bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
America's Armed Teachers: An Ethical Analysis
Authors: Yacek Douglas
Published: November 2021

Background

In the aftermath of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, in 2012, state legislatures considered a flurry of legislation that would allow school districts to arm their teachers. In at least 15 states such legislation has been signed into law. Parallel to these developments, a lively and at times strident public debate on the appropriateness of arming public school teachers has emerged in the media. Although the two sides of the debate offer illuminating insights into the pitfalls and promises of arming teachers, both tend to focus almost exclusively on the empirical issue of student safety. As a result, the public debate fails to address several central ethical issues associated with arming public school teachers. This article is an effort to pay these issues their due attention.

Purpose

The purpose of this article is to examine the ethical implications of arming public school teachers. Specifically, the article analyzes three intersecting domains relevant to the ethics of armed teachers: children's rights, educational environments, and the problem of school violence. In doing so, this article seeks to make clear what is morally and educationally at stake when adopting security policies such as arming teachers. Generalizing from this analysis, the article concludes with a deliberative heuristic for educators and policy makers who would like to address school security in a humane and ethically responsible way.

Research Design

The design of this research conforms to the standards of ethical inquiry and argumentation in education. The article draws heavily on arguments and observations made by teachers, administrators, and educational commentators in the public sphere; state and federal legislation; research in social psychology, psychology, and sociology; and ethical theory.

Conclusions

The main conclusion resulting from this analysis is that the ethical grounds for arming teachers lack merit. The first half of the article argues that the empirical idiom in which the public debate is often carried out obscures important ethical issues concerning students’ perceptions of safety and the integrity of the school learning environment. In particular, I show that both sides have overlooked the ways in which armed teachers can undermine students’ developmental rights—i.e., their rights to an autonomy-promoting civic education. The second half of the article argues that armed protection transforms the role of both the teacher and student such that the conditions of democratic teaching and learning are seriously endangered. In the final sections, the argument turns to the issue of public fear surrounding school violence and concludes that efforts to prevent school violence may be counterproductive, especially when they are not coupled with larger-scale socioeconomic reforms.
Writing Our Way into the Public Sphere
Authors: Rose Mike
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

The article is a reflection of the importance of bringing educational research into the public sphere, with particular emphasis on writing for broader, nonacademic audiences.

Purpose

The purpose of the article is to argue for making educational research more accessible to a broader public and to present suggestions for graduate-level writing instruction to do so.

Research Design

This article is an analytic essay.

Conclusions/Recommendations

I conclude with some thoughts about the ways “public scholarship” benefits both public awareness and research itself and also offer several suggestions as to how the profession can encourage public scholarship.
Poverty and Student Homelessness at the Metropolitan Margins: Sensemaking among School and Community Leaders in a Growing Suburb
Authors: Pavlakis Alexandra E.
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

Historically, the suburbs have symbolized the attainment of the American dream. In this post-World War II imagery, the typical suburban residents are White middle-class homeowners. Although to some extent the suburbs have always been diverse, recently, many have undergone racial and socioeconomic changes. Alongside these shifts, the suburbs are increasingly facing rising poverty and student homelessness. However, there is a dearth of education research that examines how poverty and homelessness unfold in the suburbs.

Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study

Drawing from the suburban poverty literature, my purpose is to learn how school and community leaders in a growing suburb make sense of rising poverty and homelessness.

Setting

This study is situated in Acreville, a pseudonym for a rapidly growing Midwest suburb. Acreville is a majority-White and relatively affluent suburb that has experienced rising poverty and homelessness.

Research Design

This qualitative case study draws from wide-ranging data, including 42 interviews with community and school leaders, analysis of school board meeting minutes, observation of school board meetings, artifact collection, and longitudinal district data on poverty, homelessness, and mobility.

Findings/Results

I identified four narratives that reflect the ways in which leaders in Acreville made sense of rising poverty and homelessness. Often times, leaders used these narratives to rationalize and justify their actions or the actions of others around matters of poverty and homelessness. The narratives reflected ideologies around community identity, poverty, and race. They also played an important role in policy and molded the educational opportunities of families and students experiencing poverty and homelessness in unique ways.

Conclusions/Recommendations

Although historically the suburbs were associated with the American Dream, today, many confront rising poverty and homelessness without the needed infrastructure and supports necessary to meet families’ needs. Surprisingly, Acreville is home to a number of innovative programs, practices, and services. In some ways, Acreville could serve as a model to other communities—at least on paper. Yet, matters related to community identity, class, race, and geographic space often thwarted the full potential of these well-intentioned responses. Implications for theory and specific recommendations for scholars, school leaders, community providers, and leadership preparation are discussed.
Students, Classrooms, Teachers, and Schools: Competing Effects on Science Achievement
Authors: Ma Xin , Wu Xian , Yuan Jing , Luo Xingkai
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

Students, classrooms, teachers, and schools form hierarchical units of any schooling system that compete for, say, educational resources and sometimes blame one another for the failure to meet a certain societal goal. Little educational research exists that separates competing effects on schooling outcomes across these educational levels.

Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study

We aimed to fill in this gap in the literature by simultaneously examining in one model students, classrooms, teachers, and schools for competing effects on science achievement and identifying factors at each of these educational levels critical to science achievement.

Population/Participants/Subjects

We used data from the Program for Regional Assessment and Promotion of Basic Education Quality, a program in China. Data described learning and teaching practices of eighth-grade students and their science teachers (physics, biology, and geology) and school principals. Research Design: A four-level hierarchical linear model was developed to perform secondary analysis of science achievement data with students nested within classrooms, nested within teachers, nested within schools.

Findings/Results

Across physics, biology, and geology, the proportion of variance in science achievement attributable to students was 75%–78%, 7%–9% to classrooms, 1%–4% to teachers, and 10%–14% to schools. Across the three content areas of science, male students, younger students, and students with higher parental socioeconomic status outperformed their counterparts respectively (at the student level), and students in schools with higher student expenditure outperformed students in other schools (at the school level). Teacher effects were diverse across the three content areas of science.

Conclusions/Recommendations

The breakdown of institutional contributions to science achievement across the three content areas of science indicates a hierarchy of importance of educational units in the order of schools, classrooms, and teachers in China. From a global perspective, in China, gender differences were stronger, socioeconomic differences were weaker, age effects deviated from the international tradition, and school effects associated with student expenditure were stronger. We conclude that preparation and development are as critical for school administrators as they are for classroom teachers and that professional development organized by science content area may be more effective than pooling all science teachers together.
Learning Lessons from Instruction: Descriptive Results from an Observational Study of Urban Elementary Classrooms
Authors: Hill Heather C. , Litke Erica , Lynch Kathleen
Published: November 2021

Background

For nearly three decades, policy makers and researchers in the United States have promoted more intellectually rigorous standards for mathematics teaching and learning. Yet, to date, we have limited descriptive evidence on the extent to which reform-oriented instruction has been enacted at scale.

Purpose

The purpose of the study is to examine the prevalence of reform-aligned mathematics instructional practices in five U.S. school districts. We also seek to describe the range of instruction students experience by presenting case studies of teachers at high, medium, and low levels of reform alignment.

Participants

We draw on 1,735 video-recorded lessons from 329 elementary teachers in these five U.S. urban districts.

Research Design

We present descriptive analyses of lesson scores on a mathematics-focused classroom observation instrument. We also draw on interviews with district personnel, rater-written lesson summaries, and lesson video to develop case studies of instructional practice.

Findings

We find that teachers in our sample do use reform-aligned instructional practices, but they do so within the confines of traditional lesson formats. We also find that the implementation of these instructional practices varies in quality. Furthermore, the prevalence and strength of these practices corresponds to the coherence of district efforts at instructional reform.

Conclusions

Our findings suggest that, unlike other studies in which reform-oriented instruction rarely occurred, reform practices do appear to some degree in study classrooms. In addition, our analyses suggest that implementation of these reform practices corresponds to the strength and coherence of district efforts to change instruction.
Achieving Racial Equity in Higher Education: The Case for Mentoring Faculty of Color
Authors: Tillman Linda C.
Published: November 2021

Racial equity, providing equal opportunities and equal access to all members of an organization, is an important topic in higher education. The imperative for racial equity is particularly important for faculty of color, who often encounter challenges with respect to recruitment and hiring, promotion and tenure, and access to mentoring relationships that can help to facilitate their career success. Racial equity is directly related to several issues in higher education: increasing campus-wide racial diversity, increasing the pipeline of tenured faculty of color, and increasing the retention rates for faculty of color. Higher education administrators are important to the process of facilitating a campus culture that values, promotes, and practices racial equity.
Hidden in Plain Sight: The Black Women's Blueprint for Institutional Transformation in Higher Education
Authors: Patton Lori D. , Haynes Chayla
Published: November 2021

