Authors:Marilyn Cochran-Smith; Emilie Reagan Abstract: Over the last decade, there have been multiple recommendations for evaluating, assessing, or holding teacher preparation accountable. This article analyzes recent policy proposals regarding “best practices for evaluating teacher preparation programs” by critiquing 19 major reports explicitly focused on evaluation. The analysis revealed that the reports’ primary goal was identifying preferred evaluation metrics using rigorous criteria for accuracy and utility. The majority of reports did not position equity as a central goal of evaluation and actually said little about equity explicitly, although some assumed equity was a by-product of rigorous evaluation systems. Building on previous efforts to focus on equity in teacher education, the article advocates an equity-centered approach to teacher preparation evaluation that acknowledges long-standing inequities in educational opportunity and attainment in the United States. Rejecting the idea of “best practices,” which are by definition decontextualized and inattentive to local contexts, the article offers 11 guiding principles for researchers, policymakers, and practitioners, to make strong equity the center of evaluation. These recommendations include: making equity an explicit goal during the entire process of evaluation and working at a systems/structural level; utilizing assessment models and tools that focus on equity; including all stakeholders, especially those from the minoritized communities served by programs, in decisions about evaluation criteria; and, supporting internal professional accountability. PubDate: Tue, 10 May 2022 00:00:00 -070
Authors:Maria Veronica Santelices; Sergio Celis Abstract: In this introduction, the guest editors present an overview of the 11 articles that make up the special issue on student experience in Latin American higher education. The introduction provides context about the higher education sector in Latin America, draws attention to the main features of the articles, and highlights common themes across them. The guest editors also comment on the parallels and contrasts with the student experience discussed by the literature from other geographical locations. Based on the preparation and publication of the special issue, suggestions for further research are provided. PubDate: Tue, 03 May 2022 00:00:00 -070
Authors:Bruce Fuller Abstract: A novel set of civic activists arose in Los Angeles in the 1990s, gaining independence from neoliberal advocates and labor leaders to advance a variety of school reforms over the next three decades. In turn, student learning climbed steadily during the period. This paper first describes the rise of these “new pluralists” – a diverse coalition of black and Latina leaders, civil rights attorneys, pro-equity nonprofits, and pedagogical reformers – and sketches their efforts to equitably fund central-city schools, improve teacher quality and student engagement, and decriminalize discipline. I then review accumulating evidence on which institutional changes empirically predict gains in pupil outcomes, further informed by qualitative studies. These plural actors, rooted in humanist ideals, challenged the individualistic and competitive values of neoliberals. Carving-out a third civic space, they lifted achievement on average, but have yet to find policy strategies that narrow racial disparities in learning. PubDate: Tue, 12 Apr 2022 00:00:00 -070
Authors:Zara Figueiredo Tripodi; Ursula Dias Peres, Thiago Alves Abstract: The special issue Education and its Interfaces with Administration, Accounting, and Economics appears at a challenging time for Brazilian school funding because of the implementation process of the Fund for the Maintenance and Development of Basic Education and for the Valorization of Education Professionals (Fundeb in Portuguese acronym), which became a permanent mechanism after the enactment of the Constitutional Amendment No. 108/2020. The Fundeb redistributed 65.5% of the total resources destined to finance Brazilian public schools in 2019. Therefore, it is a fundamental mechanism for guaranteeing the right to education for 39.3 million students (82.1% of the total of enrollments of kindergarten, preschool, elementary, and secondary school). In this context, this article presents the contributions of the 10 articles included in the special issue vis-à-vis the current challenges of Brazilian school funding aligned with the following themes: (a) Educational costs; Cost-Student Quality (CAQ in Portuguese acronym); and inequalities in educational conditions between schools and education networks; (b) Equity mechanisms for financing policies; (c) Federalism and inequalities in funding capacity; (d) Political dynamics and the parliamentary decision-making process in Fundeb's legislative approval processes; (e) Legal nature of expenditure on maintenance and development of education; (f) Educational federalism and governance of the National Education Plan; (g) Funding, remuneration and teacher valorization; and (h) School Funding in Southern Common Market (Mercosul in Portuguese acronym) from a comparative perspective. PubDate: Tue, 05 Apr 2022 00:00:00 -070
Authors:Suzana dos Santos Gomes; Savana Diniz Gomes Melo, Felipe Zurita Abstract: Higher education faces new challenges in current times. The university formed by a diversity of conceptions and perspectives has been suffering uncountable reforms and pressures that question its historical identity, its goals, and the meaning of the work of teaching. The solutions and recommendations of current global and national educational policies are one response for overcoming the economic crisis and are guided by a marketing and neoliberal perspective that sets the grounds for a new paradigm for the university. From this perspective, this introduction to the special issue Higher Education in Latin America in Times of Crisis addresses some themes relevant to that field of study in Brazil, Chile and Peru, such as educational policies, distance learning, finance, evaluation, teaching work and careers, and internationalization. Each theme, in its own way, questions the traditional, conservative ways of organizing higher education in each of these countries and provides guidelines for related analyses in other countries of the region. The papers that compose this issue demonstrate that higher education is immersed within a complex scenario characterized by rapid changes that have repercussions for the future of the university and of the work of teaching. PubDate: Tue, 15 Mar 2022 00:00:00 -070
