bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Addition by Subtraction: The Relation Between Dropout Rates and School-Level Academic Achievement
Authors: Glennie Elizabeth , Bonneau Kara , Vandellen Michelle , Dodge Kenneth A. 
Published: November 2021

Background/Context Efforts to improve student achievement should increase graduation rates. However, work investigating the effects of student-level accountability has consistently demonstrated that increases in the standards for high school graduation are correlated with increases in dropout rates. The most favored explanation for this finding is that high-stakes testing policies that mandate grade repetition and high school exit exams may be the tipping point for students who are already struggling academically. These extra demands may, in fact, push students out of school. Purpose/Objective/Focus This article examines two hypotheses regarding the relation between school-level accountability and dropout rates. The first posits that improvements in school performance lead to improved success for everyone. If school-level accountability systems improve a school for all students, then the proportion of students performing at grade level increases, and the dropout rate decreases. The second hypothesis posits that schools facing pressure to improve their overall accountability score may pursue this increase at the cost of other student outcomes, including dropout rate. Research Design Our approach focuses on the dynamic relation between school-level academic achievement and dropout rates over time—that is, between one year's achievement and the subsequent year's dropout rate, and vice versa. This article employs longitudinal data of records on all students in North Carolina public schools over an 8-year period. Analyses employ fixed-effects models clustering schools and districts within years and controls each year for school size, percentage of students who were free/reduced-price lunch eligible, percentage of students who are ethnic minorities, and locale. Findings/Results This study finds partial evidence that improvements in school-level academic performance will lead to improvements (i.e., decreases) in school-level dropout rates. Schools with improved performance saw decreased dropout rates following these successes. However, we find more evidence of a negative side of the quest for improved academic performance. When dropout rates increase, the performance composites in subsequent years increase. Conclusions/recommendations Accountability systems need to remove any indirect benefit a school may receive from increasing its dropout rate. Schools should be held accountable for those who drop out of school. Given the personal and social costs of dropping out, accountability systems need to place more emphasis on dropout prevention. Such an emphasis could encompass increasing the dropout age and having the school's performance composite include scores of zero on end-of-grade tests for those who leave school.
Teacher Change in Elementary Science Instruction with English Language Learners: Results of a Multiyear Professional Development Intervention across Multiple Grades
Authors: Lee Okhee , Maerten-Rivera Jaime 
Published: November 2021

Background Current classroom practices have largely been shaped by changing student demographics, including English language learners (ELLs), and evolving accountability policies. The teacher professional development intervention in this study takes place against this backdrop. Research Questions This study examined change in teachers’ knowledge and practices while they participated in a 5-year teacher professional development intervention designed to improve science instruction while supporting literacy development of ELLs in the context of accountability policy in science. The study also examined whether teacher change was associated with predictor variables. Setting and Participants The study involved all science teachers (a total of 198 teachers) in Grades 3–5 from six urban elementary schools in a large school district. Over the 5-year period of the study, each teacher could participate in the intervention for 3 years, although there were high rates of teacher mobility. Intervention A series of curriculum units was developed that constituted the entire science curriculum for Grades 3–5 and replaced the district-adopted curriculum in the six participating schools. Over their 3-year participation in the intervention, teachers could attend a total of 14 full-day workshops during the summers and throughout the school years. Research Design The study used a longitudinal design over the 5-year intervention with a treatment group consisting of six elementary schools. Data Collection and Analysis Both questionnaire and classroom observations were used to measure reform-oriented practices in science and English for speakers of other languages (ESOL)/bilingual education in the following areas: (a) teacher knowledge of science content, (b) teaching practices to promote scientific understanding, (c) teaching practices to promote scientific inquiry, and (d) teaching practices to support English language development. During the 3-year period of their participation, teachers completed the questionnaire prior to beginning the intervention and at the end of each school year and were observed once in the fall and once in the spring each year. A series of multilevel models was used to examine change in the questionnaire and observation scales. Conclusions The results from the questionnaire (what teachers reported) and classroom observations (what teachers were observed doing) indicated some improvements in teachers’ knowledge and practices in teaching science to ELLs over the intervention. Grade taught was the most pronounced predictor variable and distinguished the fifth grade, the grade at which science counted toward the state accountability policy. Despite improvements, teachers’ knowledge and practices generally did not meet the goal of reform-oriented practices.
The Education of English Language Learners in Arizona: A History of Underachievement
Authors: Garcia Eugene E. , Lawton Kerry , De Figueiredo Eduardo H. Diniz 
Published: November 2021

