COLLEGE PARK, MD (May, 2016) Last fall, Dr. Andrew Brantlinger, an associate professor in the Department of Teaching and Learning, Policy and Leadership, began a new project with Dr. Laurel Cooley of Brooklyn College to examine the features of academically selective alternative teacher certification programs that affect mathematics teachers career trajectories through and out of urban public school systems. Their work is sponsored by a three-year Core Research grant from the National Science Foundation.
Although Dr. Brantlinger and Dr. Cooley have collaborated for years – their co-authored papers, including journal articles, book chapters, and conference presentations, go back at least to 2007 – this was their first attempt at an NSF grant. “We’re very happy about it,” Dr. Brantlinger says. “The grant funding will provide us the time to collect good data, get immersed in the analysis, and write up and present the results.”
This project will examine the retention and career trajectories of some three to four hundred math teachers who began the New York City Teacher Fellowship (NYCTF) Program, a selective alternative route program, in 2006 and 2007. Data on these teachers from a previous project, which inquired about school placement and roles, is being integrated into the project. The study uses a multi-methodological, longitudinal design including both quantitative and qualitative components.
Quantitatively, the study will employ logistic regression and survival analysis to answer questions about the features of selective ATCPs – namely participant selection, training, school placements, and mentoring – that affect the math teachers’ school and district retention at the two-year and five-year marks. The qualitative component consists of interviews conducted with a representative sample of these selective-route teachers, taking a closer look at the types of careers, both in and outside of education, that such teachers build for themselves after completing the two years of teaching in high-needs urban schools that NYCTF requires of participants.
The project kicked off in fall 2015 with a meeting between the research group and the project advisory board at Brooklyn College, where they discussed and planned their work, priorities, and timelines. Dr. Cooley is in charge of the qualitative side of the project, while Dr. Brantlinger and his graduate assistants, Caroline Titan and Barbie Dunnan, have focused on the quantitative side. While funding is limited, College of Education graduate students are welcome to join the research group, which will recommence regular meetings in fall 2016.
Click here to learn more about the National Science Foundation’s EHR Core Research grants.
Dr. Andrew Brantlinger studies secondary mathematics education, urban schooling, alternative certification, critical pedagogy, and the sociology of education. From 2009 to 2014, he was the principal investigator, with Dr. Lawrence Clark, for a $2 million U.S. Department of Education Transition to Teaching grant that fostered the Maryland Science Mathematics Resident Teacher (MSMaRT) program, an alternative teacher certification program created in partnership between Prince George’s County Public Schools and the University of Maryland, College Park. He holds a Ph.D. in Human Development and Social Policy from Northwestern University.
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