High-need Schools Research Articles

A beginning teacher’s living of counter stories in a high-needs school in rural China

ABSTRACT This narrative inquiry explores a beginning teacher’s counter story experiences in a high-needs secondary school in rural China. The study examines storied data culled from interviews, observations, and digital photos and videos of the participant’s daily life. The research intent was to discover how the participant teacher lived counter stories with his students and teacher colleagues amid the competing and conflicting dominant narratives inside and outside the school. The study discusses how teacher reflection, ‘intelligent rebellion’, and teacher community are related to a teacher’s sense of self and construction of counter stories. This research provides local, national and international insights into teacher retention and development in a professionally challenging rural school landscape.

Interaction rituals, emotions, and early childhood science: digital microscopes and collective joy in a multilingual classroom

In her original article, “Identity, Agency and the Internal Conversations of Science and Math Teachers Implementing instructional reforms in High-Need Urban Schools”, Stacy Olitsky (2021) takes us on an exploration of the identity development and agencies exerted by two teachers working to implement science instructional reforms in high-need urban schools. Olitsky (2021) utilizes Interaction Ritual Theory as a lens to examine a seldom viewed and even intimate aspect of teacher’s worlds, namely teachers’ self-talk. In this forum article I embrace the invitation extended by Olitsky, through an exploration of the interaction rituals that took place among students and a teacher working with digital microscopes in an early childhood classroom. I draw upon the theoretical lens of communitas to illuminate the power of collective joy that formed. Specifically, I will share two vignettes from a multilingual early childhood classroom to illustrate how teacher-guided and student-guided spaces afforded interactions that lead to the development of collective joy. I show how collective work with the microscopes allowed for joy and surprise to occur within a classroom of plurilingual students who are participating in their first schooled experiences of science. I conclude with a discussion of the power of student-driven instructional spaces as places for students working to learn science, and the language of instruction, to collectively experience joy as they explore.

Coaching, professional community, and continuous improvement: rural school leader and coach development in a research-practice partnership

ABSTRACT The increased need for effective school leadership development, especially in rural and high-needs schools, has led to an increase in research-practice partnerships between districts and universities. Yet, there is a need for systematic analysis of the outcomes of such partnerships. The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of a leadership development initiative on 16 school leaders and eight leadership coaches and their leadership and leadership coaching practices. The initiative, the Leadership Learning Community (LLC), was created through a research-practice partnership between a consortium of 12 predominantly rural, high-poverty school districts and two universities to meet the districts’ leadership development needs. The results of the study demonstrate the benefits of rural school districts partnering with other districts and universities to provide cross-district leadership development through facilitated professional communities and job-embedded coaching to develop rural school leaders and coaches able to lead continuous school improvement efforts.

Technology as a Facilitator in the Learning Process in Urban High-Needs Schools: Challenges and Opportunities

Innovations in educational technology have led to heightened expectations for both K-12 teachers and students. Now, more than ever, teachers are expected to develop 21st century skills, which creates a necessity to understand how urban teachers feel about the role of technology in their teaching practice. In addition, teacher perceptions are necessary to identify better ways to prepare students for success. Utilizing a quantitative approach, this study explored these perceptions among urban K-12 teachers. Results suggested urban teachers lag behind their counterparts related to perceived effectiveness of technology. In addition, respondents indicated technology is not utilized frequently. The results revealed personal trial and error as the most common way of new knowledge and skill acquisition. Participants reported lack of student access to Internet at home as the largest barrier to technology implementation, followed by financial cost. These findings suggest urban teachers may need more guidance and professional development on how to effectively integrate technology into the classroom. Through the development of more thorough understanding of urban teacher usage of technology, administrators may design more effective continued learning opportunities. It is recommended future investigation be conducted across multiple states to investigate technology usage by grade level and content area to best equip urban teachers to effectively implement technology in their teaching practices.

Transitioning to online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic: differences in access and participation among students in disadvantaged school districts

PurposeThe novel coronavirus, COVID-19, which emerged in 2019 and quickly spread to the United States, resulted in widespread closure of PreK-12 schools and universities and a rapid transition to online learning. There are concerns about how students in high-needs school districts will engage with online learning, given the limited access many disadvantaged students have to Internet and computers. Accordingly, the purpose of this study is to determine teacher perceptions of students' access and participation to online learning, as well as concerns about educational outcomes among different groups of learners.Design/methodology/approachThe authors surveyed 300 K-12 teachers in NY state about the tools and accommodations they employed in their online teaching, whether their students were participating in the online learning and the reasons for their lack of participation.FindingsRespondents reported that nearly 30% of all of their students were not regularly completing their assignments. Students in high-needs districts were significantly more likely to not complete their work. Teachers reported being very concerned about their students' educational outcomes, particularly students with disabilities (SWDs) and English language learners (ELLs). Respondents also provided suggestions for improving educational access to online learning in the future.Originality/valueNo published research has yet examined student compliance in online learning during an emergency and, in particular, during this unprecedented time of the COVID-19 pandemic and months-long stay-at-home orders.

