Professional Development Academies in Education

Professional Development Programs in Information Studies

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 UCLA SEIS professor and Momentum Director Linda J. Sax was celebrated by UCLA Women’s basketball in recognition of her outstanding efforts “doing above and beyond,” in pregame festivities Sunday, November  21 at Pauley Pavilion.

Sax, a professor of higher education in the UCLA School of Education & Information Studies is the founding director of Momentum: Accelerating Equity in Computing and Technology at UCLA. For over three decades, Dr. Sax’s research has focused on gender differences in college student development, with an emphasis on women in STEM fields.

As Director of Momentum, Sax leads cutting-edge research to diversify computing and technology fields, particularly on efforts to recruit women and people of color into computing education pathways and retain them into technology fields.

For more information about this “Uncommon Bruin” and the Momentum  program visit the Momentum website 

UCLA Women's Basketball Celebrates Linda Sax as "Uncommon Bruin"

The UCLA Center for the Transformation of Schools has released a new policy brief on "Prioritizing Educator Diversity with New State & Federal Funding,” in order to establish more inclusive and equitable learning environments. Based on research by Kai Mathews, Ph.D.; Mary-Louise Leger, M.S. Ed.; Earl J. Edwards; Christopher Mauerman; and Felicia Graham, M.A., the brief discusses the need for a more diverse and sustainable K-12 workforce and highlights opportunities for recruiting, preparing, and retaining more educators of color in California, including increased support for teacher residencies, fee waivers, teacher grants, and early childhood education funding, that are possible with COVID-19 relief funding from the American Rescue Plan.

The policy brief was created with support from the William + Flora Hewlett Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Visit this link to read the policy brief, "Prioritizing Educator Diversity with New State & Federal Funding."  

Visit this website for more information on the UCLA Center for the Transformation of Schools. 

UCLA’s Center for the Transformation of Schools discusses opportunites for recruiting and retaining more educators of color, more inclusive learning environments.

New Policy Brief on Building Diversity in the K-12 Workforce

In 2020, the then UCLA Graduate School of Education &  Information Studies made a major change, adding a new undergraduate major in Education and Social Transformation.

The purpose of the new major is not just to help students gain an understanding of the field of education, but to develop the knowledge, insight and skills needed to lead change. A big part of that is learning about social policy and the role policy can play in social transformation.

“We want  to challenge our students to think big about the ways we can use education and policy to address social problems, and build a better future,” said Anna Markowitz, an assistant professor in the school and instructor in the undergraduate program. 

Markowitz, a developmental psychologist whose research focuses in great part on early childhood education, teaches a class in early education policy in the undergraduate program.  

Earlier this month she shared some of her research and thinking about early childhood education with students and parents attending the Bruin Family Weekend celebration. 

It’s a very timely topic. Over the next weeks, the Biden administration will be working to pass the Build Back Better Act, new federal legislation setting new policies and providing funding addressing human infrastructure needs in the United States. A key element of the legislation is a groundbreaking effort to transform early care and education. 

Markowitz began her lecture, “How Psychology Can Improve Policy: The Case of Early 
Care and Education,” with insights and data making clear that educational equity in the United States is still a long way off. 

“I would argue that in the United States one of the most pernicious problems we face is the disparity in educational outcomes, marked by indicators of race and income, indicators that represent disadvantage, marginalization, and systemic racism,” Markowitz said.  

 “ I really think that this gap and these differences is the core educational issue of our time. It’s not just an achievement gap, it’s an opportunity gap,” she added.   

Markowitz argues that policies to improve early care and childhood education are key to addressing equity and ending that achievement gap.  To erase the gap, she advocates for the development of a high-quality system of early childhood education for all children. 

“We need to invest in early educators across all settings,” she says.  

Markowitz's emphasis on early childhood education draws on research showing that the gaps in achievement among children open early in life and are visible on the first day of kindergarten.  While some students begin school ready to go, others have trouble working with other children, difficulty following directions, and may not recognize letters and numbers. 

The brain of children develops more rapidly in the first five years of life.  It is the high point for brain development, a time when basic neural circuits are formed and strengthened, creating the foundation for every other skill. 

The key to learning in this period is what is called “serve and return interactions,” simple but complex interactions between a child and the surrounding environment and adults. A child “serves” something – a look, a gesture, or sound – and a caregiver responds in a way that adds to or expands the experience. For example, a baby shaking a rattle learns how to make it rattle.  A young child might touch an object and a caregiver names or describes what it is.  Or a child might ask a question and the caregiver gives an answer.  These interactions are key to the development of memory, language, and behavior.  Sensitive, responsive caregiving supports conceptual development and builds baby brains.

The question Markowitz is serving up is how can we ensure that all children, no matter who they are or where they are born or live get the experiences they need to thrive.  Her response is to bring quality interactions with children to scale through early childhood education. 

The challenge is that children have disparate experiences as they grow.  In the United States, there is no universal system of care, instead, parents are confronted by a complex “non-system” of care.  For help in caring for their children, parents turn to a series of options ranging from family and friends or a neighbor who cares for a few children, to private child care or state and federal pre-K programs. Parents often make choices about care based on what and who they know, what meets their work needs, and what they can afford.   

And just as there is a range of options, there is a wide range of experiences.  Those experiences are too often of low quality for most children, and particularly for those from families with low incomes challenged by costs of care and the demands of work.  

“The reality is that most children are not in early childhood education settings of sufficient quality to provide a meaningful developmental boost, Markowitz said. “It’s a key driver of the gap in opportunities.” 

To create a system to meet the needs of children, Markowitz suggests investing in early educators.   

To underscore her point she compares K-12 educators and those working in early childhood education.

K-12 educators have significantly more education, access to training and support, and earn far more than those that work in childcare or early childhood education settings.  They are more likely to grow in knowledge and skills and to stay in their careers. 

Early childhood educators are also doing complex work with children at a critical time in their development, yet no state has a universal college education (BA) requirement for teachers of four-year-olds,  and most states have no education requirements for child care teachers. There is little in the way of accessible funding for training and support to help these teachers get better at their jobs and strengthen their interactions with young children. And they make about half of what K-12 teachers make.   The average annual salary of a preschool teacher is  $31,930, childcare providers make even less. 

Markowitz is part of a research-policy partnership with the Louisiana Department of Education.  That research has found many pre-school teachers face real and difficult challenges that are not only stressful for them, but that have implications for children.

Many children have early education teachers who are depressed and who struggle with economic anxiety.  Half of childcare teachers are food insecure, meaning they worry about having access to enough food to feed themselves or their families.  

“The depression rates among these teachers are very high,” Markowitz said. “The low incomes they earn has a real impact on their daily wellbeing.” 

Markowitz and her colleagues believe these high levels of stress and depression matter in the classroom and the experiences of children. Stressed caregivers are less effective. They may offer lower quality interactions with children and weaker teacher-child relationships, leading to increased problem behaviors for children.

They are also more likely to quit.  In the Louisiana study, nearly half of childcare teachers and a quarter of those working in pre-k settings left their jobs from one year to the next. 

When teachers leave, child development suffers. An analysis of Head Start data by Markowitz shows that children whose caregivers leave showed less growth on measures of language, word and letter recognition, and early writing skills than those whose caregivers stayed.  Their parents were also more likely to report their children had behavior problems.

To build a better system that meets the needs of children and parents, Markowitz contends we need to address the training and compensation of the early childhood education workforce. 

As an example, she points to efforts underway in Louisiana to provide financial incentives for quality.  They have established quality rating and improvement systems and offer refundable tax credits paid to both centers and teachers who provide high-quality interactions as measured by those systems. The program offers incentives of $3,300 to teachers. 

“For many early education teachers, that’s about 10 to 15 percent of their salaries, an amount that can make a real difference in their lives,” Markowitz said. 

Louisiana is also providing high-quality training opportunities for early childhood educators, including the establishment of an Early Childhood Ancillary Certificate.  The program is free for teachers and those that complete the training are eligible to receive the states’ tax credits.  

Established in 2014 the program in Louisiana has seen a dramatic increase in the quality of child care settings statewide.  

“We need to look at the insights from psychology, about how children learn, about the primacy of relationships and interactions for young children, to build better early childhood education systems," Markowitz concludes.  “In educational policy, we need to ask what’s the right investment– what will get us the most bang for our buck, what will create opportunities for more efficient policy.

“Far and away the evidence suggests that children’s earliest years provide a powerful window for investment. It is the interactions children have with adult caregivers that do the most to build a strong foundation for learning. Smart investments in teachers offer a new vision for early learning, and have the potential to expand high-quality early childhood education, narrow opportunity gaps, and become a force for educational equity.” 

 The full  presentation by Anna Markowitz  is available at here.

UCLA Assistant Professor Anna Markowitz Makes Case for Investment in Early Childhood Educators 

How Psychology Can Improve Policy: The Case of Early Care and Education

In Liz Kleinrock’s (’13, M.Ed.) recent book, “Start Here, Start Now: A Guide to Antibias and Antiracist Work in your School Community,” she addresses many of the questions and challenges educators have about getting started with antibias and antiracist work, using a framework for tackling perceived barriers from a proactive stance. Kleinrock answers the questions with personal stories, sample lessons, anchor charts, resources, conversation starters, extensive teacher and activist accounts, and more.

“We can break the habits that are holding us back from this work and be empowered to take the first step towards reimagining the possibilities of how antibias antiracist (ABAR) work can transform schools and the world at large,” writes Kleinrock in an introductory chapter of “Start Here, Start Now.” “We must remind ourselves that what is right is often not what is easy, and we must continue to dream. Amidst the chaos, our path ahead is clear. This is our chance to dream big and build something better.”

Kleinrock is an educator and consultant based in Washington, D.C. A transracial adoptee, Liz was born in South Korea and grew up in D.C. before attending Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. After graduating, she moved to Oakland, California, where she served as an AmeriCorps teacher with Girls Inc. and Super Stars Literacy for two years. Following her service, Kleinrock moved to Los Angeles, where she attended UCLA's Teacher Education Program (TEP) and earned her M.Ed. After spending a year student teaching a 5th grade class in Watts, Kleinrock joined the founding faculty of a startup school in East Hollywood where she spent seven years teaching 1st through 4th grades. 

In addition to classroom teaching, Kleinrock also works as an anti-bias anti-racist facilitator for schools, organizations, and companies across the country. Her work has gained national recognition through a documentary short produced by Fluid Film, and media outlets such as CNN, The Washington Post, NPR, and BBC. In 2018, Kleinrock received Teaching Tolerance's 2018 Award for Excellence in Teaching, and currently serves on the Teaching Tolerance Advisory Board. Kleinrock is proud to share her 2019 TED Talk from "Education Everywhere" on building foundations of equity with young learners.

Kleinrock draws upon her experiences and education at UCLA TEP to shape her work as an antibias antiracist educator. 

“I couldn't have imagined a better teacher education program. I chose UCLA because of TEP's intentional focus on social justice and transforming public education,” she told The Latest, “and I didn't see that in any other programs when I was applying. From the start, it was emphasized that culture and relationships have to be at the center of your practice as an educator. There was always a return to the ‘why’ of what we do as teachers, rather than just replicating archaic practices due to nostalgia or convenience.”

