Showing papers in "Education Policy Analysis Archives in 2018"

Reorganizing a countywide school district: A critical analysis of politics and policy development toward decentralization

Abstract: Policymakers and educational leaders continue to use school district decentralization as a reform effort that attempts to shift power and authority from central office administration to school-level leadership. In 2015, the Nevada Legislature passed legislation to restructure the Clark County School District (CCSD), the state’s largest school district, with the intent of breaking it up into smaller districts but instead evolving to decentralization. In this article, we use case study methods to explore the events leading up to the reorganization of CCSD. We take a critical perspective on Kingdon’s multiple streams framework to analyze the reorganization efforts, focusing specifically on how Nevada’s political context provided a window of opportunity for the reorganization to occur. We also examine the extent to which equitable educational opportunity was a factor in these efforts. Our analysis of the reorganization of CCSD contributes to a wider understanding of state-level policy development and politics within contemporary educational contexts. In this case, we find that state-level policymakers successfully leveraged the opportunity to enact the power and authority necessary to significantly and rapidly impact the structure of one of the largest school districts in the United States.

Políticas de Inclusión Educativa en Chile: Tres Nudos Críticos

Abstract: Having achieved the coverage challenges following compulsory policies and a financing system via demand subsidy conditioned to enrollment and attendance, but faced with the scenario of school segregation, Chile has set itself the goal of advancing towards the right to an inclusive education and of quality. In this article we identify and analyze three critical nodes that affect the possibilities of achieving this goal: a) a tension between the logic of integration and educational inclusion, b) a market-based model that does not consider public values, and c) a new educational architecture, based on the logic of individual accountability, which places the possibility of educational improvement in individual incentive systems tied to the achievement of high performance tests. We discuss the need to address and unlock these nodes through transdisciplinary research.

The New Professionalism? Charter Teachers’ Experiences and Qualities of the Teaching Profession

Abstract: While teacher professionalism remains a contested topic, scholars increasingly acknowledge the field has entered a “new professionalism” wherein its parameters are dictated by management and the organization rather than those within the occupation Many argue that this shift has served to decrease teachers' sense of professionalism, efficacy and persistence Simultaneously, no-excuses charter schools, considered to embrace this new professionalism, continue to proliferate Yet little is known about how teachers within these schools view teaching and the qualities of teacher professionalism To address this gap, we interviewed twenty new and novice teachers teaching in high profile charter organizations in the northeast such as Uncommon Schools, KIPP, MATCH, and Boston Collegiate Our findings suggest that these teachers largely perceived their schools and the degree of professionalism positively For example, teachers reported that their schools fostered teacher autonomy, professional accountability, and collaboration However, their schools' high-accountability climates encouraged feelings of competition and caused teachers to question their efficacy, ultimately reinforcing views of teaching as a short-term endeavor Finally, professional status and rewards were described as low with many teachers saying they felt underappreciated or undervalued Our findings demonstrate how the climate of “new professionalism” can produce outcomes both consistent and in tension with efforts to professionalize teaching

Redesigning Systems of School Accountability: A Multiple Measures Approach to Accountability and Support.

Abstract: The challenges facing our children in the 21st century are rapidly changing. As a result, schools bear a greater responsibility to prepare students for college, career, and life and must be held accountable for more than just testing and reporting on a narrow set of outcomes aimed at minimum levels of competency. Thus, scholars, educators, and reform advocates are calling for a more meaningful next phase of school accountability, one that promotes continuous support and improvement rather than mere compliance and efforts to avoid punishment (Center for American Progress & CCSSO, 2014; Darling-Hammond, Wilhoit, & Pittenger, 2014). This paper reviews state and district level accountability systems that incorporate a multiple measures approach to accountability and highlights the following features that represent redesigned systems of accountability: 1) broader set of outcome measures, 2) mix of state and local indicators, 3) measures of opportunities to learn, 4) data dashboards, and 5) School Quality Reviews. The paper concludes with guidance for policymakers and practitioners on ways to support the development and implementation of a multiple measures system of accountability so that school accountability becomes synonymous with responsibility for deeper learning and support for continuous improvement.

