bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Caught in a Vise: The Challenges Facing Teacher Preparation in an Era of Accountability
Authors: Ginsberg Rick , Kingston Neal 
Published: November 2021

Background Despite polling data that suggests that teachers are well respected by the general public, criticism of teacher preparation by various organizations and interest groups is common, often highlighting the perceived need for increasing their rigor and performance. A number of studies and reports have critiqued teacher preparation, and high-profile leaders like Secretary of Education Arne Duncan have called for substantive changes. At the same time, the field of teacher preparation has been embracing change with the idea of accountability based on student performance. Indeed, recently released evidence suggests that in the area of clinical preparation, education programs require many hours of field placement experiences, countering one of the key criticisms of the preparation programs. Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine the field of teacher preparation in the current era of accountability and testing. After a brief overview of the current context facing teacher preparation, the issue of outcome measures for varying professions is explored by comparing accreditation outcome measures utilized in selected professions. Then, the strengths and weaknesses of currently emerging assessment models are explored. Finally, a discussion of potential ways to assess teacher preparation program performance with an array of sources and measures is presented. Research Design The study is a combination of a secondary analysis and analytic essay. The use of outcomes associated with 10 professions was examined by reviewing accreditation standards and documentation from published reports available on websites for the specific measures used to assess student success and program outcomes. As a means of validating findings, feedback was obtained from accreditation coordinators and/or other leaders in each profession. The analysis of currently emerging assessment models for teacher preparation was based upon a review of literature on value added and other similar assessments. Conclusions/Recommendations The review of professions found that all are struggling with better means for assessing program outcomes, with a great deal of similarity in the processes currently in place used across fields. Teacher education was found to include more of the different ways for assessing outcomes than any other profession. Significant concerns with currently promoted value-added models for assessing outcomes of teacher preparation were identified, with the use of multiple measures of evidence suggested as the best means for moving forward. We argue that teacher preparation programs are caught in a vise—with an appreciation and desire among those in the field for greater accountability while being squeezed by a sense that the approaches being suggested are prone to error and misuse.
Putting Growth and Value-Added Models on the Map: A National Overview
Authors: Collins Clarin , Amrein-Beardsley Audrey 
Published: November 2021

Background Within the last few years, the focus on educational accountability has shifted from holding students responsible for their own performance to holding those shown to impact student performance responsible—students’ teachers. Encouraged and financially incentivized by federal programs, states are becoming ever more reliant on statistical models used to measure students’ growth or value added and are attributing such growth (or decline) to students’ teachers of record. As states continue to join the growth and value-added model movement, it is difficult to find inclusive resources documenting the types of models used and plans for each state. Objective To capture state initiatives in this area, researchers collected data from all 50 states and the District of Columbia to provide others with an inclusive national growth and value-added model overview. Data yielded include information about the types of growth or value-added models used in each state, the legislature behind each state's reform efforts, the standardized tests used for growth or value-added calculations, and the strengths and weaknesses of each state's models as described by state personnel. Method This article synthesizes qualitative and quantitative themes as identified from data collected via multiple phone interviews and emails with state department of education personnel in charge of their own state's initiatives in this area, as well as state websites. These data provide the most inclusive and up-to-date resource on national growth and value-added data usage, noting however that this is changing rapidly across the nation, given adjustments in policies, pieces of legislation, and the like. Conclusions Findings from this study provide a one-stop resource on what each state has in place or in development regarding growth or value-added model use as a key component of its state-based teacher evaluation systems. Despite widespread use, however, not one state has yet articulated a plan for formative data use by teachers. Federal and state leaders seem to assume that implementing growth and value-added models leads to simultaneous data use by teachers. In addition, state representatives expressed concern that the current emphasis on growth and value-added models could be applied to only math and English/language arts teachers with state standardized assessments (approximately 30% of all teachers). While some believe the implementation of the Common Core State Standards and its associated tests will help to alleviate such issues with fairness, more research is needed surrounding (the lack of) fairness and formative use associated with growth and value-added models.
Proposing a Knowledge Base for Teaching Academic Content to English Language Learners: Disciplinary Linguistic Knowledge
Authors: Turkan Sultan , De Oliveira Luciana C. , Lee Okhee , Phelps Geoffrey 
Published: November 2021

Background/Context The current research on teacher knowledge and teacher accountability falls short on information about what teacher knowledge base could guide preparation and accountability of the mainstream teachers for meeting the academic needs of ELLs. Most recently, research on specialized knowledge for teaching has offered ways to understand the tasks of teaching that constitute the work of teaching a subject and a set of content-based problems. However, in this paper, we have argued that this domain does not address whether or not teaching academic content to English language learners (ELLs) involves any specialized knowledge for teaching. We sought to understand what specialized knowledge base for teaching, if any, is included in the work of teaching content to special student populations such as ELLs. In this exploration, we drew on the main perspective from literature about Systemic Functional Linguistics and academic language. Purpose Grounding the theoretical argument based on these two areas of research, we propose the teachers’ use of Disciplinary Linguistic Knowledge (DLK) for academic discourse of a discipline or content area. DLK is proposed as the knowledge base needed to facilitate ELLs’ understanding of oral and written discourse within a discipline and their accurate use of language to engage them in the disciplinary discourse. Findings/Results DLK refers to teachers’ knowledge of a particular disciplinary discourse and involves knowledge for (a) identifying linguistic features of the disciplinary discourse and (b) modeling for ELLs how to communicate meaning in the discipline and engaging them in using the language of the discipline orally or in writing. We offer examples illustrating how teachers’ knowledge of Disciplinary Linguistic Knowledge might manifest itself when teachers engage in the work of teaching content to ELLs. Conclusions/Recommendations The use of DLK as a specialized knowledge base for teaching content to ELLs might help to further specify the role of teachers’ knowledge of students within the larger research area of content knowledge for teaching. Also, operationalizing DLK as an assessment construct could address the need for next generation teacher assessments that aim to measure teachers’ knowledge base for teaching content to ELLs.
School, Activism and Politics at the Movies: Educator Reactions to the Film Waiting for “Superman”
Authors: Powell Christy Wessel 
Published: November 2021

Context The documentary film about U.S. education reform, Waiting for “Superman,” was met with acclaim and controversy when released to theaters in 2010, and again when launching its grassroots “host a screening” campaign in 2011. The campaign ran concurrent with 2011 state legislative sessions, during which several states (e.g., Ohio, Indiana, New Jersey, and Wisconsin) voted on education reform bills regarding teacher merit pay, probationary teacher contracts, school vouchers, changes to the school funding formula, charter school funding, and limiting teachers’ (and public workers’) collective bargaining rights—all issues touched on in the film. Purpose To shed light on the relationship between popular media, public opinion, and social action regarding education, I examine responses to Waiting for “Superman” across different viewer demographics and relate responses to educational policy stances. The following research questions are considered: 1. Why did people watch Waiting for “Superman” ? 2. How did different education stakeholders (preservice teachers, current teachers, academics, community members, etc.) react to the film? Were some groups more likely to accept, negotiate with, or oppose the film's message? 3. What role, if any, did the film play in viewers’ stances on education reform or intention to take social action in the education reform movement? Participants Participants include 168 self-selected audience members attending free public film screenings at a midwestern university. Research Design Mixed methods research design compares audiences’ descriptive statistics alongside open-ended survey responses and interview data. Results Viewers were majority young and female. Most attended because they were interested in the topic, wanted to learn more, or came with a friend. Audience responses were complex and nuanced, i.e., 38% volunteered positive reactions to the film and 30% criticized it in some way (not mutually exclusive). Emotional reactions were common (38%). Audience members tended to respond to the film based on their direct prior experience (or lack thereof) with the U.S. public education system. The majority of current teachers in the audience chose not to participate in the study, perhaps because of the contentious political climate. Fifteen percent of audience members were “inspired” to act after viewing, and half of those were preservice teachers, but none were current teachers. Conclusions In vilifying teachers’ unions, thereby marginalizing some great teachers, the film's producers may have missed the chance to effect lasting change in the education system. While potentially polarizing, popular film may be an effective way to engage preservice teachers in complex education topics. Contextualizing discussion with a multiperspective panel afterward is recommended.
Predictors of the Instructional Strategies that Elementary School Teachers Use with English Language Learners
Authors: Rader-Brown Lucy , Howley Aimee 
Published: November 2021

Background/Context According to demographers, the number of English language learners (ELLs) in U.S schools has been increasing and is likely to continue to increase in coming years. For various reasons relating to language acquisition, cultural adjustment, and persistent discrimination, these students tend to experience academic difficulties. Improvement in their performance depends on teachers’ use of effective instructional strategies, but few surveys have investigated the extent to which teachers use such strategies or the conditions that encourage them to do so. Focus of Study This study addressed the following research questions: (a) To what extent do elementary content-area teachers use various research-based practices for teaching ELLs? (b) In consideration of appropriate statistical controls, to what extent are elementary content-area teachers’ professional training, attitudes, bilingualism, and their schools’ characteristics, singly and in combination, associated with their reported use of a set of research-based strategies for teaching English language learners? Participants Participants were a random sample of Ohio elementary school teachers (n = 419) in schools in the highest quartile of ELL enrollment. Research Design The current study surveyed elementary teachers in Ohio and then used multiple regression methods to identify significant predictors of teachers’ use of research-based strategies with ELLs. Findings Findings showed that teachers reported frequent use of research-based strategies, but their preference was for strategies recommended for all learners. They were less likely to use strategies specifically intended for ELLs. In addition, regression results showed that teachers’ attitudes and the percentage of ELLs in their schools were significant predictors of teachers’ use of research-based strategies—a positive predictor in the first instance and a negative predictor in the second. Ancillary analyses revealed that teachers’ years of experience and bilingualism, as well as the schools’ resources, were significant predictors of teachers’ attitudes toward ELLs, with more experienced teachers exhibiting more negative attitudes, and bilingual teachers and those in higher resource schools exhibiting more positive attitudes. Conclusions/Recommendations Findings point to the likelihood that continued efforts to prepare elementary school teachers to work with ELLs will entail the provision of additional resources to schools with large and increasing ELL populations. In addition, efforts to increase teachers’ use of research-based strategies with ELLs will involve professional preparation powerful enough to change attitudes. Instruction in a second language appears to be an approach that bears consideration.
Heritage, History, and Identity
Authors: Levy Sara A. 
Published: November 2021

Background/Context Prior research indicates that students’ ethnic, religious, national, and racial identities often impact their interest in, emotional connection to, and knowledge about histories specific to those groups with which they identify. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study (a) What meaning do students attach to events with which they have a heritage connection? (b) How do students’ identities impact their connection to, interest in, and understanding of events with which they have a heritage connection? Population/Participants/Subjects This study focuses on three groups of secondary students (Hmong, Chinese, and Jewish) that studied a seminal event (respectively, the Vietnam War, the Cultural Revolution, and the Holocaust) with which they may be considered to have a heritage connection. Therefore, the students could not have been involved in the event itself, but their parents, grandparents, other family members, or other members of an affinity group (racial, ethnic, national, or religious) to which they belong were involved. Research Design This qualitative study uses a multiple-case study design to interrogate the ways in which students (n=17) identify with heritage histories. Findings/Results Findings reveal that students who have heard about family members’ experiences during these events identify strongly with the events prior to learning about them in school. However, school knowledge was a powerful tool that enabled the students to create more lasting connections to the past. Conclusions/Recommendations This study revealed that students connect with and understand heritage histories in multiple ways. Students whose families share personal stories about their own experiences during a specific time seem to have strong connections to heritage histories. However, some of their peers may have a strong connection to their heritage without access to the narratives associated with that heritage, leading to feelings of embarrassment or confusion. Other students’ connections to heritage histories may be enhanced by the inclusion of the heritage history in the official knowledge of the classroom, which may also lead them to develop a stronger sense of identification with more multidimensional historical actors.
The First Campaign and the Paradoxical Transformation of Fundraising in American Higher Education, 1915–1925
Authors: Kimball Bruce A. 
Published: November 2021

