Using Research on Math Tracking to Inform School District Approaches to Math Course Access

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  In Roundtable Session: How Research-Practice Partnership Collaboration Can Inform Education Policy and Practice: Examples from Los Angeles

Abstract

Objective/Purpose
In 2018, researchers affiliated with a research-practice partnership (RPP) in this Southern California district began collaborating with district math experts to understand secondary students’ math course-taking trajectories. Findings from this research led to two additional projects, one focused on twelfth-grade math course taking and another focused on accelerated middle school math. The middle school project initially focused on social class and racial and ethnic inequities in math course placement and then expanded to include the impact of math tracking in middle school, and the extent to which tracking perpetuated or exacerbated academic disparities in the school district. Results from this original research, which are now published (reference masked for blind review), have informed revisions to the district’s middle school math course placement guidance. This research has also raised additional questions, however, which central office staff and researchers have begun to explore in a follow-up study. The purpose of this paper is to describe the evolution of this series of research projects, briefly share the results, and discuss how the research has informed policy and practice.

Perspective(s) or Theoretical Framework:
We draw on research and theory about how decision-makers use research evidence and about RPPs as potentially beneficial structures for encouraging research use. Specifically, we draw on literature about instrumental and conceptual research use (see e.g., Coburn et al., 2009; Farley-Ripple, 2012; Weiss, 1980) and on how relationships between researchers and practitioners in RPPs may help make research more relevant and useful for educational improvement (e.g., Arce-Trigatti, Chukray & Lopez Turley, 2018; Coburn & Penuel, 2016).

Methods or Modes of Inquiry / Data Sources, Evidence, Objects, or Materials:
For the original middle school math research, researchers used longitudinal district administrative and survey data and quantitative methods, including quasi-experimental methods (weighting, matching), to estimate the effects of taking an advanced middle school math course on a wide range of outcomes. In this paper, we: 1) situate the research within its historical context, 2) use policy documents to illustrate how the research informed district policy changes and the barriers to research use, and 3) describe plans for the follow-up project to help it inform continued educational improvement.

Results/Implications/Significance:
The results suggest that the RPP’s structure facilitates both conceptual and instrumental research use by providing multiple opportunities for researchers to engage with district partners. Regularly discussing on-going research creates an environment where district partners feel comfortable voicing their skepticism about preliminary findings and asking follow-up questions that the researchers answer empirically in subsequent presentations and conversations. The results also suggest that districts are more likely to use research when research projects build cumulatively on each set of research findings toward an evidence base that supports well-considered education policy decisions. Yet the results also suggest that organizational challenges within the RPP structure itself, such as central office staff turnover and competing district priorities, as well as the resources and coordination required to implement changes in schools’ course offerings, pose barriers to instrumental research use in the short to medium term.

Authors

• Carrie Miller, University of California - Los Angeles

• Meredith Phillips, University of California - Los Angeles