Coloniality and decolonial pedagogy: To think of other education

Abstract: This paper aims to present the special issue on Coloniality and Decolonial pedagogy. The work presents and discusses the theoretical perspectives on Modernity / Coloniality and its main concepts, particularly the modernity, the coloniality and decolonial pedagogy concepts. We also develop the debate about coloniality and decolonial pedagogy in this dossier, highlighting that this theoretical perspective is built in a dialogue with several educational realities and with social movements.

Exploring the effect of supportive teacher evaluation experiences on U.S. teachers’ job satisfaction

Abstract: Teacher satisfaction is a key affective reaction to working conditions and an important predictor of teacher attrition. Teacher evaluation as a tool for measuring teacher quality has been one source of teacher stress in recent years in the United States. There is a growing body of evidence on how to evaluate teachers in ways which support their growth and development as practitioners. For this study, we inquired: What is the relationship between supportive teacher evaluation experiences and U.S. teachers’ overall job satisfaction? To answer this question, we employed a multilevel regression analysis to multiply-imputed data on U.S. lower-secondary teachers’ experiences from the 2013 Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS). We found a small, positive relationship between the perceptions of supportive teacher evaluation experiences and U.S. secondary teachers’ satisfaction after controlling for other important teacher and school characteristics and working conditions. Further, teachers who felt their evaluation led to positive changes in their practice had higher satisfaction. Teachers whose primary evaluator was a fellow teacher as opposed to the principal also had higher satisfaction on average. We discuss the implications of these findings for school leaders as well as future teacher evaluation policy.

‘Good, deserving immigrants’ join the Tea Party: How South Carolina policy excludes Latinx and undocumented immigrants from educational opportunity and social mobility

Abstract: This timely article engages in a content analysis of South Carolina state policies that exclude resources from (un)documented Latinx immigrants This research explores how state policy enacts tropes of deservingness and constructs notions of good immigrants in order to exclude Latinx immigrants from educational opportunity and social mobility Drawing on a content analysis of 67 policy documents from the state’s legislative database from 2003-2017, the analysis revealed examples of explicit and implicit exclusion The main findings related to these forms of explicit and implicit exclusion, highlighting how policy discourse constructs notions of good immigrants in state policy and policy enactments restrict resources As Latinx populations reconfigure the landscape of the US South, states like South Carolina continue to embed racist, discriminatory language and actions into enacted and proposed policies This has severe implications for undocumented children and families and their access to public and social resources

The university supervisor, edTPA, and the new making of the teacher

Abstract: As university supervisors at a large, urban university in the southern US, we examined the ways that the Education Teacher Performance Assessment (edTPA) shaped the pedagogic relationships and decision-making processes of our students and ourselves during the spring of 2016. We situated this study of edTPA within the framework of critical policy scholarship (Grace, 1984, cited in Lipman, 2010) by reviewing the role of tests in licensing teachers in the context of the perpetual reform of U.S. education. We drew upon Biesta’s (2009) notion that neoliberal accountability trades democratic relationships for consumer relationships and Attick and Boyles’ (2016) argument that edTPA resituated student teaching as a marketplace activity. Applying self-study methodology (Samaras & Freese, 2009), we documented our experiences of supervising preservice teachers as they underwent the edTPA submission process. We found the assessment strongly controlled our relationships with our candidates. As supervisors, we became part of our candidates’ transaction towards certification. Likewise, our candidates viewed us as arbitrators who could help them align themselves and their work to edTPA’s specifications. Nevertheless we found moments that superceded the control of edTPA. We conclude with recommendations that teacher education programs attend closely to their social justice missions and develop new critical pedagogies in the face of the pressure of edTPA.

Charter schools, parent choice, and segregation: A longitudinal study of the growth of charters and changing enrollment patterns in five school districts over 26 years

Abstract: In 1975, a court-ordered busing program was launched to desegregate the schools of New Castle County, Delaware. It was by many accounts one of the most significant and successful desegregation programs in the nation (Armor & Rossell, 2002; Orfield, 2014; Raffel, 1980). In 1995, the districts of the county were declared “unitary” and the court order was lifted. Shortly thereafter, new policies were enacted allowing school choice, charter schools, and neighborhood attendance zoning. This study draws on primary and secondary data, including geographic, census, and enrollment data, and provides an account of the policy changes and a 26-year longitudinal analysis of changing enrollment trends and patterns. Segregation by race and income among schools accelerated after the policy changes. While the policy changes created greater segregation, enrollment trends varied by district and over time; segregation growth was moderate in two of the districts, small in the others. Our study illuminates the complexity of explaining segregation patterns and disentangling the contributing role of choice, charters, attendance zones, and residential demographics in explaining segregation patterns in school systems.

