bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Organizational Resources in the Service of School-Wide Ambitious Teaching Practice
Authors: Lampert Magdalene , Boerst Timothy , Graziani Filippo 
Published: November 2021

Background/Context “Ambitious teaching” is teaching that aims to teach all kinds of students to not only to know academic subjects, but also to be able to use what they know in working on authentic problems in academic domains. Studies of individual teachers have identified the challenges of this work. Resources are often provided at the school level with the purpose of making this kind of teaching more common. But as Cohen, Raudenbusch, and Ball (2003) point out, it is not making resources available to a school that matters in improving instruction, but getting those resources to be used in instructional interactions where teachers and students work together to get academic content learned. Purpose/Objective The purpose of this case study was to understand how the common use of resources across a school functions to enable those resources to make their way into the instructional stream.1 First, the use of shared social, intellectual, and material resources was investigated in consistently ambitious teaching across diverse classes and teachers in the school. Using a conceptual frame from social practice theory, we then examined how resources in use shaped teachers’ common interpretations of teaching problems and common assumptions about appropriate solutions. Research Design Qualitative case study based on extensive observation and interviews. Conclusions/Recommendations As a field, we need to provide images and narratives for ambitious teaching that is scaffolded in such a way that one can be a mere mortal and yet capably meet its routine demands. In this paper we have tried to provide one such image. We can offer several strong hypotheses based on this casework; the first is that ambitious teaching is more manageable when it is undertaken collectively, when it is supported by common materials, and when it has an intellectual underpinning that is useful and routinely used. Ambitious teaching is made more sustainable when a multiplicity of resources are drawn upon in concert, not installed one at a time and delivered to individual practitioners. We have tried to illustrate the strong role that an organization can play in the development of widespread ambitious teaching. In this image the organization supports ambitious teaching in such a way that most teachers can see, enact, and routinely articulate, this approach.
Absent Peers in Elementary Years: The Negative Classroom Effects of Unexcused Absences on Standardized Testing Outcomes
Authors: Gottfried Michael A. 
Published: November 2021

Background/Context This article addresses the classroom contextual effects of absences on student achievement. Previous research on peer effects has predominantly focused on peer socioeconomic status or classroom academic ability and its effects on classmates. However, the field has been limited by not discerning the individual-level academic effects of being in classrooms with absent peers. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of the Study The purpose of this study is to determine the peer effects of absent students in urban elementary school classrooms. Population/Participants/Subjects The data set is longitudinal and comprises entire populations of five elementary school cohorts within the School District of Philadelphia, for a total of 33,420 student observations. Individual student records were linked to teacher and classroom data and to census block neighborhood information. Research Design To examine the educational effects of absent peers, this study employed an empirical specification of the education production function. The dependent variables were Stanford Achievement Test Ninth Edition (SAT9) reading and math scores. Findings Models differentiated between unexcused and total absence measures and indicated that the peer effect of absences was driven by negative effects associated with classroom rates of unexcused absences rather with rates of total absences. These findings were obtained after controlling for student, neighborhood, teacher, and classroom characteristics. Conclusions/Recommendations Not only are absences detrimental to the absentee, but they also have a pervasive effect on the achievement of other students in the classroom.
Confessions of a Mad Professor: An Autoethnographic Consideration of Neuroatypicality, Extranormativity, and Education
Authors: Smagorinsky Peter 
Published: November 2021

Background/Context This article considers issues related to the intersection of mental health and education. Typically, in both educational and noneducational settings, atypical mental health conditions are described and treated as “disorders.” The author challenges conventional understandings of mental health and how to address it, particularly in school settings. Purpose The argument in this article is designed to make a case for greater understanding of extranormal mental health makeups and reconsider current understandings of normalcy. Focusing in particular on the experience of living with Asperger's syndrome, this article orchestrates narrative data and prior scholarship to argue that conventional notions of normalcy require reconsideration as more is understood about the spectrum of possible makeups in broad and diverse populations. The author argues that notions of normalcy are social constructions and that reconstructions of conventional notions of normalcy could provide more inclusive settings for a wider range of people. Research Design This article employs a version of narrative inquiry, autoethnography, to explore issues related to the intersection of mental health and education. The author describes, reflects on, and interprets a body of experiential knowledge both to illuminate the experience of living with an extranormative mental health makeup and consider the degree to which it serves as a deficit or disorder, as is commonly presumed. These experiences are placed in the context of empirical data from other studies to frame an argument regarding the spectrum of neurological makeups and its place in efforts toward inclusive and multicultural education. Conclusions/Recommendations The article closes with an argument for constructing contexts for supporting, understanding, appreciating, and respecting a wider range of neurological conditions in school settings.
[Re]conceptualizing Inclusion: Can Critical Race Theory and Interest Convergence be Utilized to Achieve Inclusion and Equity for African American Students?
Authors: Zion Shelley , Blanchett Wanda 
Published: November 2021