Cracks to Craters: College Advising During COVID-19

The COVID-19 (coronavirus disease–2019) pandemic disrupted the education of students across the globe in the spring of 2020. Students who were previously at most risk for falling behind their peers and through the cracks because of academic, financial, racial, and/or generational disadvantage faced a wide range of additional obstacles in the pursuit of their college goals. This qualitative study sought to uncover postsecondary advising implications for students through the perspectives of near-peer college advisers (n = 23) serving in high-need schools in two different states as intensive, in-person advising was forced to adapt to virtual formats. Two key thematic findings reveal that advisers faced new communication challenges and existing systemic barriers for marginalized students became even larger. For seniors who had not yet made final postsecondary decisions or who had remaining to-dos, the impact of school closures and distanced advising may have fatally widened existing cracks in the path to college.

A Blueprint for Scaling Tutoring and Mentoring Across Public Schools

In this thought experiment, we explore how to make access to individualized instruction and academic mentoring more equitable by taking tutoring to scale as a permanent feature of the U.S. public education system. We first synthesize the tutoring and mentoring literature and characterize the landscape of existing tutoring programs. We then outline a blueprint for integrating federally funded and locally delivered tutoring into the school day. High school students would serve as tutors/mentors in elementary schools via an elective class, college students in middle schools via federal work-study, and 2- and 4-year college graduates in high schools via AmeriCorps. We envision an incremental, demand-driven expansion process with priority given to high-needs schools. Our blueprint highlights a range of design tradeoffs, implementation challenges, and program costs. We estimate that targeted approaches to scaling school-wide tutoring nationally, such as focusing on K–8 Title I schools, would cost between $5 and $16 billion annually.

The Strategic Support to Thrive Beyond Survival Model: An Administrative Support Framework for Improving Student Outcomes and Addressing Educator Staffing in Rural and Urban High-Needs Schools

This paper presents an empirically grounded conceptual model that positions the principal as the talent developer, who when provided mentorship on how to strategically scaffold their teachers, will improve their own self-efficacy and competencies to provide better administrative support. Not only will this mentorship decrease their feelings of job-related overburden and improve their retention, but they will also jointly increase teacher support (thereby reducing their turnover) and increase performance by improving student learning. The model advances scholarship by addressing administrative and leadership mentoring and role modeling in cross-cultural contexts through a multi-level framework (i.e., mentorship to school leaders on how to mentor and support teachers), with the goal of improving social justice through the advancement of social inclusion. The paper will interrogate how mentoring and development is conceived by distinguishing the different types of administrative support that leaders in rural and urban high-needs (high poverty and low-performing) schools must provide for their teachers in their respective settings. The relevance of these distinctions and the emphasis of the paper for an international context will be discussed.

Supporting Novice K-2 Teachers’ Self-Efficacy for Literacy: Early Literacy Teacher Induction for Rural Schools

ABSTRACT This study explored the year-long development of 159 (N = 159) novice K-2 teachers’ self-efficacy for literacy instruction, within a literacy-specific induction initiative with sixteen high-need, predominantly rural school districts. Findings reveal novice teachers’ self-efficacy for literacy instruction grew significantly throughout the year. Teachers’ satisfaction with specific induction supports in the multi-pronged initiative held various relationships with literacy self-efficacy at the middle and end of the year. The presence of supplemental, school-based supports had no moderating impacts on literacy self-efficacy. Teachers’ licensure status held various moderating influences on literacy self-efficacy throughout the year. Implications for supporting novice teachers’ self-efficacy for literacy instruction are discussed. Results add to the limited research examining how novice teachers’ self-efficacy for literacy instruction develops over time in rural, high-need schools.

