Berkeley Review of Education

Introduction to Volume 7, Issue 1.

Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs) emerged in response to a history of racial inequity and social injustice due to racial and ethnic minorities’ lack of access to Predominately White Institutions (PWIs). Enrolling 20% of the nation’s college students, MSIs are an integral part of U.S. higher education. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the contributions that MSIs are making to postsecondary education, specifically contributions related to performance with men of color; teacher education; science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education; and outcomes measures within two-year MSIs. We use descriptive statistics from the National Center for Educational Statistics and the National Science Foundation to call for deep consideration of the unique mission MSIs serve, especially with regard to educating low-income students of color within the universe of outcomes and performance-based evaluation. We conclude with recommendations and implications for policy.

For the last century, the quality of large-scale assessment in the United States has been undermined by narrow educational theory and hindered by limitations in technology. As a result, poor assessment practices have encouraged low-level instructional practices that disparately affect students from the most disadvantaged communities and schools. In this historical and theoretical review, we examine the misalignment between educational theory and large-scale assessment practices that rely upon technology, using writing assessment as a case in point. Drawing upon sociocultural theory and critical software studies as conceptual frameworks, we find that today’s software-powered technologies, although capable of taking progressive educational ideals to scale, have not been used for these purposes. Our proposed solution is to shift from using technologies to assess predetermined samples of evidence of learning to using technologies to facilitate complex and negotiated models of assessment. This solution would require policy shifts that honor the needs of various stakeholders in the assessment process. We offer a power-sharing concept called negotiated control that engages policymakers, educators, researchers, and community members inthe assessment process.

This article examines an education policy matter that involves homophobic speech in public schools. Using legal research methods, two federal circuit court opinions that have examined the tension surrounding anti-LGBTQ student expression are analyzed. This legal analysis provides non-lawyers some insight into the current realities of student speech jurisprudence in public schools and offers school leaders guidance about how they might address speech that denigrates other students. It also proposes how courts might reconsider analyzing homophobic expression in public schools under existing precedent.

In 2014, the BRE Editorial Board felt compelled to step outside the structures of traditional academic publishing and provide a space for a wide array of voices—within and beyond academia—to engage in an open and dynamic dialogue. We issued our first Call for Conversations (CFC) to solicit written and multimedia pieces on the intersection between the Black Lives Matter movement and public education. Following the 2016 Presidential Election, we revived the CFC in order to provide an intellectual space for individuals to reflect upon and make sense of what the election of Donald Trump would mean for public education in the United States. Again, we were compelled to facilitate a dialogue among individuals from a range of perspectives in order to build community and democratize knowledge. At a time of deep political, cultural, economic, and racial division in our country, we invited the broader education community to exchange ideas and reflections about how we got to this moment and where we go from here. We asked: What does the election of Donald Trump tell us about society in general and education specifically? What can we do in our roles and with our skills to teach, learn, protest, resist, and understand education in the era of Trump?

Essay by Erin Dyke, Sarah Gordon, and Jennifer Job as part of Call for Conversations: Education in the Era of Trump.

Essay by Adam Freas and Jesus Limon-Guzman as part of Call for Conversations: Education in the Era of Trump.

Poem by Cheryl Burleigh as part of Call for Conversations: Education in the Era of Trump.

Essay by Adam Rosenzweig as part of Call for Conversations: Education in the Era of Trump.

Essay by Leela Velautham as part of Call for Conversations: Education in the Era of Trump.

Poem by Eleni Eftychiou as part of Call for Conversations: Education in the Era of Trump.

Essay by Curry Malott as part of Call for Conversations: Education in the Era of Trump.

Essay by Michael Thier as part of Call for Conversations: Education in the Era of Trump.

The following is a transcript of an interview between the Dean of the University of California Berkeley’s Graduate School of Education, Prudence Carter, and UC Berkeley’s outgoing Vice Chancellor for Equity and Inclusion, Na’ilah Suad Nasir, recorded at the 2017 Graduate School of Education Research Day.