bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
How Important is Where you Start? Early Mathematics Knowledge and Later School Success
Authors: Claessens Amy , Engel Mimi 
Published: November 2021

Background Children's early skills are essential for their later success in school. Recent evidence highlights the importance of early mathematics, relative to reading and socioemotional skills, for elementary school achievement. Key advocacy groups for both early childhood and mathematics education have issued position statements on the importance of early mathematics, arguing that mathematics education for 3- to 6- year-olds is essential to promoting future mathematics achievement. Focus of Study Despite the fact that advocates and researchers are focusing on early math skills, we are still learning about the mathematics knowledge and skills young children typically have and how these early skills affect later academic achievement and school success. This study aims to address these gaps in the extant research by investigating how early math skills predict later school success. We explore how early math skills relate to achievement, from kindergarten through eighth grade, across reading, math, and science test score outcomes, as well as grade retention and teacher-reported academic achievement. We also explore whether there is variation in the relationship between early math skills and later outcomes for children who enter school with limited math skills. Research Design We conduct secondary analysis with data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study–Kindergarten Cohort, a longitudinal, nationally representative sample of children who were in kindergarten in 1998–1999 and were followed through eighth grade. Results We find that early math skills predict reading, math, and science achievement as well as grade retention from kindergarten through eighth grade. Results show that kindergarten math skills in pattern recognition, measurement, and advanced number are most predictive of eighth-grade outcomes overall and for subgroups including students who enter school with low math skills. The importance of these math skills for subsequent achievement increases or is maintained over time. Conclusions The results reported here have implications for education policy regarding mathematics instruction in the earliest years of schooling. The fact that early mathematics knowledge and skills are the most important predictors not only for later math achievement but also for achievement in other content areas and grade retention supports a greater emphasis on mathematics than is currently the case in many kindergarten classrooms. It also suggest the possibility that focusing more on advanced number, pattern recognition, and measurement might develop skills that will benefit students in the later years of schooling.
Alternative Teacher Certification and the New Professionalism: The Pre-service Preparation of Mathematics Teachers in the New York City Teaching Fellows Program
Authors: Brantlinger Andrew , Smith Beverly 
Published: November 2021

Background/Context For more than a decade, large alternative teacher certification programs (ATCP) such as the New York City Teaching Fellows (NYCTF) have provided qualified applicants with fast-track or “early entry” routes to paid teaching. While early-entry ATCPs enjoy powerful support in the public and private sectors, critics (e.g., Zeichner, 2010) claim that early-entry ATCPs are aligned with a “new professionalism” which views teaching as a technical undertaking and teachers as easily replaceable implementers of others’ prescriptive ideas. Yet little is known about the knowledge, skills, and dispositions these programs seek to develop in teachers during pre-service preparation. Purpose/Focus of Study This study seeks to understand the nature of teacher preparation in early-entry ATCPs and how this reflects both the trends associated with the new professionalism and broader traditions of teacher education. The paper focuses on preparation of pre-service mathematics teachers who began the NYCTF program in the summer of 2007. Research Design Results for this paper are based on a mixed-methods analysis of curriculum and survey data. Curriculum data included course materials, journal entries and daily audio reflections, and exit interviews for nine mathematics teacher candidates who began NYCTF in the summer of 2007. The two authors coded this qualitative data with a high degree of inter-rater reliability. Survey data was collected from 90% of the approximately 300 mathematics candidates who began NYCTF in the summer of 2007. The analysis focused on responses to Likert-scale survey items that inquired about the focus of pre-service coursework. The Mann Whitney test was used to gauge the statistical significance of curricular differences reported by mathematics candidates in different sections of the NYCTF program. Findings/Results We find that only some of the major components of NYCTF summer preparation were well aligned with the expectations of the new professionalism. In particular, the curriculum delivered by NYCTF staff and staff at one of the four university coursework providers seemed to meet these expectations. Whereas, to varying degrees, the curriculum delivered by staff at the three other university partners did not. We also find that pre-service preparation was subject-general and featured little in the way of mathematics-specific teaching methods. Conclusions/Recommendations The results simultaneously support, extend, nuance, and challenge the hypothesis that such early-entry ATCPs such as NYCTF prepare program participants to meet the expectations of the new professionalism. The conclusion includes discussions of both the promise of early-entry ATCPs and how schools of education might respond to the rise of early-entry ATCPs and the trend of the new professionalism.
Micropolitical and Identity Challenges Influencing New Faculty Participation in Teacher Education Reform: When Will We Learn?
Authors: Yendol-Hoppey Diane , Hoppey David , Morewood Aimee , Hayes Sharon B. , Graham Meadow Sherrill 
Published: November 2021

