Research Roundup

Roundup 4: Effectiveness of Tier 2 Interventions in RtI/MTSS

2019-01-14T00:00:00-05:00

It has been a while since I last posted a Roundup, I’m sorry for those that look forward to these. My work has been quite busy lately working with schools to implement Multi-Tiered Systems of Support. Due to this work I have been thinking a lot lately, and reading some, about how best to implement MTSS. This seems to be a difficult question to answer, a lot of research is done in controlled conditions and what might work in those conditions might not in the real world. One of the articles I read and decided to share in this roundup speaks to that exactly.

All four articles in this roundup discuss the effectiveness of interventions at tier 2 and, in a couple of the articles, the authors make recommendations for more effective interventions.

I have two more roundups in the works, all having to do with MTSS. This one is all about tier 2 effectiveness, the next will be about MTSS implementation, and the final in the series will be about RtI decision making (I may switch up that order).

As usual, feel free to contact me using any of the methods on the sidebar. A PDF version of this is also on the sidebar.

Enjoy!

Bouck, E. C., & Cosby, M. D. (2017). Tier 2 response to intervention in secondary mathematics education. Preventing School Failure, 61(3), 239–247. https://doi.org/10.1080/1045988X.2016.1266595

In this article the authors describe tier 2 intervention models in secondary schools, particularly in math. I found this article to be very timely for me, as one of the schools I am working with at the moment is a middle school and is wrestling with this exact problem, how does a secondary school best implement RtI? This is challenging in the secondary schools for a number of reasons. I found this quote on page 241 especially informative:

Inherent features of secondary education, including the structure of the day (e.g., changing class periods and the limited time per class) and other issues, can result in RtI implementation—and research—being more challenging (Fuchs, Fuchs, & Compton, 2010; Prewett et al., 2012). Resistance among educators was also noted as a challenge with using RtI models in secondary schools (Sansosti, Noltemeyer, & Goss, 2010). Another issue with RtI implementation at the secondary level is that fewer evidence-based interventions exist, but most mathematics interventions are focused on elementary students (Sansosti et al., 2010).

The authors propose four models for RtI in secondary schools at tier 2:

Having an additional math class, either in the form of an extended block or additional period, in which all students can receive further intervention and not miss tier 1 instruction. A challenge with this model is that it might have implications on contact time for other classes and could become a challenge for credits and graduation. Not in the article, but something I thought of as a challenge when reading this method was the challenge of teacher schedules, what do you take away in order to give this extra period?
Small group pullout instruction, which sounds great, but also comes with many challenges. One of the overwhelming positives is that students can receive small group instruction targeted to their needs. One of the major challenges is logistics, who provides these interventions and where? Does the school need to hire another teacher, or teachers?
Alternative Math Class, which involves students taking an alternative to their tier 1 math class. In this model students are grouped according to needs and are given instruction according to their specific gaps. A major downside is that this leads to tracking and students may never make it back to tier 1 instruction. This goes against the principles of RtI and MTSS in that students should be receiving intervention as long as they need, but not forever. It also removes the problem solving nature of MTSS.
Technology tools, like apps and programs on computers, can be used to supplement instruction. This could be beneficial for students to focus on individual needs, but requires access to, and a certain level of fluency with, technology.

Given all of the pros and cons the authors conclude that the additional math block time has the most potential for changing how students learn math. In these blocks teachers can group students according to need and give them the additional instruction they need. The authors go on to state that, regardless of the delivery model chosen, it is important to “consult the research to select and validate interventions chosen for implementation.” Given the limited research, the authors give four examples of evidence-based practices for tier 2 math in secondary schools:

Explicit instruction, which they describe as “An instructional sequence involving the teacher first modeling how to solve the mathematics and then cuing the students to solve the problem as needed, and finally the student solves the problems independently”. See Archer or Hollingsworth for more on Explicit Instruction. I’ll add my own little bit here on explicit instruction, I argue, based on multiple books and studies, that explicit instruction is the foundation for tier 1 instruction for students who struggle, come from poverty, ELLs, and SWDs. I was a little surprised to see it listed here as tier 2.
Concrete-Representational-Abstract (CRA) instructional sequence. “The Concrete-Representational-Abstract instructional sequence is an explicit instruction model in which students are first provided instruction with concrete manipulatives to use to solve math problems. When students are successful, they move into solving the math problems with representations or drawings. Finally, students solve the problems abstractly (without concrete manipulatives or drawings)”.
Schema-based instruction. “Teachers help students to understand word problems by categorizing problems via structure, such as change or compare problems. Students then create diagrams to depict the schemas to solve. e.g., FOPS (find the problem, organize the information via a diagram, plan to solve, and then solve)”.
Number talks. “the teacher poses a math problem. First, students think how to mentally solve the problem and then share the multiple solutions they devised Builds conceptual understanding and fluency (i.e., number sense)”

Shameless plug: I actually made a short video quickly describing CRA and SBI (2 and 3) for my colleagues. It is on YouTube here. Not one of my best, but you can get a sense of it from the video.

Overall this article helped me by validating the struggles schools have in implementing RtI in secondary schools, by validating some practices that I had learned about through my work on a state wide work group, and by stressing the importance of finding evidence-based practices. I can see giving this to those that want to conceptualize RtI in their schools, its a good introduction.

Bouton, B., McConnell, J. R., Barquero, L. A., Gilbert, J. K., & Compton, D. L. (2018). Upside-Down Response to Intervention: A Quasi-Experimental Study. Learning Disabilities Research & Practice, 33(4), 229–236. https://doi.org/10.1111/ldrp.12171

To some this will sound ridiculous, but when I received the latest issue of Learning Disabilities Research and Practice and saw this article, I got excited. As the title states, the authors used a quasi-experimental design to find out if inverting the tiers of intervention was more effective than traditional methods. For those that are confused, which may be nobody, the traditional method of RtI or MTSS is that everyone receives tier 1, core instruction, all of the time. When a student or students are struggling they are identified using either a universal screener or in class assessments to receive interventions in addition to their tier 1 instruction. Those that are still struggling move to tier 3. In this model the researchers explored if, using “dynamic RtI” or upside down RtI (udRtI), a student could skip tier 2 and go directly to tier 3, and if so, would that student perform better after intervention?

As the authors acknowledge, this is not the first time this has been tested. A group of researchers in 2014, Al Otaiba, Kim, Wanzek, Petscher, and Wagner, tested “dynamic RtI” vs traditional RtI and found no significant differences between the two for fall reading scores, but found significantly higher scores for the dynamic group in spring. This study differentiated itself in that tier 3 was delivered as one-on-one tutoring whereas the study in 2014 was groups of 1-3 students. The authors argue that one of the potential benefits of this model is that it “allows students to work one-on-one with a tutor more quickly than with the current RTI framework. The tutors are able to work with the student independently to foster these growth mindset ideas, instead of the student becoming more frustrated in a group setting where they still feel that they are behind their peers academically” (p.230).

Design

This was a small study (each group was 24 first graders) that was conducted as an exploratory study during data collection of a much larger study on RtI. The authors used word-level reading skills as their measure of student growth. This was considered a quasi-experimental study because the classrooms were randomly selected, the intervention group from two urban public schools in the southeastern US. The data were collected in the 2009-10 school year. The control group was selected from nine urban public schools in the southeastern US with data collection happening during the 2006-09 school years. All students were teacher identified as low performing and met other criteria. All students received similar interventions and the process of deciding when to move between tiers was the same, except for the fact that the experimental group in this study went to tier 3, intensive individual intervention first, then went to tier 2 when ready.

Results

For the measures of word reading, sight word efficiency and word identification, the results were statistically significant with fairly large effects (d=.87 and d=.74 respectively). For measures of decoding, phonemic decoding efficiency and word attack, the results were not statistically significant. The authors hypothesize that the results for decoding would be statistically significant with a larger sample size. This study shows that, for word identification, udRtI was effective and it is promising for decoding skills.

My takeaway

This was an interesting study for research sake, but does not tell me that we need to change the way we operate yet. If I were working on a phd or for a university I might work on a follow-up study with much larger sample sizes. This could change the way RtI is done everywhere, and if it has a positive impact on kids I can only see a positive. I guess we will have to wait and see if this is expanded.

Clarke, B., Doabler, C. T., Smolkowski, K., Baker, S. K., Fien, H., & Strand Cary, M. (2016). Examining the Efficacy of a Tier 2 Kindergarten Mathematics Intervention. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 49(2), 152–165. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022219414538514

This study was completed by researchers who have created two math programs for Kindergarten. First they developed the Early Learning in Mathematics (ELM) core curriculum, which consists of 120 lessons focused on four key strands:

Number and Operations
Geometry
Measurement
Vocabulary

This core curriculum has proven effective in previous studies.

The curriculum for this study, the second program they have created and studied, is called ROOTS. ROOTS was developed as a tier 2 intervention to be used in conjunction with ELM and focuses on Number and Operations. The authors argue that the focus on Number and Operations is key to success in math as this is the foundation for all future understanding. This study focused on two questions:

“What is the impact of the ROOTS program on the mathematics achievement of at-risk students?”
“Do ROOTS students reduce the achievement gap with their non-at-risk peers by making greater gains than their non-at-risk peers?”

