Search

Educational change efforts that prioritize equity for multilingual learners (MLs) require attention to several interconnected components of the education system. We build on prior literature and our collective research to clarify the concept of shared responsibility for ML students and to operationalize the concept at the school, district, and state levels. Drawing on institutional theory and a racialized organizations lens, we argue that shared responsibility is embedded in the mindsets, norms, and structures that shape education systems. We also attend to the complexities of fostering shared responsibility in practice, such as grappling with pervasive educator burnout and developing innovative strategies that span levels of the system. We conclude with directions for future research, including studies examining effective approaches for shifting the mindsets, norms, and routines comprising shared responsibility, and recommendations for researchers to play a more active role in shaping shared responsibility for ML students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic has been a defining catastrophe for many communities across the world. This study focuses on a small, urban community in the United States at the regional epicenter of the pandemic with high rates of illness, death, financial hardships, and a halt to in-person school and services that lasted over a year. Drawing on institutional theory with a focus on environmental jolts and leadership sensemaking, we conducted a thematic analysis of 20 interviews with cross-sector community leaders, including city officials, school district administrators, directors of community-based organizations, and church leaders to evaluate how they made sense of COVID-19 disruptions and framed their responses to the environmental jolt caused by the pandemic in Spring, 2021. Findings illustrate how leaders framed the jolt as highlighting existing issues, maintained a focus on priorities and purpose pre-dating disruptions, and emphasized opportunities emerging from the crisis. We discuss how leaders engaged in sensemaking both as a form of stabilization, providing a rationale for maintaining pre-pandemic priorities, and as a way to motivate and leverage opportunity through an emphasis on the silver lining of the jolt. We close with implications of these findings for ongoing and future responses to environmental jolts and crises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

All human beings need care, including professional caregivers such as educators. What happens when a global crisis places care providers' own care needs in conflict with their duty and desire to provide care? In this article, we apply care ethics to one school district's decisions regarding newcomer English learners and their educators during the 2020-2021 academic year. Drawing on qualitative case study data from a larger multi-district, multi-state study, we examine how educators and administrators in a small urban school district in New England made sense of students' and educators' sometimes conflicting care needs during the COVID-19 pandemic. We argue that even school districts with clear commitments to equity and justice have their efforts severely limited by state and federal leadership's neglect of care/essential workers, youth, and marginalized groups. To end the ongoing pandemic and prevent future harm, we recommend that educational and political leaders prioritize human needs and relationships through a move towards "universal care" (Chatzidakis et al., 2020). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Alongside the inequities surfaced by COVID-19, a confluence of demographic and policy-related shifts over the last few decades has elevated the education of multilingual learners (MLs) in state education agency (SEA) leaders' work. This study employs an ecological perspective to examine how SEA leaders promote social justice policy implementation in their efforts to uphold MLs' civil rights under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). Research Methods: Given its embeddedness in a research-practice partnership (RPP) that emphasizes integration of researchers' expertise with SEA leaders' real-world knowledge, the study employs a participatory research approach. Drawing on 23 semistructured interviews with SEA leaders and 20 hours of observations during RPP meetings, the authors engaged in an iterative analysis process involving coding, memoing, and extensive member checking. Findings: Findings show the dual roles that leaders played to uphold the spirit of civil rights law across local education agencies (LEAs) and within SEAs, and they highlight the structural, cultural, and political dynamics that operated to enable or constrain this work. The study also reveals that cross-state collaboration may be a powerful mechanism for upholding ML civil rights in ways that go beyond compliance toward transformation and social justice. Implications: Although ESSA expanded the role of the SEA in policy implementation, little attention has been given to supporting state-level organizational development. Our findings suggest the need to allocate resources to support SEA capacity development. Such support is ever more critical as state systems work to develop coherent and aligned supports in response to COVID-19-related disparities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the population of students identified as English learners (ELs) with disabilities grows, schools need to be preparing educators to serve this vulnerable population. This paper presents findings from an inductive analysis of interviews with teachers and administrators in one suburban district. We examine the ways teachers and administrators perceive their roles and the needs of these students. We found that teachers grapple with identifying needs of students at the intersection of English Learning and Special Education, determining how best to support them, and coordinating across programs. These struggles seem to stem from a lack of understanding and expertise. We posit that through creative collaboration, special education teachers and ELs can help each other build