The selected publications listed below are grouped by research area:

• pursuing equity in a segregated school system
• school discipline & safety
• preparing school leaders committed to social justice

 

PURSUING EQUITY IN A SEGREGATED SCHOOL SYSTEM 

Garver, R., & Hopkins, M. (2020). Segregation and integration in the education of English Learners: Leadership and policy dilemmas. Leadership and Policy in Schools, 19 (1), 1-5.

In this introduction to the special issue, we establish why school leaders must be attentive to how the organization of educational programs for English Learners impacts the degree to which they are segregated or integrated. We preview each article in the special issue and clarify the contributions that these pieces collectively make to research and practice. We argue that taken together the articles make the case that school leaders must balance separation and integration in a way that fosters equity of opportunity and affirms English Learners’ multilingual and multicultural identities.

Garver, R. (2020). How harmful is segregation? English Learners’ conditions for learning in segregated classrooms. Leadership and Policy in Schools, 19 (1), 123-140.

This ethnographic study compares the educational experiences of Bangla-speaking and Spanish-speaking English Learners (ELs) served by officially identical bilingual instructional models within one public middle school. Building on theories of policy implementation and a case within a case analysis, I ask: How do EL’s conditions for learning in segregated settings vary within schools? What varies the degree of harm or benefit entailed by linguistic segregation within schools? I argue that administrative choices related to program design and staffing, as well as the characteristics of the US-born population and the staff’s beliefs about culture, impacted Bangla- and Spanish-speaking ELs’ conditions for learning.

Garver, R. (2019). When achievement gaps are acceptable: School-level data practices and subgroup accountability pressure. In G. Conchas, B. Hinga, M.N. Abad, & K. Gutierrez (Eds.), The complex web of inequality in North American schools: Investigating educational policies for social justice. New York: Routledge.

Subgroup accountability, the requirement that student subgroups delineated by gender, race, disability, and language status make adequate yearly progress (AYP) in addition to the student body overall, has been the central lever of federal education policy to promote equity while raising academic standards since the 2001 reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. The evidence is mixed as to whether a citation under subgroup accountability fulfills its intention to focus schools on the student subgroups identified as failing to make AYP. Studies that explore the mechanisms of implementation behind subgroup accountability’s variable success in improving the performance of identified subgroups are lacking. This chapter draws on an ethnographic study of a public middle school to demonstrate how school-level data practices mediate a school’s response to a citation under subgroup accountability policy. Subgroup accountability’s regulatory power can be amplified, reduced, or vary by subgroup, depending on the ways that teachers and school administrators make sense of student performance data. Technical discussions about data disaggregation and the most appropriate units of comparison, as well as debates about how to interpret data based on the subgroup at issue served as sites where staff co-constructed understandings about the gravity of achievement gaps. By invoking the intensive needs of the student body and subgroup-specific perceptions during these interactions, teachers and administrators decreased the urgency around achievement gaps and, thereby, created conditions that lessened the pressure exerted by subgroup accountability. Although subgroup accountability is designed to exert uniform pressure across schools and subgroups, findings in this chapter indicate that the effects of subgroup accountability vary based on school demographics and on teachers’ and administrators’ perceptions of students.

Garver, R. (2019). Evaluative relationships: teacher accountability and professional culture. Journal of Education Policy. 

Research on recently adopted methods for teacher evaluation are largely focused on issues of validity and pay less attention to the consequences of implementation for the everyday practices of teaching and learning in schools. This paper draws on an ethnographic case-study to argue that the joint tasks demanded by neoliberal teacher evaluation policies structure interactions among teachers and between teachers and administrators in ways that erode professional culture. Implications for policymakers, school leaders, and teachers are considered.

Garver, R. (2017). Orienting schools toward equity: Subgroup accountability pressure and school-level responses. The Educational Forum, 81(2), 160-174.

This article examines school-level responses to subgroup accountability pressure through an ethnographic case study of a school cited for failing to make adequate yearly progress for student subgroups. Concerns about the calculations and measures used to derive the citation and reservations about acting on accountability data delegitimized the citation and rendered the identified subgroups irrelevant to daily practice. Under district guidance, compliance with subgroup accountability was independent of the school’s internal efforts to promote equity. Kappa Delta Pi Blog Post featuring the article in June 2017

Garver, R. (2016). Segregation in segregated schools. In E. Frankenberg, L. Garces, & M. Hopkins (Eds.), School Integration Matters: Research-Based Strategies to Advance Equity. New York: Teachers College Press.