Design

This was a quasi-experimental study with full day Kindergarten classrooms who participated in the ELM study randomly assigned to the ROOTS condition or the control condition. The researchers controlled for teacher ELM experience by grouping teachers with one year of experience with the program together and randomly assigning them to treatment and control, then doing the same for teachers new to the program. This was a nice way to prevent bias and questions about actual effectiveness. This study used a total of 29 classrooms, 14 in treatment condition (ELM+ROOTS) and 15 in the control (ELM only). “Teachers were asked to nominate the five lowest performing students or those who would most benefit from a small-group math intervention.” In total 67 students participated in the intervention and 73 in the control. All students involved in the study received tier 1 instruction using ELM and students in the treatment group received the ROOTS intervention during independent practice time of ELM skills 3 times per week.

Lessons were delivered by 14 trained instruction assistants and were 20 minutes long. Fidelity of implementation was measured throughout to ensure that the program was being followed as written.

The intervention

ROOTS is a small group tier 2 intervention of 50 lessons that is delivered 3 times per week for 20 minutes each session. In total the intervention lasts between 16 and 20 weeks. I’ll let the authors describe the program further:

The goal of ROOTS is to support students’ development of procedural fluency with and conceptual understanding of whole number concepts.

and

Each lesson consists of 4 to 5 brief math activities that center on three key areas of whole number understanding: (a) Counting and Cardinality, (b) Number Operations, and (c) Base 10/Place Value. Curricular objectives advance students from an initial understanding of whole number through more sophisticated aspects of whole numbers in kindergarten mathematics.

and finally:

A central feature of the ROOTS program is its explicit and systematic approach to instruction… ROOTS incorporates the principles of instructional delivery that have been empirically validated to improve the mathematics achievement of at-risk learners and stu- dents with learning disabilities (Baker et al., 2002; Gersten, Beckmann, et al., 2009; Nelson-Walker et al., 2012). These delivery principles include modeling and demonstrating what students will learn, providing guided practice opportunities, using visual representations of mathematics, and delivering academic feedback.

Results

The researchers used two tests to measure growth and compare treatement and control: the Test for Early Mathematics Ability (TEMA) and the Early Numeracy Curriculum-Based Measurement (EN-CBM). On both conditions the effect was small to medium, g=.375 and g=.301 respectively. The authors conclude that this intervention may help close the gap, as was intended.

My Takeaway

While this might have been effective in this study, I want to see a lot more evidence that this program works before I recommend it to teachers. I also question the effectiveness of the ELM program, the way they described the results in this article it did not seem to be so beneficial.

Coyne, M. D., Oldham, A., Dougherty, S. M., Leonard, K., Koriakin, T., Gage, N. A., … Gillis, M. (2018). Evaluating the Effects of Supplemental Reading Intervention within an MTSS or RTI Reading Reform Initiative Using a Regression Discontinuity Design. Exceptional Children, 84(4), 350–367.

This article was the most interesting of the four that I read, though I did not think it would be when I read the abstract. The reason I found this so interesting was because this study was done in the context of a state-wide MTSS initiative in Connecticut; which sounds a lot like the initiative I am working on. This study targeted grades 1 to 3 to evaluate the effects of providing tier 2 supplemental intervention to students identified as struggling through a universal screener. The authors give an excellent review of the literature in this article, which is worth a read if you are interested in this topic. I am not going to write anything from that section, the actual study provides enough information to write about! I will include one quote that I found really important:

It may not be enough to just have MTSS practices in place if they do not significantly increase the level of instructional intensity. Carefully controlled studies evaluating the efficacy of reading interventions are often able to ensure this level of consistency and intensity in implementation. Schools implementing Tier-2 interventions as part of district or state MTSS initiatives, however, may not.”

This quote sums up the research to practice gap so well, what might work in research because of the controlled nature of those studies might not work in the real world. This study evaluates tier 2 in the real world.

Method

Schools were selected to participate in a pilot phase of a statewide reading initiative focused on MTSS in reading. All four schools were different in size and demographics. Researchers used DIBELS (phoneme segmentation fluency, nonsense word fluency, and oral reading fluency measures) to screen students and identify those in need of intervention. 318 of the 678 students in grades 1-3 were identified as needing intervention (47%) and 360 students received only classroom instruction. The researches selected 395 students, 205 receiving the intervention and 195 in classroom only instruction, to be part of the analysis sample.

In order to provide these interventions to students the research team hired 17 reading interventionists to support the four schools, three schools received four interventionists and one school received five. A little aside here, when I read this I made a note on the paper “must be nice!” Can you imagine actually having 4 extra interventionists to help?! These interventionists were hired by the state and were assigned as full-time employees to the schools for 3-5 years. They attended all meetings and PD activities to try to become members of the school community.

For the intervention the team selected Proactive Early Interventions in Reading (P-EIR). I had never heard of this intervention but went to the What Works Clearinghouse entry in the bibliography to see effectiveness for myself. This does seem to be an effective intervention.

Interventions were delivered in groups of 3-5 students base on benchmark scores. Some students were assigned to cross-grade groups and school-based teams made decisions to move students to other groups every 10 weeks based on the student’s response to the intervention. Intervention sessions were 30-40 minute session four days per week over the course of the year.

Interventionists and literacy coaches received 30 hours of PD on the P-EIR program from the developers and interventionists were supported by school-based literacy coaches throughout the year. Coaching was an integral piece in this intervention and the authors describe their process in detail on page 357.

Results

This tier 2 framework had a statistically significant impact on phonemic awareness and decoding outcomes (d=.39 and d=.36 respectively). The authors also describe their results using the improvement index the What Works Clearinghouse uses. Using this index “students who received Tier-2 intervention accelerated their performance on phonemic awareness by 18 percentile points and on decoding by 14 percentile points beyond what their performance would have been if they had only received Tier-1 classroom instruction.”

Surprising to me was that “Tier-2 intervention had no overall discernible effects on reading fluency and comprehension.”

The authors conclude that overall, tier-2 interventions in the MTSS framework do have a positive effect on student outcomes and that the “Results of this study suggest that increased instructional intensity may be a central mechanism related to the efficacy of Tier-2 reading interventions implemented within MTSS frameworks”.

My Takeaway

The authors claimed that this was as close to real world conditions as they could get, and I believe that statement. However, I cannot help but think that having 17 extra interventionists dedicated to the schools, with 30 hours of PD, and a coaching structure in place had some effect. This study, while informative, and confirming for me, also makes me think of the importance of building proper systems before even attempting to bring in new interventions. Coaching structures, team structures to be able to move students, data systems, and proper assessments are all key components that cannot be skipped.

Roundup 3: Curriculum-Based Measures

2018-05-22T00:00:00-04:00

For this roundup, the third installment, I decided to focus on Curriculum-Based Measurement. I’ve been fielding a lot of questions about progress monitoring within a multi-tiered system of support, especially on the academic side.

The first two articles here discuss CBMs for all students and the last three are ELL specific. All of the summaries are written in the following manner: an Introduction, a description of the methods, a description of the results, and my takeaway. The last section is where I have included some of my other thoughts on the topic occasionally. I tried to keep research limited to the last 2 years, but had to expand my search to find articles about ELLs and CBMs.

Due to the fact that there are common terms throughout many of these articles that might be confusing, and I found myself tempted to explain multiple times, I have included a glossary up front.

As usual, feel free to contact me using any of the methods on the sidebar. A PDF version of this is also on the sidebar.

Enjoy!

Glossary of terms:

Curriculum Based Measure (CBM): Quick, easy tool to monitor student progress. CBMs can be electronic or paper based. These are designed to be easy to administer and score, as well as quick. They should be administered weekly or every two weeks.

Maze: A CBM in which students are given a reading passage with a missing word every seven or so words. At the missing word the students are presented with a list of 3 choices and fill in the blank. See this pdf for more information.

Daze: DIBELS Maze. See Maze

For the following terms consider a sample of 200 people given a test to identify a new disease, schoolitis.

	Actually have the disease	Do not actually have the disease
Positive test result	100	30
Negative test result	20	50

Sensitivity: Probability that a test result will be positive when the disease is present (true positive rate). = True positive / (True positive + False negative) =100/100+20 = .833 = 83.3%

Specificity: Probability that a test result will be negative when the disease is not present (true negative rate). = True negative / (False positive + True negative) =50/30+50= .625 = 62.5%

Positive predictive value (or power): Probability that the disease is present when the test is positive. = True positive / (True positive + False positive) =100/100+30= .769 = 76.9%

Negative predictive value (or power): Probability that the disease is not present when the test is negative. = True negative / (False negative + True negative) =50/20+50= .714 = 71.4%

So, for this example, this test has a sensitivity of 83%, meaning that doctors can expect the test to correctly identify someone with the disease 83% of the time. It has a specificity of 62.5%, which means that a doctor could expect it to correctly identify the lack of disease 62% of the time. For us, the patients, the predictive value is more helpful because we know the result of the test, not if we actually have the disease, so for this test we can rely on the positive result 77% of the time and the negative result 71% of the time. I don’t know about you, but I want a second test!

Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) Curves: For an explanation of ROC curves see this explanation. A basic explanation is this: A ROC curve shows the accuracy and usefulness of a given test. These are often used in medicine but also useful in diagnostic testing in education. Two measures, sensitivity and 100-specificity are used to calculate this. This curve uses the sensitivity as a function of 100-specificity, which is the rate of false-positives (test says you have cancer, but you don’t). This curve is constructed and the area under the curve tells you the usefulness. If 90-100% of the area is under the curve it is an excellent test, 80-90 is good, 70-80 is fair, 60-70 is poor, and 50-60 is a fail.

