Education Commons^™

The Politics Of Culturally Responsive Sustaining Education: A Panel, Lonice Eversley, Richard Haynes, Asya Johnson, Dina Klein, Diana E. Lemon, Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz, Natalie P. Byfield

Journal of Critical Race and Ethnic Studies

No abstract provided.

School Related Criminal Acts, Interpersonal Problems, And Classroom Behaviors As A Function Of The Proportion Of Black Students And Black Teachers, Leanne Zaire

Clinical Psychology Dissertations

This study’s purpose was to investigate school-level behavioral outcomes in relation to the proportion of Black teachers and students in U.S. schools. Negative school outcome and academic achievement gaps are well-documented. However, many of these studies utilized small, localized populations; my research used national data and focused on the problem behaviors in school. Drawing from Critical Race Theory, I hypothesized that a greater proportion of Black teachers would reduce school student problems and negative behaviors (e.g., student verbal abuse of teachers, widespread disorder in classrooms). After receiving a restricted-use license, I utilized data from 25,818 schools from the National Teacher …

A Path To Equity: Solving New York's Teacher Turnover & Quality Challenges, Prepared To Teach, Bank Street College

Prepared to Teach

This white paper frames both the case for and an approach to addressing persistent teacher quality, diversity, and turnover challenges in the State of New York. A growing set of research and promising practice informs the report, which is intended to offer a high-level understanding of the complexities around how the economics of teacher preparation both drives educational inequities and can be shifted to promote educational quality and equity by investing in funded teacher residencies.

Federal Funding For Aspiring Teachers: An Investment In The Nation's Future, Prepared To Teach, Bank Street College

Prepared to Teach

This concept paper is a high-level overview of the case for and a pathway to achieve universal residencies across the nation created to inform policy discussions at the U.S. Department of Education.

Using Formative Assessment To Build Coherence Between Educational Policy And Classroom Practice: A Case Study Using Inquiry In Science, Connie Cirkony, John Daniel Kenny

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

In this paper we argue that the complexity of education systems can lead to a lack of coherence in the implementation of policy. More effective educational change requires policy-makers and researchers to pay more attention to supporting teachers in classrooms. As an example, we consider decades of research attempts in STEM education to implement learning through inquiry and note there has been little change in teaching practices in classrooms. Using formative assessment in science education as a case study, we developed a rubric for teachers that embeds key aspects of the desired pedagogy. We argue this builds teachers’ confidence to …

A Path To Equity: Solving New Mexico's Teacher Turnover Challenges, Prepared To Teach, Bank Street College

Prepared to Teach

This memo discusses New Mexico's need for shifts in teacher preparation structures and options to meet Yazzie/Martinez requirements. New models of sustainable, affordable teacher residencies that can provide New Mexico the teaching workforce its students need are outlined.

Seeking Universal Education: From Singapore’S Educational Success, Gulnar Rzayeva

Master's Projects and Capstones

According to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, education is considered a fundamental human right. However, this right is not accessible for every child. Not all education systems are capable of providing quality education. There are various reasons behind this issue. Based on the OECD and PISA records, Singapore has a successful education system with multiple ethnicities and religions. This study intends to discover some characteristics of Singapore's education system and the feasibility of achieving similar success in other practices. In the methodology part, based on a literature review on the education policy and the education system of Singapore, content …

Implementation Of A National Teacher Education Strategy In Finland Through Pilot Projects, Jari Lavonen, Seija Mahlamäki-Kultanen, Sanna Vahtivuori-Hänninen, Armi Mikkola

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

The implementation of a teacher education strategy in a decentralised Finnish education system is analysed. Altogether, 31 pilot projects, involving teacher educators from all universities, were funded to support the implementation of the strategy and professional learning of autonomous teacher educators in the context of the strategy. In this mixed-methods research, the directors and active partners of the pilot projects were asked how they perceived the characteristics of the pilot projects that have been recognised as supportive for the implementation of the strategy. The directors were also asked to evaluate the impact of the projects. The projects …

De Las Escuelas De Estados Unidos A Las Escuelas De México: Desafíos De Política Educativa En El Marco De La Gran Expulsión [From Us Schools To Mexican Schools: Educational Policy Challenges In The Context Of The 'Great Expulsion'], Víctor Zúñiga, Edmund T. Hamann

