ExpandED: Broadening the Understanding of Contemporary Issues in Education and Policy

The Texas Tech University Educational Leadership Policy faculty in collaboration with the Center for Innovative Research in Change, Leadership, and Education (CIRCLE) invite you to join us for our virtual brown bag series, “ExpandED: Broadening the Understanding of Contemporary Issues in Education and Policy.” Featuring researchers from the College of Education and various institutions across the country, the aim of this series is to bring together students, faculty, and researchers at Texas Tech and beyond to disseminate knowledge that is of immediate relevance to educational leadership and policy and facilitate the cross-pollination of ideas across multiple institutions.

This year, audiences from across the country will gather virtually to engage with speakers on topics related to policy evaluation and open-science research practices, evolutions and social constructions of education policy over time, and empirical research noting the barriers and challenges to providing equitable educational opportunities for historically marginalized students.

To access recordings of all previous ExpandED talks, please visit the webinars page linked here.

Schedule and Summary of 2023-24 Talks

Beyond the Classroom: An Exploration of Rich and Relevant STEM Learning in Informal and Non-Formal Spaces

September 19, 2023, 12pm-1pm

Discussion of the U.S. STEM education system largely focuses on formal (classroom) education, although scholarship would suggest that additional and rich STEM learning is occurring in both informal and non-formal spaces. A panel of three scholar-experts who enact and research informal/non-formal STEM discuss the affordances of STEM learning in such spaces. With their unique insight, each contributor provides policy recommendations to enhance, strengthen, and/or reform in/non-formal STEM education in the United States, in their respective states, and spheres of influence. CIRCLE associate director Dr. Rebecca Hite moderates this discussion with Dr. Gail Jones (North Carolina State University), Dr. Megan Ennes (University of Florida), and Dr. Gina Childers (Texas Tech University).

 

Teacher Turnover and Student Achievement Under the Texas Teacher Incentive Allotment: Insights from an Urban School District

October 3, 2023, 12pm-1pm

The 83rd Texas legislature passed House Bill 3 (HB 3) in 2019, establishing the Texas Teacher Incentive Allotment (TIA) program. As one of the largest teacher pay-for-performance systems in the country, the purpose of the program is to provide a realistic pathway for effective teachers to earn a six-figure salary in hard-to-staff schools. While previous research is mixed as to whether pay-for-performance programs improve retention of high-quality teachers and improve student performance, no research to date has examined whether the TIA program in Texas is linked to either of these outcomes. Using data provided by a small, urban school district, I discuss whether TIA designation associates with likelihood of teacher turnover and/or student achievement gains in the district. Specifically, I illustrate turnover rates of teachers designated under compared to similarly effective teachers in subsequent years. In this talk, I will also discuss whether students with TIA-designated teachers exhibit better academic performance compared to students with non-TIA teachers.

 

"Asking for Anything is Tough": How Autistic College Students Reconcile Self-Advocacy

October 10, 2023, 12pm-1pm

College presents a new phase for individuals to engage in self-exploration and find independence. For many students, including those who identify as autistic, seizing self-advocacy affords many challenges. Dr. Nachman presents findings from a qualitative research study on autistic community college students and their journeys to embrace self-advocacy, as well as previews early findings from a national survey of autistic college student success (funded by the Spencer Foundation) to show how self-advocacy often factors into students' own definitions of success. Throughout he relays stories of optimism and opportunities, including that of his own path as an autistic scholar.

 

Evolving Conceptions of Teacher Leadership in World Culture

November 7, 2023, 12pm-1pm

“Leadership” as a construct has played a central role in globally diffusing educational reforms of the last few decades. Both “accountability” and decentralization movements assume that more active and informed “leadership” in schools will result in higher test scores, e.g., better school performance. This vision of leadership has roots in a cultural logic of western individualism and rationalized educational environments dedicated to individual human capital development. In this institutional logic, teachers' roles as workers is taken-for-granted, and so movements to promote both teacher leadership, lifelong or workplace learning, and teacher professionalism become necessary. The role of the teacher leader is radically different in 1) older cultural logics that emphasize a diffuse outcome of education (e.g., bildung in Germany and shido in Japan); 2) national cultural logics that emphasize schools as engines of national identity formation. In these alternative logics, teachers are taken-for-granted “leaders” with far-ranging duties and authority that extends beyond classroom walls. Overtime, a preponderance of science has come to indicate the central role that teachers play in creating effective student learning environments as well as the impact of organizational routines and rationales that support workplace learning. This requires new reforms that attempt to reformulate schools as “learning ecosystems,” “learning organizations” or organizations that support “workplace learning.” In this evolving world culture of school reform, teacher leadership becomes a “floating signifier” that can take on multiple meanings depending on the context and aims of reforms.

 

The Responsibilities of Comparative Education Research

December 5, 2023, 12pm-1pm

Education is one of the most prevalent institutions in the world, and most individuals have been either a part of the education system (as students) or worked professionally in an organization or entity related to education (as teachers, for example) than any other institution in the world. As a result, the field of comparative education is responsible for the development of youth, communities, economies, and agendas in every community, nation, and region of the world. With this kind of influence, often comes enormous responsibility to influence or affect individuals and populations in ways that improve living conditions, general knowledge, and specific skills, and which has an impact on social, economic, political, and cultural systems across the gamut. This talk examines these responsibilities and how comparative education is (and should be) addressing them.

 

Dual Credit Programs and their Challenges for Rural and Urban Students

January 23, 2024, 12pm-1pm

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Summary TBA

 

International schools in national contexts: Examining the implications of the growing international school field on education as a national project

January 30, 12pm-1pm

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Education as an institution is often viewed by nation-states as a vital component to cultivating citizenry. However, in countries like Egypt, where policy mandates towards privatization were adopted in the 1990s, the burden of providing education to its citizens moved to private, international schools for those able and willing to pay. Not just in Egypt but many post-colonial, developing countries, the field of international schools has grown rapidly. Most recent data indicates a 60% increase in global growth of international schools worldwide with a total of more than 13,000 English medium international schools educating 5.8 million students. This is significant because nearly 80% of these students are host country nationals, many from particularly privileged segments of society. However, little research exists examining the socializing influence these international schools have on host country nationals, who are learning a foreign curriculum in a foreign language and often with foreign teachers. Dr. Galegher will present results from a case study in Egypt that analyze the long-term implications of these schools on host country nationals, the often contrasting aims of national education systems and international schools, and recommendations for what school leaders and policymakers can do to find an equilibrium between localization and internationalization.

 

Motherhood, Childhood and Parenting in an Age of Education: An Invited Invasion

March 5, 2024, 12pm-1pm

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The expectations associated with childhood increasingly include cognitive and school related activities as the partnership between parents and education intensifies in the joint project of human development of children. An Invited Invasion is about the fundamental transformation of motherhood and childhood as education, our largest social intervention, grows in institutional strength. It is about a change in parenting to a more schooled and cognitively based developmental approach, not just more demands but a change in the meaning of motherhood and also childhood.

 

Living the Legacy: A Study of Migration, Segregation, and Education

March 19, 2024, 12pm-1pm

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This qualitative study explored the perspectives of Black educational leaders and teachers who attended segregated schools and then taught in more integrated settings after the Great Migration. Data collected through semi-structured interviews revealed three main themes: boundaries, community, and enhanced education. Importantly, the findings also revealed that as these Black educators shared their teaching and leadership experiences after migrating, they somehow could not escape the physical or psychological burden associated with being Black. This talk will include implications for how current educators interface with students of color to help them navigate the educational system.

 

TBD

March 26, 2024, 12pm-1pm

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Summary TBA

 

TBD Graduate Student Talk

April 30, 2024, 12pm-1pm

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Summary TBA