bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
The Role of Attending Center-Based Care for Kindergarten-Aged Children with Disabilities
Authors: Gottfried Michael A. 
Published: November 2021

Background/Context Families have been increasingly utilizing center-based care both during prekindergarten as well as before/after school during kindergarten (CBC-K), and the literature has addressed the relative effectiveness of attending the former on early schooling outcomes. However, missing in the field is an analysis of the efficacy of attending the latter. To compound this, no research has considered how attending CBC-K is associated with early outcomes for children with disabilities. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of the Study There were four research questions: 1. Do kindergarten academic outcomes differ for children with disabilities who did and did not attend CBC-K? 2. Do kindergarten socioemotional outcomes differ for children with disabilities who did and did not attend CBC-K? 3. Do these relationships differ by disability? 4. Do these relationships differ by socioeconomic status (SES)? Population/Participants/Subjects This study utilizes data from the newly released Early Childhood Longitudinal Study – Kindergarten Class of 2011, which represents the most contemporary national-level data available to study these research questions. Research Design This study examined two sets of outcomes. The first set included reading and math achievement. The second set included socioemotional scales based on both teacher and parent ratings of child behavior. These outcomes were regressed on a measure for having attended CBC-K as well as a wide span of child and family characteristics. Error terms were clustered at the school level to account for nested data. Findings The results based on the first and second research questions indicated that for children with disabilities, there was a negative association between attending CBC-K and academic and socioemotional measures compared to not attending CBC-K. As for the third research question, children with emotional or learning/communication disabilities had the largest observed negative association with the set of outcomes from having attended CBC-K (along with children with developmental delays when considering achievement outcomes) compared to children from the same groups who did not attend CBC-K. As for the fourth research question, there was little difference of attending versus not attending CBC-K by SES. Conclusions/Recommendations When considering transitions into kindergarten, attending CBC-K certainly appears to have an effect, albeit negative for both children with and without disabilities. Having documented these patterns, this study helped to provide a well-rounded portrait into how center-based care affects outcomes for school-aged children.
Teachers’ Views of Students’ Mathematical Capabilities: Challenges and Possibilities for Ambitious Reform
Authors: Jackson Kara , Gibbons Lynsey , Sharpe Charlotte J. 
Published: November 2021

Background Research suggests that teachers’ views of their students’ capabilities matter when attempting to accomplish instructional reform, particularly in settings serving historically marginalized groups of students. However, to date, this issue has received minimal attention in the scholarship and practice of mathematics instructional reform. Purpose This study offers a large-scale snapshot of middle-grades teachers’ views of their students’ mathematical capabilities in the context of instructional reform. It contributes to the field's understanding of the learning demands for teachers inherent in achieving a vision of high-quality mathematics instruction and suggests potentially critical foci for professional learning opportunities. Setting The study took place in two large urban districts pursuing ambitious reform in middle-grades mathematics. Participants Participants included 122 middle-grades mathematics teachers. Research Design The study consisted of a qualitative analysis of semistructured interviews conducted with each of 122 teachers regarding their perspectives on the district's reform efforts, including their views of their students’ mathematical capabilities in relation to the reform. Conceptually, we approached our analysis of teachers’ views of their students’ mathematical capabilities by attending to how they framed a common problem of practice—students facing difficulty in mathematics—diagnostically (i.e., how they explained the source of students’ difficulty) and prognostically (i.e., what they described doing to support students facing difficulty). Analysis also focused on patterns in the relations between teachers’ diagnostic and prognostic framings. Findings On the whole, most teachers did not view all of their students as capable of participating in rigorous mathematical activity. Most teachers attributed at least some of their students’ difficulty to inherent traits of the students or deficits in their families or communities, and most described lowering the cognitive demand of an activity if they perceived that students were facing difficulty. Moreover, our analysis of the relations between teachers’ diagnostic and prognostic framing revealed that even when teachers explained students’ difficulty in terms of instructional opportunities, thereby taking responsibility for their students’ learning, they did not necessarily respond in ways that would enable students to participate substantially in rigorous mathematical activity. Conclusions Findings suggest that a significant challenge in accomplishing ambitious reform entails supporting shifts in how teachers view their students’ capabilities along two dimensions: how teachers explain the source of students’ difficulties in mathematics and how they address such difficulties. Implications for designing professional learning opportunities to support productive shifts in teachers’ views of their students’ capabilities are discussed.
Joining the Dots: The Challenge of Creating Coherent School Improvement
Authors: Robinson Viviane , Bendikson Linda , Mcnaughton Stuart , Wilson Aaron , Zhu Tong 
Published: November 2021