Background The state of Arizona has recently mandated the Structured English Immersion Model (SEI) in the state's public schools, and as a result the local flexibility that existed regarding the choice of program models for ELLs has ended. In the school year 2008-09, these regulations were made even more restrictive after the implementation of what is now called the 4-hour ELD block model. Focus of Study This report reviews achievement gaps in both reading and math between ELL and non-ELL students in Arizona over the period 2005-2009 and during the first year of implementation of the 4 hour ELD block, 2008-09. It also compares the progress of Arizona's ELL population towards academic proficiency relative to ELL students in two cities and states that do not place as restrictive legislation on ELL instruction: Utah and Washington, DC, two educational entities with vastly different spending policies. Research Design Achievement was measured using the Reading and Math subtests of the Arizona Instrument to Measure Standards (AIMS), with data from the 2005-2009 administrations. To interpret gaps in performance, differences in AIMS mean scaled scores were analyzed. Two types of comparisons were made: 1) within-grade, across-year, and 2) across-grade, within-year. This allowed a more comprehensive understanding of trends in terms of achievement gaps. The comparison amongst different states was done separately. Data were collected from two sources: Applications for Race to the Top, and incentive program offered as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, were used for Utah and Washington, DC. Data from Arizona were gathered using publicly available state report cards released annually by the Arizona Department of Education. Findings The study finds that Arizona has made little to no progress in closing the achievement gap between ELL and non-ELL students during this period. Here, the study argues that, notwithstanding changes in tests and proficiency thresholds in the states over this period of time, the relative position of Arizona vis-à-vis these comparison entities remains very similar, with Arizona continuing to lag behind both in percent of ELL students achieving proficiency in reading and math. Conclusion The study presents recent evidence that suggests that Arizona is on the wrong path for closing achievement gaps for its ELL students and that this is due, at least in part, to its highly restrictive language instruction policies.
College Student Pathways to the STEM Disciplines
Authors: Engberg Mark E. , Wolniak Gregory C. 
Published: November 2021

Background/Context As concerns mount about the shortage of students entering science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) careers, policy makers throughout the United States are contemplating strategies to maintain and enhance our nation's economic vitality and international competitiveness. Within this policy and program environment, researchers have focused considerable attention on improving STEM education at different stages of the educational pipeline, yet we lack evidence on how resources from one educational setting may influence outcomes in a successive educational setting. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus The purpose of the study is to examine individual- and school-level factors that influence students’ pathways to the STEM fields during college. Focusing on the importance of high school-to-college linkages, our research questions address the individual and institutional factors that affect students’ likelihoods of majoring in a STEM field in college. Research Design The study is based on data collected through the Educational Longitudinal Study of 2002, a nationally representative survey of high school sophomores who were followed through high school and into college. Students who were enrolled in a four-year institution at the end of 2006 and had declared a major were included in the analytic sample. Analysis In addition to performing descriptive and factor analyses, we used cross-classified hierarchical general linear modeling to examine students’ backgrounds, aptitudes, attitudes, dispositions, and experiences in relation to majoring in a STEM field, as well as institutional factors that constitute students’ secondary and postsecondary environments. Findings/Conclusions Findings from the study revealed significant effects in relation to race, academic preparation, attitudes and dispositions toward math and science, college choice considerations, and postsecondary experiences. Although no institutional effects were uncovered at the high school level, both postsecondary sector and selectivity significantly influenced propensities toward majoring in a STEM discipline. The study concludes with several policy recommendations related to K–16 collaborations, dual-enrollment programs, and developmental considerations for teachers and counselors working with high school students.
Preservice Elementary Teachers’ Understandings of Competing Notions of Academic Achievement Coexisting in Post-NCLB Public Schools
Authors: Brown Keffrelyn D. , Goldstein Lisa S. 
Published: November 2021