Many institutional leaders find themselves struggling to achieve racial equity in a sociopolitical context where hatemongering, misogyny, xenophobia, heterosexism, and racism have been normalized and minoritized students, staff, and faculty have been relegated to the margins. Few institutional leaders (e.g., presidents, provosts, chancellors, boards of trustees, deans) understand how, why, and the extent to which minoritized peoples are affected by multiple and overlapping forms of oppression. As a result, institutional change efforts to transform campuses into identity-affirming and socially just learning environments often prove ineffective because college and university leaders typically engage in single-axis identity politics to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion. In this article, the authors challenge institutional leaders to take up intersectionality as a method of engaging in lasting transformational change that promises to advance racial equity in higher education. The authors also expose the limitations of existing institutional change models by highlighting their intersectional failures and prompt readers to imagine Black women as possibility models for institutional change that transforms higher education and advances racial equity.
Leaders Changing how they Act by Changing how They Think: Applying Principles of an Anti-Racist Principal Preparation Program
Authors: Gooden Mark A. , Davis Bradley W. , Spikes Daniel D. , Hall Dottie L. , Lee Linda
Published: November 2021

Systemic racism and the impending inequities in schooling persist, making it apparent the concept of race still matters when it comes to educational leadership. In response, this chapter examines linkages between principal preparation programs, the orientations of the aspiring leaders enrolled within them, and the potential for program graduates to facilitate institutional change for racial equity. The concept of anti-racist leadership is explored to better understand how principal preparation programs can better prepare aspiring leaders to address how race, power, and individual, institutional, and cultural racism impact beliefs, structures, and outcomes for students of color. This preparation is accomplished by examining how a principal preparation program, adopting an anti-racist curriculum, further develops the racial consciousness of its predominantly White student cohort. The anti-racist curriculum made the impact of race more salient to students and had an impact on their leadership beliefs, decisions, and actions once they served in school leadership positions.
Examining the Recruitment, Placement, and Career Trajectories of Secondary Mathematics Teachers Prepared for High-Need Schools
Authors: Zahner William , Chapin Suzanne , Levine Rich , He Lingjun A. , Afonso Robert
Published: November 2021

Background

School leaders are challenged by the relatively limited supply and high turnover of qualified secondary school mathematics teachers. In response, policy makers and teacher educators have developed various pathways and incentives to recruit, train, place, and support highly qualified mathematics teachers to work in hard-to-staff schools.

Focus of Study

In this study, we investigate the recruitment, placement, and early career trajectories of 158 Grades 6–12 mathematics teachers from two preparation programs focused on staffing “high-need” schools in the same region.

Setting

The contrasting programs were both supported by the same university in the Northeast United States.

Participants & Programs

The participants were 158 secondary school (Grades 6–12) mathematics teachers. Of these, 48 were recruited and prepared through a teacher education program with financial support from the National Science Foundation-funded Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program. The other 110 school mathematics teachers were recruited and trained through the Greater Boston office of Teach For America. Both programs required two years of service in high-need schools.

Research Design

In this study, we used a comparative design. Descriptive profiles of teachers from each program were created. Then, participants’ early career trajectories were compared using logistic regression and survival analysis.

Data Collection and Analysis

We administered a longitudinal survey and created a database combining survey data and each program's administrative data.

Conclusions

Our data illustrate that the Noyce scholarship-supported pathway was generally successful in recruiting individuals with STEM majors, training them to be mathematics teachers, and placing those individuals as secondary school mathematics teachers in high-need schools. The comparison of the scholarship-pathway teachers with the secondary school mathematics teachers in the alternative-certification pathway provides a useful contrast. On the one hand, the alternatively certified secondary school mathematics teachers were less likely than the scholarship-pathway teachers to have STEM majors, and the attrition rate for the alternatively prepared teachers was higher than the attrition rate for the scholarship-supported teachers, particularly after they had completed the two-year service requirement. On the other hand, the alternative-certification program recruited a more diverse pool of potential teachers and placed these teachers in schools serving a higher proportion of low-SES students.
Understanding Teacher Pay for Performance: Flawed Assumptions and Disappointing Results
Authors: Kozlowski Karen Phelan , Lauen Douglas Lee
Published: November 2021

Background

Policy makers are increasingly adopting performance incentives to spur under-performing teachers as a way to improve teaching and student performance. However, much of the experimental research fails to find meaningful effects of performance incentives on either student achievement or teacher practice.