Articles

Lembke,E., Allen, A., Cohen, D., Hubbuch, C., Landon, D., Bess, J., & Burns, H. (2017). Progress Monitoring in Social Studies Using Vocabulary Matching Curriculum-Based Measurement. Learning Disabilities Research and Practice, 32(2), 112-120. DOI: 10.1111/ldrp.12130

This study looked at the validity and reliability of a Vocabulary matching CBM in Social Studies, as well as the ability to measure growth using the same measure. The literature review of this article has a nice description of the history of different types of CBM and the utility of each. Many studies have confirmed the effectiveness of using CBM in elementary school, but very few have looked at the effectiveness at the secondary level, particularly in a content area. For this study the authors do just this with vocabulary matching, which is a CBM that is designed by a teacher, or team of teachers, using vocabulary terms learned in class during that specific time-period. If doing CMB frequently this would be the one or two week period between measures. Terms are gathered using texts, teacher lectures, notes, or any other source of vocabulary assigned to the class by the teacher. Words are placed on the left side and definitions, sometimes with distractors (incorrect definitions) on the right. Students then match the work with the definition in five minutes.

Design In this study 202 sixth grade students from a Midwestern city were given this CBM at regular intervals. The demographic breakdown of the participants was: 65% White, 25% African American, 4% Asian, 1.5% Hispanic, .5% Native American, and .5% multiracial. 25% of the students in the sample received special education services. The authors used the year-long curriculum to gather 369 terms and create 35 probes out of these terms. Probes were administered by teachers from September to May once per week.

Results Overall the reliability of these measures was moderate (mean reliability coefficient .64) when taken as single measures and strong (mean reliability coefficient .89) when taken as combined adjacent measures (1+2 and 2+3, 2+3 and 3+4, etc…). In the discussion section the authors note that this implies the importance of teachers using averages or combined adjacent probes as the data for making instructional decisions: “When making instructional decisions, it is important to look at averaged scores across weeks to get a clearer and more consistent picture of student performance.”

Validity for this measure was mixed, but the authors point out a flaw, which I consider a major gap in this study: the probes consisted of terms that covered the entire year, so students were most likely encountering terms used at different points in the year that they may not have learned.

What I learned from this article CBMs are useful and reliable measures for vocabulary knowledge. We as teachers need to use words that we are actually teaching in order to accurately measure growth.

This study serves as reinforcement for the use of CBMs and has a really nice literature review.

Allen, A.A., Poch, A.L, Lembke, E.S. (2018). An Exploration of Alternative Scoring Methods Using Curriculum-Based Measurement in Early Writing. Learning Disability Quarterly, 41(2), 85-99. DOI: 10.1177/0731948717725490

This article describes two studies that explored the technical adequacy of rubrics used for scoring CBMs in writing. The first study looked at a trait-based rubric in first grade, the second a trait-based rubric in third grade, with the addition of production dependent and independent scores.

What is CBM in writing and what does it look like? For those that are new to CBM in writing (CBM-W) I think it is important to describe what these are and how they are administered. This is foundational knowledge that you need to understand the rest of this article. If you know it, feel free to skip this description.

CBM-W is “an objective way to assess student writing and identify those in need of intervention.” As with all CBMs the measures are designed to be quick to administer, easy to score, cheap, and standardized tasks that “represent indicators of overall proficiency in an academic area.” CBM-W measures are usually a writing prompt, sometimes the beginning of the first sentence of a story (e.g. “Yesterday I went to the store and saw a _____”). Students are asked to complete the sentence and write a story in 3 minutes. Measures are scored in three ways: total words written, correctly spelled words, or correct writing sequences see This great guide by Jim Wright.(this is an auto-download pdf). According to this article the research on these tasks has shown that these story completion tasks are most appropriate at 3rd grade and above.

For younger children other options exist. A couple of studies have examined the reliability of copying and dictation measures at the sentence level. The authors of this article state that sentence dictation is more reliable than copying at the second grade level but sentence copying was reliable (though not as much) at the first grade level. Novel sentence writing tasks are reliable and valid for use in K-3.

As stated above, these measures can be scored in multiple ways: total words written, correctly spelled words, or correct writing sequences. This article describes these methods, along with correct minus incorrect words, “production-dependent measures.” The authors also describe production-independent scoring methods. These focus on quality over quantity and include percent of words spelled correctly and percent of correct word sequences. The authors state: “These indices capture the differences between the transcription-focused instruction in the primary grades and the higher level skills required in writing at later grade levels.” In two studies these measures were found to be more valid in the earlier grades, but less sensitive to growth over time.

The authors also describe qualitative scoring methods, primarily the use of rubrics. The authors describe two different rubric types, holistic, which looks at the quality and proficiency of the writing as a whole, or trait-based, which look at proficiency of certain writing traits. The authors cite Deborah Crusan’s work Dance, ten; looks, three: Why rubrics matter to argue that holistic rubrics are not very good measures for identifying areas of struggle and not good for instructional use. According to the authors the purpose of trait-based rubrics is too “increase objectivity, reliability, validity, and instructional utility of scores.”

Something I found very interesting in this whole description of CBM-W measures and scoring is that qualitative and quantitative scores have very weak correlations.

Method This study included 40 first grade and 10 third grade students (these students were part of a larger sample from another study who took the criterion measure in that study.) Students were given two CBM-W tasks, picture word, in which students are asked to write a sentence for each picture, and story prompt, in which students construct a story based on a prompt. Both tasks were scored using total words written, words spelled correctly, correct word sequences, and correct minus incorrect word sequences. Students were also given the WIAT-3 Spelling and sentence composition sub-tests to measure validity.

Both of the CBM-W tasks in this study were administered three times, November/December, February, and April; the WIAT-3 was administered in May.

For the first grade part of this study the researchers looked at the picture words task and used a rubric that scored each sentence from 0-3 for sentence type, spelling, and grammar. Mechanics was also measured but was from 0-2.

For the third grade part of this study the researchers used the story prompt task. For this the researchers created a rubric, scored from 0-3 on the following traits: Sentence fluency/structure, spelling and word choice, mechanics and conventions, grammatical structure, relationship to and completeness of prompt, ideas, organization, voice, and development.

Results First grade: The rubric for this study suffered from weak internal consistency in reliability (the best alpha value was .64 in Spring, far below the .8 desired). Validity results were mixed, the CWS and CIWS measures were strongest. The rubric had a weak relationship with the WIAT-3 sentence composition subtest and a “moderate relationship at best with the…spelling subtest in winter and spring.” Overall, according to the researchers, there is promise in this tool but it needs to be studied more and further refined. There is also promise as a progress monitoring tool, statistically signifcant growth was shown and no student scored the highest score possible at any point in the year.

Third grade: Internal consistency was much better for this rubric (.84 was the lowest alpha value). Overall this rubric showed promise, but growth was not significant and therefore this may not be a good measure for student growth. The researchers discuss that the small sample (n=10) probably played a role in the lack of growth and validity relationships. The researchers feel that this is a promising measure and encourage further research.

What I learned from this study Alternative measures are new and researchers are attempting to refine them to make them more valid. As they exist in the current moment, CBM-W scoring procedures are good, but could always be improved. I am excited to see where this goes and to see the use of these rubrics as a way of measuring writing, especially when compared to other rubrics like the 6+1 traits. Having taught in a school that only used rubrics I am unconvinced that this could be completed quickly and is actually doable for every student every week or two, which is the purpose of the CBM, especially when looking at the rubric these researchers created (p. 93 of the article).

Keller-Margulis, M.A., Payan, A., & Booth, C. (2012). Reading Curriculum-Based Measures in Spanish: An Examination of Validity and Diagnostic Accuracy. Assessment for Effective Instruction 37(2), 212-223. DOI: 10.1177/1534508711435721.

In the abstract of this article the authors state that while there is an abundance of research on CBMs in reading for progress monitoring and screening, almost all of it is in English. This article is 6 years old and this statement is still true today. According to NCES there were 4.6 million English Language Learners in U.S. Schools in 2014-15, 3.7 million of which speak Spanish. Even with these numbers research in this field is still lacking.

The authors begin this article with a description of the validity, predictive validity, and diagnostic accuracy of CBMs in reading (R-CBM), describing the link between these scores and state reading tests in multiple states. These measures also have strong predictive validity and diagnostic scores, which all support their use in schools. Importantly for this study, most of this research is in English.

For ELLs “CBMs have been proposed for use to measure the transfer of language skills from one language to another, for academic skills progress monitoring, for adjusting language instruction to improve student language development and achievement outcomes, and to function as an alternative, less biased assessment strategy for bilingual students.” As with their monolingual peers, the predictive validity and diagnostic accuracy of R-CBM are strong for ELLs.

In Spanish Less evidence exists to support the validity and diagnostic accuracy of R-CBM is Spanish. The authors describe the existing research as only initial evidence, and criticize the construction of the probes in the limited studies that exist. There is only one set of published probes for general use that have technical adequacy data published as well.

Current Study This study had two purposes: 1. To find the relationship between Spanish R-CBM and the Texas statewide achievement test and 2. To examine the diagnostic accuracy of Spanish R-CBM 25th percentile cut scores and receiver operator characteristic (ROC) curves for identifying whether students will be successful on statewide reading assessments in Spanish.

Method This study was completed in a large school district (more than 21,000 students) in the southeast. This is a diverse, 73% Hispanic, 20% African-American, 6% White, 1% Asian and economically disadvantaged district, 74% are economically disadvantaged. 29% of students in this district are ELLs. The district was already using R-CBM in English and Spanish as part of their universal screening and benchmarking three times per year. I include this here because it is important, in my opinion, that this was not something new or unexpected for these students, so the effects are more reliable (my opinion, not stated in the article.) The third grade sample included 144 girls and 147 boys. The fourth grade sample included 92 girls and 83 boys.