Experiences of practitioners implementing comprehensive student support in high-poverty schools

This US-based study examined the experiences of school counselors and social workers implementing a systems-oriented, programmatic student support practice model, City Connects, within high-need urban contexts. The City Connects model represents current best practices in student support, positioning school counselors and social workers primarily in the role of identifying students’ needs and strengths and making connections between students, families, teachers, and service providers. This stands in contrast to older models in which these professionals functioned primarily in a direct care role. The goal of the study was to understand practitioners’ experiences of efficacy, satisfaction, and engagement as well as the barriers to each of these within this best practice model. Acknowledging the documented challenges of working in high-need urban schools in the United States and the potential strains of systems-oriented practice, the study aimed to understand which aspects of their work enable practitioners to thrive, as well as which aspects do not. Qualitative analysis was used to examine written reflection data on the experiences of 35 practitioners implementing the model. Our analysis revealed six themes: (1) connecting/cultivating relationships (2) seeing impact, (3) having confidence in the effectiveness of the practice model, (4) having high levels of satisfaction with the practice, (5) managing role clarity, and (6) experiencing systemic barriers. Implications for practitioners, supervisors, clinician educators, and program designers are discussed.

Popular education and music education: Lessons from a strings program in Erechim, Brazil

In this exploratory study, we describe the learning experiences of adolescents from a social project called Orquestrando Talentos, which offered violin and viola lessons in two high-needs schools for low-income students in Erechim, Southern Brazil. Grounded on the central tenets of popular education, on Paulo Freire’s work, and on earlier studies on the experiences of students from community-based strings programs, in this article we share the voices of six violin students (aged 12–14), their parents, and teachers, particularly as they relate to students’ socioemotional learning and the social impact of the program on families, schools, and communities.

Pre-Service Teacher Supports in Urban Schools

ABSTRACT Research highlights the challenges of teacher preparation programs in adequately preparing teachers to meet the needs of diverse students often served in high-needs urban schools. Teacher preparation programs that include culturally relevant pedagogy, coursework specifically related to school-community interaction, and most importantly, internships with mentorship in urban schools, have demonstrated that teachers specifically trained to teach in urban schools are better prepared and stay in teaching longer. This study examined the perceptions of 11 clinical supervising teachers and nine pre-service teachers that received flexible University mentoring supports during student teaching in two high-need, urban schools. The findings illustrate that urban student teaching experiences, when supported by additional collaborative mentorship, have the potential to improve experiences for both pre-service teachers and supervising teachers. Further, collaboration with schools to link teacher preparation program course content to urban teaching experiences can improve the theory-to-practice gap.

Too Important to Fail: The Banking Concept of Education and Standardized Testing in an Urban Middle School

Paulo Freire’s influential concept of “banking” education describes an oppressive process that positions teachers as the “depositors” of knowledge into passive student “receptacles.” However, according to Freire, teachers also have an “ontological vocation to be more fully human” that can only be achieved through freedom from oppression. In this article, I use Freire’s concept of banking education to reflect on my experiences giving standardized tests during my final year teaching at a high-need middle school in New York City. Drawing from narrative inquiry methodology, I bring these teaching/testing experiences into conversation with the sociopolitical discourse on banks and argue that the contradiction and dehumanization of standardized banking models oppress both students and teachers. I argue that neoliberal forms of “accountability” in public education also force educators to substitute the humanization and freedom of student engagement for a type of “proxy personhood” achieved through acting on behalf of corporations.

The Role of a Summer Field Experience in Fostering STEM Students' Socioemotional Perceptions and Social Justice Awareness as Preparation for a Science Teaching Career

Author(s): Liu, Amy; Toma, Shannon; Levis-Fitzgerald, Marc; Russell, Arlene A. | Abstract: This study aims to better understand the role that teacher exploration programs play in supporting science teacher education recruitment and retention in ways that are consistent with social justice goals. Utilizing reflective and descriptive journal data from 126 STEM undergraduate students engaged in an intensive and immersive four-day internship that took place in summer 2015 and summer 2016, this study examines how a well-integrated field experience prepares students to consider a possible future science teaching career in high needs schools. Findings indicate that students who participated in this summer field experience program developed classroom pedagogical knowledge and skills, as well as heightened interpersonal, socioemotional understanding with respect to students. As preparation for the possibility of entering a social-justice focused credential teaching program, the internships also exposed the STEM undergraduates to high-need schools, fostered interns' social justice awareness, and provided an opportunity for them to reflect experientially – in terms of their own educational privileges and from their field time in the classrooms – on educational inequities confronting schools and students. These experiences allowed the STEM interns to more deeply appreciate the importance of connecting with students and developing positive and constructive relationships with them, a valuable foundation for those who may choose to pursue a formal social-justice oriented teacher education program.

