Thursday, May 11, 2023

PUBLICATION: Ties That Bind? The Teaching and Post-Teaching Trajectories of Black and Latino/a Community Insiders and Elite College Graduates," by Brantlinger, A., O’Neal Turner, B. & Valenzuela, A.

Students, Friends, & Colleagues:

Happy to share this recently published piece titled, "Ties That Bind? The Teaching and Post-Teaching Trajectories of Black and Latino/a Community Insiders and Elite College Graduates, co-authored with Andrew Brantlinger and Blake O’Neal Turner in Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis https://doi.org/10.3102/01623737231162583

Abstract: 

"Community teachers, particularly those who are Black and Latinx, are assumed to improve retention and outcomes depending on retention in schools that serve low-income Black and Latinx students. Based on a critical quantitative analysis of data collected on the career trajectories and retention of hundreds of alternatively certified mathematics teachers, the study shows that community insiders exhibit significantly higher rates of retention in district schools than community outsiders and, in particular, those from elite colleges. Utilizing quantitative critical theory methodology, the study helps to move the field beyond race-neutral analyses of teachers’ retention and careers."

In short, the study lends support to the idea of growing our own, community-based educators, i.e., establishing pathways into the teaching profession, and why investing in community-based teachers that emanate from their local communities to subsequently teach in them makes good sense from a policy perspective.

Conversely, on the other hand, it encourages us to re-think introducing 

"economically and socially privileged community outsiders as teachers in low-income neighborhood urban schools under the assumption that, as the graduates of the nation’s most selective colleges, they will be particularly effective at improving student learning, even if they stay only for a few years (Higgins et al., 2011Lovison, 2022)."

It was a pleasure doing this work with University of Maryland professor, Dr. Andrew Brantlinger and his newly-minted Ph.D, student, Dr. Blake O'Neal Turner.

-Angela Valenzuela

No comments:

Post a Comment