Purpose/Objective

Using the “principal–agent problem” as the theoretical motivation for the study, this research examines why performance incentives have not worked in American schools. The principal–agent problem suggests that in the absence of a perfect system to monitor agents, (e.g., teachers), there must be an incentive based on some measurable outcome to ensure maximal effort. The underlying assumptions about why performance incentives should work for teachers are that (1) teachers are primarily motivated by money, (2) teachers are not currently working hard enough, and (3) teachers know how to be more effective but are choosing not to put forth the necessary effort to do so. The purpose of this research is to examine whether these assumptions hold for teachers.

Research Design

We conducted qualitative analysis of interviews and focus groups with approximately 150 teachers and 20 administrators from 13 of the lowest performing school districts in North Carolina to understand how educators perceived performance incentives in the context of their own practice.

Findings

Three key themes emerged from our study. First, teachers report being motivated by service to their students instead of opportunities to maximize income. Second, teachers think they are already working as hard as they can and find little room in their practice to work harder, whatever the financial reward. Third, when teachers do improve their practice, it comes from opportunities to learn new strategies and techniques.

Conclusions

The empirical research presented in this paper suggests that performance incentive programs rest on a set of flawed theoretical assumptions. Performance incentives assume that teachers (1) are primarily motivated by financial rewards, (2) are not working as hard as they can, and (3) know how to be more effective. However, these assumptions do not comport with what teachers and administrators report about their motivation and practice. Therefore, performance incentives will likely do little to improve teacher effectiveness overall.
Helping Students or Just Taking Their Cuts? How Prioritization of State Student Aid Programs Responds to Downturns in Higher Education Appropriations
Authors: Li Amy Y. , Zumeta William
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

During downturns in state higher education support, state student aid becomes especially important for affordability because colleges react by increasing tuition, and other aid sources may not fully respond. From a policy perspective, states might be expected to protect aid support in response to fiscal stringency, yet this key relationship is understudied. We use social construction theory framing, hypothesizing that, because college students are positively construed as a “deserving” target population, policymakers prefer allocating benefits to them relative to institutional support, particularly in hard times.

Purposes

We seek to better understand the long-term shift in state higher education funding away from institutional support toward student aid, with particular interest in whether this trend accelerates during fiscal stringencies when tuition spikes increase the salience of students’ needs. Further, we aim to understand structural, political, and economic characteristics of states that prioritize student aid during downturns versus not.

Research Design

Across 50 states from 1980–2013, we identify periods of substantial downturn in higher education appropriations, observing 109 such cases. Within these state-specific downturns, we compare percentage changes in student aid funding versus institutional support, classifying budgetary responses into three priority categories: student aid, institutional support, or budgetary equity. We conduct a regression across 1,700 state-years to investigate whether the share of appropriations allocated to student aid differs in downturn versus non-downturn years and employ a random effects model to explore trends within states. We employ a logistic regression to estimate the relationship between student aid prioritization and state-level factors.

Findings

States prioritize funding for student aid in most downturns, fewer in the 1980s, but consistent at around 80% across more recent sub-periods (1990s, early 2000s, late 2000s–2010s), indicating considerable stability in this dimension of state higher education policy cultures. On average, states increase student aid's share of higher education appropriations more sharply during downturn years (2.6 percentage points higher aid share) than other years. States with more aid per student and a lower unemployment rate at downturn onset are more likely to prioritize aid. Magnitude of tuition increase during downturns was not a significant factor.

Conclusions

This study contributes to discussions about higher education affordability policies by illuminating both the relative resilience of student aid support in downturns and that the long-term increase in aid's share of higher education appropriations is more likely a reaction to tuition growth than an explicit “voucherization” of higher education finance policy.
High School Completion in Context: Student- and School-Level Factors Related to On-Time Graduation
Authors: Uretsky Mathew C.
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

There is an expansive body of research concerning high school graduation; however, most studies omit students who persist through four years of high school without earning a diploma. In addition, there is scant research exploring longer term outcomes among students whose academic trajectories do not fit within the traditional four-year model of high school graduation, including eventual graduation, postsecondary enrollment, or engagement in the workforce.

Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study

The current study addresses the substantive gaps in research regarding high school noncompletion by examining the college and workforce outcomes of persisters—defined here as students who do not formally withdraw from high school, nor earn a regular diploma, four years after entering high school as a first-time ninth grader.

Research Design

The present study accessed five years of linked, longitudinal, student-level administrative data from the Maryland Longitudinal Data System. Multilevel models assessed the relationship between student- and school-level factors with the odds of students earning a high school diploma four years after beginning their freshman year. Independent variables included student-level demographic and academic indicators and school-level concentrations of student characteristics.