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

This Spanish-language chapter, drawn from a larger book intended to advise Mexico's new national leadership on various issues related to migration, focuses on the steadily growing, overlapping populations of US-born and US-school-experienced children in youth now enrolled in Mexican schools. It notes that that population, numbering more than 600,000, is enrolled all across Mexico, albeit not equally distributed, with municipios (counties) with high international migration rates also hosting high return rates. Moreover it notes that this population's US school experiences were highly varied not only because of their different durations, but because schooling in urban Southern California varies from that …

Alternative Routes To Teacher Certification

Occasional Paper Series

Alternative routes to teacher preparation are clearly here to stay. A growing research literature on non-traditional pathways suggests the complexity of the task ahead. This report offers new teachers the opportunity to tell their own stories in their own words.

Children With Speech Sound Disorders At School: Challenges For Children, Parents And Teachers, Graham R. Daniel, Sharynne Mcleod

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

Teachers play a major role in supporting children’s educational, social, and emotional development although may be unprepared for supporting children with speech sound disorders. Interviews with 34 participants including six focus children, their parents, siblings, friends, teachers and other significant adults in their lives highlighted challenges for these children in school, and challenges for their parents and teachers in meeting these children’s developmental and educational needs. These challenges were centred on the need for specific expertise in the school setting, and access to additional classroom and professional services to support these students’ engagement in the learning and social environments of …

Exploring The Complexity Of Policy Enactment Through Stories: A Sociomaterial Informed Study., Sarah Burm

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This qualitative research study explores the meaning(s) Aboriginal education leads and school board administrators give to the Ontario First Nations, Métis and Inuit (FNMI) Policy Framework (hereafter referred to as the Framework) and how these meaning(s) are negotiated, storied, and enacted to produce particular processes, outcomes, and effects within the context of Aboriginal education in Ontario. The principles of Critical Narrative Research (CNR) combined with the sensibilities of Actor Network Theory (ANT) are drawn on to foreground the policy actors involved in the implementation of the Framework. Recruitment of research participants took place across both public and Catholic school boards …

The Evaluation Of Rhode Island Public High School Teachers: The Impact On Students, Stephen Lamontagne

Honors Projects in Mathematics

In 2012, the state of Rhode Island began the full implementation of a high-stakes teacher evaluation system. Its purpose is to increase teacher accountability and to improve student performance. However, a significant amount of literature casts doubt about the effectiveness and validity of teacher evaluation. This paper utilizes statistical methods including regression and decision trees in order to determine whether or not there is a relationship between teacher evaluation in Rhode Island and student performance, using RI Department of Education Data for each school from 2008-2015. Furthermore, this presentation investigates other factors that affect schools, to see if changes in …

Training Together: State Policy And Collective Participation In Early Educator Professional Development, Anne Douglass, Alice Carter, Frank Smith, Sherri Killins

New England Journal of Public Policy

This study used one state’s early care and education work-force registry and professional development attendance data to examine early educator patterns of professional development participation and the extent of collective participation. The article presents the concept of collective participation in professional development, discusses its potential benefits, and highlights the utility of statewide digital tracking of early educators’ patterns of professional development for informing policy. Results show that collective participation is uncommon in early education and care but can be increased through professional development policy decisions. The article concludes with implications for research and policy.

From Surveillance To Formation? A Generative Approach To Teacher ‘Performance And Development’ In Australian Schools, Nicole Mockler

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

This paper explores the possibilities and limitations of the AITSL Performance and Development Framework as a vehicle for authentic teacher professional learning. It suggests that the Framework offers a range of implementation possibilities, from surveillance of teaching practice at one end of the spectrum to ongoing and generative formation of teachers at the other, and argues that at its best, the Framework will be interpreted and implemented as a catalyst for school-developed, inquiry-based professional learning that builds collegial professional practice and supports teachers to develop and take an inquiring stance toward their practice.

