Dr. Julian Vasquez Heilig Announcements, Latina/os

The Inevitability of Racial Bias and Exclusion

Many people may not know that my research career began because of the mentorship of Dr. Sylvia Hurtado at the University of Michigan. I was paired with Dr. Hurtado via the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program. I remember interviewing for her research team, and she told me I could join as long as I didn’t fall asleep in the research team meetings because her prior undergraduate researcher would take naps. I felt like I could leap over that bar! I discuss more background in a recent piece on the University of Michigan College of Education Centennial celebration website in the piece Growing the Education Profession by Telling the Right Story.

It was amazing to be mentored by Sylvia when she was tenure-track Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan. It was one of the biggest honors of my life to be asked by her to be asked to write a student letter for her tenure file. I truly didn’t understand at that time how important it was, but I surely do now. I sent her an email back on August 18 (as I do every five years or so) and simply said “Sylvia, Another note to say how incredibly thankful I am for your mentorship in UROP and beyond! Without you I wouldn’t be here today. I wouldn’t have been able to pay it forward without you taking an interest in that precocious 19-year-old.”

She is now at UCLA and is giving a prestigious AERA lecture. I signed up and hope you can tune in! From AERA:

Sylvia Hurtado, a longstanding AERA Fellow and a professor at the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), will give the 2021 AERA Distinguished Lecture on September 30, from 6:00 to 7:00 p.m. EDT. The lecture, rescheduled from the Virtual Annual Meeting in April, is entitled “The Inevitability of Racial Bias and Exclusion: Implications for Identity-Based Education and Practice.” The lecture will include a welcome from AERA President Na’ilah Suad Nasir and an introduction from AERA Past President Shaun R. Harper. It will be followed by an open discussion with Q&A from virtual attendees.

Attendees can register for this event here.  

Dr. Hurtado elaborates on the lecture’s theme in a brief abstract:

Racial/ethnic identity groups have endured racial profiling, are targets of hate crimes, and are often viewed not as individuals but as a faceless mass on a daily basis—even in classrooms. Dr. Hurtado personalizes “facelessness” using research on campus racial climates and Latinx experiences, articulating how our tendencies for recognition bias are perpetuated and reinforced at the individual and institutional levels in education. She articulates the need for identity-based education, re-humanizing practices, and increased specificity to target racial equity aims in higher education.

“The education research and related research, policy, and practice communities eagerly await Dr. Hurtado’s lecture next month,” said Executive Director Felice Levine. “We are pleased to have such a preeminent scholar focusing on such a timely and significant topic. We anticipate a very large turnout for this important lecture.”

Dr. Hurtado is a professor in the UCLA School of Education and Information Studies and its division of Higher Education and Organizational Change. She grew up in San Antonio, Texas, and as a first-generation Latina college student, she pursued sociology of education. Influenced by these experiences, her scholarship focuses on student educational outcomes, campus racial climates, and equity and inclusion in higher education. She served as director of the Higher Education Research Institute (UCLA) for over a decade and is past-president of the Association for the Study of Higher Education. She served on the Board on Higher Education and Workforce of the National Research Council and was on study panels that produced several National Academy Press reports on STEM, student success, and mentoring. In addition to being inducted as an AERA Fellow in 2011, she was elected to the National Academy of Education and to AERA Council in 2019. Dr. Hurtado has led several national research projects, including NIH-sponsored projects on the longitudinal assessment of students aspiring to STEM careers, and institutional strategies to broaden participation in STEM. Her current research includes case studies of departments that implement culturally aware mentoring among faculty (NIH U01) with the University of Wisconsin; university organizational change after the replication of the Meyerhoff Scholars Program, funded by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute; and another Spencer-funded project on organizing for student success at Hispanic-serving institutions. Dr. Hurtado is an alumna of UCLA (Ph.D.), Harvard Graduate School of Education (M.Ed.), and Princeton University (A.B.).

Dr. Julian Vasquez Heilig Announcements

Say Hello! @ AERA San Antonio #AERA17

 

AERA starts today! If you are interested in education, attending the American Educational Research Association (AERA) conference each year is a must!

The conference begins April 27 and goes until May 1. What is AERA? From the website:

The American Educational Research Association (AERA), founded in 1916, is concerned with improving the educational process by encouraging scholarly inquiry related to education and evaluation and by promoting the dissemination and practical application of research results.

AERA members are faculty, researchers, graduate students, and other distinguished professionals with rich and diverse expertise in education research. They work in a range of settings from universities and other academic institutions to research institutes, federal and state agencies, school systems, testing companies, and nonprofit organizations. Based on their research, they produce and disseminate knowledge, refine methods and measures, and stimulate translation and practical application of research results.

AERA is international in scope.  Nearly 5% of members, representing over 85 countries, reside outside of the United States.  Over 28% of AERA members are students–approximately 6,500 graduate students and 600 undergraduate students. Over 74% of AERA members report that education is their primary discipline. Other disciplines represented by AERA members include psychology, statistics, sociology, history, economics, philosophy, anthropology, and political science.

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The theme of #AERA17 is Achieving the Promise of Equal Educational Opportunity. More about this year’s theme from the website:

Contemporary research discussions regarding educational opportunity bear a familiar ring to those of past decades. They affirm the importance of equal opportunity while highlighting the significance of empirically rigorous research for improving opportunity and access. As a result, they have reignited research and policy debates, dating back more than 60 years (Clark and Clark, 1947, and the Coleman Report, 1966), about segregation and civil rights in the U.S. There is little dispute that considerable change has occurred in legal and institutional mandates as well as social practices that served as barriers to equal opportunity. However, a series of recent research articles, book volumes, and national initiatives have re-examined this change by focusing on the tensions between opportunity and outcomes in relation to several factors, among them, educational attainment, academic achievement, and college enrollment and retention. They raise questions about the meanings and uses of the concept, equal educational opportunity; the social barriers that contribute to inequality; and approaches to increasing educational attainment and achievement for all children.

We are left asking: Are we better positioned today to improve educational opportunities than we were in the past? What are the pathways to achieving equal educational opportunity? How do we transform the power of knowledge and scholarly discourses into public will, engaging practice, and responsive policy? These questions of knowledge and action to achieve equal educational opportunity will be the focus of the 2017 Annual Meeting.

The theme of the Annual Meeting is framed around historical and contemporary discussions about unequal educational opportunity, as they relate to four critical dimensions. The first focuses on the meanings and interpretations of educational opportunity, access, and equity for the purposes of understanding and addressing perennial issues such as school quality and recently intensified problems such as violence in schools. The second poses questions about whether the problems associated with unequal opportunity and the methods used to study them are conceptualized to capture the diversity and complexity of circumstances that countless children, families, and communities (e.g., poor and underserved) face. The third reinforces the need for interdisciplinary research and intersections between education research and other fields invested in eradicating social disparities that lead to marginalization and poor school outcomes. The fourth underscores possibilities for linking educational, social, and public policies that can respond to both longstanding educational issues, such as teaching and student engagement, while attending to increasingly visible problems such as homelessness, trauma, and incarceration that affect students’ ability to thrive.

As we begin AERA’s second century, the theme of the 2017 Annual Meeting is a call to examine these critical dimensions of educational opportunity and rigor in research as they pertain to the diversity of issues, populations, and contexts served in and by educational inquiry. These range from young children to their parents and families, from PreK-12 to postsecondary education and adult learning, from affluent districts to financially struggling schools, and from immigrant to low-income communities within urban and rural settings alike. They are studied in large datasets and in field studies, and through multiple methods, including qualitative approaches, experimental designs, and discourse analyses. They are investigated in both vastly different and complementary theories of learning, human development, literacy, sociolinguistics, and culture, and within different contexts. They are connected to race, language, and gender, and are embedded in systemic inequalities. Finally, they exist alongside enormous technological innovation, new approaches to studying diverse and historically underserved populations, refinement of existing methodologies, recurrent policy revisions, and the wide reach of global exchanges.

We invite AERA members to deliberate the expanse of issues associated with equal educational opportunity and contribute submissions that consider the following groups of questions:

  • What counts as educational opportunity, for whom has it improved over the past 60 years, for whom has it not improved, and with what sustainability and potential for the future?
  • How do we conceptualize educational opportunity, who is studied and who is not, and what are the implications for research, policy, and praxis of such conceptualizations?
  • How do we ensure that our inquiry and research questions are relevant and in what ways is the rigor of our research matched by the rigor of methodological frameworks and approaches, interpretation of results, and application of knowledge?
  • How do we leverage knowledge from research and practice to ensure that the most pressing issues reach the forefront of major policy decisions and action, from longstanding issues of teaching and learning, to persistent problems of racial and economic inequality, to understudied topics such as homelessness and incarceration and their effects?
  • What steps might research help craft across educational, social, and public policies at all levels of government and in philanthropy—and what partnerships are needed—to reimagine equity and reduce the risks faced by students, families, schools, and related institutions?

