Betting the House: Teacher Investment, Identity, and Attrition in Urban Schools

This study explores the impetus for and impact of four urban teachers’ extracurricular investments. Framing teacher investment as work voluntarily undertaken with an eye toward bringing about a highly desired, yet highly uncertain, end, we argue that the outcome of these often-hidden investments have identity and career implications for teachers. Through a comparison of two case studies in the southeast and northeast United States, we investigate why and how teachers come to invest themselves in particular extracurricular projects, the identity implications of the investments, and how the ultimate outcome of the investments may influence their decision to stay in or leave the profession. Findings reveal that teachers’ extracurricular investments—either in individual students or whole-school projects—are intimately tied to their identities and career trajectories. Implications are offered for research, teacher education, and policy.

The RISK Screening Test: Using Kindergarten Teachers' Ratings to Predict Future Placement in Resource Classrooms

Teacher ratings from four consecutive cohorts of kindergarten students were used to establish a prediction function by which children who ultimately received special education services in the form of resource-class placement were discriminated from children who remained solely in regular education classrooms. All five factors measured by the RISK scale were significantly related to future school performance, but items that assessed child ability, current performance, and teacher investment were most predictive of eventual special-class placement. Overall accuracy for the screening measure was 94.13%, with 1,194 out of 1,269 children accurately selected to their appropriate educational placement.