Authors:Camille M. Wilson Abstract: In this editorial essay, the author pinpoints key insights, implications, and cross cutting themes that emerged from this special issue. These insights shed light on the interlocking connection between inequitable public education systems and vulnerable democracies, both of which fail to uphold their charge to be inclusive and just. Special attention is given to the harm of race-avoidant, classist, and/or public-aversive discourse and policies, the coopting of equity-oriented agendas for private interests, political underrepresentation, and the multifaceted reach of global neoliberalism. All of these factors exacerbate racial and socioeconomic disparities in education and society. The author emphasizes how these and other dynamics amount to the provision of educational equity being constrained by dominant logics of fear, scarcity, and competition; the racialization and privatization of public education access; and ultimately, the operation of elitist versus truly representative democracies. She builds upon the volume’s critical policy studies to stress the urgency of countering both covert and explicitly biased educational policy mechanisms in order to improve public education and construct more authentic democratic societies. PubDate: Tue, 08 Feb 2022 00:00:00 -080
Authors:Sarah Diem; Jeffrey S. Brooks Abstract: This article is the introduction to a special issue of Education Policy Analysis Archives entitled, “Critical Policy Analysis in Education: Exploring and Interrogating (In)Equity Across Contexts.” The special issue presents contemporary critical policy analyses from the United States, Canada, and Australia, which collectively represent methodological, contextual, and theoretical diversity. Individually, they offer incisive critiques of policy processes and outcomes that shape the way equity, and indeed inequity, are manifest in situ. The articles represent a spectrum of approaches to understanding (in)equity in education and point out various ways that educators, scholars, policymakers, and activists can engage with systems to leverage change. In the article, the co-editors identify key themes that distinguish the special issue’s contribution and explain the importance of critical policy analysis as a relevant and necessary alternative to policy analyses that ignore issues of equity, social justice, and oppression. PubDate: Tue, 08 Feb 2022 00:00:00 -080
Authors:Bryan A. VanGronigen; Michelle D. Young, Kevin Rodriguez Abstract: State boards of education (SBOEs) are one of many governmental entities that reside within the larger educational policymaking sphere. With recent U.S. federal legislation devolving more authority over education to states, state-level governmental entities like SBOEs are in the spotlight perhaps now more than ever. Yet not much has been published about SBOE structures and functions, much less about their members and how they might influence educational policies and education broadly. Using critical policy analysis methods, this descriptive study focused on two areas: (a) the criteria and processes that states use to select SBOE members, and (b) the characteristics of today’s SBOE members (e.g., demographics) and the extent to which SBOEs are representative portraits of the states they serve. Findings report similarities and differences among members within and between the 47 U.S. states with SBOEs. We close by critically assessing our findings, especially whether SBOE member selection criteria and processes and SBOE members themselves are well-positioned to best represent their constituents. PubDate: Tue, 08 Feb 2022 00:00:00 -080
Authors:Jaime Barrientos Delgado; María Teresa Rojas, Ismael Tabilo, Canela Bodenhofer Abstract: This issue aims to highlight the barriers that LGBT+ children and young people in the region must overcome, both in and out of school, in order to exercise their right to education. The different articles in this special issue help to critically analyze the experiences of school inclusion of this group in different countries, highlighting the successes and failures of educational policies. In this introduction to the special issue, we will briefly review the theoretical aspects of the right to education and social justice in order to present some ideas and concepts for the debate on inclusion in education. Then, we will present some advances and debts of school inclusion of LGTB+ youth in the region, and the presence of LGTB+ inclusion policies in education agendas. Finally, the articles included in this special issue are presented in order to provide a cross-cutting look at the different topics and countries that are part of this publication. PubDate: Mon, 01 Nov 2021 00:00:00 -070
Authors:Oren Pizmony-Levy; Dafna Gan Abstract: The aim of this special issue, “Learning Assessments for Sustainability'”, is to examine the interaction between the environmental and sustainability education (ESE) movement and the international large-scale assessments (ILSAs) movement. Both global educational movements emerged in the 1960s and their simultaneous work have affected each other since then. While the articles in this special issue highlight the potential benefits of ILSAs as a source of data for secondary analysis, they also demonstrate the limitations of ILSAs and their negative consequences to ESE. As such, we call for more research on the interaction between ESE and ILSAs and for a serious consideration of how test-based accountability practices might work against meaningful engagement with ESE. This introductory article includes three sections. The first section provides context about the movements. The second section presents an overview of the articles and alternative ways for reading them. The third section discusses lessons learned from the collection of articles. We conclude with a call for further research and reflection. PubDate: Mon, 27 Sep 2021 00:00:00 -070
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