Framing teacher education: Conceptions of teaching, teacher education, and justice in Chilean national policies

Abstract: Chile shows high inequity and socioeconomic stratification in both K-12 education and teacher preparation. Drawing on the notion of frames, this critical policy analysis examines how teaching, teacher education, and justice were conceptualized in Chile’s teacher preparation policies between 2008-2015. It also analyzes the narrative stories implicit in these policy documents. Analysis of the documents shows that national policies emphasize a content knowledge for teaching and teacher education and conceptualize justice as an issue of access to quality teachers. These approaches to teaching, teacher education, and justice are similar to predominant discourses in countries like the US. However, Chilean national policies are promoted using a narrative of development instead of the narrative of decline or crisis usually used in developed countries. These findings contribute to the understanding of national teacher education policies and their connection to the process of policy borrowing . The paper shows both the particularities of frames and narratives used in teacher education policies in developing countries like Chile and their similarities to those in countries that implement neoliberal policies in teacher education.

A Critique of Grading: Policies, Practices, and Technical Matters.

Abstract: In recent years there was been a raft of criticisms of the way that grades (or marks) are assigned to students. The purpose of this paper is to examine the strengths and weaknesses of grading systems and grading practices, drawing upon both historical and contemporary research and writing. Five questions are used to frame the review and organize the paper. They are: (1) Why do we grade students? (2) What do grades mean? (3) How reliable are students’ grades? (4) How valid are students’ grades? and (5) What are the consequences of grading students? The results suggest that (1) The are several purposes for grading students; the way that grades are assigned and reported should be consistent with the specified purpose. (2) Grades mean different things to different people (including the teachers who assign them). (3) Grades on a single task (e.g., a test or project, a homework assignment) are quite unreliable, whereas cumulative grades (that is, those based on several data sources) are reasonably reliable. (4) The validity of grades on a single task is virtually impossible to determine; however, the evidence suggests that cumulative grades are reasonably valid. (5) Grades influence a variety of student affective characteristics (e.g., self-esteem). However, their influence is no greater, nor less than, a host of other school-related factors.

Retención y Abandono Estudiantil en la Educación Superior Universitaria en América Latina y el Caribe: Una Revisión Sistemática

Abstract: The phenomenon of student retention and dropout in the Latin American and Caribbean region entails significant social and economic repercussions, both for students and for society as a whole. Despite the importance it has acquired over the last few years, there is still no bibliographical review of a systematic and replicable methodology that allows us to understand the main results and conclusions of the various investigations within the region. For this reason, the present study aimed to describe variables and factors that have been associated with student retention and dropout in Higher Education in Latin America and the Caribbean. We found and analyzed 81 articles in Spanish and Portuguese published between 1990 and 2016, distributed in 10 countries and indexed in seven databases. A protocol applied by two independent researchers was used to organize the information. A total of 111 different variables associated with the phenomenon were found. These were grouped into the five factors proposed by the ALFA-GUIA Project: “Individual”, “Academic”, “Economic”, “Institutional” and “Cultural”. Among the factors, the one that predominates is the “Individual”, which makes it necessary to improve the measurement of latent variables and the adaptation of instruments. The presence of the factors “Academic” and “Institutional” demand changes at the level of Higher Education Institutions attending the new students who enter. Finally, the “Economic” factor demands to ensure the financing of the studies. Along with the above, much of the research focuses on the characterization of students and very few analyze the result of interventions to reduce dropout. There is also an important discordance when defining and measuring this phenomenon. That is why it is necessary to establish common parameters for the central concept and its measurement, in addition to redefining ALFA-GUIA factors specifically the “Individual”, “Academic” and “Cultural”.

Voices from Student Teachers in New York: The Persistence of a Subtractive Experience of the edTPA as a Licensure Exam for Initial Certification.