The researchers used the Spanish AIMSWeb probes for their R-CBMs. These measures are translated versions of the English passages, which have many studies that support the validity and accuracy of the measures. There are no studies of this kind for the Spanish version (according to the article, since this article was published in 2012 there may be others.) Students were also given the Texas Achievement Test (TAKS) in Spanish.

“Students were administered the same three 1-minute reading passages during the fall, winter, and spring and the passages were scored for the WRC” (words read correctly). The researchers used median words read correctly for each time point.

Results
Correlations between the R-CBM in Spanish and the Spanish TAKS reading section ranged from .41-.48 for third grade and .37-.44 for fourth grade, moderate to strong correlations.

Diagnostic accuracy using the 25th percentile cut-score was adequate or above for specificity and negative predictive power (NPP). In this study NPP meant a score above the cut score, which implied success on the TAKS. The sensitivity and positive predictive power was low. The same result was found using ROC curves, though the cut scores determined by the curves were better than the arbitrary 25th percentile. This means that, regardless of which cut score procedure you use, the R-CBM in Spanish is adequate or better at predicting when a student will pass the TAKS, but less than adequate at predicting when they will fail. “…of the students who performed successfully on the Spanish TAKS, a large percentage were identified as such using the Spanish R-CBM as the predictor.”

What I learned from this article Spanish R-CBM have good predictive reliability and diagnostic accuracy, but more research is required. The use of ROC curves made for more accurate tests with better sensitivity and specificity, but these are an advanced statistical procedure that many teachers probably will not be comfortable using. If there was a publisher that created an electronic CBM that used ROC curves that were automatically calculated I could see this idea taking off, but not if teachers had to figure it out on their own. I was relieved to see that using the 25th percentile was adequate, though obviously we want the best, we have to be willing to make a trade, either you take the best and all the learning and challenges that come with it, or you take an easier path and have a loss of quality.

I now feel more comfortable with R-CBM in Spanish, though I want to read more reports like this one.

Kim, J.S., Vanderwood, M.L., & Lee, C.Y. (2016). Predictive Validity of Curriculum-Based Measures for English Learners at Varying English Proficiency Levels. Educational Assessment 21(1), 1-18. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080.10627197.2015.1127750.

This study looked at the predictive validity of DIBELS Oral reading fluency and Daze tasks for ELLs. According to the authors there is a body of research showing predictive validity for R-CBM and less for Maze. The research that does exist on Maze has shown mixed results. ELLs are occasionally included in these studies, but they are included as a group and no attention is paid to the fact that they are a diverse group, both in language of origin and language proficiency. Without these details we cannot be sure our students are represented in the sample, and therefor could be going down a path which will turn out to be a wrong turn.

Method 522 Spanish-speaking ELL Third grade students from 23 classrooms in six schools in southern California were used in this study. Students were screened in fall using the DIBLES Oral Reading Fluency (DORF) task individually and the Daze task as a group. Teachers were provided with 7 hours of PD specific to DIBELS administration and scoring. Students then took the state ELA in the Spring. The fall CBM screening results were then compared with the Spring ELA results.

Results Sample-wide correlation between DORF and ELA was large (r=.54), for Daze it was moderate (r=.39). Correlations were then run for each proficiency group: Beginning/Early Intermediate DORF: r=.59 (large), Daze r=.35(moderate), Intermediate: DORF: r=.31(moderate), Daze: r=.3(moderate); Early advanced/Advanced: DORF: r=.36(moderate), Daze: r=.15 (small).

For predictive validity only the DORF task was a significant predictor of ELA performance for the entire sample. The authors state that this implies that Daze is not needed once DORF has been administered to third grade Spanish speaking ELLs (the narrow sample this study used).

There was no significant difference in the predictive validity for varying levels of English proficiency “suggesting that there is no difference in the predictive ability of DORF to CST-ELA based on English proficiency.” The authors go on to state, “this is promising because it suggests that DORF is able to predict performance on the CST-ELA similarly for Spanish speaking ELLs of all English proficiency levels.”

Sensitivity levels of cut-scores established by the DIBELS decreased with English proficiency level, as English levels increased sensitivity decreased, “indicating that the screening measures were able to predict truly at risk students better for Spanish-speaking students with lower English proficiency than for students with higher English proficiency.” Overall “the ability of DORF and Daze to identify truly at risk students was not adequate.”

What I learned from this study While the DORF task had a strong correlation to performance on the ELA test in the Spring, it did not meet the standards for predictive validity. This study used different methods than others in the past, they split the group of ELLs into smaller groups according to proficiency. This may have caused some different results, which they discuss in the discussion and limitations sections of the article. I am not sure how useful the DORF tool is for truly identifying ELLs at risk and would have to advise teachers to do more reading and research on this, not just take what DIBELS says to be true.

As I have believed for a long time, these tools may not be great at predicting at-risk students when used in this manner, but they are more useful when examining growth. This article reinforces one part of this, that they are not good at predicting risk when used in isolation.

Gutierrez, G., & Vanderwood, L. (2013). A Growth Curve Analysis of Literacy Performance Among Second-Grade, Spanish-Speaking, English-Language Learners. School Psychology Review 42(1),3-21.

The authors of this article open by discussing the lack of ELL specific growth curves, or, that if they exist, they are meant for a homogeneous group of ELLs and do not acknowledge the variations of language proficiency within this large group. The authors set out to determine if there was a need for proficiency-specific growth curves and if so, to what extent does proficiency in English affect reading level and growth on measures of early literacy.

Method 260 second grade students from California participated in this study. Language proficiency was measured on the CELDT (California English Language Development Test). Students were given the DIBELS Oral reading fluency task (DORF), DIBELS Phoneme segmentation fluency (PSF) task, and the DIBELS Nonsense word fluency (NWF) task. All three tasks were administered in the fall, winter, and spring.

Results ORF English proficiency was significantly related to differences in the initial ORF measure. There were significant differences between every group, except the early advanced and advanced groups, in the number of words read aloud at the beginning of grade 2. Growth rates were also different depending on level. Beginners had a growth rate of .82 words/week, early intermediate had a rate of .95 words/week, intermediate .97, early advanced 1.1, and advanced 1.3. The authors relate the rates for early advanced and advanced to studies that show the growth rate for native English speakers to be similar to this group.

PSF Again, initial measures were significantly different, as were the growth curves. Beginner students actually plateaued between winter and spring. The authors state that this suggests that more Phonological awareness instruction should be given to beginners than others.

NWF More advanced students were able to read nonsense words more fluently at the beginning of second grade and had steeper growth curves, suggesting they came to the second grade with more word recognition skills.

What I learned from this study English proficiency has an affect on early literacy as measured by DIBELS. This was a small study, and it is only one study, so we cannot go making huge claims and changes from this one, but it is worth noting the differences to become more aware of these differences in our classrooms and students. The authors mention that phonemic awareness might be useful to look at for true growth for beginning ELLs in second grade. This study does suggest that growth rates differ, so this reinforces the idea that we have to look at true peers as a group to compare growth and use that group as our baseline. Students outside of that growth pattern and the kids we should be concerned with. This requires us to conduct more frequent screenings and monitoring for those children at risk. This study also shows us that ELLs at more advanced levels could be expected to grow at about the same rate as native English speaking peers.

Roundup 2a: Equity and Culture in Schools: Framing the Problem

2018-03-10T00:00:00-05:00

Starting with this second edition of the roundup I have decided to try to focus on one topic in Education. This helps me with finding articles to read (there are so many!) and will help you, the reader, know if it is something interesting for you. This edition is about Equity and Culture in schools. I have organized this into two major sections:

Framing the problem: Race, Ethnicity, Disability, and Socio-Economics
Possible solutions

Due to the length of this post, it only covers section one.

Enjoy!

Disability

Voulgardies, C.K., Fergus, E., & King Thorius, K.A. (2017). Pursuing Equity: Disproportionality in Special Education and the reframing of technical solutions to address systemic inequities. Review of Research in Education, 41,61-87. DOI: 10.3102/0091732X16686947

This article is a research review which examines what is known about disproportionality and some of the “prevailing explanations as to why the problem persists.” The authors explain that minority students from low-income backgrounds are generally overrepresented in high-incidence disability categories (LD, SLI, EBD, and ID). “The students most affected by disproportionality tend to be low-income Black, and American Indian youth with disabilities. In contrasts, ELLs tend to become overrepresented later in the schooling process and in districts with large ELL populations.” Black, Hispanic, and American Indian students are also suspended more severely than their White peers for similar infractions. Black males are the most likely to be suspended for “subjective reasons”.

The authors list some of the sources of disproportionality that research has found:

Practice-Based Factors
1. Cultural mismatch
  1. “There is growing empirical evidence that teacher beliefs and expectations of students, based on race, relate to disproportionate outcomes.”
2. Gaps in development and implementation of interventions and referral systems
Sociodemographic factors In this section of the review the authors criticize the line of research that suggests that race, SES, family structure, and so on, are predictive variables with success. The authors state that this unintentionally blames the victim and fails to recognize institutional racism.

“Both topics,practice-based and sociodemographic factors, demonstrate complexities in the sources of disproportionality and a substantive representation of these studies suggest nuanced patterns of racism and other forms of bias.”

In the next section the authors discuss existing remedies, which all lie withing the realm of compliance monitoring using the IDEA indicators. The authors state that, even though this system exists, the problem is still extensive.

I really liked this quote: “Disproportionality is often framed as a technical issue that can be ‘fixed,’ through interventions or programs. However, Artiles, Kozleski, Trent, Osher, and Ortiz (2010) highlight how problematic this view is and state ‘the reluctance to frame disproportionality as a problem stresses technical arguments that ignore the role of historical, contextual, and structural forces.’ The technical view of special education and IDEA is based on the idea that disability, and deficits, reside within individuals and can be fixed by individual remedies. Thus, the ‘structural underpinnings’ of disproportionality are ignored…”

The authors conclude by arguing for more nuanced approaches to intervening in special and general education and argue that MTSS (RtI and PBIS) are not successful in improving outcomes for ALL students.

Socio-Economic Status

Owens, A. (2018). Income segregation between school districts and inequality in students’ achievement. Sociology of Education 91(1),1-27. DOI: 10.1177/0038040717741180

Ann Owens makes the argument that income segregation plays a role in the achievement gap in this study. Owens draws on years of research in the field to support her findings. The literature review was interesting to read, here are some of the more interesting points:

The gap between high and low-income students’ test scores has risen by about 40% among students born in the early 2000’s vs those born in the 1970’s.
Income segregation rose over the 20 year span from 1990 to 2010 by 15%.
An additional $1,000 in family income among low-income families corresponds to a 5-7% standard deviation increase in children’s test scores.
Direct effects of higher income (providing food, clothing, shelter, childcare, and enrichment) seems to have more impact that indirect effects (less stress, improved parental health).
Living in a disadvantaged neighborhood reduces cognitive test scores
- One study looked at black children in Chicago and found that growing up in a poor neighborhood reduced verbal ability by the equivalent of missing a full year of school.
Per-pupil expenditure may have an impact on achievement (data does not suggest this is true in the Lower Hudson region)
Income segregation creates inequality in the social resources available to high and low-income districts. Schools are generally homogeneously low or high-income.
Lower income students gain more in affluent districts than in poor districts.
Black students attend schools with double the poverty than white students on average.
White middle income households lived in neighborhoods with median incomes $10,000 more than black households with identical incomes.

Owens compiled data and ran her own analysis and found the following to be true in highly segregated (by income) Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSA’s):

On math scores, students from the lowest quintile incomes changed very little while those from the highest quintile gained.
In reading high income students gained while low-income students lost.
Overall the higher-income students gain and the lower-income students stagnate.
There is little evidence that it is detrimental for a poor student to be in a low-income district vs a high-income district. Poor students across all districts are at a disadvantage and the gap continues to grow. The gap between poor students in low vs high income districts does not grow significantly.
The racial achievement gap is wider as economic segregation grows.
In integrated MSA’s, the gap between White and Black students in non-significant (confidence interval contains 0). As income segregation increases so does the gap. In fact, the relationship in math and reading stated earlier is true for the racial gap as well
- In math Black students have no change over time while White students grow and in reading White students grow and Black students lose.
Income segregation provides large advantages for high-income White families but not for high-income Black families.
- In highly segregated MSA’s the average high-income black family lived in a school district with nearly identical median income as the average low-income White family ($45,000 vs $46,000).

I found this quote to be very important and a nice summary of the research: “Achievement gaps emerge not only because disadvantaged students fall behind but also because advantaged students pull away.”

Besse, J.A., & Martin, J. (2018). Socioeconomic status and student opportunity: A case of disrespect or teenage rebellion?. Journal of Cases in Educational Leadership 21(1), 16-27. DOI:10.1177/1555458917720967

This case study discusses a new Superintendent and her new initiative in an inner-city district which is 75% Black, 20% Hispanic, 5% White and 100% economically disadvantaged. The new program was a sports focused summer camp which was directed by a young woman not from the neighborhood. There were many mistakes made along the way, usually due to not understanding the neighborhood, but the focus of the study is on one incident. The program gave bus passes to all students who attended the camp, and all students used public transportation to get to camp. One day a large number of teens did not show up to camp. They decided to go to the local mall instead. The director took this as a disrespectful act performed by ungrateful youth. The physical education teacher, who was from the neighborhood, had to explain to her that this had nothing to do with disrespect, rather it was simple teenage rebellion; the the kids were acting as any other teen would, and were doing exactly what teens in White neighborhoods were allowed to do in the summer.

The case study ends with this: “Educators must be cognizant of students’ various and interlocking identities to truly meet their needs. To do so, educators must look deeply into issues of identity; otherwise, the may either cause or ignore problems.”

The authors recommend viewing Dr. Kimberle Crenshaw’s TED talk on intersectionality(clickable link)

Race

Kohli, R., Pizarro, M., & Nevarez, A. (2017). The “new racism” of k-12 schools: Centering critical research on racism. Review of Research in Education 41, 182-202. DOI: 10.3102/0091732X16686949

In this chapter of the Review of Research in Education the authors set out to answer two questions:

What insight does current research on racism in K-12 schools offer about the experiences of students of Color?
What gaps and directions does this scholarship point to in education research?

The authors categorize current scholarship on race and racism in education into three categories:

Evading racism. Equity-explicit discourse is divorced from institutional analyses or concrete discourse on race and racism.
- This type of racism is a superficial response to diversity in classrooms, the activities are afterthoughts, something we do to bring in the culture of our minority students. We celebrate Chinese New Year or Cinco de Mayo but our classrooms are reflective of the dominant culture throughout the rest of the year. We do not weave diversity into our daily curriculum and celebrate multiculturalism throughout the lessons naturally. Instead we separate other cultures and reinforce the idea that they are different and this reinforces that they are less than. (Editorial side note, and I know many will disagree with me, this is the exact reason I do not like celebrating things like Hispanic heritage month or Black history month. I see the need to call attention to the successes and histories of people not in the dominant culture, but I believe we should weave it into the daily lives of everyone, that we should not separate groups of people into months. Obviously this only works if we are ACTUALLY doing this and not just completely ignoring our minority students, which could be an end result. According to this article this activity actually reinforces racist hierarchies. For a much better explanation of this idea see Joel Christian Gill(clickable link)* or Sincere Kirabo* (clickable link)
Anti-racist racism. Racially inequitable practices and policies are actually masked as the solution to racism.
1. Neoliberal Racism and Policy
  - Testing, Charters, School choice, and a divestment from public education fall into this subcategory. “Corporate driven testing policies affirm racial hierarchies of student success.”
  - School closures and school choice disproportionately and negatively affect working-class urban Black neighborhoods. White affluent students use school choice to leave struggling schools which starves the public schools of resources.
  - In this article post Katrina New Orleans is used as an example of what happens when Charters take over. After Katrina public schools were shuttered, White-dominated corporate charters took over and marginalized the Black school leaders. MAny charters preferred to recruit from outside of New Orleans, using organizations like TFA, and other alternative teacher recruitment forums, which recruited young, White teachers. This led to the displacement of veteran Black teachers. Another critique is that racist, deficit-minded pedagogies, masked as classroom management, limit opportunities to learn in charters.
2. Colorblind Racism
  - The attempts made to equate colorblindness to equity leads to silence around racism which maintains and legitimizes racism. “Steeped in deficit thinking, color-blindness reduces any visible racism to the actions of a few ignorant individuals. This allows systemic mechanisms of racism (e.g., tracking, curriculum, student surveillance) to be ignored as explanations for racial inequality and replaced by individual-based rationales (i.e., students of Color are lazy, behaviorally challenged, intellectually deficient).”
  - “Masked as equity discourse, colorblind ideology is actually a form of racism that erases the contemporary, lived, and systemic oppression of communities of Color.”
3. Racist Policies of Designation
  - This section discusses language policies and practices as racializing forces that serve to perpetuate racial inequality. Through English-only campaigns and policies which exclude ELLs from school activities, racial and linguistic hegemony is reinforced.
  - The research also “delineates over-representation of Black and Latinx students in special education as guided by assumptions of cultural deficits and pseudo-scientific placement processes…”
Everyday racism. Racism manifests at the micro or interpersonal level and is unrecognized or viewed as insignificant.
- This type of racism is seen in daily interactions. One strand of research looks into how some White teachers can be overtly racist, while others simply refuse to help improve the racial climate in schools.
- Another strand of research has provided student experiences of racism, from Korean and Korean-American students in the Midwest, Puerto Rican students in the Northeast and Midwest, to Native Hawaiians. This research dhows how “nuanced, yet universal, racism is experiences by students of Color in the U.S.” One example is the treatment of names of students of Color by teachers, and how that has been found to have psychological effects.
- Institutional racism often manifests itself in the “mundane, interpersonal interactions.” “The researchers addressing covert racism often acknowledge the challenges of highlighting racism in what many have wrongly deemed postracial times.”

The authors then discuss how research is confronting racism. Only 45 articles in their search emerged as articles that discuss confronting racism, a fact which they found “troubling”. The authors place these articles into two categories: Articles that examine curriculum and pedagogy to develop racial literacy and studies that focus on resistance and resilience. Some key ideas from this section: - The best way to develop racial literacy is for teachers to develop the ability and comfort with discussing race and racism. This highlights the need for PD on this topic. - Some examples of pedagogy are given. - Spaces for dialogue - Storytelling - Use of theater and arts to teach about human rights, immigration, and internalized racism.

The article ends with a call for an enhanced commitment to frank discussions of race and racism as well as critical analysis of and challenges to structural racism.