We approach the 2017 Annual Meeting with a deep sense of enthusiasm and hope in the renewed attention to inequality of educational opportunity and ongoing research. We approach the meeting as well with a heightened sense of urgency about the need for enduring change that eliminates barriers to opportunity, engagement, and success. We encourage submissions that motivate members to answer the call to action and to draw decisively upon the strengths of research, practice, and policy to fulfill the promise.

This year will be a busy year for me again at the AERA conference. Today I’ll be at UTSA for a sponsored event that is open to the public.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BSUgGKel3d9/

You can also find us at the following conference meetings. See you there!

https://www.instagram.com/p/BS1UykIlO0T/?taken-by=professorjvh

I’ll also attend the Black and Brown reception on Sunday night and the Pachanga on Saturday night. Say hello!

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Dr. Julian Vasquez Heilig Wisdom

A guide: 20,000 talking education #AERA2016

20,000 people are talking education this weekend in Washington D.C. If you are interested in student success, attending the AERA conference each year is a MUST. The conference is April 8-12 in DC. This year the conference theme is public scholarship.

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What is AERA? From the website:

The American Educational Research Association (AERA), founded in 1916, is concerned with improving the educational process by encouraging scholarly inquiry related to education and evaluation and by promoting the dissemination and practical application of research results.

AERA’s more than 25,000 members are faculty, researchers, graduate students, and other distinguished professionals with rich and diverse expertise in education research. They work in a range of settings from universities and other academic institutions to research institutes, federal and state agencies, school systems, testing companies, and nonprofit organizations. Based on their research, they produce and disseminate knowledge, refine methods and measures, and stimulate translation and practical application of research results.

AERA is international in scope.  Nearly 5% of members, representing over 85 countries, reside outside the United States. Over 28% of AERA members are students—approximately 6,500 graduate students and 600 undergraduate students. Over 74% of AERA members report that education is their primary discipline. Other disciplines represented by AERA members include psychology, statistics, sociology, history, economics, philosophy, anthropology, and political science.

The AERA conference is like being a kid in a candy store. Here is my guide to expert public scholarship content at #AERA16.

More details on these #AERA16 sessions:

Saturday

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Reducing Research Misuse and Disuse: Taking Scholarship Beyond the Journal to Public Influence

Sat, April 9, 4:05 to 6:05pm, Convention Center, Level One, Room 140 AB

Abstract: Education scholars have documented the weak link between research evidence and policymaking (Lubienski, Scott, & DeBray, 2014). When research is taken up, it is often misused or misunderstood. This session brings influential education policy scholars together to address two issues. First, this session will examine the politics of how research is produced, promoted, and used, highlighting the barriers that limit the efficacy of research. Second, panelists will describe the actions they have taken and tools they have used to promote their work and increase its likelihood of affecting policy. Panelists will also discuss whether researchers’ roles end when the research project is complete or whether scholars have a responsibility to promote their work and act as public intellectuals.

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Speakers

Sunday

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The Intersection of Public Scholarship and Social Media: Possibilities, Politics, and Pitfalls

Sun, April 10, 10:35am to 12:05pm, Convention Center, Level One, Room 146 A

Chair

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Discussant

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Expanding Learning Opportunities for Underserved Students: The Role of Public Scholarship

Sun, April 10, 10:35am to 12:05pm, Marriott Marquis, Level Four, Mint

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Monday

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Social Context and Social Media: Extending Our Research Through a Professional Online Presence

Mon, April 11, 7:45 to 9:15am, Marriott Marquis, Level Two, Marquis Salon 5

Abstract: This Student Session is designed to help you build a professional online presence for the purpose of disseminating your research to expanded audiences. A panel of faculty and graduate scholars who use multiple digital platforms to extend critical research conversations will share insights and advice on social media and academia. You will learn which digital tools are ideal for research scholars, as well as the benefits, drawbacks, risks, and challenges associated with using social media as an academic. Lastly, you will have time to work in small groups to establish professional Twitter and blog accounts. These experiences will help you share your research with diverse audiences in public spaces. Bring your laptops (other devices) so that you can get started.

