An official website of the United States government
Historically, teachers had been delegated the primary responsibility for the organization and management of classroom instruction in US public schools. While this delegation afforded teachers professional autonomy in their work, it has also resulted in disparities in students’ educational experiences and outcomes within and between classrooms, schools, and systems. In the effort to improve instruction and reduce disparities for students on a large scale, one reform effort in the US has focused on building instructionally focused education systems (IFESs) where central office and school leaders collaborate with teachers to organize and manage instruction. These efforts are playing out in a variety of contexts in the US, including in public school districts, non-profits, and other educational networks, and it is shifting how teachers carry out the day-to-day work of instruction. In this comparative case study, we investigate two IFESs in which efforts to improve instruction pushed against historic norms of teacher autonomy. We found that these new systems are not at odds with teacher autonomy, but rather these systems reflect a transition to more interdependent notions of teacher autonomy.
more »
« less
Productive myopia: Racialized organizations and edtech
This paper reports on a two-year, field-based study set in a charter management organization (CMO-LAX), a not-for-profit educational organization that operates 18 public schools exclusively in the Black and Latinx communities of South and East Los Angeles. At CMO-LAX, the nine-member Data Team pursues the organization's avowed mission of making public schools data-driven, primarily through the aggregation, analysis, and visualization of digital data derived from quotidian educational activities. This paper draws on the theory of racialized organizations to characterize aspects of data-driven management of public education as practiced by CMO-LAX. I explore two examples of how CMO-LAX shapes data to support racial projects: the reconstruction of the figure of chronic truants and the incorporation of this figure in a calculative regime of student accomplishment. Organizational uses of data support a strategy I callproductive myopia, a way of pursuing racial projects via seemingly independent, objective quantifications. This strategy allows the organization to claim to mitigate racial projects and, simultaneously, to accommodate them. This paper concludes by arguing for approaches to research and practice that center racial projects, particularly when data-intensive tools and platforms are incorporated into the provision of public goods and services such as education.
more »
« less
- Award ID(s):
- 1901367
- PAR ID:
- 10541776
- Publisher / Repository:
- SAGE Publications
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Big Data & Society
- Volume:
- 8
- Issue:
- 2
- ISSN:
- 2053-9517
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
More Like this
-
-
Our paper revisits a neglected chapter in the history of geographic education–the civil rights organization SNCC and the Freedom Schools it helped establish in 1964. An alternative to Mississippi’s racially segregated public schools, Freedom Schools addressed basic educational needs of Black children while also creating a curriculum to empower them to become active citizens against White supremacy. Emerging out of a history of Black fugitive learning, Freedom Schools produced a critical regional pedagogy to help students identify the geographic conditions and power structures behind their oppression in the South and use regional comparisons to raise their political consciousness and expand their relational sense of place. Freedom Schools have important implications for higher educators, especially as contemporary conservative leaders seek to rid critical discussions of race from classrooms. They offer an evocative case study of the spatial imagination of the Black Freedom Struggle while pushing us to interrogate the inherent contradictions, if not antagonisms, between public higher education and emancipatory teaching and learning. Freedom Schools prompt a rethinking and expansion of what counts as geographic learning, whose lives matter in our curriculum, where and for whom we teach, and what social work should pedagogy accomplish.more » « less
-
Abstract This study investigates the racial-mathematical identity profiles of Black American adolescents. Survey data were collected in five schools across one U.S. urban school district at two time points (spring 2018 [n = 197] and spring 2019 [n = 210]). Based on extant research regarding psychological response patterns to racialized school stress, we investigated the existence of an identity negotiation pattern in which students were motivated to resist negative stereotypes about Black people by achieving well in mathematics. We conducted a latent profile analysis combining students’ self-beliefs across five indicators: racial centrality, racial public regard, mathematics attainment value, mathematics mastery experiences, and resistance motivation. Three distinct racial-mathematical identity profiles emerged: (1) Mathematics Devalued/Ambivalent, (2) Moderately Math Attained, and (3) Resistors. We found associations between profile membership and students’ gender, negative math emotions, and their receipt of cultural and critical mathematics instruction. We also found an association between the identity profiles and school type (academically selective “magnet” schools vs. open-enrollment neighborhood schools), but not in the direction that might be assumed. Moreover, we found that certain school environment factors (i.e., racial stereotyping and cultural and critical mathematics instruction) were significantly different in racially diverse magnet schools than in the neighborhood schools. Overall, our data reveal the existence of a highly motivated Resistor profile among Black students, that is predicted by cultural and critical mathematics instruction but underrepresented within this district’s selective magnet schools.more » « less
-
The quality of K-12 public education is a perennial issue in Arizona that has heightened in salience over the past several years, with broad public concerns over insufficient funding sparking the Red for Ed movement for higher teacher pay. However, despite the push for educational change, there remain many barriers to K-12 public school education funding, including a lack of visibility for how Arizona public schools are performing at a legislative district level. Such information is released at a school district level by organizations like the Arizona Department of Education, but much of the information is limited and can be difficult for legislators to parse, particularly when school districts lie on the boundary between two legislative districts. Moreover, school outcome data is often limited to raw spreadsheets for the public and may be fragmented between government websites and educational organizations depending on the metric. Ultimately, this hinders the public’s understanding of the current educational standing. As such, a visualization dashboard that clearly identifies schools and their relative performance within each legislative district would be an invaluable tool for legislative bodies and the Arizona public. It is proposed that a dashboard for Arizona at the district level would increase transparency and availability of public information about these districts, allowing legislators to utilize the dashboard as a tool for greater understanding and more effective policymaking. While there are many positive social implications to be afforded by educational dashboards, this article also points to potential risks of this new visibility without end-user training.more » « less
-
null (Ed.)Since its inception in 1988, the Belize Valley Archaeological Reconnaissance (BVAR) Project has had two major foci, that of cultural heritage management and archaeological research. While research has concentrated on excavation and survey, the heritage management focus of the project has included the preservation of ancient monuments, the integration of archaeology and tourism development, and cultural heritage education. In this paper, we provide a brief overview on the history of scientific investigations by the BVAR Project, highlighting the project’s dual heritage management and research goals. This background offers the basis in which to discuss the successes and challenges of the project’s efforts in cultural heritage management and public engagement, particularly in early conservation efforts, in its training and educational efforts, and its ongoing outreach activity. We emphasize the need to train Belizeans as professional archaeologists and conservators, to serve as the next generation of advocates for Belize’s heritage management. We offer some ideas on how research projects can make significant contributions to heritage education and preservation in the developing world.more » « less
