Journal Articles by Rachel Garver
Journal of Educational Controversy, 2020
In November 2012, the Board of Education of Howard County, Maryland, approved a proclamation that... more In November 2012, the Board of Education of Howard County, Maryland, approved a proclamation that expressed "profound regret that the Howard County Public School System maintained segregated and unequal public schools both prior, and subsequent to" Brown v. Board of Education. The proclamation describes Howard County's slow response to comply with the 1954 decision, such that the school system was not officially desegregated until eleven years later in 1965. Through the analysis of stakeholder interviews and board meetings, we explore the various ways and the extent to which the Board of Howard County's apology was bestowed with meaning. We argue that the apology was utilized as a narrative device to define the role of the Board, delineate the injustice committed, establish (dis)continuity between past and present injustices, and work out who has been wronged. Stakeholders used de jure segregation as a lens to understand contemporary de facto segregation and reflected on its continuing harm to current members of the community. We conclude by discussing the potential of public apologies as forms of governance that mold responsible and responsive public officials.
Redefining Supervision: A Joint Inquiry Into Preparing School-Based Leaders to Supervise for Equity
Journal of Research on Leadership Education, 2019
This article documents two professors’ inquiry into a lesson on supervising for equity in a super... more This article documents two professors’ inquiry into a lesson on supervising for equity in a supervisor preparation course. Through an iterative process of lesson design, lesson implementation, analysis of student work, and pedagogical discussion, we refine the lesson. Our study sheds light on the potential challenges of preparing supervisors to promote equity, offers pedagogical insights to leadership programs invested in instilling a commitment to social justice, and reflects the promise of collaborative faculty inquiry for curriculum development. The study contains implications for educational leadership faculty and program coordinators as well as facilitators of professional development for school leaders.
Evaluative Relationships: Teacher Accountability and Professional Culture
Journal of Education Policy, 2019
Research on recently adopted methods for teacher evaluation are largely focused on issues of vali... more Research on recently adopted methods for teacher evaluation are largely focused on issues of validity and pay less attention to the consequences of implementation for the everyday practices of teaching and learning in schools. This paper draws on an ethnographic case-study to argue that the joint tasks demanded by neoliberal teacher evaluation policies structure interactions among teachers and between teachers and administrators in ways that erode professional culture. Implications for policymakers, school leaders, and teachers are considered.
Orienting Schools Toward Equity: Subgroup Accountability Pressure and School-Level Responses
Supported and Unsafe: The Impact of Educational Structures for Immigrant Students on School Safety
Book Chapters by Rachel Garver
Segregation in Segregated Schools
The Black-White Achievement Gap in Highly Selective Independent High Schools: Towards a Model Explaining Emergent Racial Differences
Book Reviews by Rachel Garver
Lockdown High: When the Schoolhouse Becomes a Jailhouse by Annette Fuentes
Homeroom Security: School Discipline in an Age of Fear By Aaron Kupchik
Social Forces, 2012
Blog Entries by Rachel Garver
Research from The Educational Forum: Orienting Schools Toward Equity
Papers by Rachel Garver
Circles and School Resource Officers: School Police Adopt the Discourse of Restorative Justice (Poster 21)
AERA 2022
Proceedings of the 2019 AERA Annual Meeting
Education Policy Analysis Archives
Efforts to measure teacher effectiveness have intensified across the globe over the last two deca... more Efforts to measure teacher effectiveness have intensified across the globe over the last two decades. In the United States, educational reforms that attempt to further educational equity have concentrated on aspects of schooling, such as teacher quality, that are more easily manipulated and monitored than powerful out-of-school factors, such as economic and racial segregation. Teachers in high-poverty, racially segregated schools are subject to strengthened accountability policies that seek to precisely evaluate teachers as they face student needs that research shows are difficult to address fully within the classroom. How does this disconnect between causes and remedies shape equity work in high-poverty, segregated schools? I examine how the administration at a public middle school in the United States held teachers independently responsible for the comparative performance of each student subgroup. This project of “personalizing the gaps” involved developing a theory of action that...