Background/Context Teacher education faculty face increasing pressure to simultaneously strengthen and reform teacher education programs while maintaining research productivity. The demands placed on teacher education programs to increase relevancy by strengthening clinical components of teacher preparation has once again reached the fore. The energy for this reform often rests on the shoulders of tenure-earning faculty who have developed as Engaged Scholars during their doctoral preparation and wish to continue this work as they enter the professoriate. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study This article investigates and describes the experiences of new, tenure-earning faculty who sought working conditions that would support their involvement in reform oriented, clinically rich teacher education, and Engaged Scholarship. Population/Participants/Subjects This is a qualitative study with seven participants who worked as assistant professors across four different research-intensive state universities. Each university has a history of involvement in either the Holmes Partnership or the National Network for Educational Renewal, organizations that target integrating faculty members into partnership schools making this a part of their teacher education work. Research Design This qualitative self-study, guided by a constructivist epistemology (Crotty, 1998, 2005), seeks to understand tenure-earning faculties’ experiences as they enter the professoriate. This study makes use of interpretivism (Crotty, 1998) as a theoretical perspective. Data Collection and Analysis This research uses focus group transcripts as the primary data source. Additional data sources include program artifacts such as meeting agendas and minutes, blog entries, and field notes that were used during the four taped focus groups to generate discussion related to research questions. Findings/Results The study describes six challenges faced by new faculty who assume leadership in clinically rich teacher education reform, and identifies faculty identity and micro-political concerns as central to navigating challenges. These challenges include: (a) complications associated with negotiating workload, (b) entrée to schools, (c) negotiating roles, (d) negotiating Internal Review Boards and school district research policies, (e) influencing promotion and tenure policies, and (f) facilitating pockets of program renewal and innovation. Conclusions/Recommendations This study suggests that while doctoral programs are now preparing new faculty who embrace clinically rich teacher preparation, they do not receive adequate support as they enter academia. Discussed are three assertions that must be resolved by university, college, and department leadership, as well as tenured colleagues, to support new faculty involvement in developing clinically rich teacher education reform.
Teaching Bodies in Place
Authors: Jones Stephanie , Woglom James F. 
Published: November 2021

Background/Context This piece draws on literature in justice-oriented teacher education, feminist pedagogy, and postmodern notions of bodies and place to make sense of data generated from a three-year study of an undergraduate teacher education course. A feminist lens was used to engage a body- and place-focused pedagogy that aimed to engage students in recognizing themselves as full-bodied and cultured beings who can work to better understand and expand their perceptions of themselves and others in place. Purpose The authors argue that postmodern theories of bodies and place can provide complex insights for both theorizing and practicing teacher education. Readers have the opportunity to experience alternative community-based teacher education practice through a graphic presentation and consider both the theoretical and practice implications in the broader field of education. Research Design This three-year study is an arts-based qualitative inquiry into the experiences of a course where feminist and postmodern notions of bodies and place informed the pedagogical decision-making of their professor (Stephanie Jones). Data were generated across three years and those focused specifically on or around the community bus ride were used to ask questions about how bodies and places interact with one another to produce sense-making about people, places, and the purposes of education. As part of the inquiry, Stephanie produced visual images in comics-form presenting pedagogical interactions and experiences that illuminated theoretical insights and then engaged Jim in conversations and sketch-sharing about theory and practice related to the data and how it was experienced in real-time by Stephanie. After numerous conversations looking over each panel and analytical discussions about bodies, place, and pedagogies as they were produced on the page and multiple revisions of both images and print text, Stephanie and Jim settled on the graphic production published here as both a representation of the research and a provocation for reimagining teacher education practice and scholarship. Conclusions The study is an example of how pedagogies informed by theoretical understandings of bodies and place can produce practices that help teacher education students recognize their bodies as central sites for critical change inside and outside institutions. Tending to, documenting, and discussing their bodily-ways-of-being in different places and how bodies/places produce perceptions of others were powerful practices that helped students think deeply about power and their roles as future teachers.
Bad Tests or Bad Test Use? A Case of SAT Use to Examine Why We Need Stakeholder Conversations on Validity
Authors: Chatterji Madhabi 
Published: November 2021

