GSE Theses and Dissertations

The Education Trust is a national policy and advocacy nonprofit dedicated to closing opportunity gaps and expanding achievement for historically underserved students, particularly children of color and children living in poverty. After 2015, Ed Trust launched a strategy to support state advocates in forming equity coalitions. The Massachusetts Education Equity Partnership (MEEP), founded in Fall 2018, was one of the state equity coalitions born out of this strategy and was where I completed residency. This capstone examines how advocacy and movement-building in the education sector can serve as an antidote to the widespread anxiety and hurt currently impacting the United States. I joined Ed Trust and MEEP in July 2019 and was charged with managing MEEP’s membership and coalition dynamics, creating systems that ensured internal equity and facilitated advocacy, and reimagining MEEP’s vision and strategic plan to meet its goal of securing educational equity in Massachusetts. My work in the field drew from social movement theory, community organizing, and literature about teaming. In putting research to practice, my residency revealed that in order to spark a statewide movement for educational equity in a state that has not experienced one in the modern era, education advocates must (1) learn to organize and mobilize communities, (2) practice effective teaming and organizational ambidexterity, (3) orchestrate small wins that lead to larger ones, and (4) capture and be responsive to the national zeigeist. These learnings compel The Education Trust to revisit its state strategy and how it supports state equity coalitions to truly form a national movement, and it invites the education sector to reimagine family and community engagement and reassess how the sector responds to successes and perceived failures. In turn, we realize that building people power is the balm we can leverage to fight societal and educational injustice.

In 2019, the New York City mayor–appointed School Diversity Advisory Group released two separate sets of recommendations to the Department of Education (DOE) on how to integrate its schools. The first set addressed the conditions necessary for integration to take root and was adopted by the DOE in June 2019. The second set addressed enrollment policies and special programs. It was released in August 2019 for consideration by the DOE. This residency, based in the Chancellor’s Office of the New York City DOE, involved two primary tasks: coordinating cross-agency implementation of the recommendations that were adopted, and creating a process and a strategy to advance policy objectives from the recommendations under consideration. This capstone is a critical analysis of these efforts with implications for large-scale racial and socioeconomic school integration efforts in urban school districts. The findings paint a nuanced picture of progress during the 2019–2020 school year. First, recommendations that were narrowly focused in one to two offices, had clear mandates, or overlapped with existing priorities, generally were successfully implemented. In contrast, recommendations that were broadly cross-divisional or open to interpretation generally made limited early progress. The analysis suggests that hierarchy, siloed divisions, and competing priorities impeded the implementation of complex recommendations, although enlisting senior leadership eventually accelerated the implementation of some of these recommendations. Second, the analysis shows that the public reception of the second report, especially its portrayal in the media, and the political reaction to the public reception created significant obstacles for advancing policy changes that would lead to more diverse schools. This led the DOE to reconsider strategy, timing, and community input, delaying substantive reform of enrollment policy beyond 2019–2020. The implication for school districts attempting to integrate is that successful school integration requires both internal and external strategies, undergirded by an expansive vision of school integration. The external strategy should involve (a) having a clear, strategic, and persuasive public narrative that frames the value proposition of integrated schools as a boon to student achievement; and (b) cultivating support and legitimacy by the media, the public, and politicians. The internal strategy should involve (a) having innovative solutions to ingrained organizational practices, such as student placement; (b) deliberately creating novel structures for work; and (c) deploying targeted resources for transformative change.

In this multiple-case study of 6 mid-level leaders working in biotech R&D--an archetype of a complex, uncertain, turbulent, and, multidisciplinary 21st-Century workplace--I explore the importance and interaction of mental complexity (MC), an aspect of adult development, and emotional intelligence (EI) for leadership effectiveness (LE). MC concerns the sophistication of the mindsets we use to construct stories for ourselves about the meaning of things. EI refers to one’s ability to manage one’s own emotions, appraise those of others, and engage emotional matters intelligently. I investigate how MC and EI contribute, separately or together, to LE. To select 6 case-study subjects I administered two psychometric tests: MSCEIT (an EI test) and LDMA (a test of MC) to 11 R&D leaders working at the same biotech company. I selected 2 contrasting groups: 2 people who scored high on MC and moderate on EI and 4 people who scored moderately high on MC and moderate on EI. I then conducted semi-structured 360-degree interviews with case-subjects, 2 of their superiors, and 2 of their subordinates. Interview data analysis included scoring a measure of LE created for this research. Interviewee responses suggested that MC and EI tend to work jointly to enhance LE and that insufficiency of MC and EI are associated with one or more of 7 fault lines of leadership, patterns of behavior that diminish LE. I call these 7 LE-diminishing behavioral patterns 7 Leadership Blind Spots. Each subject exhibited at least one LE blind spot, with significant variability between domains (technical, interpersonal, and organizational), context (team, cross-functional team, and organization), and situation. Using the acronym BLINDSPOT as a mnemonic device, the patterns of behavior in which LE tends to be diminished are: Being too Forceful, Lacking Visibility, Insecure Authority, Need to be Political, Distance and Decenter, Stop Enabling, and Problems On Teams. These results are hypotheses to be explored in future research. Leadership education implications include interventions to help leaders become aware of and begin to address their own blind spots as well as interventions to help leaders improve their MC and EI abilities.

There is a growing need across PreK-12 urban school systems in the United States to support and create the conditions for academic, social, and emotional success for children and youth of subgroups who have historically been marginalized. In public school organizations with high leadership churn, how might central office systems-level leaders set the stage within and across departments for increased coordination of resources to serve the whole child? Situated in California’s San Joaquin Valley, Stockton Unified School District (SUSD) is a Title I PreK-12 public school system located in a city most recently named by U.S. News and World Report (2020) to be “the most diverse city.” Unfortunately, high diversity doesn’t necessarily equate to high equity; according to a study by Brandeis University (2020), Stockton ranked as fourth in our nation in terms of the Child Opportunity Index 2.0, which reveals pervasive geographic and racial inequities. Through the “Whole Child Bridge” strategic project in SUSD, I designed and operationalized multiple collaborative meeting structures and relevant professional learning opportunities for key executive and senior central office leaders charged with guiding the academic, social-emotional and wellness of nearly 37,000 students. The multi-dimensional evidence collected includes the analysis of individual surveys, focus group interviews, 101 audio reflections, and an initial and final survey where participants indicated that within half a year, the “level of collaboration, communication and alignment between Educational Services and Student Support Services” increased by 200% from 3.1 to 6.2 on a ten-point scale. Implications for the project incorporate the National Equity Project’s “Seven Circle Model” for equity-based systems change and are aligned with Aspen Institute’s Commission on Social, Emotional, & Academic Development’s integrated whole child approach. I conclude with the recommendation that school systems find ways to couple initiatives with the intentional and visible integration of a student-focused, equity-based lens that incorporates cultural responsiveness and restorative practices. Investing in adults’ understanding of race and equity in all interactions, including those with colleagues within and across the central office towards a coherent mission, is necessary for all youth to be successful in our nation’s schools.

The Principal Impact Collaborative (PIC) at the University of North Texas at Dallas creates transformative learning experiences for principals in school districts across the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. In its fifth year, this small nonprofit is challenged with balancing quick growth with the sustainability of its internal team. Both of these challenges were exacerbated by the complexities brought on by the pandemic in professional and personal ways. As a resident, I led an internal initiative to create a culture of learning to support this rapid growth and honor and respect the individuals doing the work. This capstone describes our journey to become more deliberately developmental as a lever to improve team effectiveness and increase organizational learning in order to scale effectively. This is done through three enabling conditions: become more candid, provide more critical feedback, and engage in productive conflict. Throughout this capstone I rely on adult development theory and the research on Deliberately Developmental Organizations from Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey, as well as teaming and psychological safety concepts from Amy Edmondson, to intentionally create an environment of vulnerability, open communication, and feedback. Ultimately, this capstone points to the need to humanize our companies, organizations, and schools. In every sector, we could all flourish and thrive if we were unafraid to speak our truth, to provide honest feedback, and to engage in productive conflict. If we knew we could do such things without fear of retribution, we could each add to the collective learning of the places where we work and improve the overall effectiveness of the work itself through our increased collaboration and resulting innovation.

The city of Birmingham and its schools have experienced a tumultuous history – from a school system born out of deep-rooted segregation and racist policy, to one disrupted and transformed by the relentless and heroic efforts of Civil Rights leaders. Ensuing decades within the school system saw a period of white flight, declining enrollment, and the increase in a population of students socially and economically disenfranchised. The district entered the 21st century in crisis, experiencing seven different superintendents during the first two decades of the century. Yet, amidst this mountain of challenges, hope abounds. In the past three years, under the leadership of Superintendent Dr. Lisa Herring, 75% of schools in the district improved by at least one letter grade as identified by the Alabama Department of Education (Seale, 2019). In October 2019, the local electorate overwhelmingly approved an ad valorem tax that translates to $30 million dollars per year applied to the district’s bottom line. This vote represents an impressive feat in a fiscally conservative state and a time when other Alabama county electorate rejected similar tax proposals. According to internal polling data, the Superintendent’s approval rating is above 80%. This number is extraordinary in a time when only 36% of Americans express confidence in public schools (Calderon, Newport, & Dvorak, 2017). Birmingham City Schools is turning around. This capstone tells the district’s story. In 2019, as a doctoral resident in the Harvard Ed.L.D. program, I was invited to join the Birmingham City Schools executive team to lead one arm of the district's turnaround efforts - designing and implementing a comprehensive accountability and support system for school leaders. The intention of the School Accountability Reviews (SARs), was three-fold. First, build the data analysis muscles of Principals. Second, create the intentional space for leaders to share best practices, be held accountable for individual school data, and receive district support. Third, begin to shift the culture of the district from one of complacency to one of practice-sharing and strategic action. This capstone explores how I approached the challenge of developing and implementing a statistical or “stat” model of continuous improvement within Birmingham City Schools. I relied on historical examples of effective stat model implementation in school districts across the United States as well as current research on improvement science, relational trust, and adaptive leadership to guide the process. In conclusion, I provide recommendations for how Birmingham City Schools can leverage what was learned and continue to accelerate school turnaround.

As home to the oldest elementary and high schools in the United States, Boston has always been one step ahead of the rest of the country in education policy. Amid the calamity, strife and uncertainty of 2020, Boston Public Schools has striven to maintain the trailblazing pace set four centuries ago. Caught in the middle of the chaos are the 54,000 school-aged children in Boston and the adults responsible for their care—parents, teachers, school leaders and educational staff around the world, especially adults responsible for decision-making about their ongoing learning.

Currently, however, there is a fundamental disconnect between the activities of the central office and the support needed by school leaders. This disconnect has to do specifically with what support school leaders need to create the right conditions for teachers to provide high-quality equitable instruction for all students. For BPS to advance equity and transform academic outcomes for each student, the district needs to create the conditions that will position school leaders and the central office to achieve the goal by working together.

Successful relationships between school-based and district office leaders allow for colleagues to interact, learn together, and build trust—all critical components in education systems pursuing change (Finnigan 2017). In an attempt to bridge the gap between district office and school-based leaders, I conducted a pilot by pairing school leaders with a district partner to collaborate on the implementation of PLCs (Professional Learning Communities) for all school leaders district-wide. In order to determine the appropriate level of support for these pairings, I conducted more than 50 interviews with staff and leaders within Boston Public Schools and leveraged data obtained through the PDSA (Plan-Do-Study-Act) framework to focus on PLC leaders’ acute needs and adapt the structures of support accordingly.

In my analysis, I reflected on the three drivers of Frances Frei’s Trust Triangle—authenticity, empathy and logic. This capstone acknowledges the current state of affairs and offers concrete recommendations for Boston Public Schools to (a) build a foundation of trust to increase effective communication between school leaders and district office leaders; (b) provide support for school leaders to increase their capacity as instructional leaders; and (c) ensure leadership carries out three core responsibilities: providing direction, protection and order for school leaders, all of which are critical in times of crisis.

