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The East Asian Social Survey (EASS) is a biennial social survey project that serves as a cross-national network of the following four General Social Survey type surveys in East Asia: the Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS), the Japanese General Social Survey (JGSS), the Korean General Social Survey (KGSS), and the Taiwan Social Change Survey (TSCS), and comparatively examines diverse aspects of social life in these regions. Since its 1st module survey in 2006, EASS produces and disseminates its module survey datasets and this is the harmonized data for the 7th module survey, called 'Culture and Globalization in East Asia'.

Survey information in this module is the same topic as the second module of the EASS 2008, and it focuses on cultural norms and expectations of respondents. Respondents were asked about their exposure to East Asian cultural activities and rituals as well as opinion on family responsibilities and roles. Other topics include sources of international news and discussion frequency, countries or regions traveled, as well as where acquaintances live. Additionally, respondents were asked how accepting they would be of people from other countries as coworkers, neighbors, and in marriage. Information was collected regarding foreign practices, whether the respondent was working for a foreign capital company, and the economic environment. Respondents were also asked to assess their own proficiency when reading, speaking, and writing in English. Demographic information specific to the respondent and their spouse includes age, sex, marital status, education, employment status and hours worked, occupation, earnings and income, religion, class, size of community, and region.

The Measures of Effective Teaching Project (MET)

The MET project is based on two premises: First, to a significant extent a teacher's evaluation should depend on his/her students' achievement gains; second, any additional components of the evaluation (e.g., classroom observations) should be valid predictors of student achievement gain.

Student achievement was measured in two ways -- through existing state assessments, designed to assess student progress on the state curriculum for accountability purposes, and supplemental assessments, designed to assess higher-order conceptual understanding. The supplemental assessments used were Stanford 9 Open-Ended Reading Assessment in grades 4 through 8, Balanced Assessment in Mathematics (BAM) in grades 4 through 8, and the ACT QualityCore series for Algebra I, English 9, and Biology.

Panoramic digital video of classroom sessions were taken of participating teachers and students, teachers submitted commentary on their lessons (e.g., specifying the learning objective) and then trained raters scored the lesson based on classroom observation protocols using the following five observation protocols:

• Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS), developed by Robert Pianta, University of Virginia
• Framework for Teaching, developed by Charlotte Danielson
• Mathematical Quality of Instruction (MQI), developed by Heather Hill, Harvard University, and Deborah Loewenberg Ball, University of Michigan
• Protocol for Language Arts Teaching Observations (PLATO), developed by Pam Grossman, Stanford University
• Quality Science Teaching (QST) Instrument, developed by Raymond Pecheone, Stanford University

A subset of the videos also are being scored using an observational protocol developed by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS).

Close to 3,000 teacher volunteers from across the following six, predominantly urban, school districts participated in the MET project: Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, Dallas Independent School District, Denver Public Schools, Hillsborough County Public Schools, Memphis City Schools, and the New York City Department of Education. Participants teach math and English language arts (ELA) in grades 4-8, Algebra I, grade 9 English, and high school biology.

The District-Wide Files

The district wide files are comprised of one data file per district for each of the 2008-2009, 2009-2010, 2010-2011, 2011-2012, 2012-2013, and 2013-2014 school years, for a total of thirty-six data files. Each file contains information on each student in the school district including student demographic variables, such as race, age and gender, specialty student status variables such as free lunch, English language learner, and gifted and talented program participation, and student-level test rankings for math and reading. Also included are the aggregate means of those student demographic, specialty status, and test score variables for each teacher.

Two versions of the SAS code used for creating the original value-added measures for teachers in each district are also provided with the data files. The non-aggregated version of the code uses the individual math and reading test rankings for each of a teacher's students to calculate predictive score estimates. The aggregated version of the code uses the mean math and reading test rankings for all of that teacher's students to calculate estimates.

Immigration to this country has increased significantly in recent years. While Mexican immigrants are the largest population of immigrants in the United States (39 percent), the rest of the population is widely varied, with no one nation accounting for more than 3 percent of all immigrants. Despite the significant benefits quality Early Childhood Education (ECE) programs offer to immigrant children, their rates of enrollment are significantly lower than for comparable children of United States-born parents.

In order to better address the needs of these new American families, providers and state policymakers need more in-depth knowledge about the perceptions of these families and the factors that influence their choice of care. This study is an exploratory study in two cities which reflect the diversity of experience with immigration across the country: Denver, Colorado and surrounding areas, where the focus is on Mexican immigrants, and Portland, Maine and surrounding areas, where the focus is on three of the many refugee populations which have newly settled here. The contrasts, not only in the immigrant populations themselves, but also in the political and historical contexts of the communities in which they live, offer an opportunity to enrich the field of research on child care choices for this vulnerable population of children and families.

Additional details about this study can be found on the New Americans Web site.