Abstract: This article explores how candidates’ experiences in multiple initial certification programs within a single School of Education evolved over the first three semesters of New York’s implementation of edTPA as a requirement for initial licensure. The data reviewed included primarily surveys and interviews of teaching candidates, framed by critical perspectives on accountability, teacher performativity, and constructivist theories on learning to teach. Results suggest candidates’ perceptions of program alignment and edTPA benefits improved while several challenges persisted. These included the lack of mentor teacher knowledge about the edTPA as well as disconnects between candidates’ edTPA scores and local program evaluations. Additionally, student teachers’ perceptions of a subtractive experience of the edTPA continued in spite of improved perceptions about the benefits of the exam and across all scoring levels, programs, and semesters. A discussion of these results considers the implication of policies that reify quality, compel performance management, and contribute to values conflict for candidates in the particularly unique developmental moment of learning to teach. These voices of student teachers, often underrepresented in the research on edTPA, urge a reconsideration of the policy on teacher performance assessments in terms of how such policies impact the experiences of those learning to teach.

Fulfilling our educative mission: A response to edTPA critique

Abstract: Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning, and Equity (SCALE) provides a commentary on the manuscripts in this special issue, responding to criticisms of edTPA as an assessment that narrows the curriculum, heavily relies on students’ academic writing skills, and creates additional burdens for teacher candidates. The commentary highlights how edTPA is intended to strengthen teacher candidates’ teaching and provides suggestions for educative implementation that could improve teacher education programs.

Teacher preparation for emergent bilingual students: Implications of evidence for policy

Abstract: Failure to adequately prepare teachers of emergent bilingual (EB) students could have devastating consequences for student achievement, EB reclassification, and eventually, high school and college completion. To enhance the policy discourse, we explore how teacher certification requirements relate to both EB student achievement and teacher self-efficacy in three states with similar EB student populations but disparate policies on ways to meet EBs' needs: Arizona, California, and Texas. To do this we ask: (1) How well do states prepare their teachers to meet the needs of EBs? (2) What knowledge specific to meeting EBs’ needs do states require their teachers to demonstrate? (3) How are these requirements related to teacher perceptions of their preparedness to effectively teach EBs? We find that there are marked differences across the three states in terms of how well they prepare EBs, and these patterns can be discerned from their teacher preparation requirements. Although teachers’ self-efficacy does not appear to be related to teacher training in the first three years of teaching, there is an advantage to more rigorous training over time. Implications for policy are discussed.

Elementary principals’ social construction of parents of color and working class parents: Disrupting or reproducing conflicting and deficit orientations of education policy?

Abstract: School principals, contending with competing characterizations of parents in education policy and society, may view parents in a number of ways. Two common understandings portray parents as authentic partners or, in contrast, simply supporters of the school’s agenda. This paper explores these characterizations by considering the possible link between principals’ understandings of parents and their approaches to parent engagement and/or shared decision making, especially in light of the ways that the social context and education policy construct parents of color and working class parents as deficient. We use the lens of social construction of target populations to add to the currently minimal literature that directly examines principals’ views of parents. We report findings of a multi-phase analysis of surveys of 667 elementary principals in the state of California and interviews with a subgroup of 34 of these principals. We explore how principals structured parent engagement and conceived of the goals and rationales for parent workshops, illustrating how they socially constructed the target population of parents, particularly parents of color and working class parents. We find that principals often constructed parents in terms of deficiencies and as needing to learn to better support school goals. Our findings have profound implications for advancing equity in schools.

Navigating the contested terrain of teacher education policy and practice: Introduction to the special issue

Abstract: In the policy climate where various actors claim to have the solutions for the enduring challenges of teacher education, policy deliberations sideline certain voices. This introduction to the special issue explores policy contestations surrounding teacher education and highlights some of the perspectives overlooked by policy debates. It lays out new priorities for the teacher education community to ensure that the profession’s collective voice would be heard by policy-makers and by the public at large.

