bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
How Teachers and Schools Contribute to Racial Differences in the Realization of Academic Potential
Authors: Wildhagen Tina
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

The fulfillment of academic potential is an underdeveloped area of inquiry as it relates to explaining racial differences in academic outcomes. Examining this issue is important for addressing not only differences in the typical outcomes for African American and White students but also the severe underrepresentation of African American students among the highest achieving students. Whereas other studies have operationalized lost academic potential as unfulfilled expectations for educational attainment, this study takes a different approach, measuring whether students earn higher or lower grades than the grades predicted by earlier tests of academic skills. Students whose grades are equal to or exceed those predicted by their earlier test scores are said to have fulfilled their academic potential, whereas those whose grades are lower than predicted have not realized their potential.

Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study

This study finds that African American high school students are less likely than their White peers to realize their academic potential. The analyses test several explanations for the racial gap in the realization of academic potential, focusing on the students themselves, their teachers, and their schools.

Research Design

This study uses hierarchical linear modeling to analyze data from the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002.

Conclusions/Recommendations

The results suggest that teachers perceive African American students as exerting less classroom effort than White students, which accounts for a substantial proportion of the racial gap in unrealized academic potential, even with several student characteristics held constant. At the school level, there are larger racial gaps in unrealized academic potential in segregated schools and schools with strict disciplinary climates. Strikingly, the negative effect of strict disciplinary climate exists net of students’ own receipt of disciplinary actions. That is, the negative association between strict disciplinary climate and the realization of academic potential for African American students applies to African American students regardless of whether they themselves have been in trouble at school. This study reveals that characteristics of schools that lack immediately obvious racial implications, such as a school's approach to student discipline, may be just as harmful as overtly racialized inequality within and between schools.
Black Achievers’ Experiences with Racial Spotlighting and Ignoring in a Predominantly White High School
Authors: Andrews Dorinda J. Carter
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

Despite a history of racial oppression and degradation in U.S. schools, African Americans have responded to racism and discrimination in ways that promote educational attainment and school success. Many Black adolescents have been empowered to succeed academically partly because of their awareness of racist practices in education and society. This empowerment to succeed in the face of racism is also seen as resiliency. A growing body of research suggests that despite experiencing racism in schools, many African Americans possess an achievement ethos that demands a commitment to excellence; despite experiencing racism as a stressor, these students develop resilient strategies for resisting racism in the school context.

Purpose/Objective/Focus of Study

The purpose of this study was to understand the adaptive behaviors that high-achieving Black students employed in a predominantly White high school to maintain school success and a positive racial self-definition. The focus of this article is to examine how these students describe, understand, and respond to experiencing racial microaggressions in classroom, social, and extracurricular domains within their school.

Research Design

The article includes data from a yearlong qualitative investigation of high-achieving Black students in a predominantly White high school. The author analyzed interview data, participant observations, and field notes and used a grounded theory approach to analyzing the data to arrive at an understanding of how students perceived experiences with racial microaggressions in their school.

Findings/Results

Findings indicate that students experienced racial microaggressions in the form of sometimes being spotlighted because of their race (i.e., racial spotlighting) and sometimes being ignored because of their race (i.e., racial ignoring). Students managed these experiences by utilizing a variety of resilient strategies that represent varying degrees of resistance. The use of these behavioral strategies demonstrates their resilience not only to racism but also to a school climate in which racism acts as a structural barrier to potentially constrain or impede achievement. These strategies allow students to effectively navigate within and across classroom and nonclassroom domains despite experiencing racial discrimination and to acquire and maintain school success without rejecting their racial identity.

Conclusions/Recommendations

The article concludes with implications for teacher education and creating culturally inclusive school and classroom environments. The article challenges educators to critically examine the relationships between race, racism, Whiteness, and teaching and learning. Specifically, recommendations are offered for preservice teacher preparation and in-service teacher professional development.
The Effects of Accountability System Design on Teachers’ Use of Test Score Data
Authors: Jennings Jennifer
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

Many studies have concluded that educational accountability policies increase data use, but we know little about how to design accountability systems to encourage productive versus distortive uses of test score data.