The Environmental Health Of The Autistic Student In The Public School Classroom, Antonia Klein

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Professionals have found autism to be an enigmatic condition. While necessary

biomedical research continues, a gap exists in the inclusion of parental opinions,

knowledge, and experiences in educational planning for their autistic children. The

purpose of this mixed methods study was to identify the factors that the parents felt

contributed to the academic success of their autistic child in the public school classroom

environment and ways in which their ideas might contribute to overall educational

planning and classroom design in structure, curriculum development, and intervention

strategies which might lead to reduced stress. Parental input was explored through

semistructured personal interviews …

When Words Inflict Harm: Documenting Sexuality And Gender Identity Microaggressions In Schools For Lgbtqq Youth, Darla Linville

Georgia Educational Research Association Conference

With the adoption of anti-bullying laws and policies, it may seem that things are looking up for lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer or questioning (LGBTQQ) youth. We might assume that these laws and policies would better protect them from insults, harassment and violence at the hands of their peers and teachers. In fact, this is sometimes the case. But it is also the case that the insults become more covert, more implicit. Looking at microaggressions gives educational researchers and school personnel the opportunity to examine how gender nonconforming or non-heterosexual youth, or those perceived to be non-heterosexual, are assaulted, invalidated …

Unmasking The Reformers: An Essay Review Of Ravitch’S Reign Of Error, Connie Schaffer

Teacher Education Faculty Publications

Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America’s Public Schools invigorates the ongoing debate surrounding the reform of K-12 public education. Author Diane Ravitch does so by interfusing quantitative and qualitative evidence related to a number of significantly contested issues including standardized testing, high school graduation rates, school and teacher accountability, and the privatization of public schools. Those who criticize charter schools, vouchers systems, merit pay for teachers, and the increased testing of elementary and secondary school children will find their perspectives affirmed and validated throughout the book. In contrast, those who support the …

Education Policy And Social Justice: Exploring Possibilities Within Education Policy Context Of Pakistan, Sajid Ali

Institute for Educational Development, Karachi

One of the major purposes of education policy is to ensure social justice in a society. The social justice needs to be thought of not only in conventional sense of ‘distributional’ justice, but also in the sense of ‘relational’ justice. Looking from this perspective the policies in Pakistan have historically focused only on distributional justice, albeit with dismal progress on this front. However, they have completely ignored the attainment of ‘relational’ justice as a policy objective. As a result power differentials not only exist but worsened through educational policies such as undermining of public schooling while encouraging privatization of education …

Risky Business? An Analysis Of Teacher Characteristics And Compensation Preferences, Daniel Henry Bowen

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Teacher quality has a significant impact on both student learning gains and later life outcomes. With this is mind, policymakers implement reforms to attract and retain more effective educators. A major obstacle for designing these policies is that the ingredients for training, as well as initially identifying, effective teachers remain largely a mystery. However, there are strong theoretical arguments for certain education policy reforms producing improvements in the quality of the teacher workforce. One increasingly popular example is performance-based pay. Performance pay has the potential to better align teachers' incentives to produce increases in student achievement. Paying teachers based on …

Bringing Teach For America Into The Forefront Of Teacher Education: Philanthropy Meets Spin, Kathleen P. Demarrais, Julianne Wenner, Jamie B. Lewis

Julianne Wenner

This study examines the practices utilized by TFA from its inception in 1990 to create its brand and how these practices have transformed TFA into a cultural icon within the national landscape of teacher education. Well-funded through both philanthropic foundations, corporate sponsorships, and federal monies, TFA’s use of its organizational and political networks, as well as the media, has enabled it to position itself discursively as a leader in the preparation of teachers in the U.S, resulting not only in transforming state and national discussions about teacher preparation, but in establishing a network of elites with a particular ideology of …

The Massachusetts Early Education And Care: Professional Development Study, Anne Douglass, Alice Carter, Frank Smith

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

This study is a research-policy partnership. This study used workforce registry (n=55,768) and professional development attendance data to examine early educator characteristics and patterns of professional development participation in one state.