capacity and dispel misconceptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The implementation of science reform must be viewed as a systems‐level problem and not just focus on resources for teachers and students. High‐capacity instructional leadership is essential for supporting classroom science instruction. Recent reform efforts include a shift from learning about science facts to figuring out scientific phenomena in which students use science practices as they build and apply disciplinary core ideas. We report findings from a research study on professional development (PD) to support instructional leaders' learning about the science practices. After participating in the PD, the instructional leaders' familiarity with and leadership content knowledge of the science practices significantly improved. Initially, principals used their understandings from other disciplines and content neutral visions of classrooms to make sense of science instruction. For example, they initially used their understandings of models and argument from ELA and math to make sense of science classroom instruction. Furthermore, some principals focused on content neutral strategies, like a clear objective. Over the course of the PD workshops, principals took up the language of the science practices in more nuanced and sophisticated ways. Principals' use of the language of the science practices became more frequent and shifted from identifying or defining them to considering quality and implementation in science classrooms. As we design tools to support science, we need to consider instructional leaders as important stakeholders and develop resources to specifically meet their needs. If the science feels too unfamiliar or intimidating, principals may avoid or reframe science reform efforts. Consequently, it is important to leverage instructional leaders' resources from other disciplines and content neutral strategies as bridges for building understanding in science. We argue that the science practices are one potential lever to engage in this work and shift instructional leaders' understandings of science instruction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This case presents how the leadership team and faculty of a small, independent school used design thinking to respond to a competitive marketplace and desire for enrollment growth in the middle grades. The new middle school head came in with a mandate for substantial change and sought to engage all stakeholders in a process of redesign and program renewal. The case describes how leaders involved the school community in the Design Thinking protocol to solve intangible design problems. It explores leadership challenges presented by this approach, including strategies to address these challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent reforms in science education advocate for a vision of learning where students figure out science ideas through engagement in science practices. Consequently, there have been significant efforts to engage K‐12 students in the science practices. However, less research attention has been given to understand how this science‐as‐practice vision manifests across systems of science education. Therefore, we analyzed how coherence among system levels (vertical coherence) and components (horizontal coherence) emerged in science instruction and influenced alignment to current science practice reform. We situated instruction in school systems by shadowing four school principals as they supervised science teaching over 4 months. In each school, we observed institutional settings where efforts to implement science reform were largely assimilated into the school's current instructional and administrative systems. These systems prioritized the coverage of state test‐related information, the promotion of literacy skills, and the importance of "hands‐on" science learning. Therefore, we need to create conditions that support educators in translating reform efforts into a reliable working infrastructure in their teaching practice. Further, we suggest greater attention be given to local protocols to collectivize action across system levels and components to develop coherent and user‐centered solutions for implementation of science reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In US public schools, linguistic diversity is growing rapidly with an increasing number of students who are learning English. Federal and state policies lay the foundation for language acquisition through (re)classification processes for English Learners (ELs). However, the classification process runs the risk of establishing separate services for ELs with little direct guidance for supporting integration. We present a qualitative case study of a small, suburban district's approach to (re)classification. We explore how the implementation of EL policy shaped the design of services, identification procedures and teacher roles with a focus on their relationship to integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: In U.S. public schools, principals must implement reforms that require instructional leadership across subjects, though little is known about subject-specific supervision. Methods: Through interviews with 26 K–8 principals, we examine instructional leadership for science. Findings: Our findings showed that science supervision occurred rarely; principals used a "content-neutral" approach that did not emphasize science-specific aspects of instruction. Principals explained this in terms of external accountability pressures in literacy and mathematics, as well as their own lack of science knowledge. Implications: We argue for subject-specific resources for principal supervision. For classrooms to change, principals must provide subject-specific support for teachers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on a resource of preservice and inservice science teachers. Information about a teaching and learning method that highlight the underlying goal of the Next Generation Science Standards to engage students in authentic science practice–based learning experiences as well as the Science Practices Lesson Adaptation resources is presented.