Across all sectors, attracting and retaining talent is a pressing challenge. At the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools, a non-profit working to transform 18 of Los Angeles Unified School District’s highest-need schools, the challenge of retention held particular relevance. The pace and urgency of work with high-need schools made turnover both understandable and damaging. An 18.3 percent average turnover rate from 2012-2016 created gaps in institutional knowledge and capacity – turnover meant an exponential increase in intensity for remaining team members. The Partnership identified manager skill as a lever for retention, and tasked me in my residency to create the Leadership Development Series. The Series’ goals focused on adaptive leadership skills, self-reflection, and coaching. The structure included 11 whole-group trainings, a peer coaching system, and an observation cycle of manager practice in check-ins. While the Series had positive impacts on overall staff satisfaction ratings and planned tenure, it is unclear if that impact came from changes in manager practice. Using the Ganz Leadership Practices framework, this paper argues that the Series succeeded because of strong shared relationships and structures, namely in initial relationship-building and peer coaching. However, the Series missed a foundational step in building a shared narrative about the drivers of retention and the management skills needed to improve retention, particularly the value of adaptive leadership skills like self-reflection and self-awareness, which can appear to run counter to the high-urgency work the Partnership undertakes at schools. Without this shared narrative, the ties between the Series and the ultimate goal of retention became abstract, resulting in a valuable professional development experience, but an unclear path to impact on retention goals. This capstone recommends that the Partnership create a more fertile ground for a focus on adaptive leadership skills, including engaging schools to create a common understanding of strong management, creating low-risk learning environments to build a culture of self-reflection, and including team retention as a performance goal for managers. For the sector, there are lessons to be learned about the value of creating a coherent narrative for a retention strategy and setting metrics aligned to those narratives.

Pay for Success is an innovative financing tool through which private investors provide upfront capital for high quality, evidence-based social services programs, and are paid back by government once pre-determined outcomes are reached. This tool enables governments to explore new programs without risk, and connects dollars directly to outcomes, rather than the delivery of services. Social Finance, a Boston-based nonprofit, launched the Pay for Success field in the U.S. in 2011, and is a leading practitioner in developing and implementing Pay for Success projects. Although 20 projects have launched in the U.S., none have been in the field of K-12 education due to the complexity of the tool and challenges associated with applying it in education contexts. This Capstone is focused on the strategic project that I led as a resident at Social Finance, through which I sought to assess the relevance of the Pay for Success model in the K-12 education sector, and pursue adaptations of the model to increase its potential for impact in the space. The foundation of my work was a set of six education projects that Social Finance launched in the second half of 2017, each intended to assess the feasibility of Pay for Success to support an education service provider’s K-12 intervention. My action plan for adaptation, which required both mindset and model changes to Social Finance’s typical approach, was grounded in change management literature and centered on engaging across the six specific projects to understand and address the barriers that Pay for Success presented across the projects’ education contexts. Through my work on and across these six projects, I found that Pay for Success, as it is traditionally defined, does have narrow relevance in the K-12 education space. The two major challenges that we identified included a lack of rigorous evidence for particular interventions, and a fundamental disconnect between stakeholders who pay for and implement education and those who benefit (or suffer) from the outcomes of education. To address these challenges, we developed four adapted models, each based on the traditional Pay for Success approach, but each with higher potential for impact in the education space. My strategic project has significant implications for Social Finance and for the Pay for Success field. By broadening the definition of Pay for Success beyond a single model, to include a range of outcomes-based financing tools such as the four adaptations that we explored in my work, there is immense opportunity to expand the reach, relevance, and impact of this innovative concept in education and beyond.

