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- All Subjects: Education Policy
- Creators: Fischman, Gustavo E
Description
There is a documented gap between research-based recommendations produced by university-based scholars in the field of education in the United States and the evidence that U.S. politicians' use when deciding which educational policies to implement or amend. This is a problem because university-based education scholars produce vast quantities of research each year, some of which could, and more importantly should, be useful to politicians in their decision-making processes and yet, politicians continue to make policy decisions about education without the benefit of much of the knowledge that has been gained through scholarly research. I refer to the small fraction of university-based education scholars who are demonstrably successful at getting scholarly research into the hands of politicians to be used for decision-making purposes as "university-based bipartisan scholarship brokers". They are distinct from other university-based education scholars in that they engage with politicians from both political parties around research and, as such, are able to use scholarly research to influence the education policymaking process. The problem that this dissertation addresses is the lack of use, by U.S. politicians, of scholarly research produced by United States university-based education scholars as input in education policy decisions. The way in which this problem is explored is through studying university-based bipartisan scholarship brokers. I focused on three areas for exploration: the methods university-based bipartisan scholarship brokers use to successfully get U.S. politicians to consider scholarly research as an input in their decision-making processes around education policy, how these scholars are different than the majority of university-based education policy scholars, and how they conceive of the education policy-setting agenda. What I uncovered in this dissertation is that university-based bipartisan scholarship brokers are a complete sub-group of university-based education scholars. They work above the rigorous promotion and tenure requirements of their home universities in order to use scholarly research to help serve the research needs of politicians. Their engagement is distinct among university-based education scholars and through this dissertation their perspective is presented in participants' own authentic language.
ContributorsAckman, Emily Rydel (Author) / Garcia, David R. (Thesis advisor) / Powers, Jeanne (Committee member) / Fischman, Gustavo E (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
This study examined the intended and unintended consequences associated with the Education Value-Added Assessment System (EVAAS) as perceived and experienced by teachers in the Houston Independent School District (HISD). To evaluate teacher effectiveness, HISD is using EVAAS for high-stakes consequences more than any other district or state in the country. A large-scale electronic survey was used to investigate the model's reliability and validity; to determine whether teachers used the EVAAS data in formative ways as intended; to gather teachers' opinions on EVAAS's claimed benefits and statements; and to understand the unintended consequences that occurred as a result of EVAAS use in HISD. Mixed methods data collection and analyses were used to present the findings in user-friendly ways, particularly when using the words and experiences of the teachers themselves. Results revealed that the reliability of the EVAAS model produced split and inconsistent results among teacher participants, and teachers indicated that students biased the EVAAS results. The majority of teachers did not report similar EVAAS and principal observation scores, reducing the criterion-related validity of both measures of teacher quality. Teachers revealed discrepancies in the distribution of EVAAS reports, the awareness of trainings offered, and among principals' understanding of EVAAS across the district. This resulted in an underwhelming number of teachers who reportedly used EVAAS data for formative purposes. Teachers disagreed with EVAAS marketing claims, implying the majority did not believe EVAAS worked as intended and promoted. Additionally, many unintended consequences associated with the high-stakes use of EVAAS emerged through teachers' responses, which revealed among others that teachers felt heightened pressure and competition, which reduced morale and collaboration, and encouraged cheating or teaching to the test in attempt to raise EVAAS scores. This study is one of the first to investigate how the EVAAS model works in practice and provides a glimpse of whether value-added models might produce desired outcomes and encourage best teacher practices. This is information of which policymakers, researchers, and districts should be aware and consider when implementing the EVAAS, or any value-added model for teacher evaluation, as many of the reported issues are not specific to the EVAAS model.
ContributorsCollins, Clarin (Author) / Amrein-Beardsley, Audrey (Thesis advisor) / Berliner, David C. (Committee member) / Fischman, Gustavo E (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
Increasing public criticism of traditional teacher evaluation systems based largely on classroom observations has spurred an unprecedented shift in the debate surrounding educational accountability policies, specifically about the purposes for and measures used to evaluate teachers. In response to growing public demand and associated federal mandates, states have been prompted to design and implement teacher evaluation systems that use increasingly available, statistically complex models (i.e., value-added) intended to isolate and measure the effects of individual teachers on student academic growth over time. The purpose of this study was to examine the perceptions of school administrators and teachers within one of the largest school districts in the state of Arizona with regards to the design and implementation of a federally-supported, state policy-directed teacher evaluation system based on professional practice and value-added measures. While much research has been conducted on teacher evaluation, few studies have examined teacher evaluation systems in context to better understand the standards of effectiveness used by school administrators and teachers to measure system effectiveness. The perceptions of school administrators and teachers, considering their lived experiences as the subjects of the nation's new and improved teacher evaluation systems in context, must be better understood if state and federal policymakers are to also better recognize and understand the consequences (intended and unintended) associated with the design and implementation of these systems in practice.
ContributorsPaufler, Noelle A (Author) / Amrein-Beardsley, Audrey L (Thesis advisor) / Berliner, David C. (Committee member) / Fischman, Gustavo E (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
ABSTRACT A hallmark of Arizona schools is the choice of parents in program and school for their child under the Open Enrollment laws. Among the choices for parents at some schools is Dual Language education, a form of enrichment wherein students learn the content of the Arizona State Standards through the medium of their primary language and a second language. The schools of this study use English and Spanish as the two languages. After 13 years of existence, changes in enrollment patterns have been noticed. Some parents whose older children attended Dual Language classes have chosen to dis-enroll their families from the program, so that their younger children are in English Only classes. At the same time that these trends in enrollment began, so too did strict enactment, enforcement, and monitoring of Arizona's Structured English Immersion program, the Department of Education's response to the voter approved Proposition 203--English for the Children--in November 2000. This study asks the following research question of de-selecting parents involved with Dual Language programs in Phoenix, Arizona: What are the rationale that influence parents to de-select Dual Language instruction in Arizona public schools in 2010 after having selected Dual Language for their older child(ren)? The study uses a Latino Critical Race Theory (LatCrit) Conceptual Framework to analyze interviews of 10 parents and 2 administrators from Dual Language programs in Phoenix, Arizona. There are three general findings of the study: 1) Parents sought asymmetrical measures of program design if their children were struggling in one language more than another, and chose to de-select when these asymmetrical measures were not enacted, 2) the de-selection process was generally not the result of family decision making, but rather reactionary to a situation, and 3) legislative mandates resulted in de-selection of the program. The LatCrit perspective showed most strongly in the third of these, wherein the de-selection was not necessarily a result of parent de-selection of the program, but rather the state's de-selection of willing participants in a language learning option. The hopes of the study are to hear the voices of parents who have to negotiate language policies and make programmatic choice decisions for their children. I also hope to provide information that Dual Language schools can use to understand the motivations and perspectives of the parents that will enable them to strengthen their programs and advocate for equality in opportunity for enrichment language programs for all children at their schools.
ContributorsRobert, Michael Anthony (Author) / Ovando, Carlos J (Thesis advisor) / Fischman, Gustavo E (Committee member) / Mccarty, Teresa L (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
The purpose of this study was to understand how community members within a segregated school district approached racial inequities. I conducted a ¬nineteen-month-long ethnography using a critical Participatory Action Research (PAR) approach to explore how members in a community activist group called Eliminate Racism interacted and worked with school district officials. My goal was to identify and examine how community members addressed racially inequitable policies and practices in the Midwestern city of Pinecreek (pseudonym) in the context of a school district that had undergone two school desegregation lawsuits. I conducted 32 interviews with 24 individuals, including teachers and school leaders, parents, and community members.
This study answers three research questions: (1) What strategies did the community activist group use to influence local education policy for addressing racism in the schools? (2) How did community participation influence local education policy? (3) What were the motivating factors for individuals’ involvement in issues of local school segregation? To answer these questions, I used concepts from Critical Race Theory and Social Capital Theory. I employ Putnam’s and Putnam and Campbell’s social capital, Warren’s civic participation, Bonilla-Silva’s color-blind racism, Yosso’s community cultural wealth and religio-civics. My analysis shows that the community group used the social capital and community cultural wealth of its members to create partnerships with district officials. Although Eliminate Racism did not meet its goals, it established itself as a legitimate organization within the community, successfully drawing together residents throughout the city to bring attention to racism in the schools.
The study’s results encourage school and district leaders to constantly bring race to the forefront of their decision-making processes and to question how policy implementation affects minoritized students. This research also suggests that strategies from this community group can be adopted or avoided by other antiracist groups undertaking similar work. Finally, it provides an example of how to employ critical PAR methods into ethnography, as it notes the ways that researcher positionality and status can be leveraged by community groups to support the legitimacy of their mission and work.
This study answers three research questions: (1) What strategies did the community activist group use to influence local education policy for addressing racism in the schools? (2) How did community participation influence local education policy? (3) What were the motivating factors for individuals’ involvement in issues of local school segregation? To answer these questions, I used concepts from Critical Race Theory and Social Capital Theory. I employ Putnam’s and Putnam and Campbell’s social capital, Warren’s civic participation, Bonilla-Silva’s color-blind racism, Yosso’s community cultural wealth and religio-civics. My analysis shows that the community group used the social capital and community cultural wealth of its members to create partnerships with district officials. Although Eliminate Racism did not meet its goals, it established itself as a legitimate organization within the community, successfully drawing together residents throughout the city to bring attention to racism in the schools.