Purpose

I propose that five features of accountability systems affect how test score data are used and examine how individual and organizational characteristics interact with system features to influence teachers’ data use. First, systems apply varying amounts of pressure. Second, the locus of pressure varies across systems. Third, systems diverge in the distributional goals they set for student performance. Fourth, the characteristics of assessments vary across systems. Finally, systems differ in scope—that is, whether they incorporate multiple measures or are process- or outcome oriented.

Research Design

I review the literature on the effects of accountability systems on teachers’ data use and propose a research agenda to further our understanding of this area.

Conclusions/Recommendations

Researchers have spent much more time analyzing test score data than investigating how teachers use data in their work. Evolving accountability systems provide new opportunities for scholars to study how the interactions between accountability features, individual characteristics, and organizational contexts affect teachers’ test score data use.
How Does Parents Involved in Community Schools Matter? Legal and Political Influence in Education Politics and Policy
Authors: Mcdermott Kathryn A. , Debray Elizabeth , Frankenberg Erica
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

On June 28, 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District #1 (PICS) that school districts not currently under court order for racial desegregation could not, under most circumstances, use race as a criterion for assigning students to schools.

Purpose

In this article, we analyze patterns of response to PICS within and outside the judicial system in order to determine where and how the decision has mattered. We examine post-PICS developments in Seattle and Jefferson County, Kentucky, the districts where the lawsuits began; post-PICS developments in the federal courts; and policy changes at the school district level, including both responses to court decisions and changes undertaken voluntarily by school boards, and in the federal government.

Research Design

This article is a secondary analysis of national and local media articles, legal filings, and policy documents.

Conclusion

The decision, interacting with other issues, has indeed affected school districts, both via the courts and via effects on politics and policy making. Four years later, although PICS has not had a sweeping national effect on which students attend which schools— making the situation not dissimilar to Brown's initial effects—it has shaped the legal and political landscape in numerous school districts and has interacted with state and federal policy in ways that are still evolving.
Understanding the Institutional-Level Factors of Urban School Quality
Authors: Gottfried Michael A.
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

This article addresses which school-level factors contribute to school quality. Previous research has focused on assessing the effects of school-level variables on student-level quality (e.g., achievement). However, the field has been limited in not evaluating the effects of school-level factors directly on measured school-level quality. This present study takes this next step.

Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of the Study

The purpose of this study is to determine which school-level factors across three categories—schoolwide programs, school-level personnel, and institutional environment—are significant predictors of school quality.

Population/Participants/Subjects

Two data sets from the School District of Philadelphia are employed. The first data set is longitudinal and comprises elementary school student data linked to teachers, classrooms, and neighborhoods. The second data set, linked to the first by way of school and year data, is longitudinal and comprises school-level variables for all elementary schools within the district over 3 years.

Research Design

This investigation first derives four quantifiable measures of school quality based on the student- and classroom-level data set. These measures are based on student reading achievement scores, math achievement scores, yearly attendance, and behavior grades. In the main analyses, this study separately tests each measure of quality in an empirical model that relates school-level inputs to school-level outputs. Each model does so while holding constant student, teacher, classroom, and neighborhood covariates as well as principal and school budget data.

Findings

Looking across all four measures of school quality, the study finds school quality to be higher in schools with music and language programs, more disciplinary resources per student with a behavior problem and more special education resources per special education student, having a school nurse, being a smaller sized campus, and being K–5 (versus K–8). Although there is some consistency in the predictors of school quality, this research also indicates that differentiating between all four measures of quality is critical: School-level factors provide distinct outcomes depending on the measure of school quality itself.

Conclusions

By identifying those school-level factors that directly relate school quality to its programs, personnel, and environment, this study has differentiated between the particular institutional resources of urban elementary schools that can potentially influence schooling experiences, above and beyond student or classroom factors. As such, this study can be used to more effectively identify those significant institutional challenges faced by urban schools, how these challenges are actualized, and, moreover, the types and levels of resources necessary to enhance school quality.
Accounting for Higher Education Accountability: Political Origins of State Performance Funding for Higher Education
Authors: Dougherty Kevin J. , Natow Rebecca S. , Bork Rachel H. , Jones Sosanya M. , Vega Blanca E.
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

Performance funding finances public higher education institutions based on outcomes such as retention, course and degree completion, and job placement rather than inputs such as enrollments. One of the mysteries of state performance funding for higher education is that despite great interest in it for over 30 years, only half of all states have ever adopted it.

Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study

This study examines the political forces that have driven the development of performance funding in some states but not others. To do this, the authors draw on theories of policy origins such as the advocacy coalition framework, the policy entrepreneurship perspective, and policy diffusion theory.

Research Design

This study contrasts the experiences of six states that established performance funding for higher education (Florida, Illinois, Missouri, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Washington) and two that have not (California and Nevada). These states differ considerably in their performance funding programs, higher education governance arrangements, and political and socioeconomic characteristics.

Data Collection and Analysis

Our study is qualitative, drawing on documentary records and extensive interviews with higher education officials, legislators and staff, governors and advisors, business leaders, and other actors.

Findings and Results

Our study finds that many of the actors and motives cited by the prevailing perspective on the origins of performance funding did operate in the six states that have established performance funding, including state legislators (particularly Republicans), governors, and business people pursuing performance funding in the name of greater effectiveness and efficiency for higher education. However, the prevailing perspective misses the major role of state higher education coordinating boards and individual higher education institutions (particularly community colleges) that pursued performance funding to secure new funds in an era of greater tax resistance and criticism of higher education. Our findings further move beyond the prevailing explanation by examining how policy entrepreneurs mobilized support for performance funding by finding ideological common ground among different groups, identifying policies that those groups could support, and taking advantage of political openings to put performance funding onto the decision agenda of state elected officials.

Conclusions and Recommendations

This examination of the origins of performance funding policies sheds light on factors that facilitate and frustrate the development of such policies. For example, our research highlights the important role of higher education opposition and the presence of certain political structures and political values in frustrating the development of performance funding.
The Challenge of Writing Remediation: Can Composition Research Inform Higher Education Policy?
Authors: Relles Stefani R. , Tierney William G.
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

This article presents a review of research relevant to postsecondary writing remediation. The purpose of the review is to assess empirical support for policy aimed at improving the degree completion rates of students who arrive at tertiary settings under-prepared to write.

Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study

Our purpose is to bridge composition studies for a higher education policy audience. Our agenda is to offer a balanced portrait of disciplinary literature framed for organizational decision-making that can improve graduation rates. The research question that guides inquiry is: How can writing and composition research inform remediation policy to increase college-going success?

Research Design

This is a critical synthesis of prior conceptual and empirical work. We first provide a historical perspective to explicate important disciplinary issues that may be unfamiliar to a policy audience. We then present a critical synthesis of the disciplinary-based literature from two viewpoints. The first involves rhetorical frames that are related, but have significant conceptual differences. The second considers student achievement, attainment, and developmental outcomes.

Findings/Results

The review comprehensively demonstrates the seriousness and scope of policy problems perpetuated by two obstacles. The first is a lack of clarity on what constitutes college writing. The second is a dearth of assessment tools with which to measure writing aptitude. The incongruities between standards and assessment of college writing have resulted in a body of research that does not provide the kind of evidentiary support weighted in policy discussions. Both issues require attention if writing remediation policy is to be improved.

Conclusions/Recommendations

The review suggests that writing remediation policy and programs will remain accountable to the rhetorical and paradigmatic viewpoints that dominate writing assessment and that relegate underprepared students to dubious degree pathways. The negative implications of the review for college writing preparation are discussed in the context of the K–12 Common Core State Standards. Recommendations are tendered for an interdisciplinary agenda to increase the educational opportunities of underprepared writers and decrease the social inequities associated with remediation policies and programs.
The Longitudinal Effects of Kindergarten Enrollment and Relative Age on Children's Academic Achievement
Authors: Dağli ÜmmüHan YeŞİl , Jones Ithel
Published: November 2021

Background

Research findings suggest that there may be some academic benefits for those children whose kindergarten enrollment is delayed, and the risk of underachievement seems to be greater for children who are younger when they first enter kindergarten. Although kindergarten enrollment occurs naturally, certain child, family, and childcare factors will likely influence parents’ decisions concerning when to enroll their children in kindergarten. Age-of entry studies have often neglected assignment bias results from those preenrollment factors. In addition, prior research has defined children's relative age outside of the immediate environment, as opposed to conceptualizing relative age within the context where children actually learn.