Background/Context Sustained school improvement requires adequate organizational and instructional coherence, yet, in typical high schools, subject department organization, norms of teacher professional autonomy, and involvement in multiple initiatives present powerful obstacles to forging a coherent approach to improvement. This study examines the relationships among coordination, coherence, and improved achievement in five New Zealand high schools voluntarily participating in an initiative to improve the achievement outcomes of underserved student groups. Purpose The first purpose of this study is to develop a theoretical framework for describing and evaluating coordination and coherence and to apply it to the implementation of an improvement initiative. The second purpose is to examine the relationship between coherence and longitudinal trends in pass rates on national qualifications. Research Design Adjusted odds ratios were used to compare the pass rates of students in the five high schools before and after the intervention. This analysis, conducted independently of the study of school coherence, yielded a group of schools whose pass rates had improved and a second group that had maintained stable pass rates through the course of the intervention. Using case studies written for each of the schools, we systematically compared the schools in each group on degree of coordination in five domains of activity and in overall coherence. Findings There were considerable differences in degree of coordination between the two groups in three of the five domains. Improving schools were more tightly coordinated in how they organized to achieve results, in teacher professional learning, and in strategic leadership. Principal capability and willingness to address barriers to improved achievement, which was part of strategic leadership, was markedly greater in the improving than in the maintaining schools. In the remaining two domains, goal-setting and teacher culture, differences were smaller but still in the expected direction. The overall coherence of each improving school was independently evaluated as high, while the maintaining schools were evaluated as low or medium in overall coherence. Conclusions We discuss the implications of coordination and coherence for the successful implementation of any school improvement initiative. We argue that, since educational work contains weak cues about the adequacy of the performance of any component activity, we cannot rely on adequate coordination emerging through the interactions of interdependent agents. More emphasis must be given, in coordination theory and improvement practice, to steering such interactions through task design, widely distributed expertise, and strategic leadership.
The Neighborhood Unit: Schools, Segregation, and the Shaping of the Modern Metropolitan Landscape
Authors: Erickson Ansley T. , Highsmith Andrew R. 
Published: November 2021

Background/Context In the first half of the 20th century, American policy makers at all levels of government, alongside housing and real estate industry figures, crafted mechanisms of racial exclusion that helped to segregate metropolitan residential landscapes. Although educators and historians have recognized the long-term consequences of these policies for the making of educational segregation, they have not yet fully perceived how strongly ideas about public schools mattered in the shaping of these exclusionary practices. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study This historical study examines the “neighborhood unit” concept, its origins, and its influence, to illustrate the centrality of schooling in shaping mechanisms of racial segregation. The “neighborhood unit” concept, advocated during the 1920s by planner Clarence Perry before becoming central to local-level planning as well as federal-level housing policy, imagined self-contained communities within cities. Each of the units featured multi-purpose school-community facilities at their literal spatial as well as conceptual center. Perry and the influential cadre of planners who adopted the concept thought it would make metropolitan areas more livable, vibrant, and socially cohesive. But their neighborhood unit idea also encouraged racial segregation, in both schools and residential areas. Research Design Sources for this qualitative historical investigation include published and unpublished primary sources from individuals, organizations, and government entities involved in making and using the idea of the neighborhood unit as well as extant historical scholarship. Conclusions/Recommendations The history of the neighborhood unit shows that ideas about schools were central in the creation of the modern metropolitan landscape and enduring patterns of racial segregation. This evidence furthers the growing historical interpretation that housing segregation and school segregation operate not as separate terrain, but in deep connection with one another. By acknowledging and incorporating this historical perspective, educators and policy makers can reconceptualize segregation's roots, and perhaps its remedies.
Societal Forces that ERODE Creativity
Authors: Sternberg Robert J. , Kaufman James C. 
Published: November 2021