“I credit much of my success to TEP's hands-on approach, and that I was paired with a phenomenal mentor teacher (Laurence Tan) who is also a TEP alum, and Learning for Justice award winner. Every day, I observed and taught in a classroom that incorporated aspects of social justice and cultural responsiveness in a beautiful and seamless manner. There was never an ‘opt out’ option for me, because I saw the work being done in an elementary school class every single day. I'd never believe it when people would say this work couldn't be done with young students, because I had the evidence in front of me that said otherwise. I hope that my book builds on everything I learned in TEP (including interviews with Sara Kersey, Melissa Arias, and Angela Chan Turrou, which I believe reflect the power of building relationships with your students- even in higher education) and can become a source of inspiration for teachers who wish to engage in this powerful work with youth.” 

In a conversation with #G2Great, Kleinrock shared more about her new book “Start Here, Start Now: A Guide to Antibias and Antiracist Work in your School Community.”

What motivated you to write this book? What impact did you hope that it would have in the professional world?

Kleinrock: There were a number of motivators for this book! The biggest one was connecting with teachers all over the world who were struggling to get started with shifting their classroom practice to center antibias and antiracism. I also noticed that there are many books and resources that exist in the theoretical space, but fail to connect with how the ideas show up in daily classroom practice. Teachers constantly hear what they’re not supposed to do, but need examples of concrete actions to try in the classroom.

What are your BIG takeaways from your book that you hope teachers will embrace in their teaching practices?

1.     ABAR doesn’t have to be scary or overwhelming. 

2.     Implementing an ABAR lens doesn’t mean you have to start from scratch.

3.     Students are ready and willing to do this work.

What is a message from the heart you would like for every teacher to keep in mind?

Kleinrock: There is an access point for EVERYONE when it comes to antibias and antiracism work. The journey looks different for everyone. How this work will manifest itself in your classroom will and should look different from other classrooms, because you need to be responsive to the needs of YOUR students.

For the full conversation with Kleinrock, visit #G2Great’s Archive. This article is excerpted from a blog post by Brent Gilson at Literacy Lenses: Focusing on the Literacy Work that Matters.

UCLA alumna at the forefront of promoting antibias, antiracist work in school communities nationwide.

Liz Kleinrock: New Book Addresses Questions and Challenges Educators Have About Antibias and Antiracist Work

The voice of young people too often goes unheard in educational research.  But the new research journal Community Schooling, from the UCLA Center for Community Schools, is trying to do something about that.  The journal will regularly feature research by students. 

In its just-published first issue student researchers at the UCLA Community School explored how teachers, students, and parents are feeling about coming back to school after so many months of online learning due to the COVID 19 pandemic.  They shared their findings in a great new Podcast for the journal. 

For their research, they interviewed students from 1st to 12th grade and talked with teachers and staff.  They also sought out the views of parents of students at the community school.

“We wanted to capture the different perspectives and to come to an overall understanding of how they feel being back at UCLA Community School and how they have been doing so far, said Adriana Rios-Cruz, one of the student researchers. 

The research team included UCLA Community School students Diego Chavez, Eduardo Galindo-Munoz, April Mendoza Jimenez, Nareli Lopez, Adriana Rios-Cruz, Alex Alejo Salvador and Yao Wang.

Be sure to check out their research and listen in to their podcast at https://communityschooling.gseis.ucla.edu/journal-issue-1-youth-research-returning-to-school/

Students share views on returning to school in a time of uncertainty

Student Podcast Highlighted in New Community Schooling Research Journal

In many college classrooms, student use of digital devices is ubiquitous.  Students use tablets, cell phones,  laptop computers and other devices to take notes, record lectures, and look up information. But they have also been known to use them for other purposes that may distract them and others.  And while some students say that use of a laptop or other digital tool with a screen helps them with their studies, research has shown that the use of such devices may be detrimental to classroom learning and achievement.

As the use of digital devices in classrooms has increased,  professors have grown concerned, with some limiting or even prohibiting student use during lectures or classes.  Research has shown that such bans improve student performance, but students have been known to push back, expressing their frustrations with limits on use in teacher evaluations. 

A recent study, The Impact of Screen-Free Zones in an Undergraduate Psychology Classroom: Assessing Exam Performance and Instructor Evaluations in Two Quasi-Experiments, by  UCLA Education and Information Studies graduate students Laura Rhinehart and Salvador R. Vazquez, with a UCLA Psychology professor Patricia M. Greenfield, seeks to shed some light on this standoff over screen-time. (Rhinehart earned her Ph.D.  from UCLA in 2019 and is now an Assistant Researcher).

Published in the journal Teaching of Psychology, the study shares the findings of a series of experiments aiming to understand whether restricting screen use in an undergraduate psychology course had an impact on student exam scores and instructor or course evaluations. 

The experiments examined students in a UCLA undergraduate psychology class in 2017 and 2018.  In the first study, no restrictions were placed on one class that served as a control group, while in another class, students were shown findings about the negative use of screen devices in the classroom and were told they could only use devices if they sat in a screen section in the back of the lecture hall.  As the quarter progressed, more students moved into the screen use section, and by end of the class only about one-quarter of students were using the screen-free area.  

The analysis found a significant difference in final exam scores in favor of the class with screen restrictions, with students scoring on average 4% higher on their final exam than students the year before who had taken the class before implementation of a screen policy.  

“The difference in scores might seem small,  but the difference between 86% and 90% was the difference between B+ and A-, which is especially meaningful to many students,” said Rhinehart.

“If a student is concerned about a challenging course or their grade, I would suggest they might not want to use screened devices. Instead, students might want to take notes by hand. As important as devices can be, closing the screen and intently listening to your professor is a great way to truly learn the course material,” she added. 

Another important finding was the impact on the evaluation of teachers.  Students in the class with screen restrictions gave the professor lower marks on the classroom evaluation (a mean of 6.29 on a scale of 10) in comparison to the control classroom with no screen policies. (A mean of 7.22). Instructor evaluations indicated that more than a few students were displeased with the screen-free policy, even though they had the option of using their own screens in class. In comments, one student wrote, “I hate the screen policy rule.”

