UV9356 – Equity-Oriented Reform Amid Standards-Based Accountability:
Course description
Course content
This two-day program will address the dimensions of today’s high-stakes testing and accountability policies that have solidified private intermediary organizations’ roles as providers of educational services in schools that primarily serve students of color and English Learners. We will examine the research evidence that points to the growing ideological support for market-based innovations to further the public good. While organizations from the public and private spheres have traditionally worked together to provide certain social services (e.g., welfare, legal aid, and health care), we will discuss the risks and benefits of relying on private intermediaries to broker core public education services, particularly services that target teaching and learning for marginalized students.
We will also examine in-depth the findings from Dr. Trujillo’s study of a national U.S. intermediary that marketed explicitly equity-oriented instructional goals for schools serving students of color and English Learners. We will explore the theories used to analyze the intermediary’s behavior amid a high-stakes, standards-based accountability environment, and consider how these theoretical frameworks help explain why the intermediary adopted certain reforms, and why the reform processes and instructional practices that took place in its schools looked like they did.
We will also review an innovative methodological tool, Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA), which Dr. Trujillo used to investigate the multiple combinations of conditions associated with different instructional practices across schools. We will discuss how QCA can help researchers trace multiple configurations of conditions that lead to particular instructional and other outcomes.
Learning outcome
To discuss the academic, social, and political tensions that transpire when public policies mandate that private organizations broker reforms in public educational settings.
To become familiar with key theories that help assess the implications of these reforms for the instruction of marginalized students, the democratic character of our public schools, and the professional control of teaching.
To understand the unique affordances of Qualitative Comparative Analysis as a tool for studying instruction in urban educational settings
Admission
Open lectures for all signed up for the seminars. Closed workshops for course participants.
PhD-candidates enrolled in NATED will be given priority, but it is also possible for other PhD-candidates to apply for the course.
Candidates admitted to a PhD-program at UiO: Apply by Studentweb.
Other applicants: apply through registration form
Teaching
Location: University of Oslo, Room 231, Helga Eng’s House
Dates: June, 2-3, 2015
Responsible: Professor Jorunn M?ller, and Associate Professor Kirsten Sivesind, University of Oslo.
Guest Professor: Tina Trujillo, UC Berkeley
Registration: Registration form
Registration deadline: May 19, 2015
Paper for seminar: 5000-6000 words.
Send to track leaders no later than May 19, 2015.
Email addresses:
About our Guest Professor:
Tina Trujillo is an Assistant Professor at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Education. She earned her Ph.D. in Education from UCLA and her M.A. in Education from the University of Colorado, Boulder. She is a former urban public school teacher, school reform coach, and educational evaluator. At Berkeley, she teaches Ph.D. students in Policy, Organization, Measurement and Evaluation (POME) and school and district leaders in the Leadership for Educational Equity Doctoral Program (LEEP) and the Principal Leadership Institute (PLI).
Dr. Trujillo uses tools from political science and critical policy studies to study the political dimensions of urban district reform, the instructional and democratic consequences of policies and reforms for students of color and English Learners, and trends in urban educational leadership. Her recent research examines the instructional and political implications of private intermediary organizations as technical assistance providers for public school districts. Another project looks at the ways in which “Teach For America” is defining the project to redress educational equity, and how the organization influences patterns in school leadership, reform, and policy. She also writes about the implications of federal accountability policies for the provision of democratic, equitable schooling. Her work is published in a range of journals, including the American Educational Research Journal, Teachers College Record, Educational Policy, Journal of Educational Administration, and Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis.