Teachers College Record

Harrison, Christopher; Wachen, John; Brown, Stephanie; Cohen-Vogel, Lora

doi: 10.1177/016146811912100902pmid: N/A

Abstract 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.

Litts, Breanne K.; Widman, Sari A.; Lui, Debora A.; Walker, Justice T.; Kafai, Yasmin B.

doi: 10.1177/016146811912100906pmid: N/A

Abstract Background/Context Though the maker movement has proliferated in out-of-school settings, there remains a design challenge of how to effectively integrate maker activities into K–12 classrooms. In other contexts, though, creative design and production have historically been successfully integrated in classrooms through studio models common to the arts, architecture, and engineering. Purpose/Objective In this paper, we leverage the features and practices of studio models from arts, architecture, and engineering education to integrate maker activities in a high school classroom. Within this Maker Studio model, students focus on designing a computational artifact and engage in practices more predominantly found in studio arts, architecture, and engineering classes such as feedback, critique, and reflection. Research Design We conducted a case study of how a class of 23 high school students participating in a STEM elective class in teams partnered with art students to develop an interactive installation. Our analyses focus on how the structure of the feedback, critique, and reflections in the Maker Studio informed and shaped students’ design processes. Conclusions We discuss affordances and implications of recognizing studio practices (particularly critique) as design features of maker activities, especially in high school classroom contexts, and present the Maker Studio as a viable model for integration of maker activities in classroom environments. We also characterize key features of the Maker Studio model, including the following: appreciation and support for maker processes in addition to or even above final products, integration of various structures for giving and receiving critique throughout the design process, support for interdisciplinary and collaborative project work, and engagement with diverse perspectives and expertise during critiques.

Warkentien, Siri

doi: 10.1177/016146811912100901pmid: N/A

Abstract Background/Context Trends in district and metropolitan school segregation over the past several decades have been well documented, but less attention has focused on the racial/ethnic composition changes at individual schools that generate aggregate trends. These shortcomings limit our ability to understand complex and dynamic patterns of racial/ethnic change within schools, which may in turn prevent policy interventions that could increase school diversity and direct needed educational resources to schools. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study This study identifies distinct trajectories of racial/ethnic change occurring in public elementary schools between 2000 and 2015 and describes the characteristics and prevalence of each trajectory. In addition, the study examines how initial levels of school poverty are associated with membership in different trajectories. Research Design This secondary data analysis relies on data from the National Center for Education Statistics Common Core of Data (CCD) and employs latent class growth analysis. Findings/Results Despite the rapidly changing demographics of the overall student population, approximately 45% of all public elementary schools in the sample had stable racial compositions between 2000 and 2015. Close to half of the remaining schools, about 25% overall, experienced racial change at such a pace that they will be completely minority isolated within the next several decades if the pace continues. In the remaining schools, the pace of racial change is sufficiently slow to maintain diverse schools for many decades. Schools experiencing rapid Hispanic growth tend to have initially higher proportions of low-income students, indicating where racial change may likely occur and where schools will become racially and socioeconomically isolated without proactive policies in place. Conclusions/Recommendations Results suggest that absent intentional interventions that target the type of change trajectories being experienced at the school level, the overall increasing diversity of the student population will not likely lead to sustainably diverse schools for the majority of students. Providing the benefits of a non-racially isolated education for all children is possible, but we must first identify the school trajectories of change and stability, then determine the most appropriate strategy for improving school diversity, and finally provide the resources and policies needed to foster and maintain diverse schools that are inclusive of all students.

Sebastian, James; Allensworth, Elaine

doi: 10.1177/016146811912100903pmid: N/A

Abstract Background Although there is a substantial body of literature on school leadership and its relationship with student achievement, few studies have examined how change in leadership is related to organizational growth and school improvement. Also less well studied is the influence of contextual conditions on how leadership and organizational processes evolve to constrain/augment school outcomes. Focus of Study In this study, we use moderation mediation analysis to examine how change in principal leadership relates to achievement growth, mediated via change in multiple organizational processes—parent-teacher trust, school climate (measured by school safety), and professional capacity. We further examine how these mediational relationships are moderated by initial school conditions. Research Design We apply moderation mediation analysis to administrative and survey data of elementary schools from a large urban school district to examine if initial school conditions moderate mediational relationships between school leadership and student outcomes. Conclusions Our results show that improvements in school leadership are related to student learning gains only through improvements in school climate; this relationship is consistent regardless of whether schools initially had strong or weak leadership and regardless of whether schools initially had safe or unsafe school climates.