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Participants

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Graduate Student Council Fireside Chat: Fundamentals of Public Scholarship

Mon, April 11, 10:00 to 11:30am, Convention Center, Level One, Room 140 AB

Abstract: A central goal of education research is to use scientific knowledge to strengthen and improve education for all. While at times a daunting task that all educational researchers pursue, we have learned that the general public and policy makers also drive changes and improvements in education. As a result, it is essential that the knowledge educational researchers discover be used in shaping public knowledge and the political environment with which educational policies are made. In the spirit of the conference theme, this session will present strategies, techniques, and skills related to public speaking and improvisation as well as how to tell your research “story” in ways that people outside of academia will care.

Chairs

Speakers

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Career Threats and Opportunities: What Is the Role of Social Media in Public Scholarship? (AERA Presidential Session)

See post Ping! Hess, Ravitch, Heilig, Cabrera & Goldrick-Rab #AERA16 #AERAPubScholar

You can also register for the official Live-Stream of #AERAPubScholar

Mon, April 11, 2:45 to 4:15pm, Convention Center, Level Three, Ballroom C

Abstract: Researchers will discuss social media approaches to public scholarship that can democratize education knowledge. Panelists will focus on how social media can advance academic scholarship discussions but also may pose threats to academic careers, particularly for junior scholars. Questions from audience-generated social media will be discussed by the panelists, as both conference participants and streaming viewers from across the nation and world contribute comments and questions in advance and in real-time via Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, using the hashtag #AERAPubScholar.

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Participants

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English Learners and Indigenous Education Policy: Community-Based Reform

Mon, April 11, 4:30 to 6:30pm, Convention Center, Level One, Room 144 C

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The association also turned 100 this year! Happy Centennial!

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Don’t forget to submit your questions for the #AERAPubScholar Presidential session.

Rick Hess not a big fan of #AERA16? I’ll ask him about it when I see him.

Please Facebook Like, Tweet, etc below and/or reblog to share this discussion with others.

Want to know about Cloaking Inequity’s freshly pressed conversations about educational policy? Click the “Follow blog by email” button on the home page.

Twitter: @ProfessorJVH

Click here for Vitae.

Dr. Julian Vasquez Heilig High-Stakes Testing

The Progressive Magazine: How a Grassroots Revolt Against Testing May Change Education

A revolt involving hundreds of thousands of Americans against the federal and state government has been brewing over the past couple of years. What caused this grassroots revolt? Parents and students have had enough of high-stakes testing required by federal law and implemented by the states and have chosen to “opt out” of the tests.

High-stakes tests swept the nation with the passage of No Child Left Behind during the presidency of George W. Bush. Politicians told the public that the tests were a bold new education reform.

Actually, high-stakes testing has a long, dark history. High-stakes tests were born in China to sort their society more than 1500 years ago. In the United States, for the last 100 years, standardized tests have been used to sort and track children. Contrary to current rhetoric, they were not created for civil rights purposes.

The NAACP recognized the negative impact on minority students as high-stakes tests decades ago. In 1979, the NAACP filed Debra P. v. Turlington, a lawsuit against the state of Florida, challenging the state’s high-stakes examination based on the negative impact on minority students’ opportunity to learn and graduate from high school.

The Fifth Circuit Court disagreed with the NAACP and ruled in favor of Florida. The court even erroneously stated that tests actually “eradicate racism.” This framing of high-stakes tests is the essence of a policy makeover that transformed them from a thousand-year-old sorting mechanism into a civil-rights cause. Never mind that high-stakes exit tests have had a clearly disparate impact on students of color, compounding the effects of severe inequality and underfunding of schools.

Now that the federal government is requiring high-stakes testing, some civil rights organizations in Washington D.C.— spurred on by The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights— have supported them, tests have been politically retread as “social justice.”

antitesters131125_1_560.jpgIn fact, recent research from Center for Education Policy Analysis at Stanford University demonstrates that high-stakes testing has actually slowed our nation’s progress towards closing the academic achievement gap. Stanford researchers calculated that at the new slower pace experienced under No Child Left Behind, it will take eighty more years to close the achievement gap.

No Child Left Behind required that schools that do not raise their scores fast enough could be closed or turned over to private operators. A decade of research has shown that the privatization approach to education spurred by testing has not only deprived communities of publicly controlled anchor institutions, it has usually failed to improve educational outcomes while increasing segregation. Test-driven “accountability” has also led to mass firings of teachers of color in cities such as Chicago.