The study’s results encourage school and district leaders to constantly bring race to the forefront of their decision-making processes and to question how policy implementation affects minoritized students. This research also suggests that strategies from this community group can be adopted or avoided by other antiracist groups undertaking similar work. Finally, it provides an example of how to employ critical PAR methods into ethnography, as it notes the ways that researcher positionality and status can be leveraged by community groups to support the legitimacy of their mission and work.
ContributorsWinn, Kevin (Author) / Fischman, Gustavo E (Thesis advisor) / Berliner, David C. (Committee member) / Powers, Jeanne M. (Committee member) / Sampson, Carrie (Committee member) / Bebout, Lee (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020
Description
The lasting benefits of high-quality early childhood programs are widely understood. These benefits and the well-documented return on investments are among the factors that have shaped executives at philanthropic foundations’ grant making in support of early childhood programs, policies, and research in the United States. Yet little is known about the investments they are making in the field of early childhood. Drawing from a conceptual framework that combines types of philanthropic investment with the concepts of accountability and transparency, I conducted a comparative case study of the Buffett Early Childhood Fund, George Kaiser Family Foundation, and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, all of which began financially supporting early childhood between 2000 and 2005. I attempted to understand how and why philanthropic foundations and pooled funding organizations have supported early childhood from the late 1990s through 2018.
Based on my analysis of 32 semi-structured interviews with current and former early childhood philanthropic foundation, pooled funding, and operating organization executives, I found that each foundation independently determines their investment decision processes and invests a disparate amount of money in early childhood. In addition, philanthropic foundations gain programmatic and legislative power by leveraging funds and partnering with additional foundations and businesses. With the inclusion of early childhood programs in K-12 education systems and the decrease in national and state education funding from those same budgets, it is critical to understand how philanthropic foundations have supported early childhood education and some of the implications of their support both locally and nationally.
Based on my analysis of 32 semi-structured interviews with current and former early childhood philanthropic foundation, pooled funding, and operating organization executives, I found that each foundation independently determines their investment decision processes and invests a disparate amount of money in early childhood. In addition, philanthropic foundations gain programmatic and legislative power by leveraging funds and partnering with additional foundations and businesses. With the inclusion of early childhood programs in K-12 education systems and the decrease in national and state education funding from those same budgets, it is critical to understand how philanthropic foundations have supported early childhood education and some of the implications of their support both locally and nationally.
ContributorsChapman, Kathryn Patricia (Author) / Powers, Jeanne M. (Thesis advisor) / Dorn, Sherman J (Committee member) / Fischman, Gustavo E (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019
Description
Arizona's English Language Development Model (ELD Model) is intended to increase and accelerate the learning of English by English Language Learners (ELLs), so that the students can then be ready, when they know the English language, to learn the other academic subjects together with their English speaking peers. This model is part of a response to comply with the Flores Consent Order to improve services for ELLs in Arizona public schools. Whether or not it actually has improved instruction for ELLs has been the subject of much debate and, in 2012, after four years of the requirement to use Arizona's ELD Model, the ELL students who were identified as reclassified for the six districts in the study did not pass the Arizona's Instrument to Measure Standards (AIMS) test. The model's requirement to separate students who are not proficient from students who are proficient, the assessment used for identification of ELLs, and the Structured English Immersion four hours of English only instruction are at the nexus of the controversy, as the courts accepted the separate four hour SEI portion of the model for instruction as sufficient to meet the needs of ELLs in Arizona (Garcia, 2011, Martinez, 2012, Lawton, 2012, Lillie, 2012). This study examines student achievement in Reading and Math as measured by AIMS standards-based tests in six urban K-8 public school districts between 2007-2012. This period was selected to cover two years before and four years after the ELD model was required. Although the numbers of ELLs have decreased for the State and for the six urban elementary districts since the advent of the Arizona ELD Model, the reclassified ELL subgroup in the studied districts did not pass the AIMS for all the years in the study. Based on those results, this study concludes with the following recommendations. First, to study the coming changes in the language assessments and their impact on ELLs' student achievement in broad and comprehensive ways; second, to implement a model change allowing school districts to support their ELLs in their first language; and, finally, to establish programs that will allow ELLs full access to study with their English speaking peers.
ContributorsRoa, Myriam (Author) / Fischman, Gustavo E (Thesis advisor) / Lawton, Stephen B. (Committee member) / Diaz, René X (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012