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

Upward socioeconomic mobility in the United States necessitates postsecondary education in some form due to various local and global political and economic conditions. Most jobs created after the recession were positions that required some kind of postsecondary education and/or credentials. Given the global pandemic caused by COVID-19, the need to obtain some higher level of education beyond high school will only intensify. Unfortunately, students from working-class backgrounds within urban and rural settings have not had the same educational opportunities as those from suburban environments or from wealthy backgrounds. Therefore, it is paramount to better understand the ways policy makers and educators can ameliorate the educational gap between students from working-class backgrounds in rural/urban communities and those from wealthy suburban environments. This presentation will showcase the ways in which dual credit programs can promote exposure to a collegiate environment and increase college participation of students who may not have pursued a collegiate pathway beyond high school.

 

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

January 30, 12pm-1pm

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

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

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.

 

AP or IB?: Geographic Patterns in Advanced Course-Taking, High School Achievement, and Postsecondary Outcomes

March 26, 2024, 12pm-1pm

Although high schools across the United States have increasingly boosted the availability of advanced coursework like Advancement Placement and International Baccalaureate, these offerings are much less available in rural schools and towns, relative to urban and suburban communities. Given substantial evidence that AP and IB courses provide an academic advantage over traditional coursework, this pattern has negative implications for the educational achievement and attainment of students in rural areas. How should educators and policy makers respond to this challenge when allocating limited resources? It is not clear whether students in rural schools would benefit more from increased access to AP or IB courses (or some combination of the two), since few studies have directly compared the two programs. Drawing on data from the 2009 US High School Longitudinal Study, we examine differential access to and impact of AP and IB courses for high school students across urban, suburban, and rural communities and towns in the United States. Consistent with earlier evidence, we find that AP courses are much more available than IB courses in rural areas and towns. Yet when they are available, IB courses appear to have a greater positive impact for rural students, particularly in terms of postsecondary outcomes. Our results support growing calls to increase students’ access to advanced coursework, particularly in rural areas and towns. (Based on work conducted with Dr. Dong Wook Jeong from Seoul National University)

 

What's Driving the Push for "School Choice" in Texas?

April 4, 2024, 12pm-1pm

Public education won the battle and held off "school choice" in the last legislative session, but the war is far from over. What is driving this push for policy change, and what are the potential ramifications for public education if vouchers become a reality in the future? Join this conversation to hear a thirty-five year public educator's thoughts and fears regarding this shift.

 

Economic Returns to Upskilling and Reskilling: Can Short Skills-Building Sequences in Community and Technical Colleges Yield a Living Wage?

April 9, 2024, 11:45am-12:30pm

 

More Than an Email: The Effects of Transfer Student-Faculty Interactions at a Four-Year University

April 23, 2024, 12pm-1pm

Community colleges serve as a vital pathway for upward mobility, enrolling a disproportionate number of first-generation, racially minoritized, and low-income students and facilitating their transfer to four-year institutions. Despite the opportunities transfer pathways offer, the retention and graduation rates of transfer students remain pressing concerns. Numerous studies have highlighted that faculty-student relationships are among the most influential factors shaping the success of transfer students. Indeed, a substantial body of research links student engagement with faculty to a range of positive psychosocial and academic outcomes; however, this literature primarily focuses on students who begin college at four-year institutions. Given the well-documented challenges transfer students encounter when adapting to new university environments, a detailed understanding of their interactions with faculty is crucial for fostering student success. In this presentation, I will share insights from a survey of transfer students at a single University of California campus, which asked about their experiences throughout the transfer process and their perceptions of academic and social integration at the receiving institution. Specifically, I will present findings from a study investigating the nature and frequency of faculty-student interactions, both inside and outside the classroom, and how these interactions relate to students’ academic achievement and progress toward graduation.

Estimating the Impact of the Texas Teacher Incentive Allotment (TIA) Program on Educational Outcomes

April 30, 2024, 6pm-7pm Central

This presentation examines the Texas Teacher Incentive Allotment (TIA) program, introduced in 2019 as a major reform aimed at improving teacher retention and enhancing student achievement through significant salary increases for effective teachers. Employing Synthetic Control Method (SCM), this study constructs a counterfactual scenario to analyze the program's impact within the first 26 participating districts over the school years from 2014-15 to 2022-23. Specifically, it explores how TIA has affected teacher retention and student performance in math and reading for grades 4-7. The findings highlight a notable increase in teacher retention and a corresponding rise in student achievement levels. This research provides insights into the influence of merit-based compensation systems on educational outcomes.

Does Art Make You Smart? An Experimental Evaluation of Culturally Enriching Field Trips

October 18th, 12pm-1pm

For generations, K-12 students across America have loaded onto buses and headed off on field trips. Despite the long standing tradition, little is known about the educational benefits of culturally enriching field trips. I will present results from a longitudinal experiment on academic and social-emotional effects of culturally enriching field trips. 

Thinking like an engineer: The link between high school engineering coursework and science attitudes for students with learning disabilities

November 15th, 12pm-1pm

This study explores how participation in engineering coursework in high school links to science attitudes (self-efficacy, utility, and identity) and expectations to pursue an engineering career and how these courses may particularly benefit students with learning disabilities. Ultimately, these courses appear to benefit students with respect to self-efficacy and identity.

Decisions Made in Crisis: The Lingering Effects of Policy Decisions Made During COVID-19

November 29th, 12pm-1pm

In March 2020, the World Health Organization's declaration of a global pandemic created uncertainty across all areas of life. Upon announcing the emergency for the United States, the president shared the administration's plan to set student loan interest rates to 0 percent, sparking questions about adequacy and implementation. Within days, a broader conversation about pausing student debt repayment overall, the prospect of broadly cancelling student debt, and sending immediate emergency financial assistance to students and institutions dominated the work of federal higher education policy advocates and congressional staff. In this discussion, Dr. Southern will share one story of how the CARES Act and subsequent legislative and executive actions came into being, as well as reflect on the implications of decisions made at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic for the future of federal higher education policy.

Having Justice in Mind: The Social Psychology of Race-Conscious Education Politics

December 6th, 12pm-1pm

Modern controversies over the teaching of CRT in schools, the use of race in college admissions, and other policy issues relevant to race in education have invited important questions about the state of our democracy and the ability to move forward. Social structural analyses of the politics of these policy issues are common in educational policy and politics. However, psychological theories for why people react the way they do are also important for constructing political advocacy and dialogue. In this talk, I will cover the baseline education scholars should know about the social and political psychology of resistance to race-conscious education policy, incorporating empirical evidence from our research on anti-CRT legislation and other racialized policy attitudes.

New Teacher Hires: Examining Pathways Into and Out of Teaching

January 10th, 12pm-1pm

Most studies on teacher retention and certification measure the retention or attrition outcomes of newly certified teachers. This approach defines newly hired teachers as individuals who recently completed their teacher preparation. Using a novel new hire by preparation pathways data set from 2010 - 2022, our study challenges the assumption that the preparation system is the main contributor of newly hired teachers. In Texas, we find that over 50% of new hires are not recent completers of teacher preparation. We extend this finding by fitting models to examine pathways that predict entry, exit, and re-entry of teachers. These results suggest that research on teacher retention or attrition should include approaches that identify the pathways of all newly hired teachers.

 

Who Teaches High School Computer Science and Does It Matter?

January 24th, 12pm-1pm

High school computer science (CS) course offerings and course taking have expanded rapidly in recent years, motivated by the belief that CS education provides important benefits both for individual students and for society. However, there are reasons to be concerned that CS educational expansions are outpacing the availability of teachers who are willing and able to teach CS effectively. I use statewide student- and teacher-level longitudinal data from North Carolina to answer two research questions. First, what are the characteristics and qualifications of high school CS teachers? The detail of these data allow me to describe both teachers' general qualifications (e.g., education and experience) and their CS-specific qualifications (e.g., licenses and teaching histories). Second, how important are CS teachers' characteristics and qualifications for students' outcomes? Here I take advantage of the fact that a subset of CS courses have standardized end-of-course assessments: Advanced Placement (AP) courses. This allows me to assess relationships between teachers' characteristics and students' AP exam performance after adjusting for observable student characteristics (e.g., prior academic performance). My results have implications for the relative importance of pre-service CS teacher preparation pipelines, CS teacher recruitment efforts by school districts, and in-service supports for CS teachers. They may also help to illuminate considerations for school leaders weighing the potential benefits of CS educational expansions against the limitations of staff capacity.