Purpose

This study examined the relationship between early, on-time, or delayed kindergarten enrollment and children's mathematics and reading achievement from kindergarten through third grade. We predicted that the degree to which delayed, on-time, or early enrollment influences children's reading and mathematics achievement depends on those preenrollment factors that potentially create assignment biases and the relative age of each child to his or her classmates.

Research Design

The study used the Early Childhood Longtudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998-1999 (ECLS:K). A propensity score stratification model was used to adjust for sample assignment bias resulting from the preenrollment factors. Then, a cross-classified random effects model was applied.

Results

Results showed that certain child and family characteristics and parents’ perceptions about school readiness were related to when children first enter kindergarten. After controlling for demographic characteristics and propensity scores resulting from pre-enrollment factors, on average, at the beginning of kindergarten, children whose kindergarten enrollment was delayed had the highest scores in reading and mathematics, followed by children who entered kindergarten on time. Yet, in third grade, these differences were negligible. However, children in the delayed group who were also relatively older than their peers outperformed the other groups in third-grade mathematics.

Conclusions

The results suggest that the academic success or failure of children whose kindergarten enrollment is delayed, early, or on time depends on sociodemographic factors as well as the ages of the children in the same class (e.g., child's age relative to his or her classmates). Policy discussions about age of kindergarten entry or changing cutoff dates should include consideration of factors that influence parental decision making, as well as a child's age relative to his or her classmates.
Mapping Literacy-Rich Environments: Geospatial Perspectives on Literacy and Education
Authors: Jocson Korina M. , Thorne-Wallington Elizabeth
Published: November 2021

Background

Literacy-rich environments (LREs) reflect characteristics such as abundance of materials, daily literacy routine, and layout conducive for reading and writing. Shifting from previous conceptualizations, LREs are not confined to schools but are ubiquitous in formal and informal educational settings; they include libraries, museums, bookstores, and community-based organizations. An ecological approach is important for understanding how literacy is embedded in social life and everyday practice, particularly in relation to literacy learning and development. It recognizes the multitude of practices in various communities and accounts for institutional and social structures that shape everyday practice.

Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study

The purpose of the study is to examine LREs as part of a broader ecology of literacy and to identify the factors that may influence proximity and accessibility to LREs. An ecological approach paired with geographic information systems (GIS) can yield various types of data visualization about spatial context. St. Louis metropolitan area serves as a viable example in the study.

Research Design

The authors employed a mixed methods approach and collected data from several sources. Purposeful sampling was used to identify a number of educational and cultural institutions. GIS tools were central to the creation of maps. Using spatial analysis and data visualization, the authors paid attention to the emerging relationships between spatial patterns and represented demographics, evident on the maps as distance and clustering.

Findings/Results

Findings indicate that an uneven geography of opportunity among underserved student populations is further compounded by a fragmented ecology of literacy. The spatial arrangements of LREs suggest an uneven distribution of resources, particularly educational and cultural institutions that shape everyday life. Findings suggest that factors such as race, median household income, and transportation routes influence proximity and accessibility to LREs.

Conclusions/Recommendations

This investigation of LREs extends current conversations about literacy and various ecologies of literacy. GIS tools provided a means to examine the geospatial relationships between LREs, schools, and neighborhoods in a particular metropolitan area. Focusing on St. Louis was key not only because of the researchers’ growing knowledge of the place but also because there are good reasons to believe that St. Louis, with its uneven and fragmented geography, may exemplify similar phenomena taking place in other metropolitan areas.
Orientations for the Teaching of Writing: A Legacy of the National Writing Project
Authors: Whitney Anne Elrod , Friedrich Linda
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

Founded in 1974 by James Gray and a group of teacher colleagues who came together as the Bay Area Writing Project in California, the National Writing Project is a professional development network that has spread from one site to 197 university-based sites across the US. After such a long period of time in operation, it becomes possible to talk about the organization's legacy—not legacy as in something one leaves behind after death, for NWP surely has not died, but one's contribution, that which extends beyond its immediate tangible effects and resonates in a wider sphere.

Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study

Focusing on the broader orientations (Friedrichsen, Van Driel, & Abell, 2011) developed within the NWP network rather than solely on the transmission of specific teaching strategies, we ask specifically, “How do teachers describe the influence of NWP on their teaching?”

Research Design

This qualitative study uses interview data from NWP teacher-consultants whose involvement in NWP began between 1974 and 1994.

Conclusions/Recommendations

The legacy of the National Writing Project for the teaching of writing is a set of orientations that guide teachers in making decisions about their work and learning about and from that work. First, they clarified or revised their sense of the purposes for writing, primarily as a tool for learning and for developing ideas. Second, participants used writing processes as an organizing idea by which to scaffold students’ writing practices. Finally, participants linked their teaching of writing to their own experience as writers. These findings resonate with Friedriechsen, Van Driel, and Abell's (2011) sense of orientations in science teaching as a set of beliefs that influence practice along the dimensions of goals or purposes of writing, the nature of writing, and writing teaching and learning. If we conceptualize professional development not as merely discrete events that have a linear and concrete impact, but as a decades-long series of encounters with ideas and strategies, then orientations help the field envision how individual teachers, as well as networks such as NWP, can bring coherence to a fragmented and changing landscape. We also offer this study's design and analysis as a possible approach for long-term influence of conceptually based interventions.
The Politics of Testing When Measures “Go Public”
Authors: Henig Jeffrey R.
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

Validity issues are often discussed in technical terms, but the context changes when measures enter broad public debate, and a wider range of interests come into play.

Purpose

This article, part of a special section of TCR, considers the political dimensions of validity questions as raised by a keynote address and panel discussion originally held at Teachers College in March 2012.

Research Design

This is an analytical and reflective piece, based on the author's participation in the panel and drawing on his experience and writing on the broad issue of politics and research.

Conclusions

Technical expertise in the construction and interpretation of measurements is important in the new world of high-stakes and “evidence-based” education policy, but the political realities, when measures go public, make the exclusive reliance on such expertise problematic.
The Neglect of Virtue
Authors: Sockett Hugh
Published: November 2021

This chapter argues that schooling neglects virtue through the dominant quest for right answers. This is not only intellectually disreputable in presuming the correctness of what is taught, but it undermines the development of necessary intellectual virtues, such as open-mindedness, impartiality, and accuracy in the school curriculum, and it fails to create the intellectual and moral framework for the democratic citizen, specifically in the development of tolerance, social responsibility, and prudence. This neglect of virtue in schooling is primarily visible in the intellectual characteristics and attitudes of the college freshman.
Childhood, Schooling, and Universal Morality
Authors: Kennedy David
Published: November 2021

This chapter contrasts the aims of progressive and traditional state-mandated schooling, and argues that the former represents a new form in the history of Western education, oriented to individual, social and moral reconstruction rather than reproduction, and guided by the evolutionary possibilities inherent in human neoteny. The school is identified as a key site for the reconstruction of civic virtue in its role as a “just community” or embryonic society grounded in the principles and practices of participatory democracy.
The Emotional and Moral Basis of Rationality
Authors: Boostrom Robert
Published: November 2021

This chapter explores the basis of rationality, arguing that critical thinking tends to be taught in schools as a set of skills because of the failure to recognize that choosing to think critically depends on the prior development of stable sentiments or moral habits that nourish a rational self. Primary among these stable sentiments are the delight of recognition and the surprise of uncertainty. The creative act of imagination that sparks the delight of recognition is an invitation to begin rational enquiry. A flash of insight provides a motive for valuing the principle of truthfulness, which in turn provides a basis for a community of enquiry. While acknowledging that in the current climate of accountability-through-assessment there are good reasons for teachers to believe that the aim of nourishing the stable sentiments that support rationality is out of their reach, the chapter argues that students become independent rational reasoners only because they have lived in a community or classroom in which the surprise of uncertainty is valued more than a right answer, and the delight of recognition is more celebrated than a test score.
The Moral and Ethical Aims of the School Viewed through a Cosmopolitan Prism
Authors: Hansen David T.
Published: November 2021