Conclusions/Recommendations

This study offers a first look into the academic and employment trajectories of an understudied and high-risk group of young adults. The multilevel examination of student- and school-level factors indicated that on-time graduation for four-year persisters should be understood as a function of students within their academic environment. Overall, persisters had less favorable college and workforce outcomes when compared with students who earned a high school diploma, suggesting the need for interventions that promote college and workforce readiness across the population of persisters. The findings presented herein suggest that the phenomenon of persisting should be considered, along with dropout, as a critical element of a more informed analysis of high school graduation. Implications for research, policy, and practice are discussed.
Mapping the Inequity Implications of Help-Seeking in Online Credit-Recovery Classrooms
Authors: Darling-Aduana Jennifer , Good Annalee , Heinrich Carolyn J.
Published: November 2021

Background

Expectations that students should request assistance from teachers when needed, a set of classroom behaviors termed “help-seeking,” have the potential to contribute to inequitable access to quality learning experiences in traditional classroom settings.

Purpose

This study extends current literature by mapping the nature of help-seeking interactions between students and teachers in online high school credit-recovery classrooms, where the implications of help-seeking have yet to be examined systemically.

Research Design

Drawing on qualitative and quantitative analysis of data collected from the 2014–2015 through 2016–2017 school years in a large, urban school district serving predominantly low-income student of color, we identify patterns in these interactions and their implications for disparities in academic opportunities.

Findings

We find that few of the high school students enrolled in online credit-recovery courses had access to consistent, constructive interactions in instructional spaces, even though most students required instructor support to obtain full access to the learning environment. Our observations point to disparate access to quality educational experiences in online credit-recovery labs that mirror those documented by others in traditional classroom settings.

Conclusions

Based on these findings, we identify strategies to support more equitable learning in online courses including explicit expectations and proactive assistance to students as well as the use of real-time data by teachers, lower student-teacher ratios, and assigning teachers certified in course subjects to improve educational quality.
Supporting Early Career Alternatively Certified Teachers: Evidence from the Beginning Teacher Longitudinal Survey
Authors: Redding Christopher , Smith Thomas M.
Published: November 2021

Background

Alternatively certified (AC) teachers have generally been found to turn over at higher rates than traditionally certified (TC) teachers. These higher turnover rates are generally attributed to lower levels of preparedness and less of a commitment to remain in teaching than TC teachers, both of which may be compounded by AC teachers’ increased likelihood of beginning their career in schools that enroll traditionally underserved students.

Purpose

Our goal is to better understand the early career professional learning opportunities of AC teachers. We consider the ways in which in-service organizational supports such as mentoring, collaboration with one's peers, and professional development compensate for alternative certification teachers’ reduced levels of pre-service training.

Research Design

We conduct a secondary analysis of data from the Beginning Teacher Longitudinal Survey (BTLS). BTLS is a nationally representative survey of the cohort of new teachers who began their career in the 2007–2008 school year. Teachers were surveyed annually for their first five years in the teaching profession. We draw on data regarding teachers’ entry pathway, feelings of preparedness, organizational supports, and turnover (i.e., leaving teaching or moving schools).

Data Analysis

We first describe differences in self-reported preparedness, commitment to remain in teaching, and use of in-service organizational supports across beginning teachers across different entry pathways. We then conduct discrete time survival analysis to (1) understand differences in the timing of turnover rates across entry pathways and (2) examine the role induction supports play in improving AC teacher retention.

Findings

We show that AC teachers enter teaching feeling less prepared and, with the exception of mentoring, receive no additional support in their first year of teaching compared to TC teachers. Although we observe a 10-percentage point gap in the turnover between early career AC and TC teachers is, this gap is, in large part, explained by observable teacher and school characteristics. We show some evidence that AC teachers differentially benefit from extra classroom assistance, quality of mentor feedback, and content professional development, which were all associated with lower odds of leaving teaching.

Conclusions

Our findings suggest that schools and districts could do more to target induction supports for novice AC teachers. Given that AC teachers receive most of their training once they begin teaching, alternative certification programs, schools, and districts can customize supports for AC teachers to fit the needs of their local context.
Tracing States’ Messages About Common Core Instruction: An Analysis of English/ Language Arts and Close Reading Resources
Authors: Hodge Emily M. , Benko Susanna L. , Salloum Serena J.
Published: November 2021

Background

A common set of standards enables the sharing of curricular and professional development resources across state lines. In a previous study of state-provided standards resources for English/language arts, we identified the number of state educational agencies linking to different organizations’ resources. We then identified the 10 most influential organizations; in other words, the organizations to which the highest number of states had linked as resource sponsors. However, little is known about the content of the resources from the most influential organizations.

