Dorothea Anagnostopoulos

Does NBPTS Certification Affect the Number of Colleagues a Teacher Helps with Instructional Matters

In addition to identifying and developing superior classroom teaching, the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) certification process is intended to identify and cultivate teachers who are more engaged in their schools. Here the authors ask, “Does NBPTS certification affect the number of colleagues a teacher helps with instructional matters?” If so, this could enhance the influence of NBPTS-certified teachers and their contributions to their professional communities. Using sociometric data within 47 elementary schools from two states, the authors find that NBPTS-certified teachers were nominated more as providing help with instruction than non-NBPTS-certified teachers. From analyses using propensity score weighting, the authors then infer that NBPTS certification affects the number of colleagues a teacher helps with instructional matters. The authors then quantify the robustness of their inference in terms of internal and external validity, finding, for example, that any omitted confounding variable would have to have an impact six times larger than that of their strongest covariate to invalidate their inference. Therefore, the potential value added by NBPTS-certified teachers as help providers has policy and practice implications in an era when teacher leadership has risen to the fore as a critical force for school improvement.

Toward a Political Explanation of Grade Retention

Policies that mandate in-grade retention of low-performing students have become central components of standards-based reforms across the country. While educational researchers have extensively studied the student-level correlates of retention and the consequences of retention for student achievement, little attention has been focused on identifying the factors that influence district retention decisions. In this study, the authors explored the significance of a political explanation of retention. A multivariate approach was used to investigate levels of student retention in 2000–2001 in 1,039 Texas school districts. Results showed that, as in earlier studies, student achievement and demographics were directly linked to levels of retention. However, changes in district leadership, local voters’ ideology, and minority representation among district officials also had significant effects on retention levels. These findings suggest that retention is driven not only by student-level characteristics and district resources but also by the constraints and preferences of local constituencies and leadership.

School Staff Responses to Gender-Based Bullying as Moral Interpretation An Exploratory Study

Gender-based bullying is the most common form of violence that students encounter in U.S. public schools. Several large-scale surveys reveal its consequences for students. Fewer studies examine how school staff members make sense of and respond to such violence. The authors address this knowledge gap by presenting analyses of interviews conducted with high school faculty and staff. Synthesizing sociological studies of violence and positioning theory, the authors illuminate the webs of relationships and cultural narratives in which school staff responses to gender-based bullying are situated. The authors find that, although school staff members felt compelled to intervene when male students sexually harassed quiet girls, they were reluctant to intervene in abusive heterosexual dating relationships and were ambivalent about their responsibility toward gay and lesbian targets of bullying. The authors argue for expanding prevention efforts beyond intervention to engage school staff in critically examining sexist and heterosexist roles, norms, and practices.

Dollars, Distinction, or Duty? The Meaning of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards for Teachers’ Work and Collegial Relations

The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) is the most prominent contemporary effort to professionalize teaching. Along with identifying exceptional teachers, the NBPTS seeks to alter teachers’ work by establishing a cadre of expert teachers capable of and obligated to leading school improvement efforts. This article reports findings from a mixed methods study of teachers’ responses to the NBPTS in four urban elementary schools. Drawing on institutional theory, the authors find that whether and how the NBPTS enters teachers’ work depends on the interplay of professional logics, district and state policy, occupational sentiments, and local school organization.

The Challenge of Improving Instruction in Urban High Schools: Case Studies of the Implementation of the Chicago Academic Standards.

We are grateful to the Field-Initiated Studies Education Research Grant Program at the U.S. Department of Education and the Research on School Reform Initiative at the Spencer Foundation. The opinions expressed here are solely those of the authors and not of the U.S. Department of Education or the Spencer Foundation. Research assistance was provided by Jenifer Blaxall, Sophia Hughes, Valerie Moyer, Simrit Dhesi, and Sarah Graff. Requests for reprints should be sent to Kenneth K. Wong, Professor of Public Policy and Education, Peabody College of Vanderbilt University, 230 Appleton Place, Peabody 514, Nashville, TN 37203-5701. E-mail: ken.wong@vanderbilt.edu

State Education Agencies, Information Systems, and the Expansion of State Power in the Era of Test-Based Accountability

This article examines how SEAs in three states designed, installed, and operated statewide, longitudinal student information systems (SLSIS). SLSIS track individual students’ progress in K-12 schools, college, and beyond and link it to individual schools and teachers. They are key components of the information infrastructure of test-based accountability. Drawing on science and technology studies, this study documents the strategies SEAs use to assemble and coordinate the vast amounts of technology and people across and beyond the educational system needed to collect, process, and disseminate test-based accountability data through SLSIS. We find that while SLSIS expand state power through what we refer to as informatic power, SEA control over these systems and the data they produce depends on whether SEA staff can manage the competing interests of federal, state, district, and external actors. SLSIS are thus sites of the ongoing contestation of state power within and beyond the educational system.

‘Of course we’re supposed to move on, but then you still got people who are not over those historical wounds’: Cultural memory and US youth’s race talk

Polls indicate that US youth are more racially diverse, and more tolerant of diversity, than were previous generations. Yet recent research documents the rise of a ‘new racism’ discourse among white US youth. The present study extends this research by examining the discursive strategies US youth employ as they talk about race in a multi-racial high school classroom. Using discourse historical analysis, the authors argue that US youth’s race talk is bound up in the construction and contestation of the nation’s cultural memory of race and racism. In particular, the authors examine how the students use the topos of unknowability and the topos of implicature to suppress or confront, respectively, the relationship between past racial injustice and present-day inequalities, and the questions of responsibility and redress it raises.

Exploring the Influence of National Board Certified Teachers in Their Schools and beyond.

Purpose: This article explores the relative influence over schoolwide policy and leadership activities of teachers certified by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. Interest centers on teacher leadership activities and perceived influence over schoolwide policy and decision making. In particular, the study asks whether National Board Certified Teachers (NBCTs) are engaged in leadership and influence that may be attributable to board certification. Method: Data come from a survey of the entire teaching faculties in 47 elementary schools in two states (N = 1,282). Teacher perceived influence over schoolwide policy and participation in leadership activities were regressed on NBCT status, demographic and assignment characteristics, and inclination toward teacher leadership, controlling for schools with fixed effects. Findings: NBCTs engage in more leadership activities at both the school and district levels than their non-board certified peers. Yet, NBCTs do not report greater influence over schoolwide policy than their colleagues. Implications: The effect of NBCT status on opportunities for teacher leadership is complex, with NBCTs having the most effect on domains and activities closest to the classroom. The data also point to a potential paradox about the nature of teacher leadership as greater engagement in leadership activities does not lead to enhanced influence over schoolwide policy.