For Some and for All: Subgroup Entitlement Policies and Daily Opportunity Provision in Segregated Schools
American Educational Research Journal, 2022
Educators in economically and racially segregated schools enact subgroup entitlement policies, su... more Educators in economically and racially segregated schools enact subgroup entitlement policies, such as Title III and IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act), as they negotiate the diverse and underserved needs throughout the student body. How do subgroup entitlement policies for English learners and students with disabilities shape daily opportunity provision—the day-to-day distribution of resources—in segregated schools? This ethnographic study of a public middle school reveals that the implementation of subgroup entitlement policies shaped the opportunity structure for all students through (1) creating tracks that offered distinct conditions for learning, (2) fragmenting the organizational structure and inhibiting coordination, (3) exposing the school to increased compliance pressure that hierarchized priorities, and (4) utilizing subgroup-specific resources for general education students.
The Educational Forum, 2017
This article examines school-level responses to subgroup accountability pressure through an ethno... more This article examines school-level responses to subgroup accountability pressure through an ethnographic case study of a school cited for failing to make adequate yearly progress for student subgroups. Concerns about the calculations and measures used to derive the citation and reservations about acting on accountability data delegitimized the citation and rendered the identified subgroups irrelevant to daily practice. Under district guidance, compliance with subgroup accountability was independent of the school's internal efforts to promote equity.
Redefining Supervision: A Joint Inquiry Into Preparing School-Based Leaders to Supervise for Equity
Journal of Research on Leadership Education, 2019
This article documents two professors’ inquiry into a lesson on supervising for equity in a super... more This article documents two professors’ inquiry into a lesson on supervising for equity in a supervisor preparation course. Through an iterative process of lesson design, lesson implementation, analysis of student work, and pedagogical discussion, we refine the lesson. Our study sheds light on the potential challenges of preparing supervisors to promote equity, offers pedagogical insights to leadership programs invested in instilling a commitment to social justice, and reflects the promise of collaborative faculty inquiry for curriculum development. The study contains implications for educational leadership faculty and program coordinators as well as facilitators of professional development for school leaders.
Segregation and Integration in the Education of English Learners: Leadership and Policy Dilemmas
Leadership and Policy in Schools, 2020
ABSTRACT In this introduction, we establish why school leaders must be attentive to how the organ... more ABSTRACT In this introduction, we establish why school leaders must be attentive to how the organization of educational programs for English Learners impacts the degree to which they are segregated or integrated. We preview each article in the special issue and clarify the contributions that these pieces collectively make to research and practice. We argue that taken together the articles make the case that school leaders must balance separation and integration in a way that fosters equity of opportunity and affirms English Learners’ multilingual and multicultural identities.
How Harmful Is Segregation? English Learners’ Conditions For Learning In Segregated Classrooms
Leadership and Policy in Schools, 2020
ABSTRACT This ethnographic study compares the educational experiences of Bangla-speaking and Span... more ABSTRACT This ethnographic study compares the educational experiences of Bangla-speaking and Spanish-speaking English Learners (ELs) served by officially identical bilingual instructional models within one public middle school. Building on theories of policy implementation and a case within a case analysis, I ask: How do EL’s conditions for learning in segregated settings vary within schools? What varies the degree of harm or benefit entailed by linguistic segregation within schools? I argue that administrative choices related to program design and staffing, as well as the characteristics of the US-born population and the staff’s beliefs about culture, impacted Bangla- and Spanish-speaking ELs’ conditions for learning.
Pre-service School Leaders’ Sensemaking of Supervising for Equity
Journal of Education Human Resources, 2020
Given increasing diversity in the United States and enduring educational inequities, leadership p... more Given increasing diversity in the United States and enduring educational inequities, leadership preparation programs are increasingly called upon to prepare pre-service leaders (PSLs) for social ju...
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Journal Articles by Rachel Garver
Book Chapters by Rachel Garver
Book Reviews by Rachel Garver
Blog Entries by Rachel Garver
Papers by Rachel Garver