bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
How Does Practice-Based Teacher Preparation Influence Novices’ First-Year Instruction?
Authors: Kang Hosun , Windschitl Mark
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

Teacher preparation suffers from a lack of evidence that guides the design of learning experiences to produce well-prepared beginners. An increasing number of teacher educators are experimenting with practice-embedded approaches to prepare novices for ambitious instruction. This study examines the role of core instructional practices introduced during preparatory experiences in shaping novices’ first-year teaching.

Research design

Employing a mixed-methods approach, we compare the first-year teaching of two groups of individuals with secondary science certification, one of which comprises graduates from a practice-embedded preparation program, and the other graduates from programs that did not feature practice-embedded preparation. A total of 116 science lessons taught by 41 first-year teachers were analyzed, focusing on the quality of student opportunities to learn (OTL) observed during the lessons.

Research questions

This study sought answers to two research questions: 1) What are the characteristics of students’ OTL from first-year teachers, one group of whom learned a set of core instructional practices during their preparation program and the other group of whom were not exposed to core practices? 2) Who provides opportunities for students to engage in meaningful disciplinary practices as outlined in the Next Generation Science Standards, during the first year of teaching, if any? How did they create such opportunities?

Findings

Independent-sample t-tests showed that there are significant mean differences between the two groups (t=3.1∼8.9; p <.001), on four metrics associated with their students’ opportunities to learn. In-depth qualitative case studies reveal two ways that core practices shape instruction in new teachers’ classrooms: (a) they support novices in formulating an actionable curricular vision as advocated by the science education community, and (b) they appear to help novices notice, attend to, and build upon students’ ideas in classrooms with the use of strategies and tools recommended by the program.

Conclusions/Recommendations

A focus on a set of strategic and intentional practices, designed to help teachers achieve rigorous and equitable learning goals, has potential as a curricular frame for teacher preparation. But the emphasis should be placed on the vision and pedagogical goals that underlie the core practices, rather than the ungrounded use of strategies or tools themselves.
From Checklists to Heuristics: Designing MOOCs to Support Teacher Learning
Authors: Brennan Karen , Blum-Smith Sarah , Yurkofsky Maxwell M.
Published: November 2021

Background

Although much is known from educational research about factors that support K–12 teacher professional learning, it has been an ongoing challenge to incorporate these factors into practice in new contexts and environments. We argue that these factors are too often treated like a checklist of discrete elements, either present or not, insufficiently attending to the complexities of design and experience. To understand how Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) might support K–12 teacher learning, it is critical to move beyond application of discrete factors to nuanced navigation of the interplay among researcher examination and theorization, designer intention and implementation, and learner use and experience—balancing considerations of learning theory, instructional objectives and specific learning context, and the desires, needs, and experiences of participants.

Focus of Study

This study examines MOOCs as a medium for supporting teacher professional learning. What did K–12 teachers identify as meaningful about their participation in the Creative Computing Online Workshop (CCOW), a large-scale, constructionist, online learning experience for teachers? How do the teachers’ experiences relate to each other, to learning research, and to the affordances of MOOCs?

Research Design

This qualitative, interview-based study draws on 15 semistructured interviews with participants 1 year after they completed CCOW, as well as course artifacts. We used an iterative approach to develop common themes reflecting what teachers found meaningful and key tensions present in these themes.

Findings

Teachers described four qualities as most meaningful to their learning: activity, peers, culture, and relevance. Although these qualities were often mutually supporting, three key tensions among the qualities and the implications for the design of online teacher learning experiences are discussed: autonomy, with structure; diversity, with commonality; and experimentation, with validation.

Conclusions

This article challenges the notion that implementing successful professional development for K–12 teachers is simply a matter of following a checklist of design elements. This study presents qualities that teachers found meaningful in an online learning experience, offering heuristics that designers might consider when designing for their specific contexts. Future research might assess to what extent the qualities and tensions identified in this study apply to other contexts, and explore the reasons why contextual changes may or may not influence results.
“It's Different Here”: Complicating Concepts of College Knowledge and First Generation through an Immigrant Lens
Authors: Mwangi Chrystal A. George
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

Children of immigrants are the fastest growing segment of the U.S. child population, and these children are increasingly entering the U.S. educational pipeline and seeking access to college. Gaining access to college in the United States requires college knowledge. Yet, obtaining college knowledge can be difficult for immigrant families, who may lack familiarity with the U.S. education system. Although one third of all immigrants possess a college degree, many earned their degree abroad or in the United States as international students and/or adult learners. Therefore, the children of college-educated immigrants may be the first in their family to seek access to college via the U.S. K–12 system.

Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study

This study explores how African immigrant multigenerational families engage in college preparation. All families had at least one parent who had attained a college degree. In each family, the college-educated parent(s) either received their degree abroad or received their degree in the United States as an international student or adult returning student. The research questions are: How do immigrant families explain navigating the college-going process when their children are first in the family to prepare for college via the U.S. K–12 system? How do immigrant families describe their level of comfort with college preparation when their children are first in the family to prepare for college via the U.S. K–12 system?

Research Design

A qualitative, multiple case design was used.

Findings/Results

The findings demonstrate that although the children in this study were not first generation to college in a traditional sense, they experienced many of the same challenges. For the families in this study, the parents possessed institutionalized capital but often lacked what emerged as “U.S.-based college knowledge,” which impacted their experience with the college choice process.

Conclusions/Recommendations

Families’ lack of familiarity with the U.S. college preparation process (college testing, academic tracking, cost of college/financial aid) leads to a call for complicating concepts of “college knowledge” and “first generation” to college in a globalized society.
A History of Achievement Testing in the United States Or: Explaining the Persistence of Inadequacy
Authors: Hutt Ethan , Schneider Jack
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

For more than a century, standardized achievement tests have been a feature of American education. Throughout that time, critics of standardized tests have argued that their use has detrimental effects on students, schools, and curriculum. Despite these critiques, the number and uses of standardized tests have increased steadily. Though a great deal of research has focused on the technical design of tests, the history of individual tests, and general critiques of testing, there is little research that helps explain the continued use of standardized tests in American education despite near constant criticism.

Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study

This article develops a framework for understanding a basic paradox in the history of standardized testing in American education: the durability of standardized testing in the face of persistent criticism. Seeking to address this paradox, the article asks why tests have persisted and proliferated even though students dislike taking tests, educators believe that tests distort the learning process, and experts challenge the validity of test results.

Research Design

This article involves a historical analysis of structural and cultural aspects of American education that help explain the particular uses and durability of testing.

Conclusions/Recommendations

First, we identify three master critiques of standardized tests: distortion, waste, and misclassification. We find that, despite these persistent critiques, four important contextual features of the American education system help explain the continuous hold that standardized tests have had on American education: that the American education system is decentralized, avowedly meritocratic, publicly funded, and central to aspirations of upward mobility. These contextual factors, along with the historically contingent development of testing expertise, testing culture, and development of testing infrastructure, provide a framework for understanding the persistence of testing. Together, these factors create a dynamic system in which critiques of tests lead not to the elimination of testing, but to its further elaboration and evolution.
The Snare of Systemic Racism and Other Challenges Confronting Hip-Hop-Based Pedagogy
Authors: Mutegi Jomo W. , Phelps-Moultrie Jada A. , Bannister Vanessa R. Pitts
Published: November 2021

Background

Although there has been a pronounced growth in hip-hop-based pedagogy (HHBP) scholarship in recent years, there has not been a concomitant critique of this growing body of work. As a consequence, much of this scholarship is best characterized as advocacy of HHBP.

Purpose/Objective

The objective of this article is to promote critical discourse around the conceptualization and implementation of HHBP by (a) identifying a set of challenges presented in the conceptualization of HHBP scholarship, (b) describing the narrative that these challenges converge to support, and (c) suggesting an alternative narrative aimed at fostering a more empowering use of HHBP.

Research Design

To accomplish this objective, we provide an in-depth critique of Emdin and Lee's (2012) article, “Hip-hop, the ‘Obama effect,’ and urban science education.” Through this critique, we first identify eight challenges posed by the authors’ argument, as well as the narrative that is the foundation of this argument.