Roundup 2b: Equity and Culture in Schools: Possible solutions

2018-03-10T00:00:00-05:00

This is the second post for Roundup 2. This one deals with possible solutions to the problem of equity in schools. This is long, you might want to download it as a pdf (see the side bar).

Empathetic Schools

Tomlinson, C. A., & Murphy, M. (2018). The Empathetic School. Educational Leadership, 75(6), 20-27. Retrieved from ASCD

In this short article the authors introduce the idea of the Empathetic School. In this idea for a school teachers and administrators see school through the student’s eyes. With this in mind school personnel can minimize negative experiences and maximize positive ones. In this school everyone works towards dedicating their efforts and time to doing whatever is necessary to promote growth and welfare. Everyone must diminish their self-focus and act in the best interest of the community. In order for this to happen, teachers give voice to students and look for problems behind misbehaviors rather than treating the behavior itself. There is a need for flexibility and a focus on assets, rather than deficits. The principal plays a crucial role in this endeavor, he or she must seek out and provide the supports teachers need to work from a place of empathy. School leaders must be empathetic themselves. This is a short article that shows some of the merits of an empathetic school. I would want to read a lot more before trying to enact this in a school. This is an interesting idea and one that could help with problems of equity.

Teacher match

Egalite, J.A., Kisida, B. (2018). The effects of teacher match on students’ academic perceptions and attitudes. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis 40(1), 59-81. DOI: 10.3102/0162373717714056

For the first time ever, students of color outnumbered White students in Public schools in the fall of 2014 and the gender balance was evenly split. Despite this fact, most teachers are overwhelmingly White females. A growing body of evidence supports the benefits of having a demographically similar teacher, especially for minority students. One reason for this is that students could view teachers as role models and seeing a teacher who looks like them could increase the cultural value of academic success. A second theory is that teachers from similar backgrounds will have higher academic expectations and might be more likely to push students to work harder. A third theory is that cultural similarities allow for more culturally relevant and sensitive curricula. This could also lead to strong interpersonal relationships which may result in less discipline referrals and suspensions.

This study looked at academic perceptions and attitudes of students when matched, and not matched, to teachers who are of similar demographics. The researchers included 10 variables, seven of which are from the Tripod (7 C’s) survey instrument administered to students in grades 4-8: 1. Care, if a student feels cared for by his/her teacher. 2. Captivate, Student interest and enjoyment of classwork 3. Confer, quality of teacher-student communication 4. Clarify, how well students understand the content 5. Consolidate, how well teachers help students integrate and synthesize information 6. Control, classroom management 7. Challenge, if the students feel pushed by the teacher 8. Effort, how much the teacher influences the student’s effort and motivation 9. Happy, how happy students are in class 10. College, college aspirations of students

The largest, most significant effects of teacher match were on Care, Captivate, Happy, Confer, Effort, and Consolidate. The theory of cultural understanding is supported in this work, with the largest effects being on Black students taught by Black teachers.

The authors end the paper with a call for more professional development for the existing teaching force on culturally relevant and sensitive pedagogy, as well a call for policy makers to reduce barriers to the profession for minority people who would become teachers.

Language policy and culture

Cervantes-Soon, C.G., Dorner, L., Palmer, D., Heiman, D., Schwerdtfeger, R., & Choi, J. (2017). Combating inequalities in two-way immersion programs: Toward critical-conciousness in bilingual education spaces. Review of research in education 41, 403-427. Doi: 10.3102/0091732X17690120

In this Chapter in the March ‘17 issue of the Review of Research in Education, the authors discuss one program that is often upheld as a solution to inequality, Two-Way Immersion (TWI), or what some call Dual Language Education. This model of bilingual education is one in whih there are native speakers of a language other than English (most commonly Spanish in NY) and naitve speakers of English in the same class. These students are taught both ELA (in English) and Native Language Arts (in the other language), and core content area instruction is delivered in both languages. This can be done in many different ways, by forcing children to speak one language for a whole week, or two (all classes are in that one language) or, by switching throughout the day. In this context you will hear of “English zone” teachers and “Spanish (or Chinese etc…) zone” teachers. The authors argue that this model, which theoretically creates more equity and fairness, does not do so in practice. The authors examined 80 papers and six books and found five potential areas of inequality:

Student access and experience
Classroom redagogy, curriculum, and linguistic choices
Teacher’s preparation, background, and orientation
Parents and community engagement
District and state-level policies, economic contexts, and politics

In the discussion of student access and experience I found the fact that, in one California district, despite comprising 30% of the population, African American students made up 5% of the TWI enrollment. The authors support the notion that minority students are often left out of these programs and that the “English zone” is usually predominantly white with more evidence throughout the paper. One of the reasons the authors propose for this is that TWI is often seen as enrichment, open only to students who tested in to the program or proved their academic abilities. While the mixing of students from different linguistic backgrounds is positive, the authors make the point that integration does not mean equity. Much of the integration is surface-level, while “covert prejudice and racial stratification remained entrenched.” “…TWI may result in advancing the goals of the dominant group, while benefits for minoritized students may be rendered only as a by-product of such efforts.” This leads to language commodification. One disturbing example is the parents in one California school spoke about TWI as a way for their English-speaking children “to learn to speak with workers”, to “learn from live specimens.”

The next section of the paper discusses the accountability systems and the fact that these systems lead to a punitive view of biliteracy. Often the goals of biliteracy are pushed aside in favor of getting ready for the test and some students are forced to prepare for and take the test in their stronger language. This removes the benefits of TWI by not allowing students to use their full linguistic repetoire and demonstrate their conginitive abilities.

Here are some of the other problems listed in the paper:

Lack of bilingual teachers to interact with all students in both languages (librarians, “specials” teachers, counselors). Often the world around these students in monolingual English and they are on an island. This exacerbates the feeling of inequality and that this is enrichment. “Enlgish is the only non-negotiable language.”
Some bilingual teachers are not aware of the cultural/socio-economic backrgrounds of students. In some places schools recruit teachers from abroad, who are unaware of the struggles these students have.
Students from these backgrounds do not always speak the “standard” form of the language, and are therefore thought of as insufficiently bilingual or biliterate.
Language use in the classroom falls back to English when an English speaking child does not understand, but the same is not done in the other language side of the day. This reinforces the view that English is more important.

The authors propose that the solution to many of these problems may lie in the development of critical conciousness, which incorporates critical conciousness and pedagogies, translanguaging, and border pedagogies. “Critical conciousness involves the process of overcoming pervasive myths through an understanding of the role of power in the formation of oppresive conditions.” In the context of TWI programs, school leaders must help parents, teachers, and students through the work of examining the programs that exist and to create more equitable programs in the future. This process starts by taking a critical look at how power and privilege influence the decisions made and the design of the program.

Border pedagogies are defined in this article as a set of pedagogies which “bring together interrogations of the self (identity, agency) and others (culture, society, and structures), to examine one’s position, how it is “read” and how it relates to power in the word and world by encouraging each individual to locate her or his identity within particular histories of power, colonization, imperialism, and difference.”

Translanguaging is a linguistic idea which highlights bilingualism and language as dynamic processes and tools. Language is seen as a means to an end, not the end. This process takes English away from the central role it plays and allows a more fluid use of language in the classroom, which promotes cognitive development and removes the artificial linguistic barriers that currently exist in TWI programs.

Jimenez-Castellanos, O., & Garcia, E. (2017). Intersection of language, class, ethnicity, and policy: Toward disrupting inequality for English Language Learners. Review of research in education 41, 428-452. Doi: 10.3102/0091732X16688623

This chapter discusses inequality in schools and states for ELLs. The authors frame much of their discussion around Arizona, which serves as a cautionary tale for the rest of the states and their policies and practices for ELLs. Arizona has passed a series of regressive, politically motivated, policies in edcuation that has greatly effected outcomes for ELLs. One of these was a result of a court case Flores v Arizona, which determined that Arizona was not doing enough for their languge minority students. Arizona implemented English only classrooms (after the passage of a state bill which required this) and removed bilingual education altogether. This system has created more segregation and created vast gaps in education for ELLs. I write this her because it is a cuationary tale of what could happen when politics get in the way of what the research says is the best educational practices.

Perhaps most interesting in this paper is the idea of intersectionality and ELLs. Usually intersectionality is discussed in terms of gender and race minorities (one of the most famous scholars is a Black woman who discusses the feeling of never being equal and not having anyone else to share this feeling with. Black men cannot identify with all of her struggles becasue she is also discriminated against for being a woman, but white women can’t identify with her struggles because she is black.) In this paper the authors take this a step further to discuss this idea in the context of ELLs.

ELLs are sometimes (most times?) seen as a monolithic group. The stereotype: They are Spanish speakers who are new immigrants, and many are undocumented. This is untrue and does not allow schools/districts/states to properly see ELLs for what they are, an extremely divers population that has a wide variety of needs. One of the most interesting facts in this paper, 85% of ELLs in PreK-5 in the US are native born, and 62% of 6-12 ELL students are native born. ELLs vary in immigration status, religion, race, class, ethinicity, language, and gender. All of these play their own role in informing the child’s experience in school. The schools must do what they can to support the whole child.

The authors call on schools to begin to use the “Culture, Language, and Learning Framework.” This framework takes in to account all of the different aspects of a child’s life and has schools look at the entire child. This framework “emphasizes that an idividual’s development and learning cannot be understood isolated from the social, cultural, and historical contexts in which it occurs.”

Community Involvement in Education

Lee, R.E. (2018). Breaking down barriers and building bridges: Transformative practices in community- and school-based urban teacher preparation. Journal of Teacher Education 69(2), 118-126.