Since the advent of court-ordered school desegregation in the United States, segregation has been studied, measured, and theorized according to a white/non-white racial binary. This body of research has repeatedly shown that segregation—both within and between schools—advantages white students and disadvantages students of color. As schools become increasingly segregated, theories of segregation that privilege a white/non-white binary need to be tested and potentially revised to consider the divisions and inequalities that exist within predominately-white schools and segregated minority schools. In this chapter, I explore the extent to which the white/non-white paradigm of school segregation holds in a segregated minority school. Using an urban, comprehensive high school in which less than 5% of the student body identifies as white as a case study, I show how segregation in non-white schools challenges the white/non-white understanding of segregation that has dominated the educational and policy literature. I argue that race is decentered as the most salient divisive category and that advantage is shifting and contextual. Moreover, the separation of students, possibly interpreted as service provision, is problematized as segregation in the shadow of white-Black de jure segregation.

 

SCHOOL DISCIPLINE AND SAFETY

Garver, R., & Noguera, P. (2015). Supported and unsafe: The impact of educational structures for immigrant students on school safety. Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice, 13(4), 323-344.

We draw upon a case study to show that the extensive, physical separation of U.S.-born and immigrant students, as well as targeted supports for immigrant students absent similar attention to the rest of the student body, undermine the conditions necessary for a safe school. Community members expressed conflicting and conflicted perceptions concerning the extent to which immigrant students should receive differential treatment and the extent to which they should be physically isolated. These perceptions, which evoked concerns about fairness and educational efficacy, put the school’s legitimacy into question and threatened its ability to ensure safety. Despite misgivings, the structure was insulated in part by a web of racial stereotypes about Asian immigrant and African American students.We conclude that educational practices for English language learners should be evaluated by their effects on school culture and particularly on school safety.

Garver, R., & Noguera, P. (2012). For safety’s sake: A case study of school security efforts and their impact on education reform. Journal of Applied Research on Children: Informing Policy for Children at Risk, 3(2), Article 5.    

Several studies have shown that the need to create safe and orderly schools has increasingly been addressed in a manner that disconnects these priorities from broader concerns related to student success, school culture, and child development. In this paper, we explore the consequences of expanding security procedures in response to an incident involving interracial conflict at an urban high school in the United States. We offer this case study to demonstrate how the primacy placed on safety and security resulted in the neglect of other important educational goals, such as academic engagement and a positive school culture. Through an analysis of observational, interview, focus group, and survey data, we show that while it is essential for schools to take measures that ensure the safety of students and staff, it is equally important for safety to be recognized as part of a larger set of goals that schools must concurrently pursue in order to meet the educational and developmental needs of the students they serve. Commentary by Harris Sokoloff

 

PREPARING SCHOOL LEADERS COMMITTED TO SOCIAL JUSTICE

Maloney, T., & Garver, R. (2020). Pre-service school leaders’ sensemaking of supervising for equity. Journal of Education Human Resources, 38 (1), 82-105.

Given increasing diversity in the United States and enduring educational inequities, leadership preparation programs are increasingly called upon to prepare pre-service leaders (PSLs) for social justice. In this qualitative study, we draw on sensemaking theory to examine how 83 PSLs enrolled in a supervisory preparation course grappled with the call to embrace leadership for equity. The data collected in this study included transcripts of in-class discussions, online discussion posts, and individual reflections. Findings suggest PSLs negotiated prescribed resources (video, readings, the Danielson framework, and class discussions) and selected resources (personal and professional experiences) to make sense of hypothetical scenarios and grapple with what it means to be an equity-oriented school leader. The authors discuss pedagogical insights for equity-oriented leadership preparation programs.

Garver, R., & Maloney, T. (2019). Redefining supervision: A joint inquiry into preparing school-based leaders to supervise for equity. Journal of Research on Leadership Education. 

This article documents two professors’ inquiry into a lesson on supervising for equity in a supervisor preparation course. Through an iterative process of lesson design, lesson implementation, analysis of student work, and pedagogical discussion, we refine the lesson. Our study sheds light on the potential challenges of preparing supervisors to promote equity, offers pedagogical insights to leadership programs invested in instilling a commitment to social justice, and reflects the promise of collaborative faculty inquiry for curriculum development. The study contains implications for educational leadership faculty and program coordinators as well as facilitators of professional development for school leaders.