In this chapter, the author proposes to imagine the aims of the school in light of a cosmopolitan philosophy of education. The first section that follows provides a summary account of what the author takes cosmopolitanism to mean. The second section frames a philosophy of education that stems from this account. The third and penultimate section sketches a conception of the school and its moral and ethical aims in light of this philosophy of education. The discussion will foreground normative ideals. Such ideals can be dangerous if they blind people to realities. They can be disappointing if failure to attain them weighs down hard on people. But if ideals are understood as sources of direction rather than as destinations, they can assist educators to sustain their course in the face of obstacles. The author's core purpose here is to highlight why a cosmopolitan orientation can inspire, encourage, and help guide educators in realizing schools for our time.
Adaptation by Design: A Context-Sensitive, Dialogic Approach to Interventions
Authors: Kirshner Ben , Polman Joseph L.
Published: November 2021

Applied researchers, whether working with the framework of design-based research or intervention science, face a similar implementation challenge: practitioners who enact their programs typically do so in varied, context-specific ways. Although this variability is often seen as a problem for those who privilege fidelity and standardization, we argue for the advantages of researcher-practitioner collaborations that encourage local adaptation and ingenuity. We develop this argument for adaptive interventions by discussing two design-based research projects, Critical Civic Inquiry (CCI) and Science Literacy through Science Journalism (SciJourn), which create opportunities for youth to develop civics and science literacy respectively. CCI and SciJourn aim to build curricula that will travel to new schools and districts, but not through standardization. This is a delicate combination: the program must be flexible enough to enable productive adaptation, without being so protean that practitioners’ implementations lack substantive commonalities. We present two cases that show how project designers have sought to distinguish between invariant principles that define the intervention and heterogeneous practices that vary across sites. The cases also show how the model has improved when teachers can adapt it to their institutional context and when teachers and researchers establish social norms that encourage dialogic interactions.
Design Research with Educational Systems: Investigating and Supporting Improvements in the Quality of Mathematics Teaching and Learning at Scale
Authors: Cobb Paul , Jackson Kara , Smith Thomas , Sorum Michael , Henrick Erin
Published: November 2021

This chapter describes a partnership with four urban districts that aimed to develop an empirically grounded theory of action for improving the quality of mathematics instruction at scale. Each year, we conducted a data collection, analysis, and feedback cycle in each district that involved documenting the district's improvement strategies, collecting and analyzing data to assess how these strategies were being implemented, reporting the findings to the district, and making recommendations about how the strategies might be revised. We distinguish between two distinct levels of analysis: providing the districts with timely evidence of how their strategies were playing out in schools, and testing and elaborating the conjectures that comprise our theory of action for instructional improvement. We clarify the crucial role that two research tools played at each level of analysis: our emerging theory of action and an interpretive framework that we used to assess the potential of each district's strategies to contribute to instructional improvement. We also illustrate that our collaboration with the four districts instantiates the basic tenets of design-based implementation research and involved conducting systematic inquiry to develop theory related to improving the quality of classroom instruction and student learning at the system level.
Situated Research Design and Methodological Choices in Formative Program Evaluation
Authors: Supovitz Jonathan
Published: November 2021

Design-based implementation research offers the opportunity to rethink the relationships between intervention, research, and situation to better attune research and evaluation to the program development process. Using a heuristic called the intervention development curve, I describe the rough trajectory that programs typically follow as they evolve, and argue that research design considerations and methodological choices are best made in consideration of where interventions are along this curve. Further, I contend that, as programs develop, situational influences play a major role in their evolution and consequently require increased attention to design and methodological considerations. By viewing research as an integral part of a program's development, by making design and methodological choices in consideration of where programs are in their development, and by considering that the situation in which programs evolve as a potential source of change in the nature of the program itself, we alter fundamental perspectives on how research can best contribute to the steady work of building robust programs for educational improvement.
Design-Based Implementation Research: An Emerging Model for Transforming the Relationship of Research and Practice
Authors: Fishman Barry J. , Penuel William R. , Allen Anna-Ruth , Cheng Britte Haugan , Sabelli Nora
Published: November 2021

This chapter presents an introduction to design-based implementation research (DBIR). We describe the need for DBIR as a research approach that challenges educational researchers and practitioners to transcend traditional research/practice barriers to facilitate the design of educational interventions that are effective, sustainable, and scalable. We examine antecedents to DBIR, including evaluation research, community-based participatory research, design-based research, and implementation research. The four core principles of DBIR are explained: (1) a focus on persistent problems of practice from multiple stakeholders’ perspectives; (2) a commitment to iterative, collaborative design; (3) a concern with developing theory and knowledge related to both classroom learning and implementation through systematic inquiry; and (4) a concern with developing capacity for sustaining change in systems. We close with an overview of the chapters contained in this NSSE Yearbook on DBIR and explain how each chapter contributes to the overall development of the DBIR approach.
Reforming Again: Now Teachers
Authors: Marx Ronald W.
Published: November 2021

Background

Educational reform responds to local and national pressures to improve educational outcomes, and reform efforts cycle as similar pressures recur. Currently, reform efforts focus on teachers, even though confidence in a host of American social institutions is dropping. One of the most widespread reforms regarding teachers is the creation of state laws and regulations that require high-stakes evaluation, often using value-added models or related approaches to measuring growth in student learning.

Purpose

This article discusses the papers in this special issue of Teachers College Record, drawing implications for teacher evaluation practice and policy, along with possible changes in the demand for teacher education and the teacher labor market.

Conclusions

The articles in this special issue of Teachers College Record address the use of emerging high-stakes teacher evaluation regulations and draw implications for policy and practice. All papers address limitations in the reliability and validity of these systems and the impacts that such shortcoming might have on teachers and students. In addition, there could be major impacts on the teacher labor market with implications for the sustained effectiveness of America's schools.
Class Size Effects on Reading Achievement Using PIRLS Data: Evidence from Greece
Authors: Konstantopoulos Spyros , Traynor Anne
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

The effects of class size on student achievement have gained considerable attention in education research and policy, especially over the last 30 years. Perhaps the best evidence about the effects of class size thus far has been produced from analyses of Project STAR data, a large-scale experiment where students and teachers were randomly assigned to smaller or larger classes within schools. Researchers have also analyzed observational data to examine the effects of class size, but the results have been mixed.

Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study

It is generally difficult to draw causal inferences about class size effects with observational data because of the omitted variables problem. This shortcoming can be overcome with instrumental variables (IV) methods that are designed to facilitate causal inferences. The present study uses IV methods to examine the effects of class size on reading achievement using data from the 2001 fourth-grade sample of the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) in Greece. We took advantage of Greece's nationwide rule about maximum class size in elementary schools to construct IV estimates of class size.

Population

PIRLS was designed to monitor children's achievement levels in fourth grade worldwide. We used reading achievement data from 2001 in Greece. The sample was a national probability sample of fourth graders. The use of appropriate weights helped us make projections to the fourth-grade student population in Greece in 2001.

Research Design

The research design was secondary analysis. We examined whether class size predicts reading achievement for fourth graders in Greece net of student, teacher/classroom, and school characteristics. We used multilevel models to capture the dependency in the data (i.e., students nested within schools). We also used instrumental variables methods to facilitate causal inferences about class size effects.

Conclusions

We investigated the effects of class size on reading achievement for fourth graders in Greece in 2001 using rich data from PIRLS. The results produced from the multilevel and the IV analyses were overall similar. Generally, the results indicated a positive association between class size and achievement. However, the association was typically statistically insignificant, especially when teacher/classroom and school variables were taken into account.
Juggling Our Mindsets: Learning from Success as a Complementary Instructional Framework in Teacher Education
Authors: Schechter Chen , Michalsky Tova
Published: November 2021

Background

Collective learning in teacher education has primarily focused on learning from problematic practices/approaches, depriving preservice teachers of learning opportunities embedded in professional successes.

Purpose

The goal of the present study was to explore the value of systematic learning from success as a complementary reflective framework during the practicum phase in teacher preparatory programs.

Research Design

We developed four distinct reflective methods to examine the effect of integrating systematic learning from problematic as well as successful experiences in preparatory programs on physics student teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge and sense of teaching efficacy.