Upon the release of the Rhode Island Comprehensive Assessment System (RICAS) scores in December 2018, there was a massive public outcry over the prolonged neglect of the Providence Public School District. Various segments of the broader Providence community mobilized to advocate for a new course of action and to hold state and local governments accountable for failing to support the district. In the spring of 2019, Governor Gina M. Raimondo appointed Angélica Infante-Green as the new Commissioner of the Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE). Commissioner Infante-Green’s primary charge was to turnaround the persistently failing school district. As the largest school district in the state, the Providence Public School District (PPSD) serves approximately 24,000 students, of which 91% are students of color, 84% are low-income, 31% are multilingual learners, and 16% receive special education services; this would be the largest education endeavor in RIDE’s history. As an Ed.L.D. resident at RIDE, I was charged with designing and leading a community engagement strategy that would promote greater collaboration between RIDE and the broader Providence community as they worked to develop the district’s Turnaround Action Plan (TAP). Drawing upon case studies from the field, the Dual Capacity-Building Framework, and elements of equity-centered design thinking, I designed and implemented a collaborative and co-constructed community design process. This capstone examines what happened when the community was given “a seat at the table” in the transformation of Providence Public Schools. What follows is an analysis of a three-month community design process that resulted in the development of recommendations that will be incorporated into the Turnaround Action Plan for the Providence Public School District. Following the analysis of the project, I discuss the implications of this work for my own leadership, as well as for RIDE and the education sector.

School systems can be terribly fragmented and incoherent organizations. A lack of clear and focused priorities often results in poor execution of initiatives as well as duplicative, conflicting, non-coordinated, or non-complementary efforts. Moreover, a lack of shared priorities can be felt by school leaders and teachers as an inconsistent and overwhelming number of directives. During my 10-month residency at Chicago Public Schools, I led the strategic planning and continuous improvement process for the district’s Office of Teaching and Learning. I supported central office collaboration to define, socialize, measure, and monitor an equity-focused, district-wide instructional vision and an associated set of academic priorities. Most notably, I helped the office shift from previous years’ practice of drafting and executing over a dozen separate department plans to creating and collaborating around a singular, collective, officewide academic strategic plan. This capstone describes and analyzes my efforts to help craft a set of academic priorities, to lead for coherence, and to foster a collaborative culture of inquiry within a district’s academic office. The implications I draw from this work may be helpful to educational leaders, particularly district academic leads, who seek to organize and guide central office staff to develop academic programming, offer professional learning opportunities, and improve student outcomes.

In addition to preparing students academically, public schools are increasingly expected to address the complex social, emotional, and safety needs of students. Collective impact, first defined by Kania & Kramer (2011) as “a commitment of a group of important actors from different sectors to a common agenda for solving a specific social problem” has emerged as a framework for bringing cross-sector partners together to share ownership of student success (p. 36). Its data-informed, continuous improvement orientation drives collective action to address root-cause issues and to achieve large-scale social impact.

This capstone documents the leadership and support I provided to Oceanside Unified School District (OUSD) and its community partners to advance and plan for the long-term sustainability of the Oceanside Promise (The Promise), a collective impact initiative anchored within OUSD. FSG’s Five Conditions of Collective Impact and StriveTogether’s Cradle to Career Theory of Action were used to assess the current state of the partnership, its backbone capacity, and the development of a multiyear strategic roadmap. My strategic project involved working with district leadership, the Oceanside Promise Foundation (The Foundation), and The Promise partners to clarify roles and direction, create coherence, and facilitate shared ownership of The Promise and its long-term sustainability. In addition to my professional and academic experience, literature regarding collective impact, critical leadership competencies, and organizational and community coherence informed the strategic project’s planning and execution.

This capstone also provides insight into the challenges and opportunities of a district-anchored collective impact initiative. Most notably, it explores how shared community ownership must be intentionally cultivated and how collective impact challenges the mindsets and competencies of educators and community members with a traditional view of how school districts and community partner. Thus, the implications for site and sector sections elevate the conditions that would better support the success of innovative school districts assuming the role of backbone support in collective impact initiatives.

