the city and state. In other words, more than half of the variation in funding could not be explained."

Stiefel said it was worth noting that for federal Title I funding, which is targeted to schools serving poor students, the factors account for 61% of variation in spending. "As you would expect, Title I money more closely follows identifiable student needs."

Surprisingly, a negative relationship emerged between City and state funding and free lunch eligibility in elementary schools. "We found that those schools with higher percentages of poor students-those eligible for free lunch-tended to receive less funding on average," Stiefel said.

In addition to redressing these inequities, FSF also seeks to break away from "position" budgeting, in which teacher positions, rather than dollar amounts, are allocated to schools. Position budgeting has the effect of giving more money to schools with more experienced and higher paid teachers, who, due to teacher choices on where to teach and where to stay, are more concentrated in schools with higher-performing and easier to educate students.

"We expect to see stronger, positive relationships between school funding and the needs of the schools as a result of FSF," Stiefel said.