In the second experiment, students were again given information about the benefits of not using screens in class and asked if they would like to sit in a screen-free section or one in which they could use screens.  But with this group, the professor then divided the lecture hall in half across the seats, so that both groups of students could sit in rows from front to back.  No students were required to sit in the back of the lecture hall. 

The analysis revealed significant positive correlations between the amount of time spent in the screen-free section during lecture and scores on the mid-term exam and the final, with students sitting in the screen-free zone during lectures scoring higher on both exams. Students who began and remained in the no-screen section  -- a  “never screen” group, performed best on the final exam. Additionally, students who began to use their screens less midway through the course saw, on average, a 4% increase from their midterm scores to their final exam scores.  

There were also positive implications for instructor evaluations. While 60 percent of students completed the evaluations, no student mentioned the screen policy, and the mean score of the instructor evaluations was similar to those before the screen policy was enacted. 

These results suggest that placing screen and screen-free zones side by side can support student learning more than a course with no screen restrictions, and students are generally as satisfied with side-by-side zones as with no screen restrictions.

“ It did matter where students were in the room, there is a stigma that comes from being placed in the back of the classroom,” Vazquez said.  “In their evaluations of the professor –  they show us that it is not just about providing students with autonomy, but being cognizant of the cultural factors in a college classroom that make students feel welcome. Creating a side-by-side arrangement was accepted by the students.  

“And Importantly, professors can use evidence like ours to try strategies for limiting the use of screens in classrooms, and to show students that there are benefits to leaving the computer aside, he added. 

The researchers also note that their findings have implications for distance learning, which have grown in importance during COVID 19. The results suggest that during remote instruction, students should only use their computer to watch and listen to lectures, without the distraction of visiting other websites, and that their exam performance will be better if they take notes by hand. 

The Impact of Screen-Free Zones in an Undergraduate Psychology Classroom: Assessing Exam Performance and Instructor Evaluations in Two Quasi-Experiments, was published in June 2021 in the Sage Publications Journal,  Society for the Teaching of Psychology.  The study is available with permissions at https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00986283211017443

Laura Rhinehart is an Assistant Researcher at UCLA. She earned her Ph.D. in Special Education in 2019 from the School of Education and Information Studies at  UCLA.

Salvador R. Vazquez is a Ph.D. candidate in Human Development & Psychology at the School of Education and Information Studies at UCLA where he currently serves at the Teaching Assistant Consultant for first time teaching assistants.

UCLA SEIS Graduate Students Laura Rhinehart and Salvador R. Vazquez join with UCLA Psychology Professor Patricia M. Greenfield in new study with implications for student performance and instructor evaluations.

New Study Looks at the Impact of Screen Free Zones in College Classrooms

Community Schools have long played a critical role in providing access to health services, child and after school care, recreation and other “wrap-around” services that position schools as an invaluable resource at the center of their communities. For some of these schools, the provision of these services is also part of a more comprehensive effort to improve student learning by linking these services with efforts to strengthen teaching and learning.

But at the UCLA Center for Community Schooling, community schools are seen as more, they are viewed as key to the transformation of public education. And to further that effort, the Center is launching  Community Schooling, a new  open access multi-media journal sharing case studies from community schools, teacher scholarship and student research, as well as policy information and commentary. 

“We believe that community schools represent a radical rethinking of who has knowledge, how young people learn, and how teachers teach,“ said  Karen Hunter Quartz, the director of the UCLA Center for Community Schooling  and the editor of the new publication. “We hope  our new journal will engage educators and policy makers in exploring these ideas and practices to support community schools as powerful sites of learning and social transformation.”  

The first issue, to be published October 29th, tells the story of the UCLA Community School, highlighting the school’s collective effort to create an innovative multilingual program, a sanctuary campus, and a college-going culture. The article includes a discussion guide to inspire other school practitioners to think and talk about their core beliefs and opportunities to strengthen their community-based vision for teaching and learning. 

A second article shares the voice of teachers who work in five Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) community schools. They reflect on the history of LAUSD’s efforts to support community schooling and share their community-based teaching practices. Their work and words offer ideas and examples community school advocates and policymakers would do well to give close attention. 

And high school students share their community-based research in a podcast on what it means to return to school in a time of uncertainty, including interviews with students, parents, teachers and other staff members talking about how it feels to be back on campus after months of remote teaching and learning and what it means to be part of a supportive and caring community. 

The new journal is also cross-posting an important new policy brief from the Learning Policy Institute and Opportunity Institute on California’s historic $3B investment in community schools. 

And it is important to note, the wonderful cover art for the first issue is by Lissbeth Martinez, a high school student at the UCLA Community School.

This winter, the next issue will feature the Mann UCLA Community School.  

“Our intent is that this new multimedia  journal will serve as a critical source of public scholarship for strengthening the practices of community schools in ways that transform teaching and learning and meet the needs of student and their families, said Marisa Saunders, associate director of the UCLA Center for Community Schooling and co-editor of the new journal. “We hope it will inform and empower the collective struggle for democracy, justice and public education.”

Open access journal will provide public scholarship on community schools.

UCLA Center on Community Schooling To Launch New Multi-Media Journal

The Campus Color Line: College Presidents and the Struggle for Black Freedom, by Eddie R. Cole, an associate professor of higher education and organizational change at the UCLA School of Education and Information Studies has been named the winner of the Frederic W. Ness Book Award by The Association of American Colleges and Universities. The Ness award is given annually to the book that best illuminates the goals and practices of contemporary liberal education.  

Based on archival research conducted at a range of colleges and universities across the United States, The Campus Color Line shines a bright light on the important role of college presidents in the struggle for racial parity and how the legacy of the actions of academic leaders’  continues to influence the unfinished struggle for Black freedom and racial equity in education and beyond.