 

Nationalist agendas and policies of parity and representation in education

February 7th, 12pm-1pm

In this talk, I will discuss the ways in which the reservation system in India and the affirmative action programs in the US are complicated by the shifting nationalist ideologies in both countries. By both supporting and attacking the systems, political narratives have sought to diminish the more just and equitable goals such programs were expected to deliver. By focusing on the numbers, it has allowed groups to either showcase success or failure, but more than anything, such attacks are politically designed to deliver voting blocs for nationalist movements. From early childhood education to institutions of higher learning, the fight for equality and justice is being fought through such systems, undergirding the argument that education in fact is a transformative force and one under scrutiny for how those most marginalized have been treated in schools.

The Power of “Free” College: Reducing Racial and Socioeconomic Inequalities in College Expectations

February 21st, 12pm-1pm

Promoting equality in college enrollment and completion must start early in students' college-going journeys, including with their expectations to earn a college degree. With a nationally representative sample of high school students, I evaluate the ability of place-based “promise” scholarships (or “free” college programs) to increase college expectations. I find the introduction of promise programs increased the likelihood a student expected to attain an associate degree or higher, with larger effects for low-income and racially minoritized students. This study is the first to test the power of “free” college in shaping pre-college students' educational plans, and, in doing so, addresses an existing gap in the literature and identifies a key mechanism through which promise programs may increase subsequent college enrollment and attainment.

 

Changing Course: Trends in CTE and Computer Science Course-Taking and Student Success

April 4th, 5pm-6pm

Recent years have seen a push toward increased CTE and computer science course-taking.  

It has been over five years since Computer Science for All was launched, yet we are still seeing inequities in computer science course-taking and lingering gaps in the labor force. Chicago Public Schools initiated a computer science graduation requirement that has had two full cohorts of participants. While their primary focus has been on gender and race equality, Teresa Lansford will share her study which considered access and participation by students with disabilities and how the graduation requirement could be leading to a more neurodiverse computer science community.  

Texas House Bill 5 offered a more diverse, CTE focused math core. With these first graduating cohorts, patterns of course taking show changes in patterns for the highest levels of math courses taken by students. Increases in math CTE courses that count as core classes increased with each successive cohort. The presentation will show how some of these advanced CTE math courses brought improved workforce outcomes for students in rural districts.  

 

Leadership and Opportunity: Understanding the role of presidents during crisis

April 18th, 12pm-1pm

College Presidents serve as key decision makers and the public face for colleges and universities. In this talk, I share the results from a study examining the perceived role of college presidents during COVID-19 and provide key leadership lessons learned by these presidents that can be applied in future crisis leadership experiences.

After the Raid: Examining the Short and Long-Run Educational Impacts on Students and Schools Following a Large Workplace Raid in North Texas

October 12, 2021, 12:00-1:00PM Central Standard Time

After the 2016 presidential election, Donald Trump moved swiftly to enact tougher immigration enforcement policies. In 2018, the scale of enforcement reached new heights. With the implementation of large enforcement raids at worksites where dozens to hundreds of workers are arrested at a single site worksite, immigration enforcement-related arrests increased by 400% compared to the previous year.  Researchers across social science disciplines and public health have long been concerned with understanding and accurately measuring the impacts of exposure to community violence on children’s development. In this study, we examine the impact of exposure to a large-scale workplace raid in Texas on academic and behavioral outcomes for students. To guide our analysis, we combine a community violence framework with the notion of a pyramid of enforcement effects to focus on spillover effects for the broader population of Latinx students, students with limited English proficiency (LEP), and immigrant students. We also consider heterogenous impacts on the student body sharing more than one of these characteristics.

Five Ways Research Partnerships Can Fail

October 26, 2021, 12:00-1:00PM Central Standard Time

Research partnerships are promising as a way to systematically improve education agencies’ work—but they also carry a high risk that they will not reach their full potential. Five common stumbling blocks can derail partnership work: expecting agencies to set the research agenda; excluding critical partners from the table; overlooking the power of descriptive statistics; producing the wrong deliverables at the wrong times; and undervaluing brokers. This presentation will use examples from real research partnerships to illustrate these challenges and will also suggest potential strategies for avoiding them.