In the paper, we describe how these new workforce data can inform professional development. We present the concept of density in professional development participation, discuss its potential benefits, and highlight the utility of state-wide digital tracking of early educators’ patterns of professional development for informing policy. We suggest that professional development policy can impact professional development participation density, and can thus be used intentionally to promote investments that have …

Charter Schools Or Progressive Education? Lessons From Finland, Christopher J. Poor

Christopher J Poor

New Zealand’s current government has embarked on a course of supporting private providers of education in the form of “partnership” schools with the claim that these charter schools can address the recalcitrant problem of disparity of achievement between students from different ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds. This paper examines evidence from the research on charter schools and argues that attention should rather be paid to the Finnish example of high and equal educational achievement and to the landmark achievements of New Zealand’s own pioneers of progressive education as we prepare a new generation for the twenty-first century.

Codes Of Ethics In Australian Education: Towards A National Perspective, Daniella J. Forster

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

Teachers have a dual moral responsibility as both values educators and moral agents representing the integrity of the profession. Codes of ethics and conduct in teaching articulate shared professional values and aim to provide some guidance for action around recognised issues special to the profession but are also instruments of regulation which position teachers in sanctioned roles. This paper offers a rationale for reviewing the purposes of codes of ethics in Australia as instruments which profoundly influence teacher morality and have significant educational implications. As one of the first comparative reviews of Australian state and territory codes of ethics and …

How Districts Allocate Educational Resources In Rhode Island, Timothy P. Ryan

Master's Theses, Dissertations, Graduate Research and Major Papers Overview

Considerable debate has taken place regarding the amount, adequacy, and effectiveness of funding public schools. At the macro level, research is mixed as to whether increased funding is associated with improved student performance. In some specific cases, such as increased funding for lower class size and early childhood education, spending on specific activities has shown to be effective.

This study examined whether spending categories are associated with academic performance. Spending allocations and student performance were examined at the school level for the school years 2004-05 through 2007-08. Spending data was obtained through the Rhode Island Department of Education In$ight financial …

Education Policy Borrowing In Pakistan: Public-Private Partnerships, Sajid Ali

Book Chapters / Conference Papers

No abstract provided.

What About Me? An Examination Of Identity Formation Among Beginning Educators, Nicholas Bernardo

Honors Projects

Over the past decade, I have been an athlete, a stage manager, an actor, a parliament member, a treasurer, a resident assistant, a tour guide, a ballroom dancer, and very involved with music, participating in marching band throughout high school as well as my college wind ensemble. Of all those roles, the only one that has stuck is my most recent—teacher. I decided that I wanted to be a teacher in fourth grade, and I have grown to be very passionate about it. But even in that regard, the question “what is right?” continued to linger. What if I am …

Teacher Professional Standards, Accountability, And Ideology: Alternative Discourses, Katarina Tuinamuana

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

Teacher professional standards and accountability are today writ large on the landscape of both schooling and teacher education practice around the world. This paper explores some of the related debates through a discussion of four discourses on teacher professional standards: namely, discourses of commonsense, professionalism and quality, managerialism/performativity, and strategic manoeuvring. It is argued that each of these discourses legitimises particular understandings of standards and quality, illustrating the competing set of lenses through which they are viewed, as well as the broader ideologies from which they emerge, including neoliberalism and technical rationality. These discourses also represent the interpretive practice that …

Driving Policy Of Higher Education In Nigeria Towards Relevance, Kayode Ijaduola

Academic Leadership: The Online Journal

The educational system of a country remains the main source of human resources that when combined in the right quantity and quality would bring about the development of a nation (Nelson, 2002; Saint, 2002; Tettey, 2002; Nunn, 2005; Mouton, Boshoff, Kulati & Teng-Zeng, 2007). The implication of this is that the level of national development depends upon the quantity and quality of its human resources which in turn depend on the type of the educational system in operation.

Characteristics And Predictors Associated With Teacher And Faculty Use Of Online Data Collection In Teacher Preparation Settings, Susan Gracia

Faculty Publications

The purpose of this study was to examine some of the gaps in the research around the use of online surveys in teacher preparation settings by exploring the attitudes toward technology and online evaluations, as well as predictors of user assessment of online data collection methodology, among 222 College Supervisors and Cooperating Teachers. Research questions centered around the status of and relationships among College Supervisor/Cooperating Teacher demographic variables, level of computer experience, computer proficiency, attitude toward technology, perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, facilitating conditions, and overall assessment of online student teacher evaluations. Findings indicated that Cooperating Teachers experienced far …