Facilitating Culturally Responsive Classroom Management Professional Development for Novice Teachers in a High-Needs School With a Majority Black Population

Facilitating Culturally Responsive Classroom Management Professional Development for Novice Teachers in a High-Needs School With a Majority Black Population

Keeping Kids Learning: Online Crowdfunding Communities Respond to the COVID­-19 Pandemic

We study how digital crowdfunding platforms can help replenish the sudden economic deficiencies that accompany a global crisis. Specifically, we examine whether public schools, which suffered severe setbacks during the COVID-19 crisis, were able to generate support from online fundraising communities. We study how the shutdown of schools and the shift to online learning in the United States affected private fundraising on the DonorsChoose.org platform. We find evidence that, after the exogenous shock caused by the pandemic (and resulting stay-at-home orders), donations to schools increased, implying both demand-side and supply-side effects. We observe an increased level of concern from existing platform contributors through increased per-donor contributions, especially toward high-need schools. Moreover, we found a shift in donation patterns, wherein donors swiftly adapted to renewed priorities and redistributed their resources to immediate needs around digital learning infrastructure. Our findings reveal the pivotal role digital platforms can play in facilitating community resilience during times of crisis.

The Merit in Performance Pay: How Changing Teacher Compensation Can Increase the Supply of Quality Educators

There is no question that classrooms in US public schools do not function without an adult responsible for facilitating student learning. There is less agreement, however, regarding what constitutes quality instruction or what credentials an instructor should have in order to be considered a certified teacher. Low enrollment in teacher preparation programs combined with increasing teacher turnover rates have created a shortage of quality educators in districts across the country for high-need schools and subject areas. Educators, labor activists, and politicians have called for teacher compensation reform as a way to increase the teacher retention rate. This article summarizes research on the impact of individual and group incentive pay schemes on student achievement, reviews alternative financial incentives to retain exceptional educators, and evaluates policy proposals to improve teacher salaries from current and former 2020 presidential candidates.

Evaluating the Prevent-Teach-Reinforce (PTR) model in general education settings

Students in general education classrooms are increasingly being identified as being in need of individualized behavior supports. Thus, this study assessed the Prevent-Teach-Reinforce (PTR) model to determine its impact on problem and replacement behaviors of typically developing students with behavioral challenges in a high-need elementary school setting. In addition, the study examined the validity and usability of the Individualized Behavior Rating Scale Tool (IBRST), which was developed in conjunction with the PTR model as a feasible daily progress monitoring tool. A multiple baseline across participants was employed with three first grade students to evaluate the impact of implementation of the model on the students’ behaviors. The results of the study indicated that the PTR model was effective in reducing problem behaviors and increasing the use of replacement behaviors for all three participants. In addition, the IBRST completed by the teachers was found to have a substantial correlation to data collected during direct observations.

Teacher candidates’ intentions to teach: implications for recruiting and retaining teachers in urban schools

ABSTRACTThis study addresses how teacher candidates committed to a social-justice-oriented urban teacher residency programme articulate and reflect why they want to be teachers in high-need public schools and what they expect from teaching so as to ascertain what they expect to do. The participants of this study included 77 graduates who participated in four cohorts of an urban teacher residency programme from 2010 through 2014. Employing a qualitative case study design, we analysed 77 sets of admissions essays, which were completed as part of the residency application process. Building on our analysis of candidates’ admissions essays through inductive coding, we find that candidates’ reflections on why they want to be teachers in high-need public schools and what they expect to do, stem from their beliefs in their role as a teacher and their beliefs about the role of education. Such reflections are grounded in beliefs of teacher activism, pupil activism, and advocacy for pupils who have been marginalised due to systemic inequalities. The study illuminates committed teachers’ reasons for entering the teaching profession so as to inform better recruitment strategies, and has implications for how initial teacher education (ITE) programme could specifically improve their professional preparation and practices to recruit and retain qualified teachers who intend to stay.

Understanding the Allocation of Student Support Personnel in Public Schools

In this study, we extend research on the allocation of educational resources to an underdeveloped domain—the distribution of counselors, psychologists, and social workers (i.e., support personnel) to schools. Using administrative data for all North Carolina public schools in the 2007–2008 through 2015–2016 school years, we measure the allocation of support personnel to schools, track secular changes in support personnel ratios during a period in which state budgetary provisions contracted and expanded, and assess the distribution of support personnel to high-poverty and high-minority schools. We calculate more accurate support personnel ratios and show that trends in support personnel ratios differ across school levels. We find that districts concentrate support personnel in high-need schools, however, this compensatory pattern is narrowing over time. Our findings call for further research on the allocation of support personnel and charge states/districts to calculate more accurate and granular support personnel ratios to inform decision making.