Reforming Teacher and Leader Preparation to Improve Instruction and Schooling for Students With Disabilities: The CEEDAR Way

Effective preparation systems are critical for preparing teachers and school leaders who have the knowledge and skills to educate students with disabilities to achieve college and career ready standards. These systems must provide teachers and leaders with effective practice-based opportunities to learn about evidence-based and high-leverage practices in their initial preparation and throughout their careers. Creating such systems, however, depends on comprehensive systems change where aligned research-based policy and preparation/induction practices are implemented in higher education and k-12 schools. This article describes the ingredients of effective systems change, and how the CEEDAR Center TA approach is informed by implementation drivers, as articulated by the National Implementation Research Network. The outcomes achieved by the Center thus far are also articulated as are challenges encountered.

College and Career Readiness: A Literature Synthesis

A continuing priority in education has focused on preparing students for postacademic success. The adoption of the Common Core State Standards Initiative prompted educational leaders to focus on preparing students to be “college and career ready.” Definitions, perceptions, and efforts to improve college and career readiness vary widely. This article will present an overview of each of these topics, define college and career readiness, discuss various perceptions of students’ college and career readiness, and describe K–12, college, community, and state efforts to improve college and career readiness overcomes for students. Finally, implications for future efforts are provided.

College and Career Ready and Critically Conscious: Asset-Building With Latinx Immigrant Youth

A growing body of evidence supports critical consciousness as a developmental asset for young people, including its benefits for educational and vocational outcomes. National dynamics and policies in the U.S., such as restricting immigration and asylum, have raised the salience of critical consciousness as a protective factor for the career development of Latinx immigrant youth. In this manuscript, we first review the nature and benefits of critical consciousness for Latinx immigrant youth. We then highlight how college and career readiness (CCR) and the components of critical consciousness (CC) can be simultaneously fostered among Latinx immigrant high school students, drawing upon our own work in the context of an afterschool program. We introduce a framework to illustrate this integration, and describe a series of intervention activities and processes designed to simultaneously build CC and CCR. Finally, we provide recommendations and describe caveats and challenges to developing classroom-based career education curricula that integrate CCR and CC.

Equity-Centered Design Thinking in STEM Instructional Leadership

In the past decade, STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) instructional leaders have struggled with how to interpret and implement K–12 standards-based education so that minoritized learners have equal opportunity to be college and career ready. An equity-centered design thinking approach can support leaders to interrogate the often-time divergent values of stakeholders so they may collaboratively identify and address the problems of practice in STEM education. By considering the ethos and strategies necessary to intentionally center equity by design, this case presents prospective leaders the opportunity to practice converging divergent needs and beliefs about STEM education while they ideate solutions grounded in the experiences of minoritized learners.

The Change We Cannot See: Instructional Quality and Classroom Observation in the Era of Common Core

The adoption of “College and Career Ready” standards—including Common Core State Standards—aims to raise academic expectations for students nationwide. Meeting these outcomes requires shifts in teaching, which, in turn, requires developing measures for the observation, assessment, and support of new kinds of instruction. This essay focuses on our efforts to develop such measures in a research project conducted in the District of Columbia Public Schools, which raised fundamental questions about whether existing measures can meet this challenge. By emphasizing observable elements of individual lessons, current measures produce a restricted view of instructional quality, omitting crucial elements of instruction called forth by new standards. Having identified this disconnect, we offer suggestions for developing multi-measure systems to capture a fuller picture of standards aligned teaching.

The Convergence of Emotionally Supportive Learning Environments and College and Career Ready Mathematical Engagement in Upper Elementary Classrooms

Research focused on emotionally supportive teaching has typically run in parallel to the study of rigorous, standards-aligned mathematics teaching. However, recent work theorizes that positive and warm classroom environments may be necessary to help students meet the ambitious goals outlined in newer mathematics standards. We analyze the relationship between facets of classroom environments and the prevalence of standards-aligned mathematics instruction across more than 400 mathematics lessons in Washington, D.C., classrooms. We find no evidence of consistent standards-aligned mathematical engagement absent an engaging, emotionally supportive learning environment. These findings suggest that efforts to help teachers make the instructional shifts outlined in college and career ready standards might also need to support the provision of productive, warm, and nurturing learning environments.