In this article Lee delivers a conceptual framework of a community-based urban teacher preparation model. He argues that the current system of clinical experiences for teacher candidates (student teaching), though much improved, still leaves out the community. Many times new teachers begin their careers in communities that are very different from them, and attrition at these schools and in these communities is much higher than the national average. Lee makes the point that some of this attrition is due to preventable cultural clashes, which could be solved by using a community-based approach. “By working alongside community-based experts and scholars (i.e., families and residents), we can collectively work to write an asset-based counter narrative of our urban schools and communities.” A great quote on why this is important : “Although being knowledgeable in content and pedagogy are important, becoming knowledge-able in urban community contexts is equally as important toward the development of teacher resilience, especially as we work to curb teacher attrition from urban schools.”

The author decribes this conceptual framework using examples from the field. The Chicago Teacher Education Pieline (CTEP) is the first such example. In this program higher ed partners with the community to learn from the community, the goal is to not go in with the “savior” mentality, to learn organically from the community. Ther are no explicit research goals at the outset, they are developed organically with community input. Respect is key to interactions and this is a mutually benficial partnership. The top-down, university driven model is removed and all partners have an equal voice. This relationship brings tenchonolgy, money, and a pipeline of culturally responsive teaching to the community, and gives a gives the university the partnerships it needs for its candidates to be successful. Every stakeholder has an equal voice and “contribute ideas and share experiences to learn from each other and develop professionally in the same context in which the learning occurs.” A sense of “growing our own teachers” develops for the community.

The author goes on to discuss successful programs that are having an impact in urban schools. I am not going to detail these here. The author describes challenges of this model, which are that the university has to create and maintain a physical presence in the community, what he calls the third hybrid space. Reciprocity must be ensured, as more and more programs take on this framework and courses are redesigned, the need for critical evaluation of the reciprocal nature of the relationship is increased. Increasing community membership for teacher candidates is difficult in neighborhoods that are not places where these students would typically live or that are a few hours away from campus. One proposal is to board students with families, like schools do for study abroad.

Creating these relationships with the community has gotten the preparation of teacehrs out of the “ivory tower” of higher ed and had an impact on teachers and students. This seems like a promising framework. I’ll let the authors conlusion finish this summary “…we must stay the course if we are to protect this shared space–too many organizational silos remain, working to keep us apart. Together as a university-school-community partnership, we must continue to develop new solutions to the complicated process of preparing culturally responsive teachers for our communities. This is a resounding practical representation of how we can all strive to realize democracy.”

Baldridge, B.J., Beck, N., Medina, J.C., & Reeves, M.A. (2017). Toward a new understanding of community-based education: The role of community-based educational spaces in disrupting inequality for minoritized youth. Review of research in education 41, 381-402. Doi: 10.3102/0091732X16688622

This article looks at community based educational spaces (CBES) (after-school programs, community based youth organizations, etc.) and “the ways these diverse out-of-school spaces inform the educational experiences, political identity development, and organizing and activist lives of minoritized youth.” The authors assert that CBES are affected by the “neoliberal” education reforms, namely acountability, high stakes testing, privatization, and charters. These spaces can act as either places in which children can escape these pressures or places where these pressures are compounded. CBES can be the places where children expand their horizons past the ever-narrowing curricula of school, yet the “neoliberal funding climate” pushes against this possiblity.

The authors suggest allowing student voice to be the center of these spaces. CBES can “treat youth as individuals with worth, value, and humanity or as sites where yoth are framed in deficit ways and viewed as being in need of saving, controlling and directing.” When researchers and organizers have allowed student voices to be at the center of the organization they have consistently found that students speak about the CBES as a place where they can escpae the negativity of school. These spaces also provide a space for adults to become allies and to develop authentic relationships.

This is not part of the summary but a thought as I read this article. Why can’t school be the place where all of this happens? The authors argue that we need CBES because kids are not getting what they need on the social/emotional level, because schools are ignoring those needs in favor of academic success. This is a shame and we ought to do more in our schools.

Culturally Responsive Pedagogy

Warren, C.A. (2018). Empathy, teacher dispositions, and preparation for culturally responsive pedagogy. Journal of Teacher Education 69(2), 169-183.

Culturally responsive pedgagoy (CRP) includes an “active commitment to social justice, anit-oppresive, and anti-racist teaching.” The author of this article argues that in order for teacher candidates to learn how to use CRP, and I would stretch this to new teachers or teachers who need to learn this, the systmes in which they are developed must provide models and develop the concept. The author states that the “application of empathy thorugh perspective taking” would sharpen their ability to make sense of what teachers who practice CRP do, would provide a model for teacher candidates to follow, and would support the development of skills necessary.

“Teaching through students’ cultural filters implies that these cultural perspectives fuide a teacher’s pedagogical orientations,…”

“Playing a song is not evidence of a teacher’s cultural responsiveness.”

These two quotes remind me of another article on CRP I read which uses the non-examples of celebrating cinco de Mayo and taco Tuesdays as a way to show how what people perceive being culutrally to be is actually, at best, a very surface level effort, and, at worst, a condescending offense.

“These cultural filters are the intellectual and ideological frames necessary to scaffold how teachers navigate classroom interactions with individual students, choose lesson examples, decorate their classroom, deliver instruction, plan cultural excursions, and negotiate any number of other professional decisions.”

So, how do we help teacher candidates (and teachers) do this? Critical discourse, field experience, and engaging with literature that centers on race and equity in all areas of teacher prep. Teacher candidates must experience the act of perspecitive taking and learn explicitly, at times, the importance of this practice. People come to the profession with their own biases and morals, and we must help them to see the other perspective, to become empathetic. This is where critical classroom discourse comes in, having people reflect on their own beliefs and how those may be skewing their actions is an important first step to bulding empathy. Hearing dissimilar viewpoiints help shape perspective. Many times this lack of perspecitve is simply due to a lack of exposure and experience. Helping them to experience what the other side sees, hears, feels, and lives allows people to form some empathy. Having candidates perform home visits is one suggestion in this article. “After spending several hours sitting with families in the places where the proportion of power and authority is in the family’s favor, teacher candidates are very liekly to have a different, or much better informed, viewpoint of family values, students’ live realities, and the sociocultural context where students are receiving substantial racial socialization. Subsequently, such an activity will very likely change the way teacher candidates see their work, and thusly, potentially change the way they do their work.” I could imagine doing this with new teachers as well and how much of an impact this would have on those new teachers and their ability to empathize with their students. The final suggestion is building in literature that centers on race and equity across the teacher education curriculum. Many times this type of reading is relegated to one or two classes. The author argues that this must be dispersed throughout the curriculum to consistently build these perspectives across the entire educational experience.

Gregory, A., Skiba, R.J., & Medirata, K. (2017).Eliminating disparities in school discipline: A framework for intervention.Review of research in education 41, 253-278. Doi: 10.3102/0091732X17690499

This is a long article that I am going to attempt to summarize concisely.

Currently there are major disparities in school discipline along racial and gender lines. Male and female Black students are the group which receives the most discipline referrals and out-of-school suspensions, at a rate of two or three times greater than their White peers. Males, Latinos, American Indians, and students with diabilities are also disproportionately affected. Some recent research has sounded the alarm on the disproprotionate “discipline sanctions” of LGTBQ students as well. The goal of this work is to synthesize the research of promising policies and practices of reducing these disaprities into a framework, called “The Framework for Increasing Equity in School Discipline.” The authors make a clear distinction between prevention and intervention actions and stress the importance of prevention: “Schools that successfully develop communities of responsive and supportive adults and motivated and engaged learners typically prevent disciplinary incidents and punitvie responses to behavior from occuring in the first place.” The authors also recognize that conflict is unavoidable at times and do provide four principles which address intervention.

This framework must be implemented in a “Culturally Concious” manner. Without addressing the “longstanding issues of race and power” the problem of disparities in discipline will not be solved if these issues are not addressed.

The framework is described throughout the remainder of this paper, with effect sizes and evidence of the effectiveness of each of these principles. I am not going to include this information here in the interest of space. I am only including the practice and a description of that practice. This table is a word for word (or closely) replica of the table on p. 255 of the article.

	Principle	Description
Prevention	1. Supportive Relationships	Authentic connections are forged between and among teachers and students
	2. Bias-Aware Classrooms and Respectful Schools	Inclusive, positive classroom and school environments are established in which students feel fairly treated
	3. Academic Rigor	The potential of all students is promoted through high expectations and high-level learning opportunities.
	4. Culturally Relevant and Responsive Teaching	Instruction relfects and is respectful of the diversity of today’s classrooms and schools.
	5. Opportunities for Learning and Correcting Behavior	Behavior is approached from a nonpunitive mind-set, and instruction proactively strenghtens student social skills, while providing structured opportunities for behavioral correction within the classroom as necessary
Intervention	6. Data-Based Inquiry for Equity	Data are used regularly to identify “hot spots” of disciplinary treatment of particular groups.
	7. Problem-Solving Approaches to Discipline	Solutions aim to uncover sources of behavior or teacher-student conflict and address the identified needs.
	8. Inclusion of Student and Family Voice on Conflicts’ Causes and Solutions	Student and family voice are integrated into policies, procedures, and practices concerning school discipline.
	9. Reintegration of Studetns after Conflict or Absence	Students are supported in reenterinf the community of learners after conflict or long-term abscence.
Prevention and Intervention	10. Multitiered System of Supports	Schools use a tiered framework to match increasing levels of intensity of support to students’ differentiated needs.