Background/Context Since the 2002 implementation of No Child Left Behind, teaching in public school contexts has become more complex and challenging. Today, public school teachers at all grade levels are accountable for maintaining a steady focus on their students’ academic achievement. However, many teachers have found themselves wrestling with two conflicting understandings of academic achievement. These two conflicting understandings reflect two existing discourses used to frame students’ acquisition of school-centered knowledge and skills: academic progress and academic success. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of the Study In this article, we focus on the coexisting discourses of academic achievement circulating within in our participants’ teaching credential preparation experience. We present the data, drawn from the first two sets of interviews completed for our larger study of preservice teachers’ understandings of the relationship between sociocultural factors and academic achievement, that document our participants’ confusion and uncertainty about the meaning of “academic achievement.” We draw from the notion of discourse, as theorized by Michel Foucault, to foreground the need to establish specific terminology—namely, academic progress and academic success—to clarify the various aspects of academic achievement and to facilitate discussion of this critically important construct. Research Design The study draws from a basic or generic qualitative methodology in which the aim is to understand a situation by exploring, analyzing, and interpreting the perspectives and understandings of individuals within that situation. The findings come from data generated across two interviews conducted with preservice teachers at the beginning and conclusion of their first semester in the professional development sequence of their elementary (pk–4) teacher education program. Setting The study takes place at a large urban university teacher education program in the U.S. South. Population/Participants/Subjects Participants are a racially and ethnically diverse set of 12 preservice teacher candidates. Ten were pursuing a elementary generalist teaching credential, and 2 were pursuing a elementary generalist-bilingual teaching credential.
Conceptualizing the African American Mathematics Teacher as a Key Figure in the African American Education Historical Narrative
Authors: Clark Lawrence M. , Frank Toya J. , Davis Julius 
Published: November 2021

Background/Context Historians and researchers have documented and explored the work and role of African American teachers in the U.S. educational system, yet there has been limited attention to the specific work, role, and experiences of African American mathematics teachers. To meaningfully and responsibly conceptualize the role of African American mathematics teachers and better understand their work in U.S. schools, analytic approaches are needed to help us understand cases of African American mathematics teachers as representations of a complex and ever-evolving series of intertwined contexts, forces, and events that include critical events along historical timelines (i.e., U.S. educational system, mathematics education, technological innovation and development, African American teaching force). Purpose/Objective The purpose of this article is to challenge readers to consider the African American mathematics teacher as a conceptual entity that embodies characteristics, practices, and dispositions that are potentially meaningful for students, particularly African American students, in ways that support students’ capacity to participate and perform within the racialized contexts of mathematics education, the broader schooling experience, and broader society. Design Structured as an analytic essay, this article provides a rationale and potential directions of inquiry for historians and researchers open to explorations of relationships between race, mathematics education, teacher identity, and teacher practice. Conclusions/Recommendations We make two assertions about the African American mathematics teacher that help to conceptualize his or her role as a theoretical construct. First, the African American mathematics teacher is a boundary spanner with membership in multiple communities—a mathematically proficient and intellectually powerful African American person within a historically disempowered African American community with a history of inaccessibility to and underperformance in mathematics. Second, through various implicit and explicit means and micro-interactions, the African American mathematics teacher has the potential to engage in liberatory mathematics pedagogy, a pedagogy that serves to dismantle racialized hierarchies of mathematics ability. We encourage mathematics education researchers to interrogate, challenge, critique, and build on conceptualizations of the African American mathematics teacher as an entity that represents a unique confluence of experiences, perspectives, dispositions, and knowledge domains critical to the education of students. In doing so, it is our hope that theories of student learning, participation, and performance will more willingly embrace, acknowledge, and incorporate the inescapable dynamics of race, class, student identity, and teacher identity.
What Mathematics Education Might Learn from the Work of Well-Respected African American Mathematics Teachers in Urban Schools
Authors: Chazan Daniel , Brantlinger Andrew , Clark Lawrence M. , Edwards Ann R. 
Published: November 2021

Background/Context This opening article, like the other articles in this special issue, is situated in scholarship that attempts to understand the racialized nature of mathematics education in the United States and to examine the racial identities of students and teachers in the context of school mathematics. It is designed to respond to the current (mathematics) education policy context that largely ignores teachers’ experiential and cultural knowledge while stressing the importance of teachers’ content knowledge and academic achievement. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study This article presents theoretical perspectives and research questions concerning the knowledge and other resources that African American teachers bring to teaching mathematics, perspectives and questions that are taken up in the five subsequent articles in this special issue. Setting The cases developed in this special issue were developed from observations of the introductory algebra classes of, and interviews with, two well-respected African American teachers in one neighborhood high school in a large urban school district that serves a predominantly African American student population. Research Design This opening article frames two case study papers and two analysis papers that report on findings from a large-scale qualitative study of the racialized identity and instructional approaches of two of the six African American mathematics teachers studied in the Mid-Atlantic Center for Mathematics Teaching and Learning Algebra 1 Case Studies Project. Conclusions/Recommendations Together with the other articles in this special issue, this work contributes to the development of more sophisticated attempts to integrate understandings of race into the work of the mathematics education community. It challenges taken-for-granted notions of the knowledge base and resources needed to be an effective mathematics teacher of African American students in underresourced large urban schools.
Social Capital and the College Enrollment Process: How Can a School Program Make a Difference?
Authors: Stephan Jennifer L. 
Published: November 2021