Young, poor, and undereducated women of color make up the majority of women who are incarcerated in the U.S. correctional system (Covington & Bloom, 2003). Black girls, in particular, are at risk of incarceration when schools leverage policies and practices (e.g. exclusionary discipline) that focus on discipline and control rather than providing a high quality education and support services for Black girls’ development. The restorative leadership program model employs unique methods to engage students and elevate their unique talents and perspectives in a school system that does not “effectively adjust and reform to fit the needs of its entire population” (Dr. Dorian Burton, personal communication, March 26, 2016). The program prioritizes educational attainment for Black girls through physical sports and field trips, critical conversations about what it means to grow up as a Black girl, events to collaborate and build relationships with peer and adult mentors, and workshops to learn personalized goal setting and reflection techniques. A restorative leadership program is an effective tool public middle schools can use to (1) increase the social emotional support provided to Black girls in order to reduce delinquent behavior and (2) reduce the number of Black girls who are pushed out of schools into the juvenile justice system.

Students' struggles with algebra are well documented. Prior to the introduction of functions, mathematics is typically focused on applying a set of arithmetic operations to compute an answer. The introduction of functions, however, marks the point at which mathematics begins to focus on building up abstractions as a way to solve complex problems. A common refrain about word problems is that “the equations are easy to solve - the hard part is setting them up!” A student of algebra is asked to identify functional relationships in the world around them - to set up the equations that describe a system- and to reason about these relationships. Functions, in essence, mark the shift from computing answers to solving problems. Researchers have called for this shift to accompany a change in pedagogy, and have looked to computer programming and game design as a means to combine mathematical rigor with creative inquiry. Many studies have explored the impact of teaching students to program, with the goal of having them transfer what they have learned back into traditional mathematics. While some of these studies have shown positive outcomes for concepts like geometry and fractions, transfer between programming and algebra has remained elusive. The literature identifies a number of conditions that must be met to facilitate transfer, including careful attention to content, software, and pedagogy. This dissertation is a feasibility study of Bootstrap, a curricular intervention based on best practices from the transfer and math-education literature. Bootstrap teaches students to build a video game by applying algebraic concepts and a problem solving technique in the programming domain, with the goal of transferring what they learn back into traditional algebra tasks. The study employed a mixed-methods analysis of six Bootstrap classes taught by math and computer science teachers, pairing pre- and post-tests with classroom observations and teacher interviews. Despite the use of a CS-derived problem solving technique, a programming language and a series of programming challenges, students were able to transfer what they learned into traditional algebra tasks and math teachers were found to be more successful at facilitating this transfer than their CS counterparts.

“Change happens when a vast number of people come together and defend a vision of the future they’d like to see.” -Angela Davis, Civil Rights Leader—

The Community Schools strategy is a national reform model with proven results. Yet still, its expansion and sustainability has been hindered for a myriad of reasons, including: lack of awareness, systemic capacity gaps, fragmented implementation, and the lack of supportive legislation and funding. As the United Way of Massachusetts Bay (UWMB), a credible intermediary with a 90-year track record of social impact, joined the movement to expand the Community Schools strategy locally while mobilizing Massachusetts Coalition for Community Schools, the central question was: What role might they play in supporting learning to ground this school improvement reform strategy across the state? . This capstone proposes three strategic dispositions for intermediaries — Align, Activate, Agitate — and explores the catalytic power at the intersection of professional learning and networks to transform local practice while creating systems change. Grounded in research on effective networks, professional development, intermediary organizations, Mark Moore’s strategic triangle, and my experience as a principal and school district administrator, I designed the Aligned Regional Competencies (ARC) of Learning and Leadership for Community Schools Professionals, a conceptual blueprint for building a Professional Learning Network (PLN) infrastructure. Aligning with the three stages of Community Schools development the ARC guided the PLN’s sequence, coherence, and learning design. This capstone examines these efforts, including the launch and learning from a PLN pilot, and concludes with implications for my own leadership, UWMB’s role as an intermediary, and the sector at large.