The end of the article has a very important point: “As of yet, there is insufficient empirical evidence to indicate which combination of the 10 principles from the Framework should be implemented together, or which principles might be prioritized …” This is always an important consideration when thinking about systems and framworks like the one presented here.

Roundup 1

2018-01-29T00:00:00-05:00

Here is the first research roundup. I’m calling these research roundups, but sometimes they will include articles from non-peer reviewed sources.

The Social Side Of Capability: Improving Educational Performance By Attending To Teachers’ And School Leaders’ Interactions About Instruction | Shanker Institute

http://www.shankerinstitute.org/blog/social-side-capability-improving-educational-performance-attending-teachers%E2%80%99-and-school-leaders

In this post the two authors describe their research into what makes for better interactions and relationships amongst staff in schools. The authors contend that what really matters is “the educational and physical infrastructures of schools and school systems”, more so than individual characteristics like race or gender. “In other words, holding formal (leadership) positions, participation in professional development, and grade-level assignments influence school staff interactions more strongly than individual attributes like gender, race, or years of experience.” The authors state that interactions matter, and when people in a school or system have a position, like a coach, or have attended a PD on a specific topic, “are more likely to be sought out for advice and information about instruction by their colleagues than teachers who receive less professional development.” These authors also find that teachers who teach across grade levels have less chance for interaction and are sought out less than those who teach on the same grade level. Physical proximity is another feature discussed. Maybe this is some research to back up the bullpen idea in Ossining? My favorite quote from this piece: “Unfortunately, the dominant operating approach in U.S. education is often the silver bullet strategy, a decidedly un-systemic approach to creating a thoughtful educational infrastructure. Our work suggests that it is time to take a more comprehensive approach and build systems at the school and district levels that support meaningful interactions about instruction, the development of social capital, and the improvement of educational performance.”

How to Structure a Coaching Conversation - The Art of Coaching Teachers - Education Week Teacher

http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/coaching_teachers/2018/01/how_to_structure_a_coaching_co.html

In this blog post the author discusses the importance of structuring coaching conversations and planning these discussions. Too often coaches go in to observe and then have an unplanned discussion which meanders and does not really get anywhere. The suggested basic structure:

Open: Get warmed up, talk about your week or weekend, small talk etc… (5 minutes)

Transition: The author says this best: “I say, “So let’s talk about our session today. I have a couple of things I thought we could talk about, but I really want to hear if there’s anything you want to make sure we talk about or if you have any hopes or goals for our time.””

Conversation: Focus on goals of the conversation, don’t get distracted, make the conversation meaningful.

Close: Leave 5 minutes for a wrap-up at the end and plan for next time/summarize next steps for the teacher.

Teaching Introverted Students: How a ‘Quiet Revolution’ Is Changing Classroom Practice - Education Week

https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2017/12/27/teaching-introverted-students-how-a-quiet-revolution.html?cmp=soc-edit-tw

This post discusses an idea called the “Quiet Revolution” which urges teachers to not reward only the extroverts. The biggest take away for me was the importance of think pair share, which we always want to use with ELLs and SWD, this gives time for processing and planning their response. This also brought to mind the importance of non-volunteers in the classroom. See Anita Archer and John Hollingsworth for more on this.

Education research: let failure light the way to success

https://www.tes.com/news/school-news/breaking-views/dont-leave-failure-shadows-it-can-light-your-way-success

In this short article from TES Ann Mroz argues that teachers need to fail to find what works. Education, and leaders, can not be paternalistic when helping teachers find and use evidence based practices. Teachers need to use data and evidence to find out what works for them in their specific situation. “It is teachers who have to translate education research into practice in the classroom. We need to leave them to decide how best to do that. They need to be empowered to use it and, if necessary, to call out a finding as unworkable in the real world – in their messy world, in their own context.”

The Three Essentials: Improving Schools Requires District Vision, District and State Support, and Principal Leadership

https://www.sreb.org/sites/main/files/file-attachments/10v16_three_essentials.pdf

This report from 2010 (64 pages) outlines seven strategies districts can use to support principals effectively in school improvement.

Establish a clear focus and a strategic framework of core beliefs, effective practices and goals for improving student achievement
Organize and engage the school board and district office in support of each school
Provide instructional coherence and support
Invest heavily in instruction-related professional learning for principals, teacher-leaders and district staff
Provide high-quality data that link student achievement to school and classroom practices, and assist schools to use data effectively
Optimize the use of resources to improve student learning
Use open, credible processes to involve key school and community leaders in shaping a vision for improving schools

For this report the Southern Regional Education Board studied seven diverse school systems across three states. They found that there are three essential elements that must be put in place for improvement of struggling high schools (the focus of this report).

State capacity building
District Vision
Principal leadership

They also found that “these elements are rarely all present and working in sync.” So, what is missing? The authors are blunt, districts fail to create the conditions for principals to be successful. Some district leaders micromanage and some provide no vision and guidance.

“Five of the seven districts studied fell into one of these two categories. In the two highly supportive districts, however, district and school board leaders exhibited a clear vision of what constitutes a good school and have created a framework in which the principal has autonomy to work with faculty on an improvement agenda with collaborative support from the district.”

“Few principals have the capacity to rise above a school district’s lack of vision and clear purpose.”

This report also emphasizes the important role State ed departments play in this work. “ State departments of education must build capacity, helping local districts develop a coherent vision for the future of their schools, as well as the knowledge and skills to support principals and teachers as they create their own vision and goals at the school level — and then hold themselves accountable for results.” The report calls on state departments to look at systems change (think Senge) and fix the systems, individual schools being broken are simply a symptom of a broken system. If you don’t fix the system nothing will truly be fixed.

The Impact of Providing Performance Feedback to Teachers and Principals (314 pages including appendices and references)

https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/pubs/20184001/pdf/20184001.pdf

This report from IES and the American Institutes for Research discusses a study on the impact of specific, frequent feedback on teacher performance and student achievement. The study was completed in 2012-13 and 2013-14 (published December 2017) and used an experimental design (random assignment to experimental and control groups). This is the second report and reports on the two year impact and implementation in both years.

Eight districts were provided resources and support to implement three performance measures in sample schools:

Classroom practice measure: A measure of teacher classroom practice with subsequent feedback sessions conducted four times per year based on a classroom observation rubric.
Student growth measure: A measure of teacher contributions to student achievement growth (i.e., value-added scores) provided to teachers and their principals once per year.
Principal leadership measure: A measure of principal leadership with subsequent feedback sessions conducted twice per year. (ES-1)

Significant findings:

When printed, student growth reports were viewed by all principals and given to 98% of teachers, vs just 39% of teachers accessing reports online.
The intervention had a positive impact on teacher-principal trust in Year 1 and on both instructional leadership and teacher-principal trust in Year 2
The intervention had a positive impact on students’ mathematics achievement in Year 1, and had a cumulative impact similar in magnitude but not statistically significant (p = 0.055) in Year 2. The intervention did not have an impact on students’ reading/English language arts achievement in either year

Overview of the intervention:

The intervention consisted of three types of performance measures that were implemented in tandem, providing feedback to those being evaluated and their supervisors. The intervention was intended to have many of the features promoted by research, specifically:

• Multiple measures of teacher and principal performance, including classroom observations and student growth.

• Measures that provide meaningful information about differences in educator performance (i.e., measures that vary across individuals and are reliable).

• Measures that provide clear and useful feedback at multiple times during each year.

In each of the eight participating districts, the intervention was implemented in a group of elementary and middle schools. A group of control schools in each district participated in the normal district evaluation processes only.

Overall the intervention had some positive impacts but did not do everything the researchers had hoped. If you have some time take a read of the full report, its pretty interesting.

Public Education Funding Inequity in an Era of Increasing Concentration of Poverty and Resegregation

http://www.usccr.gov/pubs/2018-01-10-Education-Inequity.pdf

This was the big one for me this week. This report is newly released by the US Commission on Civil Rights and discusses, as the title suggests, inequality in school funding and a new era of school segregation, though not because of legal barriers this time. Here are the major findings:

Although the United States Supreme Court ruled in 1954 that public education is a right that should be available to all on equal terms, the longstanding and persistent reality is that vast funding inequities in our state public education systems render the education available to millions of American public school students profoundly unequal.
The U.S. Department of Education reported that more than 40 percent of Title I schools spent less on personnel per-pupil that non-Title I schools at the same grade level and that are within the same school district.
These school finance inequities cause harm to students subject to them. In addition, as data on school spending become more accurate, some scholars believe there is concrete empirical evidence that funding is critical to positive student outcomes.
Low-income students and students of color are often relegated to low-quality school facilities that lack equitable access to teachers, instructional materials, technology and technology support, critical facilities, and physical maintenance. These absences can negatively impact a student’s health and ability to be attentive and can exacerbate existing inequities in student outcomes.
Many students in the U.S. living in segregated neighborhoods and concentrations of poverty do not have access to high-quality schools simply because of where they live, and there is potential for housing policy to help provide better educational opportunities for these students.
The reality of American schooling is fundamentally inconsistent with the American ideal of public education operating as a means to equalize life opportunity, regardless of zip code, race, economic status, or life circumstance.

This report is really worth the read if you are interested. It is 158 pages with opinions attached (some of the dissenting opinions are interesting).

I intended to read this article How to re-skill a workforce? Experimental evidence of in-service teacher training and coaching, but didn’t have a chance before I wrote this. I’ll include it next time.