Conclusions/Recommendations

We conclude by presenting an alternate narrative of hip-hop as an instrument of systemic racism and offering suggestions as to how HHBP can be used in both research and practice to both avoid and counter systemic racism.
Overview of the Every Student Succeeds Act and Introduction to the Yearbook
Authors: Young Jemimah L. , Goings Ramon B.
Published: November 2021

The ESSA reaffirmed our nation's commitment to equal educational opportunity for all Americans. Despite our nation's commitment, we continue to witness glaring gaps in educational achievement for marginalized populations. Thus, this yearbook places particular attention on a historical as well as contemporary overview of policy changes, and implications of the ESSA on multicultural education. Senior and junior scholars from specific disciplines were solicited to provide their expertise and perspective on the implications of the ESSA on multicultural education. This yearbook contains eight articles, each uniquely connected to the theme of this yearbook. A summary of each article is presented, detailing specifically how each article's topic contributes to the theme of this yearbook.
Race-Evasive White Teacher Identity Studies 1990–2015: What Can We Learn from 25 Years of Research?
Authors: Jupp James C. , Leckie Alisa , Cabrera Nolan L. , Utt Jamie
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

With a rationale informed by the demographic imperative, the resegregation of public schools, and our positionalities as researchers, we understand both the high stakes and the complexity of capacitating White preservice and in-service teachers capable of anti-racist praxis and race-visible teaching and learning in public school classrooms.

Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study

Deploying the framework of colorblind racism, we systematically reviewed race-evasive White teacher identity studies and answered the question: What can we learn from 25 years of research?

Research Design

In using the method called the synoptic text, we engaged electronic databases, with special emphasis on ERIC EBSCOhost. The simple and general search term “White teachers” conducted using year-by-year parameters provided the most systematic net for capturing relevant studies. In narrowing our focus, we developed the following criteria: (a) White teachers as central topic, (b) analytical emphases on colorblind racism, (c) publication in peer-reviewed journals, (d) use of qualitative and/or narrative research methodologies, and (e) publication date between 1990 and 2015.

Data Collection and Analysis

Our general search yielded 136 (N = 136) peer-reviewed empirical qualitative and/or narrative studies between 1990 and 2015, and after narrowing our criteria, we found 47 race-evasive White teacher identity studies (n = 47, 47/136) that we reviewed here. Each study in the document universe was abstracted by authors, added to a spreadsheet, and categorized by emergent themes.

Findings/Results

The following five themes emerged and developed over the last 25 years: (a) racialized silence and invisibility (9/47), (b) resistance and active reconstruction of White privilege (12/47), (c) whiteness in institutional and social contexts (8/47), (d) fertile paradoxes in new research (9/47), and (e) reflexive whiteness pedagogies (9/47).

Conclusions/Recommendations

We believe our literature review identifies the complex contours of White preservice and in-service teachers’ silence, resistance to, engagement in, and pedagogical grappling with racism, whiteness, and White privilege. The importance of pre-service and in-service teachers being able to engage, understand, and challenge these issues becomes critically important at our crossroads in the present, especially given the recent election that bolstered open and tacit White supremacists into power. If White teachers are to engage racism, whiteness, and White privilege, they must do so with as opposed to for their students, in a Freirean sense. If teaching for social justice is important, renewed interest and investment in White teacher identity studies and related whiteness pedagogies is key for the next 25 years.
Is There a Career and Technical Education Coursetaking Pipeline between High School and College?
Authors: Plasman Jay Stratte , Gottfried Michael A. , Sublett Cameron
Published: November 2021

Background

Previous studies have explored the relationship between career and technical education (CTE) on numerous secondary and college outcomes. However, a key oversight in the literature is the examination of the CTE coursetaking pipeline as it makes a direct connection between high school and college.

Research Questions

We asked the following research questions to address the gap in CTE literature around secondary to postsecondary pipelines: (1) Does taking CTE courses in high school predict taking CTE courses in college? (2) Does this relationship differ between students who attend 2- and 4-year colleges? (3) Does the relationship differ by different areas of CTE?

Research Design

To respond to these questions, we used the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002 (ELS:2002), a nationally representative dataset. We employed basic logistic regression, school fixed effects, and instrumental variable estimations to reduce biases in our estimations in the relationship between high school and college CTE coursetaking.

Results

We found that CTE coursetaking in high school linked to overall CTE coursetaking across all years of college. When examining 2- and 4-year college coursetaking independently, only the relationship between high school and 4-year college CTE coursetaking was significant. We also found that there existed differential linking based on type of institution in which the courses were completed and area of CTE—specifically, applied STEM, business, trade and industry, and health.

Conclusions

A first implication from these findings is that CTE in high school, which is itself funded through the current iteration of the Perkins legislation, appears to be having a noticeable link to CTE participation in college. From the second research question, there could very well be a strong connection between high school CTE and 2-year enrollment that is not reflected in first year CTE coursetaking at the 2-year level. Finally, the implications from the third research question speak to the need to focus on CTE as a group of individual categories as opposed to a single overarching group.
The (Mis)representation of Enslavement in Historical Literature for Elementary Students
Authors: Patterson Timothy , Shuttleworth Jay M.
Published: November 2021

Context

Elementary teachers will make difficult pedagogical choices when selecting materials to support their students’ learning about historical topics. Given the variety of historical books written for their students, certain stories will be emphasized and ultimately legitimated and others will be silenced through absence.

Objective of Study

The objective of this article is to identify and analyze children's literature spanning a spectrum of theoretical positioning and to interrogate their instructional implications. We investigate narratives and images of enslavement in children's literature through the question: how is enslavement portrayed in recently published elementary-level (first through sixth grade) literature?

Research Design

This article is a content analysis of 21 recently published elementary-level books that portray enslavement in U.S. history. Unlike previous studies of enslavement in children's literature, we analyzed both the narrative text and the illustrations in our dataset using methods that ensured interrater reliability. To accomplish this, we developed and tested an analytical tool for understanding the interpretive stances books deploy when they portray difficult moments in history. We deductively categorized textual and visual depictions of enslavement into one of three stances: selective tradition, social conscience, and culturally conscious. The criteria for these stances were established through critical race theory and the broad research tradition on African-American subjects in children's literature.

Results

Our analysis revealed the presence of all three depictions in children's literature. Our findings call attention to the need for careful decision-making on the part of elementary teachers, as their decisions around book selection will enact a curriculum that honors particular perspectives of U.S. history. The problematic elements identified in previous studies remain prevalent in modern books for elementary students. However, our findings also suggest teachers will be presented with a more complicated set of options when selecting among historical children's literature than previously documented by researchers.

Conclusions

While a diversity of interpretive narratives about enslavement is present in elementary-level history books, the invisibility of race in U.S. history remains a powerful feature in current historical resources. Researchers of a number of topics in K–12 education will find utility in the analytical tool developed for this article. Selective tradition, social conscience, and culturally conscious are interpretive frames that can be directed at any number of topics in children's literature.
Social Sources of Teacher Self-Effcacy: The Potency of Teacher Interactions and Proximity to Instruction
Authors: Neugebauer Sabina Rak , Hopkins Megan , Spillane James P.
Published: November 2021

Background

Research over the past two decades documents how social capital, or the resources attained through social relationships, is associated with a range of outcomes at both the individual and organizational levels. Yet few, if any, studies explore the relationship between social capital and teaching self-efficacy. Given that teaching self-efficacy is a significant predictor of instructional effectiveness, identifying the kinds of social interactions that facilitate positive teaching self-efficacy can offer important information with respect to how schools and school systems can bolster teachers’ perceived competence and thus their instructional capacity.

Objective

This study integrates social capital and social cognitive theories to frame an investigation of the social sources that contribute to teachers’ self-efficacy over time. Specifically, we explore how social interactions that vary in their relationship with and proximity to instruction influence teachers’ developing self-efficacy.

Research Design

We analyzed self-report survey data from 345 teachers in the same district over 4 years. These data captured various social sources of teaching self-efficacy, including indicators of verbal persuasion and vicarious experiences, and allowed us to account for contextual variables found to influence teachers’ sense of mastery. We used the multilevel model for change framework to explore associations between these types of social interactions and teacher self-efficacy over time.

Findings

Results suggest that interactions firmly rooted in actual teaching practice—namely, those focused on a specific instructional episode (i.e., feedback about a class) or on particular teaching practices (i.e., discussions about specific teaching resources and artifacts)—were associated with higher reports of teaching self-efficacy over time. On the other hand, interactions that reflected more general or less targeted interactions about teaching (i.e., being sought out for general instructional advice or observing someone else teach) were not.

Conclusions

To further the capacity of individual teachers, school and system leaders should invest in supporting social interactions among teachers that afford direct and targeted opportunities to learn about particular instructional practices and to discuss specific teaching episodes. Interactions less proximal to classroom practice may be ineffective for promoting individual teachers’ feelings of teaching competence.
Understanding Navajo K–12 Public School Finance in Arizona through Tribal Critical Theory
Authors: Martinez David G. , Jiménez-Castellanos Oscar , Begay Victor H.
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

Currently, Native American education policy reports and empirical research papers have largely focused on sociocultural challenges to Native sovereignty and the policy that impedes Native sovereign states. This paper deviates from that theme by implicating policy as preventing improvement of educational outcomes by proxy of the fiscal revenue available to reservation schools, focusing specifically on the Navajo Nation. To date, this is the first empirically driven, Native-specific school finance study that attempts to compare how Anglo and Native schools are funded and how the quality and dispersion of this funding affects Native education and outcomes.

Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study

This study reports on a longitudinal descriptive analysis of school fiscal revenue (2006–2012), comparing Navajo K–12 school districts against Arizona public school districts. This empirical research paper attempts to answer the following questions: How did Navajo K–12 public school district demographics compare to those of Arizona public school districts from 2006 to 2012? How did Navajo K–12 public school districts perform academically compared to Arizona public school districts from 2006 to 2012? How did Navajo public school district tax rates and assessed property valuation compare to those of Arizona public school districts from 2006 to 2012? How did Navajo public school district revenues compare to those of Arizona public school districts from 2006 to 2012?

Research Design

This research study is a univariate statistical analysis (i.e., mean, median, standard deviation, range, and percentile) examining general descriptions of individual fiscal revenue variables for schooling.

Data Collection and Analysis

The data comprised publicly available Arizona Department of Education Excel files (Excel v14.0) merged into one consolidated dataset imported to SPSSv22.0. Our analysis began by selecting Navajo public school districts from our dataset and then comparing them to Arizona public districts (excluding Navajo and nontraditional LEA districts) from 2006 to 2012.

Findings/Results

This study has two conclusions: (a) There is a clear and growing achievement gap between Navajo and Arizona districts; and (b) Our results seem to suggest that Arizona's equalization formula is not effectively counterbalancing the impact of local property wealth, as shown by the disparities in combined state and local revenue between Navajo K–12 school districts and Arizona districts.

Conclusions/Recommendations

The findings in this study indicate that Arizona must address policy and practice in order to remedy the educational disparity between Navajo students and their non-Navajo peers. Navajo Nation schools require agency to designate priorities and state funding to meet these priorities.
Structuring Disruption within University-Based Teacher Education Programs1: Possibilities and Challenges of Race-Based Caucuses
Authors: Varghese Manka , Daniels Julia R. , Park Caryn C.
Published: November 2021

Background

Teacher education candidates are in different places in terms of developing their identities and relationships to equity and social justice. Various approaches have been taken within university-based teacher education programs to engage with candidates, wherever they are in this development. One such approach has been engaging or drawing on teachers’ own lenses, especially through challenging and understanding their racialized selves.

Purpose

This conceptual article examines how race-based caucuses (RBCs) in one teacher education program attempted to shift candidates’ understandings of their racialized selves as related to their teacher identities.

Context

RBCs were instituted in one elementary teacher education program to help White teacher candidates and candidates of Color construct critical teacher identities. Candidates were asked to participate in caucuses according to the ways they had been racialized within schools. Facilitators who demonstrated a willingness to sit with the work of engaging race and racialization led the caucuses.

Observances

For the candidates of Color, the “overwhelming presence of Whiteness” in the teacher education program and in the schools required the RBCs to focus on reframing deficit narratives of teachers of Color to an asset-based view of their value and contribution to the teaching profession. The RBC provided space for White teacher candidates to explore the consequences of Whiteness for their future identities as teachers and for the kinds of communities that they could and wanted to cultivate with students. Messiness and challenges abounded in both RBCs.

Discussion and Reflections

Emotions—and especially emotion labor—were central to RBCs. For teacher candidates of Color, facing one's own oppression was painful but also presented opportunities for them to articulate emotions and experiences in relatively safe spaces. In a different way, the RBCs resulted in significant emotional upheaval for White teacher candidates that shifted into deeper self-reflection and sense of awareness and allyship (for some)— although in a few cases, RBCs led to even deeper resistance.

Conclusions

Race-based caucusing is a messy and challenging practice that can provide opportunities to reflect constructively on emotions and produce emotional upheaval for teacher candidates. Teacher educators and programs must approach RBCs with an orientation toward hyperreflexivity.
Pathways to Working Alliances: Special Educators’ Emotional Labor and Relationships with Students with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders
Authors: Valenti Michael , Brown Elizabeth Levine , Horner Christy Galletta , Mahatmya Duhita , Colditz Jason
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

Research has also shown that educators who are more socially and emotionally competent are more likely to create nurturing relationships and high-quality classroom environments that result in more academic success for students. Despite the importance of teacher-student relationships on student outcomes, limited research has investigated factors that contribute to development of these relationships, particularly for special education teachers (SETs) working with students with emotional/behavioral disorders (EBDs).