“The racial challenges faced by colleges and universities today are not new. These are old issues that have been significantly influenced and shaped by past academic leaders’ decisions,” Cole said. “There are lessons to be learned from looking at the long history of racial policies and practices. As a scholar of higher education history, it is especially meaningful to be recognized by one of the most influential national higher education associations of the last century because AAC&U has been at the forefront of advancing many of the very topics explored in The Campus Color Line.”

This year’s Ness award winner was selected by a committee of higher education leaders, including Kathleen Woodward (committee chair), Lockwood Professor in the Humanities, professor of English, and director of the Simpson Center for the Humanities at the University of Washington; Brooke Barnett, interim provost and vice president for academic affairs at Butler University; Eduardo Ochoa, president of California State University, Monterey Bay; and Lynn Pasquerella, president of AAC&U. The award will be formally presented to Professor Cole, at AAC&U’s annual meeting, on January 20, 2022, in Washington, DC.

Eddie R. Cole, Ph.D., is associate professor of higher education and organizational change at UCLA, and the author of The Campus Color Line: College Presidents and the Struggle for Black Freedom (Princeton University Press, 2020).

Dr. Cole’s research focuses on college presidents’ historic role in shaping racial policies and practices both inside and outside of the educational sphere. As a scholar of higher education history, his approach in covering historical material and making connections to the current, critical context has garnered respect and praise from academics as well as intellectuals and activists beyond the academy. His finesse in using extensive, historical materials to address contemporary racial issues in higher education demonstrates the role of higher education in influencing all aspects of American life. Dr. Cole’s scholarship and public writing has also been featured in The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and Chronicle of Higher Education. He has also appeared on BBC World News and C-Span BookTV.

"The Campus Color Line" Named winner of Frederick M. Ness Book Award

The UCLA School of Education and Information Studies has been gifted a vintage open-reel videotape machine by Corday Productions, a Burbank production company best-known for producing NBC’s longest running drama series, “Days of our Lives,” since 1965. The equipment will be used in the Center for Preservation of Audiovisual Heritage, which is housed in the UCLA Department of Information Studies.

“Our commitment to education runs deep at Corday Productions, and we are honored to present this piece of television history to UCLA’s Center for Preservation of Audiovisual Heritage,” said Ken Corday, executive producer. “We hope that in-person access to the vintage open-reel videotape machine provides tangible, hands-on learning for students for years to come.” 

“It was a privilege to help to coordinate this donation to UCLA,” said Maya Frangié, ('10, B.A., Philosophy/Global Studies), director of Communications and Strategic Initiatives at Corday Productions. “As a proud Bruin, I’m delighted to know that a piece of our show’s history will play a vital role in keeping critical media archives accessible to future generations of students.”

Shawn VanCour, UCLA assistant professor of information studies and director of the Center for Preservation of Audiovisual Heritage, says that the Corday gift will help to train students in the department’s Master of Library and Information Science program with the skills needed to preserve historical video content.

“Working machines like this - especially one with such an interesting history - are extremely rare and expensive,” says VanCour. “Before video cassettes were manufactured, video tape was made on open reels that would be put on large, floor-standing playback units that looked a bit like giant reel-to-reel audio decks or old tape-based mainframe computers.

“This deck was used up until the early 2000s to retrieve content from the show's earliest episodes for flashback sequences, but since then they've digitized all of that material and have no further need for this old playback machine. They were looking for a good home for it, and students in our media archival studies program will benefit greatly from this gift.”

The open-reel deck is the latest installment in the Center for Preservation of Audiovisual Heritage, a teaching space housed in the Information Studies Lab equipped with a full suite of professional film, video, and audio preservation equipment. 

“Our MLIS program at UCLA is one of only two American Library Association-accredited programs in the United States that offers a specialization in media archiving, and we have one of the few university teaching spaces with the equipment needed to train students in preserving these kinds of historical film and video materials,” notes Professor VanCour. “Commercial studios like Corday have shown a strong interest in what we're doing, since the skills we're teaching our students are highly specialized and in growing demand in the entertainment industries.”

In addition to careers in commercial industries, VanCour says that UCLA’s program maintains a strong community service commitment, and many of its graduates work closely with or for smaller community-based archives. As part of their training in the IS Department’s new preservation space, students will use equipment such as Corday’s video deck to help local organizations digitize content on obsolete media formats that would be otherwise inaccessible to their users. 

“Through generous gifts like Corday’s we are training students in the skills needed to ensure our historical media content remains accessible to future generations, to the benefit of our local community and commercial content creators alike, says Professor VanCour. "It’s a win-win, and we couldn’t be happier to have this machine at our facility on the UCLA campus.” 

Above: A vintage one-inch open reel videotape machine (grey unit at far right) was gifted to the UCLA Center for Preservation of Audiovisual Heritage by Corday Productions. The Burbank-based studio has produced “Days of Our Lives,” the longest running daytime drama on NBC, since 1965.

UCLA's Center for Preservation of Audiovisual Heritage offers students the skills needed to enter the preservation field.

UCLA IS: Corday Productions' Gift of Vintage Video Equipment to Enhance Hands-On Learning

Amid a rise in hostile threats and anti-democratic actions that have interfered with classroom instruction and disrupted school board meetings, a new journal article by researchers at UCLA and UC Riverside highlights the capacity of schools to pursue the democratic purpose of education, yet also cautions that hyper-partisanship and harsh rhetoric pose an increasing threat to civic learning and democracy.

The article, “Do Politics in Our Democracy Prevent Schooling for Our Democracy? Civic Education in Highly Partisan Times,” by Joseph Kahne of UC Riverside and John Rogers and Alexander Kwako of UCLA, was published today in the journal, Democracy and Education.

Drawing on a nationally representative survey of U.S. public high school principals conducted in summer of 2018, the research finds that a high school’s overall support for a mainstream vision of civic education was not related to the partisan leaning of its community. However, high schools in liberal communities were more likely than those in conservative communities to provide support for a critical element of civic education - the discussion of controversial issues.