Background College attendance has become a crucial determinant of life chances in U.S. society. Besides college costs and academic preparation, college-related cultural and social capital may help explain socioeconomic differences in whether and where students attend college. While high school counselors are seen as potential agents of social capital, the standard counseling model, developed to serve middle-class students, may not translate effectively to schools serving disadvantaged students. The college coach program, introduced in 12 non-selective Chicago Public Schools (CPS) in the fall of 2004, provides an alternative model. In contrast to the standard high school counseling model, college coaches take a “community organizer” role in assisting the college enrollment process. Statistical difference-in-differences analysis suggests that coaches may have improved the kinds of colleges that students attended, particularly for less advantaged students (Stephan, 2010). Purpose This qualitative study describes how the coach program works and analyzes key aspects that may explain its positive relationship with college enrollment outcomes. Participants Interviews were conducted between the spring of 2006 and spring of 2007 with 9 current and former college coaches, 2 postsecondary specialists (to whom the coaches report), and 30 high school seniors in 2 coach schools, which, like other non-selective CPS high schools, serve students who are predominantly African American or Latino and low-income. Research Design Responses to semi-structured interviews with coaches and students were coded for recurring themes and according to interview questions. A model of how coaches create social capital emerged from iterations between coding interviews and studying previous research on the creation of social capital. Conclusions The results suggest that coaches use new advising strategies (different from typical school counseling practices) to increase students’ college-related social capital and subsequently increase the number of students completing college actions, which may explain improved enrollment outcomes. This research highlights previously tacit assumptions about how counseling should work and details new advising procedures that may benefit disad-vantaged students in the college enrollment process. More generally, this research discusses specific social mechanisms through which policy or institutions may create social capital to improve educational attainment.
The Advanced Placement Arms Race and the Reproduction of Educational Inequality
Authors: Klugman Joshua 
Published: November 2021

Background Access to Advanced Placement (AP) courses is stratified by class and race. Researchers have identified how schools serving disadvantaged students suffer from various kinds of resource deprivations, concluding that interventions are needed to equalize access to AP courses. On the other hand, the theory of Effectively Maintained Inequality (EMI) argues that schools serving advantaged students may perpetuate inequalities by expanding their AP curriculum so their graduates can be competitive in the college admissions process. Research Questions Between 2000 and 2002, California attempted to expand AP offerings and enrollments. This study answers whether or not this intervention narrowed inequalities in AP along class and racial lines. It also examines if community affluence affects district officials’ views of pressures to offer AP courses, which could explain any effectively maintained inequalities in AP access. Research Design This study uses a panel dataset of all California public high schools from 1997 to 2006. It examines the changing effects of school poverty, upper-middle class presence, and school racial composition on offerings of and enrollments in AP subjects. It supplements the quantitative analysis with interviews from 11 school district officials in California conducted in 2006. Results Hierarchical generalized linear models show that upper-middle class presence structures California high schools’ AP subject offerings and enrollments, much more than school poverty. California's intervention resulted in increased AP subject offerings and enrollments in high schools serving disadvantaged and less advantaged students, but these reductions in deprivation had trivial effects on inequalities, since schools serving advantaged students increased their own AP offerings and enrollments. In addition, high schools serving White and Asian students had larger increases in AP offerings and enrollments than high schools serving Black and Hispanic students. Interview data indicate that officials in affluent districts perceived a greater demand for AP subjects, and were more likely to report their school staff was proactive to initiate new AP courses than officials in districts serving working-class communities. Conclusions The findings document that while policies can increase AP access at schools serving low-income students, the actions of affluent schools and families will pose substantial barriers to achieving parity in AP offerings and enrollments. Moreover, studies gauging resource inequalities among schools may underestimate these inequalities if they use school poverty to measure schools’ socioeconomic composition.