Focus of Study

This study explores educators’ emotions in the classroom through emotional labor theory, a framework for understanding how employees engage in the deliberate suppression or expression of emotions to achieve an organization's goals. We empirically investigate the potential connections between SETs’ perceptions of their administrators’ expectations about emotional displays, SETs’ emotional acting strategies, and teacher-student relationships.

Setting

This study was conducted within three schools in Western Pennsylvania serving students with EBDs in self-contained classrooms.

Participants

Participants included SETs (N = 61) serving K–12 students who have been identified as having EBDs. SET demographics were as follows: 75% female, average age 32 (range 23–51), and 97% Caucasian. Participants averaged 4.62 years of teaching experience with the study site.

Research Design

All SETs reported on their perceptions of emotional labor and their working alliances with each of their students in the fall semester. Students were nested within teachers, so we used multilevel path analyses to estimate mediational effects of emotional display rules and emotional acting on the teacher-student working alliance.

Results

The results of this study suggest important connections between SETs’ perceptions of emotional display rules, their use of emotional acting strategies, and their working alliances with students with EBDs. Specifically, SETs’ reported perceptions of negative display rules affected how they engaged in surface acting when interacting with students. SETs’ ratings of surface acting were associated with their working alliance tasks scores.

Conclusions/Recommendations

These findings confirm recent research showing that educators engage in emotional acting and that some dimensions of this acting contribute to their relationships with students. Our findings may also suggest that surface acting is an acceptable emotional acting strategy that supports SETs’ relationships with students. Because the emotional labor research in special education has yet to extrapolate on what display rules lead to the emotional acting strategies that the organization desires, how we make these rules more explicit could help teachers establish more sensibility regarding this area of their job.
Showing Up: Disparities in Chronic Absenteeism between Students with and without Disabilities in Traditional Public Schools
Authors: Gottfried Michael A. , Stiefel Leanna , Schwartz Amy Ellen , Hopkins Bryant
Published: November 2021

Background

While chronic absenteeism hurts all students, one particularly vulnerable group, students with disabilities (SWDs), has received little attention in research or policy. Particularly troubling is the dearth of research into the patterns of absences for SWDs and GENs who attend school together in urban school systems, given relatively higher absenteeism when compared to suburban and rural districts.

Research Questions

First, how do rates of chronic absenteeism compare between SWDs and students without disabilities (GENs) attending the same schools (hereafter traditional schools)? Second, are there differences between SWDs who are educated in “GEN-majority” classrooms and those educated in “SWD-majority” classrooms? Finally, do these patterns differ for students with different disabilities?

Subjects

Our study consists of GENs and SWDs in grades 1–6 who attended a traditional NYC public school between 2006 and 2012. Our sample includes 653,736 students across 37,867 classrooms, and 1,148 public elementary schools. Measures include race/ethnicity, gender, age, foreign-born status, limited English proficiency, free/reduced price lunch eligibility, grade level, classroom ID, school ID, the number of days each student was absent, and the total number of school days each student was registered in the district. For SWDs, the data include indicators for the thirteen disability classifications defined under IDEA and a primary assigned special education setting.

Research Design

We begin with a baseline model, where being chronically absent (i.e., missing 10% or more of the school year) is regressed on an indicator for being a SWD, controlling for grade and year. We build on this model by first including demographic control variables, then school fixed effects, and finally classroom fixed effects. We then explore this model for differences by type of classroom setting as well as by type of disability.

Findings

Chronic absenteeism is considerably higher for SWDs than GENs in traditional schools, and there is important heterogeneity by disability classifications. Specifically, students with emotional disturbances exhibit extremely high rates of chronic absenteeism and the largest group of SWDs, students with learning disabilities, have quite high rates as well. Further, SWDs in GEN-majority classrooms are less likely to be chronically absent than those in SWD-majority classrooms, again with variation by disability.

Conclusions

As the nationwide trend of providing SWDs with more education in GEN-majority classrooms continues to press forward, our study shows that increasingly GEN-majority settings are associated with fewer absences for SWDs. And while school attendance, among other non-achievement outcomes, are not the primary focus of IDEA, our findings point to how some school settings might be beneficial to some but put others at risk.
Linking Principal Leadership to Organizational Growth and Student Achievement: A Moderation Mediation Analysis
Authors: Sebastian James , Allensworth Elaine
Published: November 2021

Background

Although there is a substantial body of literature on school leadership and its relationship with student achievement, few studies have examined how change in leadership is related to organizational growth and school improvement. Also less well studied is the influence of contextual conditions on how leadership and organizational processes evolve to constrain/augment school outcomes.

Focus of Study

In this study, we use moderation mediation analysis to examine how change in principal leadership relates to achievement growth, mediated via change in multiple organizational processes—parent-teacher trust, school climate (measured by school safety), and professional capacity. We further examine how these mediational relationships are moderated by initial school conditions.

Research Design

We apply moderation mediation analysis to administrative and survey data of elementary schools from a large urban school district to examine if initial school conditions moderate mediational relationships between school leadership and student outcomes.

Conclusions

Our results show that improvements in school leadership are related to student learning gains only through improvements in school climate; this relationship is consistent regardless of whether schools initially had strong or weak leadership and regardless of whether schools initially had safe or unsafe school climates.
A Maker Studio Model for High School Classrooms: The Nature and Role of Critique in an Electronic Textiles Design Project
Authors: Litts Breanne K. , Widman Sari A. , Lui Debora A. , Walker Justice T. , Kafai Yasmin B.
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

Though the maker movement has proliferated in out-of-school settings, there remains a design challenge of how to effectively integrate maker activities into K–12 classrooms. In other contexts, though, creative design and production have historically been successfully integrated in classrooms through studio models common to the arts, architecture, and engineering.

Purpose/Objective

In this paper, we leverage the features and practices of studio models from arts, architecture, and engineering education to integrate maker activities in a high school classroom. Within this Maker Studio model, students focus on designing a computational artifact and engage in practices more predominantly found in studio arts, architecture, and engineering classes such as feedback, critique, and reflection.

Research Design

We conducted a case study of how a class of 23 high school students participating in a STEM elective class in teams partnered with art students to develop an interactive installation. Our analyses focus on how the structure of the feedback, critique, and reflections in the Maker Studio informed and shaped students’ design processes.

Conclusions

We discuss affordances and implications of recognizing studio practices (particularly critique) as design features of maker activities, especially in high school classroom contexts, and present the Maker Studio as a viable model for integration of maker activities in classroom environments. We also characterize key features of the Maker Studio model, including the following: appreciation and support for maker processes in addition to or even above final products, integration of various structures for giving and receiving critique throughout the design process, support for interdisciplinary and collaborative project work, and engagement with diverse perspectives and expertise during critiques.
“Good Teaching” and “Good Teachers” for Whom? Critically Troubling Standardized and Corporatized Notions of Quality in Teacher Education
Authors: Souto-Manning Mariana
Published: November 2021

Background

Historically and contemporarily, dominant conceptualizations of quality teaching are and have been rooted in notions of the cultural deficiency and inferiority of intersectionally minoritized populations. Such conceptualizations of quality teaching have kept and continue to keep racial, cultural, and linguistic injustices in place. They are imposed on intersectionally minoritized populations—those who, even when numerically the majority, continue to be positioned as inferior to or lesser than the dominant population.

Focus

In this article, through the critical analysis of counter-narratives of early childhood teachers of color, I seek to trouble commonplace discourses of “good teaching” and “good teachers.” I take a close look at how such discourses are instantiated and propagated by the educative Teacher Performance Assessment (edTPA), a high-stakes assessment that purports to measure teacher quality and is tied to certification. I focus on early childhood teachers of color because although the percentage of young children of color is increasing, there is a reverse trend in the early childhood teaching force. This may be partly due to mounting certification requirements recently established for early childhood teachers. Thus, early childhood teachers of color are a critical group from whom the field can learn.

Research Design

Seeking to conversationally elicit personal narratives regarding edTPA from early childhood teachers of color, I interviewed 10 early childhood teachers of color who had graduated with master's degrees leading to early childhood education initial teacher certification since the 2014 implementation of edTPA as a requirement for licensure in New York State. Specifically, I sought to understand how edTPA as a phenomenon came to life in their lived experiences. I engaged critical narrative analysis to analyze their counter-narratives.