Teacher perceptions of a new performance evaluation system and their influence on practice: A within- and between-school level analysis

Abstract: Teacher performance evaluation systems (PESs) are central to policy efforts to increase teacher effectiveness and student learning. We argue that for these reforms to work, PESs need to be treated as coherent systems, in which teachers perceive that there are linkages between the PES components. Using teacher survey data from a large, midwestern school district, this article explores the linkages between teacher perceptions of a new PES using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), structural equation modeling (SEM), and multilevel CFA. We also examine whether a strong evaluation climate developed in this district. The CFA and SEM analysis demonstrate that teacher perceptions of PES are interrelated and linked to perceptions of changes in teaching practices and to the potential impact on student learning. The multilevel CFA demonstrates cross-level noninvariance, with fewer factors being identified at the school levels. These results suggest a need for a school‐level theory of action with corresponding school‐level constructs. While we did not find evidence of a shared strong evaluation climate, the results of the analysis illustrate the importance of examining within-school agreement, both to assess the reliability of between-school differences in average teacher perceptions and to assess whether schools are developing a strong evaluation climate.

Alternative routes to teacher professional identity: Exploring the conflated sub-identities of Teach For America corps members

Abstract: Research on the development of professional identity for teachers who enter the profession through alternative routes is still in its infancy. In contrast to their peers who complete traditional initial teacher education programs, these teachers are exposed to different conditions and constraints that produce a range of sub-identities previously unidentified in the literature. This paper draws on interviews with 27 teachers who entered teaching through Teach For America and wrestled with these sub-identities as they considered their emerging professional identity. We argue that these sub-identities point to structural challenges embedded within Teach for America, and we highlight the need for additional research on the growing cadre of teachers entering the teaching profession through alternative routes, and subsequently influencing policymaking processes.

The Policy Filtering Process: Understanding Distinctive State Responses to the National College Completion Agenda in the United States.

Abstract: The United States has faced stagnant postsecondary education degree completion rates for over a decade. When coupled with improved educational outcomes in other nations, the one-time world leader in higher education attainment has precipitously declined in standing internationally. Coupling this reality with the need for a more educated workforce domestically led President Barack Obama to proclaim improving higher education completion rates a national imperative in 2009. Despite input from the federal government, due to the decentralized nature of American postsecondary education, individual states maintain primary responsibility for governance and policy decisions. Consequently, there has been a range of state responses to improving college completion. Through a comparative case analysis, this study considers a putatively homogenous region to investigate state-level factors that “filtered” the national college completion agenda to distinct responses in Georgia, South Carolina, and Texas.

Storying Teacher Education Policy: Critical Counternarratives of Curricular, Pedagogical, and Activist Responses to State-Mandated Teacher Performance Assessments.

Abstract: The rise of high-stakes, standardized, teacher performance assessments (TPAs) is central to the industry being created out of the regulation, policing, and evaluation of university-based teacher education In addition to reinforcing a narrow and counter-critical framework, TPAs can shift responsibility for the evaluation of teacher candidates from university-based teacher educators with a comprehensive and nuanced fluency in candidates' preparedness to external scorers trained to standardize and depersonalize effective practice. In this article, four social justice-oriented teacher educators from three different states examine the practical and political effects of TPAs in their local contexts. By analyzing the curricular, pedagogical, and political implications of this high-stakes standardization of their field, they speak back to a policy landscape that too often marginalizes the voices of the teachers and students it purports to serve. Throughout, they examine the dilemmas of practice created by TPAs, as teachers and teacher educators seek to redefine what it means to enact justice-oriented professional agency in an increasingly regulated context. A critical counternarrative methodological approach was used to collect and process the authors’ lived stories and then to collaboratively reflect upon each other’s personal/professional experiences with TPAs. Several strategies are identified for enacting agency in response to TPAs, including curricular acts of resistance, resistance through participation in state legislative processes, policymaking within teacher education programs, the production of activist scholarship, and refusal to participate at all. Ways are suggested for teacher educators to minimize, mitigate, and resist unjust policy through curricular, political, and scholarly activism.

What Is Diverse Enough? How "Intentionally Diverse" Charter Schools Recruit and Retain Students.

