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Background Despite accounting for 3% of the student population, multiracial students are the fastest growing racial/ethnic group in the United States. Aligning with new federal guidelines, in 2008, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) revised its single-race reporting scheme for the Common Core of Data (CCD), permitting students to identify as two or more races (i.e., multiracial). Study Objective The addition of a multiracial reporting category to the NCES CCD permits students to more accurately represent their racial identity. By creating categories that are not strictly comparable to their historical counterparts, however, it may problematize longitudinal analysis of trends in the racial composition and segregation of schools, which are of perennial scholarly and public interest. In this study, we examine the extent to which the reporting change affects estimates of segregation over time. Research Design We compute annual values of racial/ethnic segregation (i.e., isolation and dissimilarity) among elementary schools for 5,357 public school districts using data from the NCES CCD Public Elementary/Secondary School Universe Survey from 2000–01 to 2013–14. Before 2008, we compute segregation for the five monoracial groups tracked by the CCD. After 2008, we compute segregation using the two analytical approaches to the treatment of multiracial students that have been employed by scholars of segregation. We estimate the effect of the racial/ethnic reporting change on estimates of segregation via a series of multilevel longitudinal fixed-effects models. Results We found that the NCES CCD's addition of a multiracial reporting category has problematized longitudinal analyses of segregation, particularly racial/ethnic isolation. Models revealed abrupt changes in most dimensions of segregation in the year immediately following the reporting change. Moreover, the reporting change has complicated interpretation of segregation trends since 2008, because seemingly minor analytical decisions may lead to contradictory conclusions: When multiracial students are excluded from calculations, isolation appears to be increasing for all racial/ethnic groups; however, when multiracial students are included in calculations, isolation appears to be decreasing for all racial/ethnic groups. The reporting change has a weaker, but still significant, effect on certain dimensions of racial/ethnic dissimilarity. Conclusions In this study, we found that the NCES CCD's recent addition of a multiracial reporting category has resulted in estimates of segregation that are not longitudinally comparable and may vary in magnitude and direction depending on relatively minor analytical decisions. We urge scholars to take particular care in calculating and interpreting segregation trends and offer recommendations for educational research and practice.

COVID-19 has necessitated innovation in many parts of our lives and qualitative research is no exception, as in-person qualitative data collection has been complicated by the constraints of social distancing and the prioritization of participants’ and researchers’ safety. Consequently, virtual methods have quickly gained traction. However, there is little research that comprehensively explores the range of practical, rigorous, and ethical considerations that arise when designing and engaging in virtual qualitative research. Addressing this gap, we examine the process of designing and conducting a virtual qualitative study, using specific examples from our case study of student homelessness in Houston, Texas that drew from semi-structured interviews and the analysis of over 50 documents. Garnering insights from Salmons’ Qualitative e-Research Framework (2016), and benefiting from 22 technical memos that documented our process, we profile the challenges we faced—and choices we made in response—as we designed and conducted our study. Our findings suggest that in practice, engaging in virtual qualitative research, particularly in the era of COVID-19, is a purposive exercise that requires thoughtful, careful analysis around a number of methodological challenges as well as ethical and equity-oriented questions. Our exploratory work has timely implications for qualitative scholars in the current COVID-19 context, but also showcases the potential to conduct high-quality, rigorous, ethical qualitative research in a virtual format, offering a glimmer of hope for more equitable qualitative research in contexts of crisis and beyond.

Background Prior research has found that teacher dissatisfaction with low salaries is one reason for teacher turnover. Accordingly, policy makers have championed financial incentives as a way of increasing teachers’ job satisfaction and making the teaching profession and specific schools more attractive to current and potential teachers. Despite the enthusiasm for such incentive policies, empirical evidence of their effects on teacher mobility is mixed. Purpose In this study, we contribute to the extant literature on teacher financial incentives by shifting focus from the probability of teacher turnover to investigate how incentives, particularly school-based incentives, structure teachers’ patterns of mobility within districts. We explore the effects of financial incentives on teacher mobility patterns in the context of Denver's Professional Compensation System for Teachers (“ProComp”), one of the most prominent alternative teacher compensation reforms in the nation. Setting Denver Public Schools, Denver, Colorado. Population Denver Public Schools classroom teachers employed in the district any time during 2006–2010, who were eligible to participate in the financial incentive program (regardless of whether they did), and who made at least one voluntary within-district move during the study period (n = 989). Program Since 2006, Denver's ProComp program has offered teachers a variety of school-based and individual financial incentives. Specifically, in addition to incentives offered to teachers for their individual accomplishments, ProComp provides incentives of over $2,400 each for teachers that teach in top performing schools, high growth schools, and hard-to-serve schools. Because ProComp offers substantial incentives to teachers on the basis of school characteristics, it holds the potential to incentivize “strategic moves” to schools with more school-based incentives. Research Design The study employs a descriptive statistical research design. Data Collection and Analysis We use Denver Public Schools administrative data from 2005–2006 to 2009–2010 to estimate a series of conditional logit models predicting teachers’ moves as a function of their ProComp participation and the value of school-based incentives at the schools they leave and the schools they could potentially transfer to. Findings Our findings suggest ProComp participants tend to make more strategic moves to high value schools than their non-ProComp peers. However, these moves tend to be to schools that have high performance and growth in achievement, rather than to schools that receive incentives for serving low-income populations. Conclusions Results suggest that school-based ProComp incentives do influence strategic moves, albeit in ways not necessarily consistent with the program's intent, calling into question the ability of ProComp to attract teachers to low-income schools under its current structure.

Context Despite the recent emphasis on public school choice, more than four-fifths of public school students still attend the traditional school to which they are assigned (NCES CCD, 2013), making attendance zone boundaries critical and fercely contested determinants of educational opportunity. Historical and anecdotal evidence suggests that attendance zone boundaries are not “accidents of geography,” but have been “gerrymandered” into irregular shapes in ways that alter patterns of student attendance. However, no empirical evidence has directly examined the issue of attendance zone gerrymandering. Purpose of Study Drawing on the literature on electoral gerrymandering, we outline a framework for conceptualizing and measuring educational gerrymandering. Using geospatial techniques, we then provide initial empirical evidence on the gerrymandering of school attendance zones and the variation in gerrymandering across geographic and demographic contexts. Research Design We analyze the boundaries of a large national sample of 23,945 school attendance zones obtained from the School Attendance Boundary Information System (SABINS). For each attendance zone, we compute complementary measures assessing two dimensions of gerrymandering: (1) dispersion, or the elongation of the area of a boundary; and (2) indentation, or the irregularity of the perimeter of a boundary. Results Overall, we find that attendance zones are highly gerrymandered—nearly as much as legislative districts—and are becoming more gerrymandered over time. Findings underscore the racial and, to a lesser extent, socioeconomic character of gerrymandering, which is particularly acute in Whiter and more affluent schools and in areas experiencing rapid racial change. Conclusions The gerrymandering of school attendance zones has significant implications for students and schools. Gerrymandering alters patterns of attendance and, thereby, student access to educational opportunity and resources, by “zoning out” certain students living closer to schools while “zoning in” others living farther away. Gerrymandered boundaries also hold the potential to significantly alter the racial and ethnic composition of schools and may serve as a mechanism of segregation. In addition, gerrymandered attendance zones are inherently inefficient and may impose additional transportation costs on students and districts. We conclude with implications for state and federal policy.