Background/Context Even though not fully realized, in legislation and theory, the requirements of the Individuals With Disabilities Education Improvement Act and the No Child Left Behind Act have created pressure to address the historical inequity in educational opportunity, achievement, and outcomes, as well as disparities in achievement between students of color and White students; disproportionality in special education referral, identification, and placement; high dropout rates for students of color; and disproportionate discipline and referrals for students of color, students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, students from immigrant families, and students in urban areas. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study The authors argue that inclusive education never had the potential to be truly inclusive because it is built on the premises of an inferiority paradigm. Issues of race, class, and privilege have rarely been incorporated into the inclusive education definitions or debates in the United States, and certainly not in practice. The purpose of this article is to examine: (a) the historical context of public schooling in America; (b) inclusive education in practice: segregation of African American and other students of color; (c) [re]conceptualizing inclusion: the importance of a social justice lens and critical theory; and (d) the relevance of interest convergence. Research Design Analytic essay. Conclusions/Recommendations The authors contend that the inclusive education movement has not resulted in positive outcomes or inclusion in general education for African American students because the movement was built on faulty assumptions that centered on ability and placement and did not look at the intersection of ability/disability with race, class, culture, and language. More important, the movement did not address issues of racism, White privilege, White dominance, and social class dominance. The authors assert that social justice, critical race theory, and interest convergence are powerful tools with which to [re]conceptualize inclusion and inclusive education in America.
Addressing Racial/Ethnic Disproportionality in Special Education: Case Studies of Suburban School Districts
Authors: Ahram Roey , Fergus Edward , Noguera Pedro 
Published: November 2021

Background/Context The last two reauthorizations of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act established a policy mandate for districts to take action to reduce high rates of minority overrepresentation in special education. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study The overrepresentation of Black and Latino students in special education suggests a convergence of two distinct processes: (1) assumptions of cultural deficit that result in unclear or misguided conceptualizations of disability and (2) the subsequent labeling of students in special education through a pseudoscientific placement process. This article explores how the social construct of the “normal child” became racialized through the special education referral and classification process, and subsequently produces disproportionality. Setting This research was conducted in two multiracial suburban school districts in New York State that were identified as having an overrepresentation of students of color. Population/Participants/Subjects Participants in the study consist of teachers and administrators within the two identified districts. Intervention/Program/Practice Intensive technical assistance was provided to these districts to identify the root causes of disproportionality and was subsequently followed by customized professional development. Three overarching activities of technical assistance were: observing in classrooms in each of the school districts; providing root cause analyses of disproportionality; and providing culturally responsive professional development. Research Design This research used mixed methods in collating district data, conducting technical assistance sessions with districts to identify the factors contributing to disproportionality, and creating 3-year professional development plans to address overrepresentation. In addition, researchers facilitated culturally responsive professional development to targeted groups of practitioners on topics related to improving teacher and district effectiveness in meeting the academic needs of children of color. Findings/Results Findings were: (1) cultural deficit thinking in educators’ construction of student abilities; (2) the existence of inadequate institutional safeguards for struggling students; and (3) attempts at addressing disproportionality often result in institutional “fixes” but not necessarily changes in the beliefs of education professionals. Conclusions/Recommendations The implementation of a culturally responsive framework can produce a shift in the special education placement process and lead to a reduction in disproportionality rates. Of note is confirmation that teacher–student interactions that begin the procedures triggering disproportionality are mired in teachers’ cultural deficit thinking. However, although teachers’ beliefs about students may change extremely slowly, effective school practices can interrupt the influence of deficit thinking.
Teaching's Conscientious Objectors: Principled Leavers of High-Poverty Schools
Authors: Santoro Doris A. , Morehouse Lisa 
Published: November 2021