Background/Context Creativity is an indispensable force in intellectual, social, cultural, and economic development. Yet societal forces conspire to erode it. Educators have despaired for many years over how schools often fail to encourage creativity, but society as a whole is just as guilty. But how do schools and society fail to encourage, or actually even erode, creativity? This essay addresses this question. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study The goal of our research was to specify the specific societal forces that erode creativity. We have labeled these forces ERODE: Education, Resources, Opportunities, Diffusion, and Exaggeration. The bottom line is that, although our society claims to want creativity, it most wants it when no one is negatively affected. Because creativity almost always negatively affects some people and groups, society tends to be much more supportive of creativity in theory than in practice. We show why. Research Design Our research design is an analysis of the forces in society that erode creativity. We used historical analysis, media analysis, and analysis of educational practice to draw our conclusions.
Troubling Messages: Agency and Learning in the Early Schooling Experiences of Children of Latinx Immigrants
Authors: Adair Jennifer Keys , Colegrove Kiyomi SÁnchez-Suzuki , Mcmanus Molly E. 
Published: November 2021

Background/Context Early childhood education in the United States is currently suspended between the belief that young children learn through dynamic experiences in which they are able to create and experiment, and the belief that young children's emerging literacy and math skills require formal instruction and assessments to ensure future academic success. This balance is difficult because each approach requires different allowances for children's agency. Purpose/Objective This study investigates how district administrators, school administrators, pre-K–3 teachers, and bilingual first graders within a school district serving Latinx immigrant families think about the role of agency in early learning. Setting Data was collected in Lasso ISD and El Naranjo Elementary School, located on the U.S./Mexico border. Population/Participants Lasso ISD is predominantly Latinx with 85% of its population self-identifying as Latinx and experiencing financial stress. Over 35% of children at El Naranjo are labeled as English Language Learners. We interviewed five administrators, nine teachers, and 24 children. Research Design The research method used is a variation of multivocal, video-cued ethnography (VCE). Following VCE's pattern of data collection, we made a film of a typical day in a first-grade classroom where children of Latinx immigrants used agency in their learning. The film was used to elicit perspectives on how much control young children of Latinx immigrants should have over their learning in the early years. Focus group data was analyzed comparatively across participant groups and district hierarchies. Findings The data reveals an inverse relationship—termed agency diffusion and deficit infusion—between participants’ ideas about the amount of agency students should be afforded in the classroom and the deficit ideas they articulate about children of immigrants and their families. Our findings suggest that even in supportive, academically successful districts, deficit thinking at any level can justify narrow, rote types of instruction that ultimately impact the types of messages young children receive about learning and being a learner. Conclusions/Recommendations Pre-service and experienced teachers may need help with discriminatory, deficit attitudes toward the families they serve as well as pedagogical skills to offer more agency to children, in the culturally relevant forms that make sense in the classroom. In developing guidelines and policies at school, district, state, and federal levels, agency should be a necessary component of classrooms considered (and labeled) as high quality. Children's perspectives are important ways to determine whether policies and practices are really effective.
Principal Turnover under No Child Left behind Accountability Pressure
Authors: Mitani Hajime 
Published: November 2021

Background/Context The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act was a performance-based accountability policy designed to motivate educators and administrators to change their behaviors and improve school and student outcomes. The simple logic behind this accountability policy was that they would change their behaviors to avoid sanctions. Many studies have investigated the impact of NCLB on students and teachers; however, little research has examined its impact on school principals even though they were a prime target of NCLB. Purpose/Objective This study fills the gap in the literature and investigates the impact of NCLB sanctions on principal turnover. It answers whether NCLB's informal and formal sanctions influenced principal turnover behaviors and whether the influence was moderated by principal and school characteristics. It also examines patterns in principal transfers and position changes. Research Design This study uses longitudinal administrative data and detailed school-level assessment data obtained from Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education from 2001–02 to 2009–10. It constructs a distance variable to the adequate yearly progress threshold and uses it as a key matching variable in propensity score matching to identify comparable schools not facing NCLB sanctions. Postmatching logistic regression models identify the impact of NCLB sanctions. Findings/Results Although I find no evidence that informal sanction affected principal turnover, the impact is significantly moderated by principals’ job experience, Title I school status, and the percent of non-White students. The first-year NCLB sanction does not appear to have affected principal turnover. However, this finding needs to be interpreted with caution because of the way the NCLB sanction system is structured and the small sample sizes. A descriptive analysis of the relationship between the second-year NCLB sanction and beyond, and principal turnover suggests that principals tend to leave their schools when they face NCLB sanctions. Finally, I find that principals transfer away from Title I schools, transfer to schools with a smaller number of high-needs students, and take positions at district central offices, regardless of whether they face NCLB sanctions. Collectively, NCLB sanctions appear to have impacted principal turnover. Conclusions/Recommendations The results from this study have policy implications. They suggest that policy makers should provide professional support and adequate resources for principals, especially inexperienced principals, who work at low-performing schools and face sanctions. Moreover, policy makers should develop and embed a policy in new accountability systems that addresses inequity in the distribution of principal quality.
A View from Within: Lessons Learned from Partnering for Continuous Improvement
Authors: Harrison Christopher , Wachen John , Brown Stephanie , Cohen-Vogel Lora 
Published: November 2021

Background Traditional methods of implementing educational innovations face a number of critical challenges that have problematized efforts to improve practice, particularly at scale. Recently, continuous improvement approaches have gained attention, offering structured, iterative processes for developing innovations that incorporate the wisdom of practitioners, are responsive to individual school contexts, and promote organizational learning over time. Purpose The National Center on Scaling Up Effective Schools (NCSU) is one purveyor of such an approach, working to enact partnership-based continuous improvement processes in two large urban school districts in the U.S. This study presents a systematic, empirical investigation of the NCSU's work in order to offer recommendations for future efforts to study and implement such approaches in the complex environment of public schools. Research Design and Methods Drawing from an analysis of over 400 hours of recorded meetings, feedback forms, and cognitive interviews with participants, this study represents a detailed case study of the NCSU's implementation of its improvement process in a large urban school district in the U.S. Conclusions Analysis of these data reveal 3 key lessons learned by the NCSU partners. First, engaging in collaborative, partnership-based continuous improvement demands that partners construct and adopt a new culture of improvement. Second, the evolutionary nature of continuous improvement work requires partners to respond to emergent and often difficult to predict demands for new capacities and resources. Finally, efforts to implement, adapt, and expand innovations are often interwoven, competing with one another and requiring an interlocking network of supports and structures to succeed.
“We're Rags to Riches”: Dual Consciousness of the American Dream in Two Critical History Classrooms
Authors: Parkhouse Hillary , Arnold Bryan P. 
Published: November 2021

Background/Context Within the United States, wealth disparities are growing and upward social mobility is becoming increasingly difficult to attain. These trends call into question the American Dream ideology that anyone can succeed through hard work. This meritocratic ideal has traditionally been one of the unifying ideologies promoted through the public school curriculum. The topic of economic inequality, on the other hand, is largely absent from most social studies curricula. When teachers do address this issue, they tend to omit discussions of causes or potential policy solutions. Students are thus left with few resources with which to develop positions on policies related to inequality that would help them become more informed voters and contributors to public discourse on this issue. Purposes Critical pedagogy is an educational approach that aims to develop students’ sociopolitical consciousness of the world and understanding of the underlying causes of contemporary injustices such as rising economic and social inequality. We investigated whether students in classrooms using critical pedagogy might develop understandings of the roots of contemporary inequality. Setting and Participants The study took place in two U.S. History classrooms in culturally diverse public high schools in a midsized city in the Southeast. The classrooms were selected because both teachers demonstrated critical pedagogy by helping students question norms and analyze underlying causes of contemporary social and economic inequalities. Research Design We used a critical case study design with ethnographic methods to examine students’ understandings of structural causes of inequality in classrooms where they are most likely to encounter this knowledge, namely critical history classrooms. Data included 10 weeks of observations in both classrooms, classroom artifacts, in-depth interviews with 14 students, and two in-depth interviews with each teacher along with daily informal interviews. Findings/Results Students critiqued the notion of the American Dream and described ways in which certain social structures such as the judicial and educational systems reproduce social inequalities. Some pointed out how the “rags to riches” ideology precludes tax structures that might reduce economic inequality. However, many also made comments reflecting a belief that the United States is indeed a meritocracy. Conclusions/Recommendations We recommend that teachers explicitly teach the structural causes of economic inequality so that students have the language needed to understand their dual consciousness that both meritocratic elements (e.g., hard work) and non-meritocratic elements (e.g., race, family wealth) play a role in social mobility within the United States.