Keywords: Professional Learning Network, intermediary, Community Schools strategy, liberatory leadership

States first implemented alternative routes to teaching (ARTs) as a policy mechanism to attract qualified candidates into teaching and alleviate rising teacher shortages. They hoped that ARTs would reduce reliance on emergency teaching permits to fill existing shortages. Proponents of ARTs suggest that by revising traditional preparation programs and requirements, ARTs can induce individuals to enter teaching who would not otherwise have done so. They also cite promising evidence that ARTs can diversify the teacher workforce given that they enroll proportionally more Black, Latinx, and other candidates of color. Alternative preparation programs still account for a relatively small share of all teacher preparation programs, so others doubt whether they can substantively impact teacher labor markets. Using data from the Title II Data Collection and the Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS), I explore whether ARTs have influenced the supply and composition of teacher labor markets. First, I examine variation in the features of alternative and traditional preparation programs and more precisely categorize distinct models of teacher preparation. Next, I examine the characteristics of candidates who enroll in and complete alternative preparation programs relative to traditional programs, paying particular attention to differences in the racial composition of teachers, their content background qualifications, and their placement in districts and schools serving high proportions of students from low-income backgrounds. Finally, I exploit variation in the timing of early-entry policies that expand alternative certification pathways to examine whether such expansions reduce teaching vacancies. I find that the fastest-growing segment of the teacher preparation market includes for-profit programs (both traditional and alternative) and non-IHE based alternative programs, while enrollment at IHEs has declined in both traditional and alternative programs. Additionally, states with more widely available alternative routes to teaching also have proportionally more racially diverse teaching workforces relative to states with less widely available ARTs. Lastly, I find evidence that the expansion of early-entry routes to teaching increased the number of educator preparation program completers but led to declines in the number of initial teaching licenses issued in states.

Income-based achievement gaps in cognitive skills such as math and reading are fully substantiated at the time children enter Kindergarten (Reardon, 2013; von Hippel & Hamrock, 2016). Further, children who start behind, tend to stay behind (Stanovich, 1986). Therefore, if we want to prevent these achievement gaps, we need to focus on the early childhood period when the gaps grow the most. In addition, parents who know more about parenting and child development and who have a stronger belief that they can make a difference in their child’s development, are more apt to interact with their children in ways that promote learning than parents with less parenting knowledge (Rowe, 2008). One approach to address this is to provide parenting knowledge to individuals before they become parents while they are still in school. To date, very little scholarly work has been done to show the efficacy of programs to prepare students for parenting and a role in young children’s lives. A first step in achieving this goal was to ascertain adolescents’ knowledge and understanding of parenting and child development by creating and validating the APKAS (Adolescent Parenting Knowledge and Attitudes Survey) questionnaire and administering it to over 1,000 US high school students. The questionnaire includes information about child development, the role of parents in children’s learning, and knowledge of basic parenting practices that are associated with healthy childhood outcomes. Using linear regression and structural equation modeling, this study shows that while many high school students hold beliefs consistent with successful outcomes for young children and their learning, there is much room for improvement. Moreover, high school students with less childcare experience, who are not from middle class backgrounds, or who are male are less likely to hold attitudes that would set up their children for future success. This research suggests that there is an opportunity to use high school as a site to improve adolescents’ knowledge and attitudes related to child rearing and development.

The below average graduation rates of low-income undergraduates (Nichols, 2015b) have created an urgent need to explore strategies to better support and retain this population. Participation in extracurricular and co-curricular activities is theorized to promote postsecondary retention by engaging students in campus communities, yet low-income students fail to participate in these activities at the same rate as their more affluent peers (Kezar, Walpole, & Perna, 2015; Kuh, 2009). Although financial pressures may be one limiting factor in low-income students’ participation (Walpole, 2003), research suggests that psychological barriers such as low feelings of belonging (Rubin, 2012) may also play a role in shaping students’ undergraduate engagement decisions. This research suggests the importance of studying the resources and relationships that low-income students draw on to successfully engage in extracurricular and co-curricular activities.
This study adds to the existing body of postsecondary engagement literature by exploring the psychological and social factors that inform how successful low-income students experience engaging activities on campus. To do this, the following dissertation study employs in-depth qualitative phenomenological interviewing to investigate how nine successful low-income juniors and seniors chose to engage in university extracurricular and co-curricular activities. Research participants were drawn from a sample of low-income students who participated in a co-curricular federal TRIO program housed within a public university with a large population of successful low-income graduates. This study suggests ways in which administrators can design more effective co-curricular and extracurricular programs and related policies to meet the needs of low-income undergraduates. Findings suggest that providing for basic financial needs, clearly demonstrating the link between engagement and future career goals and emphasizing the opportunity to serve the collective may be important tools that student support services practitioners can use to encourage low-income college student engagement in extracurricular and co-curricular activities.