Abstract: School choice has the potential to be a tool for desegregation, but research suggests that choice more often exacerbates segregation than remedies it. In the past several years, hundreds of ‘intentionally diverse’ charter schools have opened across the country, potentially countering the link between charter schools and segregation. Yet, these schools raise important questions about choice, segregation, and equity. For instance: how do leaders of diverse charter schools prioritize diversity in decisions about location, marketing, and recruitment? What are the implications of these diversity efforts for equity, especially within competitive and marketized educational contexts? We explore the concrete recruiting and marketing strategies schools used to build and retain their diverse communities, drawing on qualitative data from New Orleans, LA, and Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN. We identify key strategies used by school leaders, but also note that many strategies were ad-hoc and experimental. Furthermore, we noted that school goals around “how much” diversity was sufficient were often unarticulated, making schools susceptible to external pressures that might refocus attention away from equity and diversity, or allow groups with more power to shape agendas within the school. Finally, we find that contexts of gentrification and widening economic inequities threatened schools’ efforts to recruit and maintain a diverse student body. We discuss implications for leaders of diverse charter schools and other leaders seeking to diversify their student bodies, as well as policymakers and charter authorizers.

The intersections of selves and policies: A poetic inquiry into the hydra of teacher education

Abstract: This article explores the intersection of selves and policies for teacher educators in an era of teacher education reform. Borne out of a promise to one another to write about our experiences navigating increasingly complex market-driven, neoliberal attacks on our work and world, we collected data across several years that documented our attempt to break our silence (Lorde, 1977) and explore how we, as teacher educators, make sense of neoliberal reforms and policies in teacher preparation. We draw specifically on Dunn’s theory of the Hydra of Teacher Education (2016), alongside literature on reforms and policies in teacher preparation and teacher educators’ forms of resistance to frame our work, and utilize arts-based poetic inquiry methodology (Prendergast, 2009; Rath, 2001) to explore the real, everyday implications of educational policy in our lives and in our careers. The poems we created as a “performative act” (Prendergast, 2009, p. xxiii) revealed that our experiences seemed to follow a cycle from hopelessness, to silence, to acquiescence, to collective resistance. We look carefully at this last portion of the cycle in our work, wondering how, if at all, teacher educators can resist the neoliberalization of teacher preparation. We conclude with implications for research, policy, and the practice of teacher education as we write to understand, write to resist, and write to survive.

A desigualdade é a meta: Implicações socioespaciais do Programa Ensino Integral na cidade de São Paulo

Abstract: This article proposes an analysis of the Integral Teaching Program (PEI), implemented in the Sao Paulo State (Brazil) public-school system, from a point of view of the dynamics of production of socio-spatial and educational inequalities. In the present case, we have investigated the role of public education policy, under the New Public Management logic, as an inducer and reproducer of inequalities. Our results suggest that PEI is based on an insular logic, which produces school units for students already privileged in their relations with the city. In addition, the implementation of the Program has provoked an outflow of students, with a positive effect on the socioeconomic levels (SEL) of the PEI schools and on their results in large-scale evaluations. This effect was counterbalanced by the negative effect in the school units around the PEI schools, where we observed a decrease in the number of students with higher SEL. In addition, if compared to the surrounding schools and to the public-school system itself, PEI schools have fewer classes and students. They are schools for the minority: the students with highest SEL of the system. In these schools, we also observe the preference for a single-cycle organization, which places PEI in the same line as the controversial proposal of School Reorganization in 2015.

Planning as strategy for improving Black and Latinx student equity: Lessons from nine California community colleges

Abstract: In 2014, California policymakers passed the Student Equity Plans (SEP) policy to address disparities in the community college system. The reform effort formalized a campus-wide planning effort that required institutions to examine their data for disparities, develop goals and strategies to mitigate identified inequities, and use new fiscal resources to realize their plans. In recent years, there has been an increase in the enactment of state-level higher education policies, but few, if any, have focused on the notion of equity or explicitly named racial and ethnic groups as policy beneficiaries. This study examines nine student equity plans in the state’s largest community college district. Drawing upon critical policy analysis, we place a focus on understanding if, and how, the planning process was used to address inequities facing Black and Latinx students. Based on our analysis we found several themes on how plans identified and address barriers facing Black and Latinx students. After examining 178 equity activities, we found only 28 promising activities that explicitly targeted Black and Latinx students with culturally relevant, data-driven, evidence-based strategies. These findings have compelling implications for policymakers seeking to develop reform efforts and institutions using policy to address current and historic inequities faced by Black and Latinx students. The use of planning for improvement is commonplace in educational policy, but we find that more training and capacity-building efforts are necessary to use planning as an opportunity to address racial inequity in community college.