“In some ways, we are encouraged by the ability of schools to pursue civic learning across deeply blue and deeply red communities.  Partisanship does not prevent education for democracy,” said Rogers, a professor of education at UCLA and the director of the UCLA Institute for Democracy, Education and Access.  “But our research also finds limitations in conservative communities in the discussion of controversial ideas and subjects, a core building block of democratic societies.” 

The study’s authors also worry that amid the heightened intensity of political rhetoric and rising incidents of anti-democratic actions toward schools and school districts in recent months, the threat to democracy may be increasing.

“Education for Democracy is playing out in a rapidly changing and troubling political environment. The events of January 6, 2021, and more recent pitched battles at school board meetings and state capitals have made clear the threat to democracy and civic learning has grown,” said Kahne, the Ted and Jo Dutton Presidential Professor for Education Policy and Politics and Co-Director of the Civic Engagement Research Group at UC Riverside.

“Such hyper-partisanship can lessen support for democratic norms and erode the commitment to educate for democracy. It would hardly be surprising if the widespread contention we are seeing was not making many teachers, principals and school leaders hesitant to engage with varied civic and political content.”

The article underscores the importance of an educational response to the erosion of democracy.  Systemic school district commitment to civic learning and districtwide responses that support civically engaged principals and provide professional development in support of  the non-partisan exploration of controversial issues can be powerful ways to promote democratic aims.

“The findings from our current study suggest that school and district leaders should stand-up for democracy and work to promote the democratic aims of education,” concludes Kahne.  “Our research shows that schools in districts committed to civics, priorities were more than twice as likely to report that teachers got professional development related to the upcoming election.  Such efforts to expand district-wide approaches may indeed be quite valuable.”

In publishing the research, Kahne, Rogers, and Kwako write that public schools have long played a role as “the guardians of democracy.”  They are hopeful that public schools can be a critical asset for democratic sustenance and renewal. Yet, given the events of the current political moment, they note that the future of democratic education and the fate of our democracy are inextricably linked and at risk. 

“We should not take these developments lightly,” they conclude.  “As political scientist’s Steven Levitisky and Daniel Ziblatt have written, the erosion of democratic institutions and democratic norms and commitments is ‘how democracies die.’”

Do Politics in Our Democracy Prevent Schooling for Our Democracy? Civic Education in Highly Partisan Times,” was researched and written by Joseph Kahne, the Ted and Jo Dutton Presidential Professor for Education Policy and Politics and Co-Director of the Civic Engagement Research Group at UC Riverside; John Rogers, Professor of Education and the Director of the Institute for Democracy, Education and Access at UCLA; and Alexander Kwako, a graduate student at UCLA. The analysis is drawn from a national online survey of public high school principals conducted in summer 2018.  The full research article is available online here.

Do Politics in Our Democracy Prevent Schooling for Our Democracy? Civic Education in Highly Partisan Times

Published in the Journal, Democracy and Education, October 15, 2021

Joseph Kahne, UC Riverside, John Rogers, UCLA & Alexander J. Kwako, UCLA

At a time of heated political rhetoric and anti-democratic threats against schools, this study by researchers at UCLA and UC Riverside draws on a nationally representative survey of public high school principals conducted in summer 2018 to examine how political context, district priorities, and principal beliefs and characteristics are related to support for civic education.  The findings reveal reason for both hope and concern. The study finds that a school’s partisan context is unrelated to most supports for democratic education. However, support for the discussion of controversial issues is less common in conservative districts -- raising important questions about a core building block of democratic societies. The study also finds support for civic education at the school level is highest at schools led by principals who are civically active and in districts that are committed to democratic aims. These findings indicate that systemic district commitments can prompt schools to fulfill their historic role and help to strengthen our democratic foundations. At the same time, given the heightened intensity of political rhetoric and rising incidents of anti-democratic actions towards schools and school boards in recent months, promoting district commitments to civic education will be more difficult now then in 2018. For that reason, such efforts will be all the more important.

The study focuses attention on the degree to which high schools support educators to provide seven mainstream and research backed civic education practices:  1) Instruction in Social Science and History; 2) Discussion of Controversial Issues; 3) Service learning; 4) Government simulations; 5) Engagement in school governance; 6) Leadership activities; and 7) Study of Elections. 

It considers whether and to what extent the provision of supports for these civic education practices is related to:  a) The partisan leaning of the school’s community (determined by the presidential vote in 2016); b) The school district’s stated commitment to civic education; c) The high school principal’s personal civic engagement.

Partisan Leaning and Supports for Civic Education

The partisan leaning of a high school's community is unrelated to the degree to which the school provides support for six of the seven mainstream civic education practices: 1) Instruction in Social Science and History; 2) Service learning; 3) Government simulations; 4) Engagement in school governance; 5) Leadership activities; and 6) Study of Elections.  Partisanship does not prevent educating for democracy.

Of concern, high schools in liberal communities were more likely than those in conservative communities to provide support for one part of the mainstream vision of civic education: discussions of controversial issues. For example, with all controls and independent variables included, a school located in a community where Trump received one-quarter of the vote would, on average, be 19.2% more likely to provide support for controversial issue discussion than one in which Trump received three-quarters of the vote.

Findings from the study suggest institutional efforts by school districts to attend to civic priorities can meaningfully advance efforts to promote the democratic aims of education. Expanding district-wide approaches may be quite valuable.

High schools in districts committed to civic priorities provided significantly more support for a mainstream vision of civic education than other districts. This relationship was large and consistent. Schools in districts committed to civic priorities provided professional development support for an average of 4.21 out of the seven practices compared to 3.00 in districts that were not committed to civics

District commitment to civic education was also positively related to the provision of each individual form of civic education and the relationship was statistically significant for five of the seven practices. For example, schools in districts committed to civics were more than twice as likely to provide professional development tied to the election than schools in districts that were not committed to civics (39.7% compared to 18.5%).