Conclusions and Recommendations

By listening closely to women of color seeking teacher licensure and learning from the critical analysis of their counter-narratives, I expose how institutional discourses of teacher quality serve to racialize the teaching profession, keeping White hegemonic discourses in place in the name of quality. Specifically, the counter-narratives of the 10 early childhood teachers of color who participated in this study unveiled how they perceived edTPA as (a) serving as an obstacle to access higher pay; (b) leading to mental health issues and stress; and (c) being antithetical to good teaching. Implications point toward the need for research that helps us move to a definition of good teaching grounded in justice as nonnegotiable if we are to (re)define teacher preparation in transformative and racially inclusive ways.
Following the Leader: The Evolving Network of Charter School Giving
Authors: Diehl David , Marx Robert A.
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

Research on the patterns of philanthropic funding of charter schools has largely focused on the behavior of major foundations. This work has documented how the once diffuse giving by these major foundations has become increasingly concentrated on a small number of jurisdictional challengers in the form of charter schools, charter management organizations, and intermediary organizations.

Purpose

The current study examines whether this convergence in giving has spread to the entire network of foundations giving to charter-school-related organizations. We do so by extending current work and focus on the broader institutional field that includes the interactions between major foundations, smaller foundations, and grantees over time. Moreover, we look to see, if such a field-wide convergence is present, whether there is evidence consistent with the institutional process of isomorphism in which low-status foundations match the giving strategy of higher status ones.

Research Design

We test for these dynamics using exponential random graph models (ERGMs), a hypothesis-testing framework for network analysis. More specifically, we analyze the funding ties among 809 foundations that gave grants to California charter schools and charter-school-related organizations between 2003 and 2014, as available through the Foundation Directory Online. We constructed multiyear windows to examine funding ties between foundations and recipients, using organizational characteristics, such as foundation type, foundation year, professionalization, foundation size, organizational type, and location, and endogenous features of the network as independent variables.

Findings

Results indicate centralization of giving over time, as larger and newer foundations began practicing more targeted giving and the most connected recipients were involved in a disproportionate number of funding ties. We also found evidence consistent with institutionalization, as foundations with professional staffs played a larger role in giving, and smaller foundations increasingly engaged in behavior similar to their larger peers over time. Finally, we found evidence for the consistent effect of propinquity: We observe co-funding and co-receiving ties between foundations and grantees in geographical proximity to each other.

Conclusions

This work examines the network dynamics of charter school philanthropic giving and provides evidence for the centralization and institutionalization of the field. In turn, this may create inequity in funding for charter schools because it may be more difficult for smaller or less ideologically popular organizations to penetrate the field. Policy makers should be aware of these forces and should take them into account when making budgetary and funding decisions.
External Contextual Factors and Teacher Turnover: The Case of Michigan High Schools
Authors: Minor Elizabeth Covay , Saw Guan K. , Frank Kenneth , Schneider Barbara , Torphy Kaitlin T.
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

All organizations face turnover in their workforce; however, in schools high turnover can interfere with the effectiveness and efficiency of the school. While past research has examined school-related factors linked to teacher turnover, few studies have examined how external contextual factors are related to teacher turnover. This study examines the role of two external contextual factors in teacher turnover: economic downturns and changes in state curricular policy (the Michigan Merit Curriculum [MMC]).

Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study

This study asks the extent to which the economic crisis of 2009 and the implementation of the MMC are related to school-level teacher turnover rates and whether those relationships vary by school locale and within the school year.

Population/Participants/Subjects

The data include full-time high school teachers in the state of Michigan aggregated to the school level.

Research Design

Using eight years of statewide longitudinal data from Michigan, the study employs school fixed effects models to account for possible differences in unobservable school characteristics that are constant over time and may be related to teacher turnover. The study examines teacher turnover at both the mid-year and the end of the year as teachers leave schools at various points during the school year. Additionally, this study considers how turnover is experience differentially by urbanicity.

Findings/Results

Between 3.2% and 15.5% of teachers left their school over the eight-year period. The rates of turnover varied by the time of the school year with more teachers leaving at the end of the year than during mid-year. There was a significant increase in teacher turnover rates around the announcement of the MMC as well as the economic downturn. While all locations were impacted by the announcement of the MMC, the largest amount of turnover occurred in urban areas and the lowest for suburban areas. In terms of the economic downturn, towns were impacted the most, followed by rural and suburban schools. Urban areas did not see a significant increase in teacher turnover related to the recession.

Conclusions/Recommendations

The authors conclude that external contextual factors are related to increases in teacher turnover independent of each other. How these factors relate to teacher turnover does depend on school locale. While this study was based in Michigan, all states have their own policy and economic pressures to consider in related to school-level decision making and teacher turnover.