Purpose

The first goal of this study was to describe the state-provided resources sponsored by the 10 most influential organizations, including the standards and topics addressed. The second goal was to identify the instructional messages about close reading present in those resources, as well as how consistent those messages were across resources and across organizations.

Research Design

This study used qualitative coding and descriptive analyses to identify standards and topics included in 177 individual resources in the form of articles, curriculum guidelines, instructional aids, professional development, and student work. We utilized social network analysis to visualize the connections between topics the resources addressed and their organizational sponsors. Then, we used qualitative coding and social network analysis to identify and visualize messages about close reading from a smaller set of resources.

Conclusions

This study finds that resources emphasized standards focused on reading closely and academic vocabulary. Resources focused most heavily on the topics of reading informational text, complex text and academic language, and reading literature; topics that were less represented included special student populations, curricular design, and narrative writing. This study also finds that the resources’ positions on how teachers should enact close reading diverged around the extent to which historical or background knowledge ought to be allowed to inform students’ reading. This work adds to a small but growing body of research applying social network analysis to visualize the relationships between organizations and ideas. We recommend that teachers, as well as state and district leaders, who are searching for helpful resources turn to literacy organizations like the National Council of Teachers of English and the International Literacy Association as organizations that are concerned with the profession as a whole rather than with one particular standards policy and may therefore present a broader and more integrated view of ELA instruction.
Seeing through Serpent and Eagle Eyes: Teachers as Handlers of Memories
Authors: Cammarano Cristina , Stutelberg Erin
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

This paper is part of the special issue “Reimagining Research and Practice at the Crossroads of Philosophy, Teaching, and Teacher Education.” We propose that there is a vital connection in teaching between curriculum and memories that should be fostered in our classrooms. Because memories are alive and bring meaning to our lives, they need to be handled with care. Unfortunately, however, much of teaching risks to simply embalm what is already dead. We examine how the living work of teachers might reposition curriculum as a body of dynamic memories: a constellation of struggles and belongings, failures and accomplishments. The role of the teacher, in this context, is as a handler of those memories.

Research Design

Our approach derives from sustained interaction as we have sought to bring our scholarly backgrounds in philosophy of education and English teacher education, respectively, into dynamic contact. The methodology of the inquiry is mixed in that it combines teacher narratives (our own) with critical conceptual analysis, collective memory work, and phenomenology. Drawing on a bibliography of texts organized collaboratively by the larger research group, our main authors of reference are Freire, Gramsci, Anzaldua, Style, and Britzman. We also feature several fine-grained narratives that illuminate what we mean by “handlers of memory” in the educational setting.

Conclusions/Recommendations

Our shared philosophizing in this paper is a response to the concern that classroom teaching contributes to the deadening of curriculum as a source of meaning and an avenue for students and teachers to learn about themselves. In response, we propose the image of teachers as handlers of memory who work to cultivate and keep memories alive and central to learning. We recommend that teachers explore collective memory work (Haug, 1999) and reflective teaching narratives (Furman, 2015) as ways to get a handle on their own powerful memories of teaching.
Animating Discipline Disparities through Debilitating Practices: Girls of Color and Inequitable Classroom Interactions
Authors: Annamma Subini Ancy , Handy Tamara , Miller Amanda L. , Jackson Elizabeth
Published: November 2021

Context

Girls of Color are overrepresented in school disciplinary actions based on subjectively judged, minor infractions. Studies have consistently shown that this exclusionary discipline has long-lasting impact on Girls of Color and their educational outcomes, including increased risk for pushout and involvement in the criminal legal system.

Focus of Study

We sought to uncover the processes that animate the statistics of overrepre-sentation of Girls of Color in disciplinary actions. Said differently, we sought to understand where, how, and why Girls of Color were being disciplined in schools. Using a Disability Critical Race Theory (DisCrit) lens and centering the voices of Girls’ of Color, this empirical study was guided by the question, What mechanisms propel and dispel disciplinary inequities for Girls of Color?