Background Much is still unknown or unclear about how and where validity issues arise in high stakes testing situations in education, and ways by which we can rectify validity problems in practice and policy contexts. Purpose This paper is the Foreword to the special issue of the Teachers College Record, When Education Measures Go Public – Stakeholder Perspectives on How and Why Validity Breaks Down. Method The paper analyzes a recent case involving an application of the SAT to highlight tensions between validity and test score use in high stakes school accountability environments driven by the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001. It uses the case study as a vehicle to introduce the individual papers and authors in the section. Conclusions There are information and power gaps among those who set societal priorities for using tests for high stakes purposes, those who design and conduct psychometric research on tests and testing programs, and those who could eventually face consequences of assessment misuse. These gaps could be addressed through thoughtful exchanges among key assessment stakeholders, as this special issue shows.
Consequential Validity and the Transformation of Tests from Measurement Tools to Policy Tools
Authors: Welner Kevin G. 
Published: November 2021

Background/Context Recent U.S. policy has brought a shift in assessment use, from measurement tools to policy levers. In particular, testing has become a core part of teacher evaluation policies in many states, with test results becoming akin to a job evaluation. Purpose To explore the notion of consequential validity in assessment use and examine the implications of using an assessment more as a policy tool than a measurement tool. Research Design This is an essay concerning how assessment measures are used in educational policy contexts. Conclusions Meaning is created by use, and the intense push for test-based accountability policies in the U.S. has fundamentally changed the nature of test use. The core meaning of tests and testing has accordingly been qualitatively changed. Attention to consequential validity counsels against use of tests to drive policy unless, and until, the results that process itself have been validated for their furtherance of recognized goals.
Validity for What Purpose?
Authors: Shepard Lorrie A. 
Published: November 2021

Background/Context The evolution of validity understandings from mid-century to now has emphasized that test validity depends on test purpose—adding consequence considerations to issues of interpretation and evidentiary warrants. Purpose To consider the tensions created by multiple purposes for assessment and sketch briefly how we got to where we are; furthermore, to address two critically important purposes: the accountability purpose versus the learning purpose for assessment. Research Design This is an analytic, closing commentary to this special section. Conclusions When a test is used as an educational reform, the theory of action behind the reform should be made explicit and that theory or series of claims and assumptions is what should be examined in the validity evaluation. As to the prospect of improving the teaching profession by the use of value-added methods, I believe that this is an overly ambitious use of a potentially useful statistical tool. As these systems are being implemented, we can and should conduct validity studies designed to detect plausible shortcomings and side effects as well as intended outcomes.
Educational Opportunity and Immigration in México: Exploring the Individual and Systemic Relationships
Authors: MartÍNez JosÉ Felipe , Santibanez Lucrecia , Mori Edson E. Serván 
Published: November 2021

Background/Context Much research has investigated the complex interplay between education and migration. Education has been alternatively conceptualized as playing an important role as motivator or deterrent of future migration. This relationship, however, is often investigated in terms of coarse indicators of educational attainment. Purpose In this paper we investigate a less commonly explored side of the link between education and immigration. Our study estimates the relationship between immigration and educational quality and opportunity for the case of Mexico and the United States. Using these indicators we are able to delve deeper into how education affects migration decisions. Studying the relationships between immigration rates and aggregate indicators of education quality and opportunity can shed light into the ways in which education systems and governmental structures may influence or react to immigration patterns among school-age children. Research Design Data for this study come from three different sources: The Mexican Family Life Survey (MXFLS), which contains information on individual migration decisions; the Oportunidades program, which contains extensive family socio-economic characteristics and school quality indicators; and data from the National Population Council of Mexico, which contains socio-economic and demographic information about communities. Taking advantage of this data, we use logistic and linear regression models to estimate the relationship between education quality and migration. Results Our results suggest significant relationships between individual decisions to migrate and indicators of educational access, quality, and opportunity, suggesting that the experiences and opportunities afforded to individuals and families in school throughout the years can be of consequence for explaining immigration decisions and patterns. Conclusions/Recommendations Our analyses raise questions for delineating a framework for studying the relationship between educational quality and immigration. Such a framework should consider that not only individuals may have a lower incentive to further their schooling, but communities and even authorities may also have a lower incentive to improve school quality and opportunity.
Educational Leadership and Racism: A Narrative Inquiry into Second-Generation Segregation
Authors: Brooks Jeffrey S. , Arnold Noelle W. , Brooks Melanie C. 
Published: November 2021