The Globalization of Universities and Science

November 16, 2021, 12:00-1:00PM Central Standard Time

In 2019 alone 3.3 million new STEM+ journal papers appeared, three times more than in 2010. Since 1980 the number of the world’s scientists has grown 50%, with significant flows of research from currently over 200 countries. A fourth of all STEM+ papers now result from cross-national collaborations, with a steady increase in super-collaborative projects of one hundred or more scientists coordinating a research effort with once unimaginable complex techniques. Yet, how global mega-science came about is less clear. A global, mega-dimensioned, highly collaborative capacity for new scientific, technological, engineering, mathematical (ie, STEM), plus medical, discovery was once thought impossible. Expert warnings of an imminent stalling of the capacity for new science accompanied by dire consequences appeared in the early 1980s, and still are made. Yet, the exact opposite has happened—capacity continues to explode. Commonly noted technology, wealth, and warfare have all contributed, but do not fully explain what has happened. An analysis of the who, what, and where of millions of STEM+ papers published from 1900 to 2010 by an international team of social scientists finds that the legitimation and resourcing of global mega-science rests on a more than one-hundred year mingling of a culture of science with a culture of higher education and the university. For example, 90% of the millions of annual STEM+ papers include university-based scientists, and universities have become ever more globalized. The project also follows the historical journey of a set of ideas about science, the university, and a growing centrality of education that eventually swept through the world to create the conditions for mega-science. The future sustainability of the university’s role in science is also explored.

What Can't We See?: Considering Instructional Quality in an Era of Increasing Standards

January 19, 2022, 12:00pm-1:00PM Central Standard Time

Gender as an Organizing Framework for International Education Development Policy in the Millennium and Sustainable Development Goal eras (2000 - 2020)

February 15, 2022, 12:00-1:00PM Central Standard Time

This presentation explores gender as an organizing framework for international education development policy and agenda setting during the Millennium and Sustainable Development Goal eras. Through critical feminist policy discourse analysis of a longitudinal document corpus sourced from UN Women and the United Nations’ Girls Education Initiative (UNGEI), the presentation shows how gender is used as a framework to construct policy populations and to frame potential solutions to address gender disparity in schooling access, adult opportunity, and social mobility. 

From the Field, In the Classroom, To the Lead: Coaches as Education Policy Change Agents in Texas

March 1, 12:00 - 1:00 p.m.

The Global Testing Culture and Teachers: How Emphasizing Tests Shapes Teacher Perceptions and Satisfaction

March 8, 2022, 12:00-1:00PM Central Standard Time

Quality in education is increasingly identified through the limited metrics of student test scores. Combined with high stakes on teachers and schools, the resulting testing culture, prevalent in many countries around the globe, shapes the actions of educators as they work through the increased stress and try to ensure the survival of the school. This presentation will look at how the presence of a school testing culture, including the emphasis of student test scores in high-stakes teacher evaluations, relate to teacher perceptions of evaluation utility and their satisfaction with working at that school. Using data from the Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS), patterns in teacher evaluations and more test obsessed countries are identified before a pooled analysis demonstrates the detrimental association between school testing culture and teacher satisfaction. Results have implications for how teacher evaluations are used and how, or if, tests should be a focal point in schools.

The impact of teacher career pathways and job conditions on student achievement 

April 6, 2022, 6:00-7:00PM Central Standard Time

As teachers are the most impactful element present within the walls of a school, it is important to understand the multitude of ways in which certifications and working conditions affect teacher outcomes. This set of graduate student talks examines these important topics to contribute to a broader discussion about teachers’ impacts on student achievement and how to recruit, support, and retain high-quality teachers in the K-12 setting.

A School Like Mine: Geography, Demography, and New Teachers’ Career Trajectories in Texas

May 12, 2022, 12:00-1:00PM Central Standard Time

Education Policy or Intervention Evaluation with Nested Data Structures: Master Class in Fixed Effects Modeling

February 4, 2021, 4:00-5:00PM Central Standard Time

Educational researchers are faced with a litany of data limitations that can prevent them from making accurate inferences to understand the effects of various policies, programs, or interventions. One common issue is that participants are frequently grouped in a way where they share many non-random characteristics that could bias our inferences (e.g., students within classrooms share the same teacher, voters within counties share the same voting regulations). This workshop will focus on using fixed effects modelling to reduce estimation bias from analyses using longitudinal or cross-sectional data. The master class will include discussion of problems with making inferences that fail to consider the possible impact of nested-data structures, how fixed-effects modelling compares to multilevel modelling, and other key considerations for researchers in the social sciences using data from surveys.