High schools led by principals who were more civically engaged (those who regularly follow the news, talk with friends and family about social issues, and participate in civic organizations) provided more supports for civic education.  Specifically, principals who were one standard deviation more civically engaged than other principals were 14.5% more likely to offer one additional professional development opportunity to teachers.

View recording of "Do Politics in our Democracy, Prevent Schooling for Democracy?" Webinar

In tense political times for public schools, new study by researchers at UCLA and UC Riverside raises concerns for civic learning and democracy.

Do Politics in Our Democracy Prevent Schooling for Our Democracy?

A POLICY ANALYSIS FOR CALIFORNIA EDUCATION REPORT 

Many school systems were already dealing with the deep inequalities already present in their ranks when schools were forced to close in March 2020. The lack of in-person learning and now a new teaching model adversely affected an even larger group of students who were unable to fully engage in learning opportunities. As such, there has been a significant increase of absenteeism across all grades K–12. Using data from the CORE Districts in California, Professors Lucrecia Santibañez and Cassandra Guarino have researched the impact of increased absenteeism during the pandemic by analyzing how it has affected student outcomes in the recent past. Their study reveals that just a few weeks of missing school can result in lower test scores, particularly in math, have greater negative effects on middle school students, and can have detrimental effects on social emotional development, which affects future student success.  

In March 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic forced schools around the nation to close physical campus es and shift to distance learning, existing inequalities were made starkly evident: low-poverty schools and students were able to engage in online participation quickly, while students of color in high-poverty schools and English learners (ELs) lagged behind. A report by the Los Angeles Unified School District that tracked the online engagement of secondary school students between March 16 and May 22, 2020, found that participation increased over time but never reached 100 percent. It was lower for students in particular subgroups such as low-income students, ELs, students with disabilities (SWDs), and homeless and foster youth (HL/FST). 

Given the considerable disruption and the deep inequalities already present in our nation’s school systems, districts are asking how much learning and social-emotional development has been lost due to the COVID-19 pan demic? In order to understand the impact of absenteeism on different student subgroups we analyzed data on K–12 students in the CORE Districts—a nonprofit collaborative of California school districts focused on data-driven school improvement—in California from school years 2014–15 to 2017–18 to understand (a) average patterns of absenteeism for all students and by subgroup as well as (b) the impact of being away from school on test scores and social-emotional learning (SEL). Results from this analysis suggest what the effects of COVID-19 could be on student outcomes.  

ABSENTEEISM RATES DURING THE SCHOOL YEAR ARE GENERALLY LOW 

In a typical school year, the average number of absences for students in K–12 is 7.4 days. Absences vary by grade: elementary and middle school students spend about 7 days away from school in a regular school year, middle school and high school students are absent 6 and 9 days on average respectively. Absences are highest for Grades 10 through 12, with twelfth graders missing an average of 10.8 days. In a typical year, approximately 14 percent of students are absent 0 days, 65 percent are absent 1 to 10 days, 13 percent are absent 11 to 18 days, and 8 percent are absent 18 days or more—the level at which absenteeism is considered chronic. Persistent absence is more prevalent in grades 9–12 than in the earlier grades. About 7 per cent of students are absent from school 30 days or more in any given year, indicating that most chronically absent students are not in school for periods much longer than 18 days. 

Furthermore, when viewed in terms of race and ethnicity, Black students have the most absences of any group.  (Latinx students report high average absence rates in high school, but are one of the groups with the lowest average absenteeism rate in elementary and middle school. Asian American and Pacific Islander American students report the lowest number of absences of all racial and ethnic groups, across all grades.

ABOUT 7% OF STUDENTS ARE ABSENT FROM SCHOOL  30 days OR MORE IN ANY GIVEN YEAR INDICATING THAT THE MOST CHRONICALLY ABSENT STUDENTS ARE NOT IN SCHOOL FOR PERIODS MUCH LONGER THAN 18 DAYS.

ABSENCES NEGATIVELY IMPACT TEST SCORES 

One of the key findings in analyzing the data has been the impact of absentee ism on test scores. While there are some unobserved factors that can affect both absenteeism and student outcomes, we account for these that are specific to students and are persistent over time, by using a student fixed effect model that essentially isolates the effect of absences on outcomes for each individual student. The findings (our analyses are using Smarter Balanced Assessments, from Grades 3–8 and exclude Grade 11 because of data limitations) suggest absences have a clear negative effect on test scores. As absences increase, test scores decrease, and they do so more rapidly for mathematics than for ELA. 

Absences also affect test scores differently depending on the school level.  In middle school, the data has shown that the grade lines have a steeper downward trend indicating that academic loss due to extended absences is felt more heavily by these students. In both elementary and middle school, the decline in test scores due to prolonged absenteeism is steeper in mathematics than ELA. 

ABSENCES AFFECT TEST SCORES OF SOME STUDENT SUBGROUPS MORE THAN OTHERS 

When it comes to vulnerable students, absences have hurt their academic achievement more than they do other students. Predicted effects for students classified as FRPL (free or reduced-price lunch), EL, SWD, and HL/FST show that the negative effects of absenteeism are substantial for all students. Yet they are the most pronounced for students classified as FRPL, SWD, and HL/FST. For comparison, we include a category of “non-vulnerable” students (NONVUL)— that is, students who are not in one of those groups. These findings are concerning, given that in our data sample, 77 percent of the student population is classified as FRPL, 13 percent as SWD, and 4 percent as HL/FST. ELs (18 percent of sample students) are an exception, as they are less affected even than non-vulnerable students (19 percent). It should be noted that this group includes students who are considered long-term ELs, newcomer ELs, and ELs at various stages of English language development. More research is needed on variation within this subgroup to better understand these effects. 