Background Comprehensive, multi-year mass fundraising campaigns in American higher education began with the Harvard Endowment Fund (HEF) drive, which extended from 1915 to 1925. Notwithstanding this prominence, the archival records of the campaign have never been studied closely, and in the absence of archival research, scholars have misunderstood the HEF campaign. According to the received and presentist view, the university president initiated the HEF campaign, which professional consultants then directed to a swift and successful conclusion, drawing on their expertise. Focus of study The fundamental purpose was to learn from the archives what actually happened in this pathbreaking campaign. The research soon revealed that the unpaid organizers had to negotiate virtually all aspects of this novel venture among competing and conflicting groups of alumni, units of the university, and university administrators, including the president. The purpose then became to understand the divergent values and interests of the participants and how those perspectives contributed to the new goals, strategies, tactics, and practices introduced by the campaign. Setting The research was conducted primarily in the Harvard University Archives and the Special Collections of Harvard Business School library. Research Design The archival records comprise some fifty three boxes containing about forty thousand unindexed sheets of letters, memos, drafts, minutes, accounts, pamphlets, and other materials reposited in the Harvard University Archives. A chronological and topical examination of these materials over the past five years provides the research for this essay, which also draws upon a review of related collections in the Harvard University Archives and the Special Collections of Harvard Business School library. Conclusions The research led to several surprising conclusions: that the landmark campaign failed to meet its goal, that professional consultants did not organize or run the campaign but emerged from it, that now long-standing features of university fundraising resulted less from deliberate planning than from contentious negotiations among conflicting groups, that the campaign prompted the university administration to centralize and control alumni affairs and development efforts for the first time, and, above all, that a central ideological tension arose between mass fundraising and the traditional approach of discretely soliciting wealthy donors. The unintended and unofficial outcome was to establish today's ubiquitous episodic pattern of continuous fundraising, in which mass comprehensive campaigns alternate with discrete solicitations of wealthy donors, whose dominant roles have never changed.
Teachers’ Autonomy-Relevant Practices within an Inquiry-Based Science Curricular Context: Extending the Range of Academically Significant Autonomy-Supportive Practices
Authors: Rogat Toni Kempler , Witham Shelly Anne , Chinn Clark 
Published: November 2021

Background Research in traditional classrooms and laboratories has indicated that autonomy support by teachers is infrequent and focused on the narrow provision of choice. One explanation for the limited autonomy support in classrooms is that typical school resources and tasks limit the availability of experiences that are interesting, relevant, with meaningful choice. Accordingly, it is critical to extend observation to contexts that enhance the likelihood of detecting significant autonomy support. In this way, it will be possible to (a) determine whether existing conceptualizations map onto behaviors in real classrooms and (b) enrich our understanding of the variety of ways in which teachers provide autonomy when the curriculum is designed not to constrain it but to expand it. Objective In the current study, we extend and develop conceptualizations of autonomy support based on our observations within an inquiry context that offers a broad range of forms of autonomy, thus gaining access to a more elaborated understanding of how real teachers offer this support. We elaborate on and richly describe how classroom teachers support autonomy in ways that extend the range of current conceptualizations, with implications for lending validity to the construct and providing concrete description for practitioners. Research Design Qualitative analyses were conducted based on videotaped observations of four 7th-grade science teachers, each enacting five inquiry-based science lessons designed to encourage scientific reasoning. We developed a coding protocol grounded in theoretical conceptualizations organized around five autonomy-support dimensions (i.e., procedural and organizational support, rationale and relevance, responsiveness, feedback, cognitive autonomy support). We were exploratory in our use of content analysis in ways that evolved our initial codes, given our aim to enrich and extend available characterizations of autonomy-supportive practice to incorporate new conceptualizations of higher quality practice. Conclusions Observed enactments provide support for modifying our conceptualizations of the upper end points of autonomy support to include more academically significant forms as well as for making new distinctions in forms of autonomy support. This high quality and multifaceted enactment was possible because practice was embedded within an inquiry-based curriculum context that expanded opportunities for student agency. Implications for supporting educational leaders in facilitating teacher practice using this thick description and set of exemplars are discussed.