Thesis Notes
Achievement Gap data suggests that urban schools are failing students of color, but many of these learners have found ways to succeed. The purpose of this study is to explore the ways and reasons urban high school students of color are able to be successful.
The central research question: what are the most important factors
facilitating the success of students of color? The secondary research
questions are (a) What influences guide participants to excel in school?
(b) What habits help participants to persist in school? (c) What are
participants' attitudes and perceptions about schooling?
and (d) What
are the influences of race, culture and ethnicity on schooling as
described by the participants?
Ten high-achieving
African American, Latina and Latino urban learners will be individually
interviewed for this qualitative multicase study. Analysis will include a
consideration of connections between the study and larger theoretical
and practical issues of urban education in the context of urban school
policies. Interpretation of interview transcripts will lead to themes
related to student challenge, support, culture, personal knowledge, and
cultural capital. Findings of the study may indicate strategies that
would prove rewarding for struggling urban learners of color.
Master of Science in Urban Education
Thesis Project
Definition of Thesis:
For the Metropolitan State School of Urban Education, "thesis" is defined broadly to encompass a range of scholarly projects including, but not necessarily limited to the following types:
• Single case studies
• Action research projects related to school or individual educational practice
• Ethnographic studies related to educational activity in schools and communities
• Qualitative research studies related to practice, policy, or community-engagement including individual and/or focus group interviews, survey, social validity, or other types of student/practitioner/community member perceptual research
• Group-based experimental and quasi-experimental designs examining effects of independent variables on dependent variables
• Historical research related to current educational issues in urban education
• Mixed methods designs or examining program, instructional, policy or related educational scholarship
Ways the Thesis Project Can be Communicated:
All thesis projects will involve a written component and a presentation. How much is written and how much is presented will depend upon a) the type of thesis, and b) the preference of the master’s candidate. The thesis project may be represented using media (website or video).
Purpose of Master of Urban Education Thesis Project:
The purpose of the Master’s thesis in the School of Urban Education is for the UED master’s degree holder to demonstrate
1. Significant mastery in understanding the curriculum and principles of their chosen program of study within the context of the issues facing educators and students in urban educational systems. Significant mastery is here further defined as meeting program GPA and related requirements as well as the recommendation of the degree candidate’s Master’s Degree Committee.
2. Demonstrated efficacy in using principles and practices of scholarly inquiry to examine practical, social, cultural, structural, historical, philosophical or pedagogical problems and/or solutions in urban education.
3. Demonstrated efficacy in communicating one’s acquired knowledge and skill within a chosen product for master’s degree completion.
These criteria are for a culminating Capstone for master’s degree completion, but are not determined for purposes of teacher licensure, which is additionally based upon demonstrating competency in meeting state licensure requirements.
Evaluation of Master’s Degree Thesis Project:
The thesis project will be guided, reviewed, and approved by the student’s Master Degree Committee and the University Human Subjects Review Board. The Master Degree Committee is to be composed of a group no smaller than three (3) but no larger than five (5) members. All members shall have equal opportunity to speak on or provide consultation to the candidate’s final project.
General Topic
|
Specific Area
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Achievement Gap
|
Why have efforts to close the Achievement Gap largely
failed?
Identifying Strategies for Narrowing the Academic Achievement
Gap
Identifying Factors that Contribute to the Black-White Achievement
Gap
Urban Learner's Perceptions about the Academic Achievement
Gap
|
MTLE
|
Factors contributing to the lack of Teachers of Color
Factors contributing to low MTLE pass rates for Black pre-service
teachers
|
Literacy Strategies
|
Most Effective Urban Literacy Strategies
|
Student Attitudes
|
What Factors Contribute to the success of Urban High School
learners of color? (Identifying attitudinal and behavioral contributors to
African-American academic success)
What Do Urban Students of Color Perceive As Influences for
their success in School?
What Do Urban Students of Color Identify as the Purpose of
School?
What Do Urban Students of Color Perceive As the Qualities
of a Good Teacher?
|
Cultural Match
|
Does Cultural Match Matter?
Beliefs about Cultural Match
The Effect of the Culture Gap on the Achievement Gap
The cultural gap that exists between many teachers and the
students they are responsible for teaching.
|
Discipline
|
Is There a Correlation Between Student Discipline Problems
and the Day of the Week and Month of the Year?