Background/Context In-school racial segregation, also called second-generation segregation, is a social dynamic that is manifest in different and complicated ways in schoolhouses across the United States. This study sought to investigate how building-level leadership facilitates or impedes the practice of racial equity in an urban high school, from teachers’ and administrators’ perspectives. Purpose The primary purpose of this exploratory study was to investigate how educational leaders perceive and influence second-generation segregation in urban secondary schools. Research Design As the purpose of the study was to ascertain leaders’ perspectives, we followed a dialogic methodological approach used in studies seeking to investigate similar perceptual phenomena. This methodology emphasizes both personal narrative and dialogue. This study took place in a single urban high school in the southeastern United States over the course of two academic years. Conclusions/Recommendations The study revealed that both formal and informal leadership influenced second-generation segregation in the school. The authors conclude with recommendations for improving future research focusing on the topic and with recommendations for improved practice. As a beginning teacher, I was given low-level classes. Kids that need remedial help. They were predominantly Black. As I gained years there, I started getting honors classes. They were overwhelmingly White. Right now, I have one Black child in my honors class, out of twenty-seven. Teacher Peter Soderstrom, quoted in Studs Terkel's Race: How Blacks and Whites Think and Feel about the American Obsession (1992, p. 192).
The Romance Quest of Education Reform: A Discourse Analysis of the Los Angeles Times’ Reports on Value-Added Measurement Teacher Effectiveness
Authors: Gabriel Rachael , Lester Jessica Nina 
Published: November 2021

Background/Context This paper illustrates how the media, particularly The LA Times, entered the debate surrounding teacher evaluation, resulting in a storyline that shaped how the public perceives teacher effectiveness. With their series of articles in 2010, The LA Times entered the conversation about the place and value of value-added measurement (VAM), arguing that it is a tool to root out the presumably ineffective teachers. Research examining education policy is often represented by the media in ways that direct the public to take up specific positions and assign responsibility to particular parties. In this paper, we build upon research around the power of news media to create common knowledge and shape a prevalent worldview. Purpose/Objective/Research Question We gave particular attention to the ways in which the media discourse functioned to politicize and (over)simplify issues related to VAM and teacher evaluation. We sought to understand the ways in which discourse choices worked to construct a certain version of policy issues related to teacher quality, positioning some individuals and even national groups on either side of a polarized debate. Research Design We conducted a discourse analysis of 52 articles published between 2009 and 2011 that were from or related to a series on VAM initially published in 2010 by The LA Times. Conclusions/Recommendations We argue that the striking similarities between the story of VAM in education reform, as told by The LA Times, and the culturally familiar storyline of a quest romance or wish-fulfillment narrative give this particular version of VAM a sense of familiarity, veracity and therefore power over the public imagination. We discuss the discursive features used to accomplish this and suggest the need for continued analysis of the role of the media in shaping public opinion on education policy.
The Moral Vacuum in Teacher Education Research and Practice
Authors: Sanger Matthew , Osguthorpe Richard 
Published: November 2021

This chapter examines the gap between the widespread acknowledgment that teaching is a moral endeavor, on the one hand, and the lack of explicit, systematic teacher education research and practice to support preparing teachers for the moral aspects of teaching. After providing an initial description of the aforementioned gap, the chapter surveys the evidence that such a gap exists, then takes up a number of themes found in the literature bordering the gap. It concludes with a discussion of possible paths for teacher education research and practice to move forward. Teachers do not lack moral sophistication because they are not moral people. Just the opposite, most teachers are drawn to teaching because of their moral commitments. Moral language is missing in classrooms, but it is also missing in the seminar rooms and lecture halls of teacher education. (Sockett & LePage, 2002, p. 171)