Research Design

The qualitative research took place in a suburban school district in the Midwestern United States marked by increasing racial, cultural, and linguistic diversity. This was part of a larger two-year study that centered the voices of more than 50 Girls of Color, their families (11), and their teachers (11), exploring understandings of and experiences with school discipline disparities for Girls of Color. Data sources for the full project included interviews with Girls of Color (32), families (10), and teachers (8); focus groups (Girls of Color = 17; families = 3; teachers = 3); classroom and district event observations, Education Journey Mapping (21); and a Cartographer's Clinic. Data for this study focus on the interviews and focus groups with Girls of Color, working to center them as knowledge generators.

Conclusions/Recommendations

Our analysis revealed the ways in which discipline disparities were animated by inequitable academic and behavioral responses of teachers to classroom interactions, which we name debilitating practices. Further, Girls of Color embodied repositioning as ways of maintaining their integrity and individuality when experiencing academic and behavioral injustices. We conclude with major implications for school personnel: (a) academically, educators must reflect on how ability is distributed and withheld in the classroom along racialized and gendered lines, and (b) behaviorally, positive behavior supports should be imagined and implemented through a race and gender conscious lens. Though we focus on classroom interactions, we also understand that public schools, schools of education, and society all have a role to play in dismantling the school–prison nexus. However, classroom interactions continue to be identified as the source of disciplinary disparities in both quantitative and qualitative studies. Consequently, teachers have an opportunity to change their classroom practices to academically and behaviorally support Girls of Color.
Examining the Virtual Diffusion of Educational Resources across Teachers’ Social Networks over Time
Authors: Liu Yuqing , Torphy Kaitlin T. , Hu Sihua , Tang Jiliang , Chen Zixi
Published: November 2021

Context

Individuals’ curation within social media provides a window into their sensemaking and conceptions of what is worth knowing. Within education, a majority of teachers use social media for professional purposes to access and share instructional resources.

Purpose

This work examines Pinterest.com and the intersection of influence across virtual and physical spheres as teachers choose and curate instructional resources. Setting: The study is conducted on 19 schools over five districts in three Midwestern states.

Participants

The sample consists of 108 elementary teachers in total: 34 early career teachers and 74 colleagues.

Research Design

This is a longitudinal observational study designed to repeatedly measure and track teachers’ online resource-seeking behavior over 52 weeks in the 2015–2016 school year.

Data Collection and Analysis

Resource curation data were collected for each teacher, as well as early career teachers’ egocentric school network and online network data. Using generalized linear growth modeling approach to examine relationships between teachers’ curation of resources, we identify differences in the impacts of teachers’ social networks across physical and virtual space.

Findings

Results indicate that teachers following one another within Pinterest have a higher rate of curating a resource, but Pinterest seems to act as a bridge between those less connected teachers within a school, with an even greater rate of curation for those teachers who do not closely work together. This seems to indicate that within the cloud of social media, Pinterest may be a conduit for information and resource distribution across schools.

Conclusion

As schools continue to seek improvement potential, leveraging social media connections and social capital within and outside the local context may prove useful for the flow of expertise and resources.
Teaching Synchronous-Service Teachers: Traditional Teacher Education at a Crossroads
Authors: Thomas Matthew A. M. , Lefebvre Elisabeth E.
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

Teachers enrolled in alternative training and licensure programs may have experiences that lie outside what is considered typical for both preservice teachers and in-service teachers. This article explores the experiences of a growing cadre of “synchronous-service teachers”—including, but not limited to, Teach For America (TFA) corps members— who are teaching full time while also completing coursework in teacher preparation programs.

Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of the Study

This study considers how synchronous-service teachers perceived the education and training they received while enrolled in traditional teacher education coursework, as well as how they interpreted their broader interactions with the teaching profession and teacher education writ large.

Research Setting and Participants

This research was conducted in the Midwestern United States in a major metropolitan area with a TFA regional presence. Thirty-six corps members who completed coursework at a traditional teacher education institution opted to participate in this study. They were primarily White and female, and most entered TFA immediately following completion of their undergraduate degrees. The majority had little previous exposure to the education discipline.

Research Design

The thirty-six corps members were interviewed about their experiences while participating in TFA, teaching at their schools, and, especially pertinent to this article, learning at a partner university where TFA corps members in the region completed teacher education coursework.

Findings/Results

The findings suggest that corps members held primarily negative views about the teacher education coursework they experienced. They complained that the teacher education programming failed to provide immediately applicable insights and lacked rigor and relevance. Yet they also maintained paradoxical expectations about what teacher education, particularly for synchronous-service teachers, should or should not entail.

Conclusions/Recommendations

The article concludes by suggesting the potential utility of synchronous-service teachers as a conceptual category, noting that these teachers should be considered distinct from others. As such, providing synchronous-service teachers with teacher education programming designed for either preservice or in-service teachers may lead to missed opportunities in terms of professional learning and exacerbate negative sentiments about teacher education. The experiences and opinions of synchronous-service teachers can have considerable significance, particularly when these teachers go on to affect education leadership and policy. In sum, teacher education institutions are at a critical crossroads concerning how and whether to proceed with similar partnerships, especially as alternative recruitment and training programs continue to grow in the United States and beyond.
Research and Other Forms of Rhetoric in Media Coverage of Student Achievement
Authors: Lash Cristina L. , Frye Amanda , Carter Prudence L.
Published: November 2021

Background

Media play an important role in shaping public perceptions of education policies, yet few studies have explored how research evidence is included in media coverage of education reforms.

Purpose

In this study, we investigate how research appears in the public discourse of student achievement in the context of the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (2011-2013). Specifically, we analyze the school reforms and strategies discussed by mainstream media outlets across a range of political perspectives and the extent that journalists used research evidence in their coverage of these issues.

Research Design

We conducted a content analysis of nearly 300 documents from ten mass media outlets to determine the extent of research use in coverage of student achievement between 2011 and 2013. We then conducted a discourse analysis of three focal publications— Townhall, The Washington Post, and The New York Times —to analyze the different rhetorical strategies journalists used to incorporate research and characterize key educational actors (teachers, politicians, and students).

Findings

The most prominent media discussions emphasized teacher quality for the improvement of student achievement, where “student achievement” was defined synonymously with “standardized test scores.” However, reporting on teacher quality incorporated little education research, while less-discussed reforms (such as increasing student learning time and IB programs) received significantly more evidentiary support.

Conclusions/Recommendations

We conclude that media and social science research operate within “social fields” or institutional settings with different values and norms. Thus, media coverage of student achievement uses emotional forms of rhetoric to present mainstream education reforms (such as changes to teacher evaluations) and uses social science research to report on less familiar initiatives. Our recommendations include several ways that journalists and education scholars can collaborate and exchange knowledge to more effectively inform the public of the evidence basis of education reforms.
Dilemmas of Leadership and Capacity Building in a Research–Practice Partnership
Authors: Vedder-Weiss Dana , Lefstein Adam , Segal Aliza , Pollak Itay
Published: November 2021

Background

Research–practice partnerships (RPPs) are proliferating in education, generating increasing interest and posing many challenges. In this study, we shed light on the challenge of supporting practitioners> leadership and building capacity in an RPP. In the RPP literature, practitioner leadership is often highlighted as both a way to improve design development and enactment and as imperative for capacity building and sustainability. However, cultivating leadership also creates challenges which have not yet been adequately explored.

Purpose

We explore these challenges and related dilemmas in a large-scale Israeli RPP designed to cultivate teacher leadership and build district capacity. We investigate how local actors asserted their leadership, the resources they drew upon, and the dilemmas this posed for us as researchers in an RPP. We critically reflect on how we addressed these dilemmas, and the consequences and implications of our courses of action.

Setting

This study explores our partnership with two large Israeli districts, as part of a state-wide professional development reform supported by the Ministry of Education and a philanthropic foundation. The partnership aims to support teachers> collaborative, reflective inquiry on teaching and learning, in weekly in-school meetings facilitated by in-school leading teacher. The partnership began six years ago and currently includes 158 schools (458 leading teachers).

Research Design

We use linguistic ethnographic methods to analyze leadership assertion in three focal cases, representing three different leadership roles, at different levels of the system: (1) a leading teacher demonstrating creative non-compliance in the team meetings she facilitated, (2) a coach exercising her voice and authority in her professional development workshops, (3) and a district manager independently shaping structures.

Data Collection

Data were collected during the first three years of the RPP, including (participant) observations, audio-recordings, and field notes of in-school meetings, professional development workshops, interviews, and informal conversations.

Findings and Conclusions

The analysis shows that leadership assertion played an important role in constructing actors’ identities as competent leaders but posed dilemmas for us, such as how to acknowledge leaders> expertise while also maintaining program integrity. The case studies underscore the difficulties involved in managing a partnership in a large-scale educational intervention and the challenges to maintaining productive dialogue with different partners. The paper advances our understanding of the complexities involved in supporting leadership at different levels of the system, in day-to-day interaction, and at multiple micro and macro contexts in which it unfolds, in particular in a large-scale RPP.