Racial and Gender Bias in the Assigning of Discipline
Referrals
|
Prison
|
The Effectiveness of Correctional Education
Effect of Mass Incarceration on Urban Learners
|
Common Core
|
Urban Educators' Perceptions of the Benefits of Common
Core Standards
|
Factors Influencing High Failure Rates on State Exams
for Black Teacher Candidates
- The Impact of State
Mandated Basic Skills Testing on Black Teacher Candidates
- What is the state’s
rationale for requiring Basic Skills Tests for teacher licensure?
- If Basic Skills Tests
decrease diversity should states require them for teacher licensure?
- The Impact of Required
State Exams on the Student - Teacher Culture Gap (What to do about it)
- How the MTLE perpetuates
the Achievement Gap?
- Why does such a large
percent of Black teacher candidates fail state basic skills tests?
(Lack the necessary knowledge and
skills? Cultural bias and stereotype
threat?)
- Do teacher licensure basic
skills tests actually measure mastery of basic skills?
(Are they an accurate measure of
competency? Do they have a bearing on teacher excellence in the classroom? . .
. Does the MTLE Basic Skills Math test measure quantitative literacy?)
- The Effect of the Culture
Gap on the Achievement Gap
Vicious Cycle:
The
Achievement Gap, Teacher Licensure Exams, and the Culture Gap
Years
of educational research has clarified what factors contribute to the Black–White
Academic Achievement Gap and what schools can do to narrow it. Despite
decades of concerted effort, the Achievement Gap always seems to persist. The
statistical consistency of the Achievement Gap over time is not proof of some
sort of intellectual or social defect in children of color. Nor is it due to
lousy teachers in horrible schools. The Gap only seems to persist, but in
fact, it is institutionally recreated and re-widened through mechanisms such
as the mandated, make - or - break, Basic Skills Test (BST) required for
initial teaching licensure in almost every state in America.
Statistics
reveal that Black, Latina and Latino teacher candidates, and those who are
nonnative English speakers, are much less likely to pass a state BST than are
those who are White and native speakers of English. In Minnesota for example,
three of every four White candidates get a high enou8gh score to pass the Minnesota
Teacher Licensure Examinations (MTLE) skills test. Three of every four Black
candidates fail. So, many of Minnesota’s otherwise fully qualified preservice
teachers of color are prevented from actually entering the profession, since
passing the MTLE is a requirement for licensure. The state’s standardized
test is the only means of proving basic academic competency – though recent
legislation has made certain modifications pertaining to qualifying SAT and
ACT scores.
|
- The Impact of State
Mandated Basic Skills Testing on Black Teacher Candidates
- MTLE --The Experiences and Perceptions of Teachers of Color
- An Evaluation of MN's State Basic Skills Test Licensure Policy on Teacher Diversity
- An Evaluation of the Attitudes of Teachers of Color Toward State Licensure Requirements
- How the Achievement Gap feeds
into the Culture Gap and Vice-Versa
Construct Universe.
Definitions of Constructs and Associated Components
Achievement Gap - differences between the
achievement test scores and learning outcomes of learners with different
cultural backgrounds – such as Black students and their White classmates.
Culture Gap – the disparity between the level of cultural
diversity in America’s student body and teacher workforce
Cultural Match – when student and teacher identify as
belonging to the same cultural or social group; matching teacher and student by
race, ethnicity, gender, language or other cultural identity
Basic Skills Test – a state mandated, standardized teacher
licensure exam used to evaluate competency in college-level reading, writing
and math skills.
MTLE – Minnesota Teacher Licensure Examinations
Teacher Candidate – a preservice teacher, yet to be licensed
to teach by the state
Standardized Test - any examination that's administered and
scored in a predetermined, standard manner. There are two types. Standardized
aptitude tests predict how well students are likely to perform in some
subsequent educational setting. The most common examples are the SAT and the
ACT.
Standardized achievement
tests are assessment tools that permit someone to make a (theoretically) valid
inference about the knowledge and/or skills that a given student possesses in a
particular content area. The inference is norm-referenced so that a student's
relative knowledge and/or skills can be compared with those possessed by a
national sample of students of the same age or same grade level. The Iowa Tests
of Basic Skills and Metropolitan Achievement Tests are commonly known examples
of standardized achievement
tests.
Black/African American - A person having origins in any of
the Black racial groups of Africa. It includes people who indicate their race
as Black, African American, or Negro (U.S. Census Bureau, 2000).
White - A person having origins in any of the original
peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa. It includes people who
indicate their race as White or report entries such as German, Iranian, Irish,
Italian, Lebanese, Near Easterner, Arab, or Polish (U.S. Census Bureau, 2000).
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