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The article presents findings from a survey study of K-12 teachers in the mid-Atlantic United States about their assessment practice. Guided by two frameworks related to teacher assessment literacy in practice and critical-data-driven decision-making, we investigated how teachers’ equity orientation is related to their perceived instructional usefulness of standardized assessments of learning and assessments for learning. Structural equation models revealed defensible contributions of equity orientation and assessment preparation and professional development, specifically, teachers’ motivations for joining the profession, preparation for reflective practice and equity-oriented practice, and beliefs about societal equality to their perceived usefulness of assessments. Findings provide empirical evidence to situate the role of and influences on assessment practices in supporting equitable learning environments.

Research on the attrition of teachers of color suggests that, under certain organizational conditions, they leave teaching at higher rates than other teachers. Additionally, research has identified microaggressions experienced by Black teacher's. Building on the literature, we explored how racism and microaggressions may help us understand Black mathematics teachers' attrition. We designed and administered the Black Teachers of Mathematics Perceptions Survey and found that teachers' experiences of microaggressions accounted for most of the variance in our modeling of teachers' thoughts of leaving the profession. These data reveal that anti-Black, racist microaggressions should be addressed as organizational conditions to be mitigated. From a critical quantitative perspective, the data reveal sociocultural and sociopolitical influences that often go unnoticed in large-scale policy work.

Randomized controlled trials are not always feasible in educational research, so researchers must use alternative methods to study treatment effects. Propensity score matching is one such method for observational studies that has shown considerable growth in popularity since it was first introduced in the early 1980s. This paper outlines the concept of propensity scores by explaining their theoretical principles and providing two examples of their usefulness within the realm of educational research. Through worked examples, we highlight the effectiveness of propensity scores as a method for reducing bias and increasing the balance between treatment and comparison groups. To aid in the understanding and future use of propensity scores, we provide R syntax for all our analyses.

Too much decision-making freedom in adolescence might discourage academic effort at the level parents desire since children tend to be less patient and risk-averse. Therefore, many parents limit their child’s choices in order to achieve optimal effort. In this paper, we analyze how limits on autonomy affect a child’s academic effort, gauged by both official transcript and child-reported grades in four core subjects. One empirical challenge is that parents might allow more independent decisions when a child exerts more academic effort, creating a downward bias. Our approach is to employ recursive bivariate models in which community differences in conservative Protestant market share produce external variations in the number of limits. We find US parents limit independent decision-making primarily to reinforce grades in high school English and math, with gains that diminish with the number of limits.

With increased emphasis on diversity, equity, and inclusion in teacher preparation, there is a need for efficient instruments to support survey research of teachers' equity-oriented preparation. This article describes the development and initial validation of the Teacher Preparation for Equity Scale, a broad measure of teacher perceptions regarding the extent to which their preparation program emphasized elements of equity-oriented preparation. Public school, PreK-12, U.S. teachers (n = 757) from a Mid-Atlantic state responded to a survey about their equity-related beliefs and assessment practices. We constructed the scale to capture programs' emphasis on aspects of equity orientation and reflective practice, anticipating two separate and related factors. Evidence supports two factors, equity-oriented preparation (4 items) and reflective practice (3 items), with a defensible general factor (7 items) that we term the Teacher Preparation for Equity Scale. The measure can be used to examine in-service teachers' perceptions of their preparation experiences for equity-oriented teaching.

Globally, online course enrollments have grown, and English is often used as a lingua franca for instruction. The Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework can inform the creation of more supportive, interaction-rich online learning environments. However, the framework and its accompanying validated instrument were created in North America, limiting researchers’ ability to use the instrument in courses where participants have varying levels of English language proficiency. We revised the CoI instrument so it could be more easily read and understood by individuals whose native language is not English. Using exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses (EFA and CFA) on data obtained from global online courses and MOOCs, we found the revised instrument had good fit statistics once seven items were removed. This study expands the usability of the CoI instrument beyond the original and translated versions, and provides an example of adapting and validating an existing instrument for global courses.

With increased emphasis on diversity, equity, and inclusion in teacher preparation, there is a need for efficiënt instruments to support survey research of teachers' equity-oriented preparation. This article describes the development and initial validation of the Teacher Preparation for Equity Scale, a broad measure of teacher perceptions regarding the extent to which their preparation program emphasized elements of equity-oriented preparation. Public school, PreK-12, U.S. teachers(\" = 757) from a Mid-Atlantic state responded to a survey about their equity-related beliefs and assessment practices. We constructed the scale to capture programs' emphasis on aspects of equity orientation and reflective practice, anticipating two separate and related factors. Evidence supports two factors, equity-oriented preparation (4 items) and reflective practice (3 items), with a defensible general factor (7 items) that we term the Teacher Preparation for Equity Scale. The mea-sure can be used to examine in-service teachers' perceptions of their preparation experiences for equity-oriented teaching.

To capture the experiences of Black mathematics teachers in schools, our research team conducted a four-year mixed methods study, “Examining the Trajectories of Black Mathematics Teachers,” at the intersection of the Black teaching tradition, mathematics education, and the impact of race and racism. [...]one participant in our study described teaching mathematics while Black as “teaching with thick skin” because of the persistent attacks regarding intelligence, content expertise, and unique teaching practices. When asked to reflect on the data collected from the TERM survey, Black mathematics teachers shared that they believed the pervasive false beliefs of Black intellectual inferiority limited their career opportunities and often relegated them to teaching remedial-level mathematics courses.

Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court decision that desegregated public schools, stands in the collective national memory as a turning point in America’s fight for racial justice. The importance of Black teachers In the decades since, parents, social justice advocates and researchers have documented the importance of teachers of color and pleaded for teacher workforce diversity. [...]from 1984 to 1989, about 21,500 Black teachers lost their jobs, according to one study of the impact of reliance on licensure exams and policies.