Background/Context Most accounts of teacher attrition fall into one or both of the following categories: teacher life cycle and workplace conditions. Many educational researchers have described and analyzed teaching in moral and ethical terms. Despite the numerous articles and books that study the personal convictions of teachers, a sustained consideration of how moral and ethical factors may contribute to educators’ decisions to leave the profession is absent from nearly all the literature on teacher attrition and on the moral life of teaching. This article couples these two literatures to highlight the moral and ethical dimensions of teacher attrition through the experiences of 13 experienced and committed former teachers from high-poverty schools. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study This study asks: Why do experienced and committed teachers in high-poverty schools leave work they love? This article explores how the former teachers in this study weighed the competing calls to teach “right” and their responsibilities to society, the profession, their institutions, their students, and themselves. The participants’ principles, or core beliefs, are analyzed in light of John Dewey's description of a “moral situation.” Following Dewey, it is shown that in deliberating on their moral dilemmas, principled leavers ask not only, “What shall I do?” but also “What am I?” Population/Participants/Subjects The research participants are 13 former teachers from high-poverty schools with tenures ranging from 6 to 27 years of service. Research Design The study is a philosophical inquiry combined with qualitative analysis of “portraits” of former teachers. Conclusions/Recommendations This article introduces a category of teacher attrition that is rooted in the moral and ethical aspects of teaching: principled leavers. Akin to conscientious objectors who refuse to fight wars they deem unjust, principled leavers resign from teaching on grounds that they are being asked to engage in practices that they believe are antithetical to good teaching and harmful to students. The category of principled leaver enables teachers to call on a tradition of resigning for moral and ethical reasons rather than viewing their departures as personal failures and the result of individual weakness. Principled leaving, as a category of teacher attrition, provides a vocabulary for such resignations and may enable community to arise rather than isolation to prevail. Just as principles may motivate teachers to enter the profession, principles may provide justification for leaving, even for teachers who envisioned themselves as committed, long-term educators. When experienced teachers who expected to work in high-poverty schools for the “long haul” leave, it should command attention. Policy makers and educational leaders need to attend to the moral and ethical dimensions of teaching when developing pedagogically related policies and in crafting retention efforts.
“I Had Made a Mistake”: William H. Kilpatrick and the Project Method
Authors: Knoll Michael 
Published: November 2021

Background/Context William H. Kilpatrick is known worldwide as “Mr. Project Method.” Despite considerable scholarship by Lawrence A. Cremin, Herbert M. Kliebard, Milton A. Bleeke, John A. Beineke, and others, the origin of Kilpatrick's celebrated paper of 1918 has never been explored in depth and its historical context. Focus of Study The reconstruction reveals that the concept of teaching by “projects” arose in seventeenth-century Italy and reached the United States in 1865 where it served as an instructional device in manual training, agricultural education, and general science. Kilpatrick came into contact with the project method movement in 1915. He jumped on the bandwagon, adopted the two-hundred-year-old concept, and used it in a provocative new way to be not only remembered as a genial teacher but as an “originator” as well. Supported by the “Project Propaganda Club,” he had already initiated in 1917 and which became known as the National Conference for the Promotion of Educational Method in 1921, Kilpatrick advocated a decidedly child-centered approach that in New York, Milwaukee, and Bethpage, Missouri, failed the practice test and evoked fierce criticism from friend and foe, including Boyd H. Bode, Ernest Horn, Guy M. Wilson, and John Dewey. In the late 1920s, Kilpatrick decided that in defining the project as a subjective “philosophy” of education and not as an objective “method” of instruction he “had made a mistake.” Subsequently, he gave up the term and spoke of “activities” when the students carried out their plans and ideas “heartily” and “purposefully.” Conclusions Historians worldwide have fallen victim to an error. Contrary to conventional wisdom, Kilpatrick is not the classic of the project method, but rather the classical outsider. Next to deadness and dullness, formalism and routine, our education is threatened with no greater evil than sentimentalism. —John Dewey
Educational Research: The Challenge of Using an Academic Discipline
Authors: Hill Clifford 
Published: November 2021

Background/Context In 2010, I was invited to give the annual lecture that honors Lawrence Cremin, the historian of American education who became the seventh president of Teachers College, Columbia University. To pay tribute to the way in which Cremin used an academic discipline to bring rigor and depth to educational research, I described my own use of an academic discipline—linguistics and its varied tools of discourse analysis—in conducting research at the College. Focus of Research I focused on two major areas of research: (a) ethnocultural variation in processing spatio-temporal information in languages throughout the world and (b) children's interaction with multiple-choice tests of reading comprehension, with particular attention to the ways in which their ethnocultural background affects how they respond. Research Design and Findings The first area of research used experimental methods developed by a research team that I directed. The major finding was that distinctive patterns of processing spatiotemporal information by speakers of African languages (e.g., Hausa) and Asian languages (e.g., Chinese) are preserved when African Americans and Chinese Americans speak English in the Western hemisphere. In addition to ethnocultural identity, our research team uncovered other factors such as age and gender that are reflected in the preservation of these patterns. I draw on the model structured heterogeneity (Herzog, Weinrich, & Labov, 1968) to show that what may appear to be random variation in language use can be accounted for by attending to sociocultural factors. The second area of research used quantitative methods (experimental probes) and qualitative methods (interviews). Our major finding was that children, especially African Americans who live in the inner city, often make inferences when responding to a multiple-choice task, which, although stimulated by features in the test item, lead them to select a choice, which, given the test makers’ highly restricted model of literacy, cannot be justified. Our research team drew on the model ethnography of communication (Hymes, 1962) in identifying the contrasting interpretive norms used by test makers and test takers. We then developed a model grounded constructivism (Hill, 2004) that was used to build an alternative approach to assessment in which children respond to an integrated set of tasks that call for three different kinds of response: factual, inferential, and experiential. Recommendations An academic discipline can provide greater depth and rigor in educational research, but those who draw on one must seek, much like Lawrence Cremin, to make their research intelligible to an informed public concerned with educational policy.
How We Think We Think
Authors: Jackson Philip 
Published: November 2021

Background The intellectual context of this essay is the nature of human thought as examined by philosophers and psychologists past and present. Focus of study The study focuses on the treatment of thinking by John Dewey in his two editions of ‘How We Think’ and by William James in his ‘Talks to Teachers’. Research Design This is a philosophical/interpretive essay. Conclusions The essay concludes that both James and Dewey addressed the nature of thinking too narrowly. A broader conception of thinking is urged. The implications for teachers are briefly discussed.
Accommodation Practices for English Language Learners in States’ Mathematics Assessments
Authors: Wolf Mikyung Kim , Kao Jenny C. , Rivera Nichole M. , Chang Sandy M. 
Published: November 2021

Background/Context Testing accommodations have been widely utilized as a way of increasing the validity of content assessments for English language learner (ELL) students. However, concerns have also arisen regarding the appropriateness of accommodation use, including the accessibility and fairness of accommodations. While many states have developed ELL-specific accommodation policies and guidelines, little research has been available on how the accommodation policies are carried out in practice. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study The present study investigated two states’ accommodation policies, specifically for the states’ respective large-scale Grade 8 math assessments, and conducted a case study to examine teachers’ understanding of the policies and uses. The study aimed to identify issues to consider for an appropriate use of accommodations and provide useful information for policymakers to improve their accommodation policies. Research Design The study utilized a qualitative method employing teacher surveys and interviews. The survey and interview instruments were developed based on previous literature and experts’ feedback. The interview transcripts were coded by two researchers using a systematic coding scheme. Descriptive statistics of the responses were computed to observe trends across and within districts and schools. The results were also compared between states or between ELL and math teachers when applicable. Conclusions/Recommendations Despite the limitation of the small sample in this study, the findings of the study offer practical implications for policymakers and educators in the use of accommodations for ELL students. The study found considerable variation reported by teachers with regard to the perception of accommodation decision makers, selection criteria, and the types of accommodations allowed in each state's math assessment. This variation raised serious concerns regarding the adequacy of the accommodation uses and the comparability of accommodated test results across schools. In this paper, we discussed a number of possible reasons for teachers’ reported difficulty in keeping up with state policies: (a) lack of clear guidelines in making accommodation decisions and implementing accommodations in a standardized way, (b) lack of or limited opportunities in receiving information and communicating about accommodations among decision makers and teachers, and (c) limited resources and logistical difficulties. To support an appropriate use of accommodations for teachers, we recommend that states make efforts to provide comprehensive, operationalized guidelines for ELL accommodations, monitor the use of the guidelines, and hold regular professional meetings for ELL and content teachers.