Unfortunately, there has not been much difference between the Obama administration and the previous Bush administration on education policy. Obama’s Race to the Top required states to evaluate teachers “in significant part” based on student test scores in so-called “valued added measurement” and “growth” models if they were to win grants or obtain a waiver from No Child Left Behind requirements. The American Educational Research Association (AERA) and many other research organizations have concluded that the required measures are unreliable and as a result unfair to teachers and principals.

For the past decade, because of our nation’s emphasis on test scores, schools have dramatically increased the time students spend on testing and test preparation. One study indicated urban students are subjected to an average of 112 standardized tests during their school years. Moreover, research shows that time spent on testing has diminished time for science, social studies, art, second language studies, and recess.

The good news is that a new day may be dawning.

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which is the latest re-authorization of the 50-year-old Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), allows states to introduce a dashboard approaches to evaluate the success of states, districts, schools, teachers and students, with standardized test results used as just a single factor in these evaluations.

ESSA could usher in a new era, in which communities will be able to use high quality assessments including student performances, portfolios, and presentations instead of high stakes standardized tests.

The new ESSA law could be a game changer and quell the ongoing revolt against over-testing. States can now use data on school climate, engagement and other factors that are important to communities as they evaluate schools.

For the first time in this current era of accountability, communities have the ability to advocate and implement multiple measures dashboards in our states to understand the successes and failures of our schools.

If students, parents, and school officials seize the opportunity to use this power, they can remake schools.

Julian Vasquez Heilig is The Progressive’s Westcoast Regional Education Fellow. He blogs about education and social justice at Cloaking Inequity.

– See more at: http://www.progressive.org/news/2016/03/188637/how-grassroots-revolt-against-testing-may-change-education#sthash.vrEppCs8.dpuf

For all of Cloaking Inequity’s post on testing click here.

Please Facebook Like, Tweet, etc below and/or reblog to share this discussion with others.

Want to know about Cloaking Inequity’s freshly pressed conversations about educational policy? Click the “Follow blog by email” button on the home page.

Twitter: @ProfessorJVH

Click here for Vitae.

 

 

Dr. Julian Vasquez Heilig High-Stakes Testing

#HowMuchTesting and for What Purpose? Join the Debate!

The “opt out” of testing movement has gained steam over the past few years and turned into a social movement. Professors across the United States are finally joining the debate in large ways.  Matthew R. Lavery from the University of Central Florida submitted the following to Cloaking Inequity about the discussion that will ensue at the upcoming American Educational Research Conference in Washington, D.C.

As the scholarly debate about the extent and purpose of educational testing rages on, the American Educational Research Association (AERA) wants to hear from you.  During a key session at its Centennial Conference this spring in Washington DC, entitled How Much Testing and for What Purpose? Public Scholarship in the Debate about Educational Assessment and Accountability, prominent educational researchers will respond to questions and concerns raised by parents, students, teachers, community members, and the public at large.

Any and all of you with an interest in educational testing and accountability are invited to post your questions, concerns, and comments using the hashtag #HowMuchTesting on Twitter, Facebook,Instagram, Google+, or the social media platform of your choice, as these are the posts to which AERA’s panelists will respond.

Perhaps you are a parent who has seen the effects of current testing practices on your child and her education.  Perhaps you are a teacher who has had first-hand experience with the intended and unintended consequences of high-stakes testing on you, your colleagues, or your students.  Perhaps you’re a community member who has unanswered questions about how testing does or doesn’t ensure quality education for all students.

Whatever your perspective, your voice is vital to this debate.  Please be heard by responding to this post, posting your own thoughts and questions through social media, and encouraging others to do the same.

Organizers are interested in all #HowMuchTesting posts, but they are particularly interested in video-recorded questions and comments of 30 – 45 seconds in duration so that you can ask your own questions, rather than having it read by a moderator. In addition, in order to provide ample time for the panel of experts to prepare for the discussion, comments and questions posted by March 17have the best chances for inclusion in the debate.

Thank you for your contribution to this important conversation!

I am chairing a Presidential session at AERA. More details soon about how you can participate in the session via social media that will feature Diane Ravitch, Sara Goldrick-Rab, Frederick Hess et al.

For all of Cloaking Inequity’s post on testing click here.

Please Facebook Like, Tweet, etc below and/or reblog to share this discussion with others.

Want to know about Cloaking Inequity’s freshly pressed conversations about educational policy? Click the “Follow blog by email” button on the home page.

Twitter: @ProfessorJVH

Click here for Vitae.