The 'New' Norms of Education Policy in the 21st Century: Pandemics, Polemics, and Persistent Inequality in Global Education Policy and Practice

March 3, 2021, 12:00-1:00PM Central Standard Time

In just 20 years, the 21st century has brought policy change to education at levels rivaling the paradigm-shifting global educational reform efforts of the 20th, but the same problems (in different forms) seem to be repeating themselves nonetheless. 21st century education policy, especially at the global and national levels is forced to take into account the effects of a pandemic, polemical and populist politics, and both institutionalized sexism and racism. And, there have been and will continue to be significant changes in education policy and practice in response to these crises, but amid the change there is remarkable permanence in the ideas, structures, content, and pedagogy embedded in education as well. This paper examines the promise of 20th century advances in education policy and practice against the challenges and pitfalls of 21st century education as evidenced by national and international educational developments.

Faces in the Classroom: The Impact of Familiar and Demographically Representative Peers and Teachers on Student Attendance and Academic Outcomes

March 10, 2021, 6:00-7:00PM Central Standard Time

Student engagement in school has been a persistent area of concern for educators, school leaders, policy makers, and stakeholders. Emerging research suggests that school closures and social isolation from the COVID-19 pandemic have only made connecting with students more challenging. In the search for cost-effective mechanisms for improving student attendance, engagement, achievement, researchers and practitioners have begun looking at the faces of students' peers and their teachers. As we seek effective responses to new challenges to student engagement, can placing students in classrooms with familiar or similar teachers and peers positively affect these outcomes? We examine the impact of demographic representation among peers and teachers and having familiar peer and teacher faces. To accomplish this, we explore four years of administrative data from a small, urban school district in California. Included in these data are student demographics, academic achievement, transcript information, discipline, and period-level logs of attendance.

The Impact of Immigration Enforcement and Policy on Undocumented Students: A Call for School-Based Support and Equity in Education

March 24, 2021, 12:00PM-1:00PM Central Standard Time

The Stories We Tell: Social Construction, Causal Narratives, and Policy Images in Education Policy

April 6, 2021

Implementation Challenges with Student Transportation Policies in Three School-Choice Rich Districts

April 20, 2021

Despite a growing recognition of the significance of student transportation provision for promoting equitable school choice, to date, there has been limited understanding of the implementation of school transportation policies, particularly in choice-heavy settings. Moreover, little is known about the challenges associated with managing student transportation in large school districts or how school- and district administrators working in distinct contexts respond to these challenges. In this talk, I present findings from interviews conducted with school district administrators, charter school leaders, charter authorizers, and other key stakeholders in three choice-rich school districts with distinct transportation policies and public transit infrastructures—Detroit, New Orleans, and New York City—to explore implementation of student transportation policies, examine the challenges they face vis a vis student transportation, and analyze their responses to these challenges in diverse settings. I present qualitative evidence of diverse educational actors' experiences managing student transportation and highlight efforts and opportunities to improve efficiency and access in student transportation through improved policy and practices.

From Old School to Open Science: Adapting to a New Climate for Educational Research

April 28, 12:00 - 1:00 p.m. Central Standard Time

Recently, scholars in medicine and psychology have noted how several "old school" practices—a host of well-regarded, long-standing scientific norms—in combination, sometimes compromise the credibility of research. In response, several "open science" norms and practices have emerged to address these credibility issues. This talk explores the extent to which and how these norms should be adapted and adopted for educational research. Using our own studies as case examples, we aim to do three things during the talk:

• Illustrate the problems of "old school" practices and how they can lead to illusory results,
• Provide an overview of emerging open science practices, and
• Give examples of what qualities we might expect to see in educational research moving forward.

We look forward to a discussion of how these practices may need to be adapted for educational researchers and what the implications are likely to be.

Delivering on the Promise of Pre-K through P-3 Alignment

May 4, 2021

A wealth of research suggests that high-quality Pre-K programs can significantly improve student readiness for school. However, it is often the case that the initial benefits of scaled-up Pre-K programs diminish in magnitude once children enter elementary school—a pattern known as Pre-K fadeout. In this presentation, Dr. Little will discuss the movement to better align Pre-K with the early grades (P-3 alignment) and specific strategies for doing so.