Highlighted quote: “Their study reveals that just a few weeks of missing school can result in lower test scores, particularly in math, have greater negative effects on middle school students, and can have detrimental effects on social emotional development, which affects future student success.”

ABSENCES HURT SOCIAL-EMOTIONAL OUTCOMES 

When SEL outcomes improve, so do test scores and behavioral outcomes.  Our study shows the effects of absenteeism on SEL outcomes using similar methods, but instead of ELA and mathematics test scores as outcome measures, we use SEL scale scores, standardized by year, for four different constructs: growth mindset (GM), social awareness (SA), self-efficacy (SE), and self-management (SM). SEL scores are based on self-reported surveys of students in Grades 4 through 12, and all of those grades are included in the analysis. Predicted effects on SEL constructs of absence at various levels show that as absences grow the expected (predict ed) SEL outcomes decrease. Absences, then, harm all four SEL constructs, with slight variations across them. After an initial slide, most constructs flatten out after 40 days. However, for SA the decline is more or less linear, indicating a steeper rate of loss as absenteeism accumulates. Absences hurt SEL development for all student subgroups and harm SA and SE more or less equally across subgroups. They also harm non-vulnerable students more than others in SM, and non-vulnerable students and SWDs slightly more than others in GM. 

There are also differences in the impact of absences on SEL by grade level. While all constructs are negatively affected by absenteeism, middle school is the level at which extended absence from school has the strongest negative impact on social-emotional development, with SE and SA having the steepest slopes. At the elementary level, the most affected constructs are SE and SM.  At the high school level, the most affect ed construct is SA. Generally speaking, elementary and middle school are the levels during which extended absence from school has the strongest negative impact on social-emotional development. This is important because recent work using Project CORE data suggests that when social-emotional learning outcomes improve, so do test scores and behavioral outcomes—this is true across student subgroups and regardless of the baseline level of social emotional learning. 

IN CALIFORNIA, where average absenteeism is around 7 days during the regular school year, if students missed more than a few weeks of cumulative instruction during the pandemic, their test scores and SEL outcomes are likely to be badly affected. With school closures and remote-only instruction continuing through the 2020–21 school year it is not yet clear whether adaptations to online learning as a result of the experience of last spring will yield significantly greater engagement with instruction. These negative impacts are likely to hit students particularly hard in middle school and in mathematics. For SEL, the negative impact on elementary and middle schoolers of extended absences is significant. Indeed, students in certain subgroups, such as low-income students and SWDs, are likely to be the most affected. This study adds to the growing evidence on the potentially negative impact of COVID-19 on student development and the pandemic’s possible differential impacts by student subgroups and grade-level. Although COVID-19 presents unique circumstances, the evidence based on past experience suggests that many students will need in tense academic and social-emotional support to make up for lost time. 

Lucrecia Santibañez is an associate professor at UCLA’s School of Education and Information Studies who focuses on policies to improve teaching and learning for low-income students, English learners, and other vulnerable populations. Her research has been funded by the Institute of Education Sciences, the National Science Foundation, and the William T. Grant Foundation.  

Cassandra Guarino is a professor at UC Riverside’s Graduate School of Education. Her research focuses on teacher and school effectiveness, mobility effects, gender and education, and special needs students. Her research has been funded by the Institute of Education Sciences, the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, and numerous state agencies and foundations. 

A study that adds to the growing evidence on the potentially negative impact the pandemic has had on student development across many different subgroups.

The Effects of Absenteeism on Academic and Social-Emotional Outcomes: Lessons for COVID-19

Throughout his career, the work of UCLA Professor of Information Studies Ramesh Srinivasan has critiqued and proposed alternatives to a status quo where technology corporations hold unlimited reach into both the public and private lives of their billions of users worldwide, including Amazon, Facebook, and Google.

Now, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, Srinivasan has called to attention the deluge of disinformation on the internet, with its conspiracy theories, alternative wellness methods, and other content that has the potential to mislead, confuse, and ultimately, endanger users. 

Professor Srinivasan is also a faculty member of UCLA’s Design Media Arts department and the founder and director of the Digital Cultures Lab at UCLA. He has studied the relationships between new (Internet, social media, and AI) technologies and political, economic, and social life in more than 70 countries, and has worked with governments, businesses, activists, and civil society organizations to advise on technological futures. His books include “Beyond the Valley: How Innovators around the World are Overcoming Inequality and Creating the Technologies of Tomorrow,” (MIT Press, 2019), which was named by Forbes as a Top Ten Tech Book in 2019. Other publications include, “Whose Global Village? Rethinking How Technology Impacts Our World” (NYU Press), and “After the Internet” (with Adam Fish), published by Polity Press.

Srinivasan is a regular speaker for TED Talks, and has made routine media appearances on MSNBC, NPR, Al Jazeera, Democracy Now!, CBS, The Young Turks, AtlanticLive, and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, BC. He has contributed op-eds and had his research featured in international publications including the Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, Wired,  The New York Times, Al Jazeera English, The Washington Post, FAZ (Germany), The Financial Times, CNN, Folda Sao Paolo (Brazil), BBC News, the Christian Science Monitor, National Geographic, Quartz, and The Economist.

Srinivasan has worked with governments, businesses, activists, and civil society organizations to advise on technological futures, and served as a national surrogate for Senator Bernie Sanders’ 2020 presidential campaign and as an Innovation policy committee member for President Biden. 

Professor Srinivasan was recently featured in a CBS Originals documentary on this digital pandemic of disinformation, “Conspirituality: How Wellness Became a Gateway for Misinformation.” The Latest had a recent conversation with Srinivasan on the dangers of algorithms and the internet’s ability to show users worldwide, “nightmares we have yet to have.”

How was the pandemic affected by the questioning of science?

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