Educational research has highlighted the importance of parental engagement in Latina/o students’ post-secondary planning and success; when parents develop their children’s college-going identities early, students are more likely to attend a 4-year institution (Tierney & Auerbach, 2005; Zarate, Saenz, & Oseguera, 2011). Little is known, however, about how Latina/o parents’ immigration status influences their engagement. Existing scholarship has demonstrated that an undocumented status, or parents’ “illegality,” not only limits access to resources, but also adds a layer of distrust, discomfort, and fear of social institutions (De Genova, 2002; Dreby, 2015; Enriquez, 2015; Gonzales 2010, 2011; Yoshikawa, 2011). This phenomenological qualitative study explores the engagement of 15 undocumented Latina/o parents whose children were successfully admitted and matriculated to Coast University (pseudonym), a prestigious public institution in California. Using in-depth qualitative interview data, this dissertation explores the different stages of parents’ role in their children’s’ post-secondary planning and success and the ways their “illegality” and other factors (i.e. access to resources, connections to social networks, relationships with schools) shape these. Specifically, this study explores how undocumented Latina/o parents describe and make sense of their sacrificios (sacrifices) and apoyo (support), which I argue are essential components of their role in their children’s post-secondary planning and success. As such, this study shows how undocumented Latina/o parents’ engagement is apoyo sacrificial (sacrificing support), or an engagement that is shaped and bounded by the limitations of their “illegality.” Though bounded by the limitations of their immigration status, undocumented Latina/o parents are intentional about their parenting behaviors—they engage in parenting practices that support their children’s goals and aspirations despite the limitations they face. This dissertation makes a unique contribution to education and family engagement literature, as it connects the important, underexplored, and under theorized experiences of Latina/o families and communities to conversations on higher education access and success. This study focuses not only on the political and educational barriers undocumented Latina/o parents face, but also examines the critical and intentional ways in which parents respond to these.

“The only thing that matters is getting to product/market fit.” - Marc Andreessen Many educational products have flooded the American K-12 market in recent years, launched by startups and established educational institutions alike. Many of these startups will fail, and seasoned entrepreneurs and business strategists suggest that failure results primarily from the inability to access a sizeable market and address the needs of that market with the correct product, what Andreessen calls “product/market fit.” The "Lean Startup” methodology, popularized by entrepreneurs like Steve Blank and Eric Ries, has gained significant popularity as a process for achieving product/market fit. Users of the Lean Startup method articulate all of their assumptions about the market and product and create small and inexpensive tests to validate or invalidate these assumptions. At each round of results of assumption testing, the enterprise has the choice to “pivot, persist, or perish” in the belief that the right pivots will ultimately achieve product/market fit.

This capstone details my work as a founder of The Teaching Genome as I pivoted, persisted and avoided perishing. The Teaching Genome is an assessment that can discern the teaching style of a user and a series of tools that use these results to improve teaching and learning. The idea for the Teaching Genome developed at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and NewSchools Venture Fund hosted me as its founder and incubated the idea over the course of the residency year. In this capstone, I chronicle the process of developing a product with clear assumptions related to its impact and financial sustainability. I also describe the pilots that tested those assumptions, the results of those tests and the responding pivots. Drawing upon research on the characteristics of innovations that spread and scale and research on the dominant norms in education, I offer explanations of what constitutes product/market fit in the education sector and describe the implications of my learning on the future of the Teaching Genome. These findings contain implications for those seeking to develop educational interventions from inside or outside school systems, especially for actors looking to achieve wide-spread adoption.