How Do States Integrate Performance Assessment in Their Systems of Assessment

Abstract: This paper reviews state strategies for incorporating performance assessment in policy and practice. Specifically, the paper reviews the use of performance assessment in 12 states in the Innovation Lab Network, a group committed to developing systems of assessment that provide meaningful measures of college and career readiness. This review suggests that states relied on four central approaches for integrating performance assessment in state and local systems of assessment: 1) classroom purposes, 2) graduation requirement, 3) school accountability purposes, or 4) federal accountability. We review these approaches and the benefits and challenges associated with each strategy.

Enrollment of students with disabilities in charter schools: Contemporary national and state level findings

Abstract: There is no national study examining the rate of enrollment of students with disabilities in charter schools. We examined whether students with disabilities were significantly less likely to enroll in charter schools as compared to non-charter public schools accounting for state level variation using data for the entire national population. We utilized data from the Civil Rights Data Collection under the U.S. Department of Education for the 2011-2012 and 2013-2014 academic years. These nationwide and contemporary data provided school-level numbers of students with disabilities receiving special education services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and charter school status. We performed hierarchical linear modeling to examine for differences in the percentages of students with disabilities under IDEA between charter and non-charter schools, which revealed significantly less students with disabilities enrolled in charter schools at the national and state level. Additionally, we identified and ranked states according to the degree of discrepancy in the percentages of students with disabilities under IDEA between charter and non-charter schools.

The Seal of Biliteracy: Considering equity and access for English learners

Abstract: The Seal of Biliteracy is a grass-roots language policy initiative that is sweeping across the United States. An award affixed to high school graduates’ transcripts and diplomas, the overarching purpose of the policy is to promote and foster students’ bilingualism and biliteracy in K-12 schools. Initiated in California in 2011, the policy has been modified significantly as stakeholders in 32 different states have drafted, passed, and enacted similar legislation in recent years. On its surface, the policy appears to hold promise in disrupting the monolingual norm prevalent in U.S. schools; however, with many states focusing efforts on world language education for English-dominant students, a critical analysis of the policy from the lens of the large and growing population of English learners is warranted. This paper considers the 32 state policies from this lens, first exploring the policy purpose and logistics and then making policy recommendations to enhance equity and access for English learners. The recommendations target stakeholders across the United States who seek to either initiate or revise Seal of Biliteracy policies within their unique state contexts.

The Professoriate and the Post-Truth Era: A Historiographic Analysis of Expert Judgment and the Destabilization of Objective Truth.

Abstract: This paper explores the role that distrust of expert judgment plays in conservative critiques of higher education. We propose that academics should abandon the insistence on truth as the standard for the evaluation of research quality. Doing so would separate conservative critiques of higher education from broader concerns over expert judgment via the substitution of judgement criteria more readily accessible to laypeople. Based on evidence about how expert judgment actually functions, we propose utility as a standard accessible to all. We show this by describing a historiographic model of expert judgment within the research university. We close with a call for scholars to acknowledge the conflation of facts and values in their work—that is, its post-truth nature.

Políticas de ações afirmativas, pessoas com deficiência e o reconhecimento das identidades e diferenças no ensino superior brasileiro

Abstract: The juridical and social recognition of differences and identities in the field of affirmative action policies aimed to promoting the access of people with disabilities to Brazilian Higher Education is an emerging in the national scenario. Thus, it is understood the need of discussions and theoretical, conceptual and juridical deepening that touches on the problematic. In this sense, the present research focused on the analysis of documents and studies on the subject in the spheres of political sciences, education, philosophy, sociology and cultural studies. As result, it weaved a national and international historical contextualization crossed by movements that culminated in the democratization of the access at the Higher Education, tied by problematizations about the material equality of rights, recognition of the difference and the plurality of identities, affirmative action policies, quota system and allusions to the possible interests and mechanisms of state regulations that govern in this process. It is pointed out that affirmative action policies, even though they are recognized as important, do not seem sufficient for the access and permanence of people with disabilities in Brazilian higher education, once the university culture must be willing re-signified itself in this process, building opportunities in which differences and plurality of identities are recognized.