Atteberry, Allison; Lacour, Sarah E.; Burris, Carol; Welner, Kevin; Murphy, John

doi: 10.1177/016146811912100908pmid: N/A

Abstract Background/Context There is broad agreement about the benefits of taking AP and/or IB courses in high school. Nonetheless, student access to such courses remains uneven and inequitable, due largely to the practice of tracking students by perceived “ability.” These tracking practices are often defended based on the contention that detracking and mixed-ability classes are impractical or unworkable. This study's conclusions inform the policy debate on the efficacy of detracking as an instructional strategy and add to the emerging literature concerning the potential of providing a school's most challenging, highest quality curriculum to all students. Research Questions We study a reform that combines two basic elements: detracking in Grades 6 through 10 plus open IB enrollment in Grades 11 and 12. We answer four questions: (a) Did greater numbers (and proportions) of students enroll in IB courses as the district progressively detracked its math and ELA courses? (b) As detracking took place over time, did IB courses become accessible to a broader range of students with respect to prior achievement? (c) How did students who enrolled in IB courses after detracking perform on their end-of-course IB assessments, conditional on prior achievement? Here we particularly focus on whether high-performing students appeared to perform worse on the IB assessments as the IB classes were composed of higher numbers of students with lower prior achievement. (d) Conditional on taking a math IB course, did students become less likely to take the more challenging Math SL IB course (relative to the less challenging Math Studies IB course)? Intervention/Program/Practice Policy to detrack access to high school IB courses. Research Design: We use an interrupted time series approach to examine whether the onset of detracking coincided with (a) increased IB participation or (b) decreased IB scores. We also document whether low-, middle-, or high-prior skill groups of students perform less well during detracking. Finally, we explore whether racial achievement gaps on statewide assessments were exacerbated by detracking. Recommendations The results associated with this detracking reform challenged two widespread beliefs. First, the school's highest achievers continued to succeed in the more heterogeneous IB classes. Second, the average IB scores for the school's lower achievers were the same or higher after detracking began, even though many more such students enrolled in those courses. In short, this case study documents the potential for not rationing the enriched, world-class curriculum of the International Baccalaureate.

Hurie, Andrew H.; Callahan, Rebecca M.

doi: 10.1177/016146811912100904pmid: N/A

Abstract Background Currently, most Latinx emergent bilingual (EB) students are educated in English-medium programs alongside English-dominant peers. Legally mandated social integration of EB students coincides with a prescriptive linguistic emphasis on content-language integration in ESL (English as a second language) programs; both integrative approaches are particularly salient in the current hyperracial climate in the United States. Focus of Study We explore two schools’ responses to Latinx EB population growth via the intersecting racial and language ideologies informing and influenced by programmatic changes, educator perceptions, and pedagogical practices. Research Design This qualitative multiple case study spans two Texas schools selected by purposeful maximal sampling over the course of two separate academic years. Data include semistructured interviews, focus group interviews, and participant observations. Findings We find that institutional structures across the sites tended to promote a denial of responsibility for racial stratification and a concomitant disciplining of the school curriculum. We argue that both integrative approaches ultimately perpetuated white racial domination. Conclusions/Recommendations We suggest that ESL research and practice would benefit from an explicit questioning of racializing discourses and boundaries of academic disciplines as part of a racially literate critical practice designed to counter the normalization of whiteness.

Parkhouse, Hillary; Arnold, Bryan P.

doi: 10.1177/016146811912100907pmid: N/A

Abstract 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.

Taylor, Barrett; Rosinger, Kelly Ochs; Coco, Lindsay; Slaughter, Sheila

doi: 10.1177/016146811912100905pmid: N/A

Abstract Background/Context Research on academic capitalism often maps changing conditions in which faculty work occurs without explaining the mechanisms by which change occurs. We use Fligstein and McAdam's theory of fields to posit that the changing conditions in which humanities faculty members work reflect activities in overlapping (the academic profession more generally) and proximate (university administration) fields. We seek to illuminate the ways in which humanities faculty experience heightened administrative authority and strategically respond. Research Questions We ask: 1) How do faculty members in the humanities understand the changes in their field? 2) How do faculty members in the humanities understand their relationships to members of overlapping (e.g., faculty in other areas) and proximate (e.g., administrators) fields? and 3) How do faculty members in the humanities strategize to improve their positions? Participants We conducted semistructured interviews with 46 faculty members in humanities fields with various appointments (tenured, tenure-track, non-tenure-track). Faculty participants were mainly housed in English and history, two of the largest humanities departments at many institutions, but also in philosophy and religion departments. Research Design Our multiple case study design took place at two public research universities to understand how faculty respond to changing conditions. The research sites, typical of many public research universities, experienced declining direct government support and therefore conditions in which academic capitalist processes occur were present at both. Humanities departments contributed a large portion of student credit-hour production at both research sites, yet such funds were centralized and allocated by university administration. Data Collection and Analysis Our interview protocol focused on faculty perceptions of resource allocation within the institution, allocation of work within the department, perceptions of the department relative to others, and how faculty structured their time and careers in response to various pressures inside and outside of their university. Semistructured interviews ranged from 25 and 90 minutes and were recorded and transcribed. We analyzed data using a priori and emergent codes which were grouped into broad themes reflecting faculty responses to changing conditions. Results Three strategic responses emerged among humanities faculty members we interviewed: utilizing lower status faculty members, exploiting weaker units in the field, and forming alliances. Conclusions/Recommendations Strategies result in the improved status of some individual faculty members but do not arrest the diminishing status of the humanities as a field. Our analysis suggests that field-level analyses entail implications for the study of academic work and processes in the academic capitalism tradition.