Data Collection and Analysis

Participants were 124 second-year preservice physics teachers at four major research universities. One-way within-subjects analyses of variance (ANOVA) with repeated measures were conducted, with post-test performance as the dependent variable and with treatment (four reflective groups) as the independent variable.

Findings

Results indicated greater performance improvement on pedagogical content knowledge measures and on sense of self-efficacy measures when contemplating both problematic and successful experiences than when focusing solely on problematic experiences.

Recommendations

The current study may reinterpret the instructional framework of teacher education programs to include learning from successes too as a means of nurturing the practical wisdom necessary for teaching in dynamic school contexts.
When New Relationships Meet Old Narratives: The Journey towards Improving Parent-School Relations in a District-Community Organizing Collaboration
Authors: Ishimaru Ann M.
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

Faced with rapidly changing demographics, districts are increasingly looking to partner with parents to support and improve student learning. Community organizing holds promise for pursuing educational equity through the development of low-income parent participation and leadership, but previous research has focused primarily on the use of structural social capital theory in qualitative studies to understand school-based organizing mechanisms and impacts in traditional urban centers.

Focus of Study

The aim of this study was to examine whether district-level organizing efforts might be associated with improved parent-school relations in schools and how such efforts to build a new relationship may be enacted and negotiated at the school level within the context of a district-organizing group collaboration in a “new immigrant” destination.

Research Design

This mixed-methods sequential explanatory study used social capital and the concept of institutional scripts to quantitatively investigate the relationship between Latino parent organizing and parent-school relations across a district, then qualitatively explore the dynamics of parent-school social capital in a nested case study of one school.

Data Collection and Analysis

Using teacher-survey data from a stratified random sample of teachers in schools across the district, I fit multilevel regression models to examine whether schools with more organizing engagement had greater structural and functional parent-school social capital. I subsequently analyzed interview, observation, and document data to examine how organizing efforts sought to build positive parent-school relations at an elementary school that represented a key focal point for the district-organizing group collaboration.

Findings/Results

Schools with high organizing had greater structural social capital than schools with little or no organizing, but high organizing schools did not have greater functional social capital in the form of teacher-parent trust. The case study findings suggested that the dominant institutional scripts about the role of parents were simultaneously rewritten and reinforced even as organizing approaches worked to foster a new relationship between parents and educators.

Conclusions/Recommendations

Districts and schools that collaborate with community organizing groups can augment their social resources and expertise, particularly in reaching out to low-income Latino parents and effectively educating their children. Yet, the dominant institutional scripts in schools – about the role of parents, professional authority, and control – suggest the complexity of efforts to improve parent-school relations. Those seeking to build meaningful parent and community participation in schools would do well to move beyond traditional forms of parent involvement in the journey toward deeper engagement and collaboration.
The Influence of School Leadership on Classroom Participation: Examining Configurations of Organizational Supports
Authors: Sebastian James , Allensworth Elaine , Stevens David
Published: November 2021

Background

In this paper we call for studying school leadership and its relationship to instruction and learning through approaches that highlight the role of configurations of multiple organizational supports. A configuration-focused approach to studying leadership and other essential supports provides a valuable addition to existing tools in school organizational analysis and is particularly useful in examining equifinality and causal asymmetry. Equifinality is the idea that more than one pathway can result in a desired outcome whereas causal asymmetry suggests that the set of conditions that lead to the presence of an outcome need not be the same as the conditions that lead to its absence.

Focus of Study

This study uses a configurational approach to examine how school leadership and other organizational supports are related to an important aspect of instruction—students’ classroom participation.

Research Design

We apply fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) to administrative and survey data of high schools from a large urban school district to examine combinations of organizational supports that are associated with classroom participation.

Conclusions

The study draws attention to the utility of applying configurational approaches to investigate the influence of complex combinations of organizational supports on school outcomes. We compare this approach to more traditional methods that focus on the effects of isolated factors, controlling for each other. Our results show that leadership is associated with students’ classroom participation via multiple configurations of organizational supports. These configurations are different from the set of organizational supports that are related to an absence of classroom participation.