Abstract: School principals play a key role as instructional leaders in reform efforts, yet little is known about their knowledge of science. A key focus in recent reform efforts is the inclusion of science practices, which are potentially a significant challenge for schools. Consequently, we investigated K–8 principals’ views of good science instruction and their abilities to analyze classroom videos in relation to the science practices. Our research suggests that K–8 principals have limited understandings. Principals often described good science instruction as including the investigating practices, but rarely included the sensemaking or critiquing science practices. They also frequently discussed good science instruction as being hands‐on, but had different meanings of what counted as hands‐on. When evaluating videos, all of the principals focused on general pedagogy with few principals focused on the science practices and limited understandings of the quality of the science practices. If we want to support systemic change, we need to develop the capacity of principals to effectively supervise science that reflects recent reform efforts. However, principals need a vision that aligns with the science practices, but do not require (or have the time to obtain) the same level of expertise as their science teachers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we consider the ways in which family engagement practices foster sites of possibility for immigrant families in the public schools. As demographic change leads to a growing number of new immigrant destinations and amidst increasing hostility toward immigrant communities, educational institutions play an increasingly important role in supporting these students and their families. Drawing on a study of one school district's partnership with a local university to identify and resolve engagement gaps between immigrant and nonimmigrant families, our article discusses assetbased approaches to family engagement practices. In addition to discussing district initiatives to engage immigrant families in 2-way communication and minimize barriers to participation, we also consider the role of university partners in building sites of possibility for immigrant youth and their families. We conclude with implications for expanded efforts to develop equitable family engagement practices in districts serving immigrant communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last few decades, high-stakes accountability has become commonplace in education policy both in the United States and internationally. In this paper, we consider the role of school leaders and "accountability talk'' in implementing this shift through a case study of one urban school principal's talk during a period of reform. Consistent with broader policy discourses, the 650 instances of principal rhetoric in 14 elementary school meetings reflected issues of standardization and assessment through rational appeals to logic (logos). However, the principal's "accountability talk" also relied on rhetorical sequences that wove these rational appeals together with moral (ethos) and emotional (pathos) claims, thereby connecting the accountability paradigm to more established discourses associated with the educational profession. We argue that school principal's talk is a primary means through which broader institutional changes and local work practices become coupled together, often in ways that blend apparently competing models of organization. As such, accountability talk should be of both empirical and theoretical interest for scholars studying school leadership and education reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent immigration patterns have led to widespread growth in school enrollments of Spanish-speakers in nontraditional immigrant destinations in many parts of the United States. This paper explores the ways in which suburban school districts respond to this demographic shift, with a focus on how schooling impacts the acculturation experiences of immigrants to this particular context. Drawing on a statewide survey of administrators and teachers in schools serving Wisconsin's New Latino Diaspora, results from suburban schools are analyzed in comparison to urban and rural contexts. In this paper, I explore the ways in which suburban schools in the study were more likely to structure integration than schools in rural or urban locales. At the same time, these contexts were less likely to provide asset-based supports for Spanish-speakers, particularly those no longer designated as “beginner” English learners. These findings suggest that the opportunity to foster additive acculturation was limited, as many schools espoused a “sink or swim” approach in the context of scarce resources. Given the ongoing growth of immigrant communities in new suburban destinations, the paper ends with implications for future research and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Across the United States, immigrant enrollments in the public schools have rapidly increased, particularly in locales with little tradition of immigration, known as ”new immigrant destinations.” Despite the widespread nature of this trend, there is much to be learned about how schools are responding to this influx of immigrant students. This paper explores the nature and distribution of instructional and organizational capacity in this context, drawing on an empirical, statewide study of Wisconsin schools serving the new Latino diaspora to develop a theory of capacity in new immigrant destinations. We end with implications for theory and leadership practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of shifting demographics and standards-based reform, school districts in new immigrant destinations are charged with designing infrastructures that support teaching and learning for English learners (ELs) in core academic subjects. This article uses qualitative data and social network analysis to examine how one district in the midwestern United States organized EL instruction. After describing the district’s infrastructure for elementary EL education, we examine how this infrastructure supported teachers’ work practice—the practices in which teachers engage with one another—as operationalized around instructional advice and information networks. Findings reveal that teachers’ opportunities to learn about EL instruction varied significantly by the school subject and that these differences were directly related to the way in which the district built its EL educational infrastructure. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Demographic changes across the United States have led to dramatic shifts in the composition of public school enrollments. While these shifts are manifest across multiple dimensions of diversity, the influx of culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students is particularly pronounced. As the numbers of CLD students rapidly grow across all geographic regions, from rural to suburban to urban, school leaders face the daunting responsibility of responding to ensure that these students receive equitable opportunities to learn. Some guiding principles for accomplishing this generalize across settings, yet ultimately this leadership needs to be context-specific. In this chapter we discuss these guiding principles and apply them narrowly to the context of medium and small urban districts. We argue that school leadership - particularly district [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the United States and internationally, instructional coaching has been implemented as a mechanism to increase professional capacity, and in so doing improve student achievement. However, instructional coaches often face resistance from the teachers with whom they work; a manifestation of the egalitarian, isolated culture of teaching in many schools. In this paper, we analyze the daily roles of literacy coaches in three schools in one urban US school district. We explore how coaches’ responsibilities are shaped by the everyday realities of their school contexts. Further, we discuss how coaches manage those realities through the relationships that they build. We found that building relationships and establishing rapport are the foremost concerns for literacy coaches in their first months on the job and continue to be central throughout their time as coaches. Implications for the design, implementation and evaluation of district literacy coaching initiatives are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article describes how schools shape family engagement practices in the context of the New Latino Diaspora. Building on critical scholarship that has called for more culturally appropriate definitions of family engagement, this study seeks to develop a theoretical understanding of how school practices influence immigrant families' access to and participation in schools with little tradition of serving immigrant communities. Drawing on a statewide survey of practice in schools serving the New Latino Diaspora in Wisconsin, analysis includes descriptive statistics and textual analysis of survey comments from school principals and teachers working with immigrant students. Findings illustrate how considerable efforts to ensure access to Spanish-speaking families through interpretation and translation fall short of increasing family participation in key aspects of schooling. Given the influx of immigrants to new destinations across the United States, this work offers important insight into how schools receive newcomers in these contexts and identifies implications for research and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to call for a rhetorical turn in the study of school leadership and discusses how principals use language to enact school improvement. The key purpose is to explore how talk is action in leading and managing school reform. Design/methodology/approach – This paper presents a rhetorical framework and methodology for interpreting principal practice through language. As a model, the language use of one urban school principal is examined through a rhetorical analysis of 650 instances of principal talk in 14 administrative meetings. The paper reports on the form and content of principal rhetoric, including analysis of logos, pathos, and ethos, and comparative analysis across meeting contexts. Findings – The paper demonstrates the importance of rhetorical form and content and highlights the role of audience in principal talk. In the present example, each of three rhetorical forms was used to transform school practice. Logos was used most frequently; emotional and ethical arguments were also integral to principal talk. Comparative analysis showed that the principal's rhetoric varied by audience. The principal's use of language did not just explain practice, but also defined and shaped ongoing practices. Research limitations/implications – The author proposes future cross-case research to develop an understanding of how leadership language varies across individuals and contexts, as well as interaction analyses of the co-performance of discourse and rhetoric in schools. Practical implications – The author argues that principal preparation would benefit from the incorporation of the linguistic concepts and forms of rhetoric, particularly in the context of school improvement. Originality/value – While many have turned to principal practice as an area of research, few have focussed on the underlying linguistic structures. This paper emphasizes the importance of language in principal practice and offers a specific methodology with which to study it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]