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The audacity to teach: creating access to rigor for African American and Latino high school students
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The audacity to teach: creating access to rigor for African American and Latino high school students
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Content
Running head: CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR
1
THE AUDACITY TO TEACH: CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR FOR AFRICAN
AMERICAN AND LATINO HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS
by
Marquisha Denise Flowers
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC ROSSIER SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF EDUCATION
May 2018
Copyright 2018 Marquisha Denise Flowers
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 2
DEDICATION
God,
Thank you for keeping me and protecting me
For loving me
For giving me courage
For giving me strength
For giving me insight and perspective
For giving me peace in the midst of chaos
For placing amazing people in my life
For helping me through the most challenging moments of my adult life
For showing me that no matter what life brings—
You are with me.
Mom,
Thank you for all the sacrifices you have made
For introducing God into my life at such an early age
For teaching me to always give my all
For believing in me no matter what
For encouraging me when I wanted to give up
For supporting my dreams—each and every one
For making a way when there was no way
For giving me so many opportunities
to explore the world.
You have given so much
Even though we had so little
You have taught me to have faith
No matter how challenging things are
You have taught me to never give up
No matter what others say
You have shown me how to believe—
All things are possible through God
You have reminded me—
God did not bring me this far to let me go now.
Mom
Thank you—
I love you.
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 3
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This journey has been a long one, but I am so grateful for everything I have experienced and the
people who have been there—I have grown so much.
Mom—thank you for giving me your all.
Dad—thank you for always being there.
My Family—thank you for allowing me to learn from your life experiences.
Christina Owens, Charlene Fisher, Jennifer Jones, Rebecca Kinney, June Wells-Davis, Shira
Smith, Latisha Jeffers, and Latrice Washington—thank you for the gift of friendship.
Dr. Crystal Adams, Dr. Airies Davis, Dr. Marcedes Butler, Dr. Rosalind Conerly, Dr. Brenda
Green, Dr. Khalisha Jefferson, and Dr. Bathsheba Brutus—my DofA sisters—thank you for your
kindness, support, and advice.
Dr. Sylvia Rousseau—my dissertation chair—thank you for sticking with me throughout this
journey. Thank you for not giving up on me and not allowing me to give up on myself. It has
been an amazing experience; I have learned so much from you. I am a better writer, teacher,
scholar, and leader because of your mentorship, guidance, and feedback.
Dr. Paula Carbone and Dr. John Pascarella—my dissertation committee—thank you for sharing
your knowledge and insight.
Ms. Simone Charles—thank you for supporting my professional growth and providing me with a
wealth of opportunities to lead.
My Dymally Family—thank you for your support and encouragement.
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 4
TABLE OF CONTENTS
DEDICATION ............................................................................................................................... 2
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ......................................................................................................... 3
LIST OF TABLES ........................................................................................................................ 6
ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................................... 7
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................... 8
Statement of the Problem ....................................................................................................... 16
Purpose of the Study ............................................................................................................... 17
Research Questions ................................................................................................................. 17
Theoretical Framework .......................................................................................................... 18
Significance of the Study ........................................................................................................ 19
Limitations and Delimitations ............................................................................................... 20
Definition of Terms ................................................................................................................. 21
CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW .......................................................................... 24
Shifting Lenses: Achievement Gap to Access Gap ............................................................... 25
Academic Rigor ....................................................................................................................... 29
Why Rigor Matters ............................................................................................................... 30
Barriers to Rigor ..................................................................................................................... 33
Segregation ........................................................................................................................... 34
Attempts at Desegregation .................................................................................................... 36
Resegregation ........................................................................................................................ 38
Barriers to Rigor: Education Policies and Standards Implementation .................................. 41
High-Quality Pedagogy and Curriculum Versus More Testing ........................................... 45
Standards Implementation .................................................................................................... 46
Increase in the Number of Courses ....................................................................................... 49
Implications of Policies, Standards, and Course-taking Shifts ............................................. 54
Barriers to Rigor: School-based Structural Characteristics .................................................. 55
Teacher Qualifications .......................................................................................................... 66
Structural Strategies for Creating Access to Rigor ............................................................. 71
Outcomes of Rigor ................................................................................................................ 73
CHAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGY ................................................................................. 76
Purpose of the Study ............................................................................................................... 76
Research Questions ................................................................................................................. 76
Rationale for Qualitative Research Methods Design ........................................................... 77
Sample and Population ........................................................................................................... 78
Instrumentation ....................................................................................................................... 81
Credibility and Trustworthiness ........................................................................................... 85
Ethical Considerations ............................................................................................................ 85
Data Analysis ........................................................................................................................... 86
CHAPTER FOUR: FINDINGS ................................................................................................. 87
Findings for Research Question 1 ......................................................................................... 89
Teachers’ Profiles and School Enrollment ........................................................................... 89
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 5
Teachers’ Definitions of Rigor and Strategies for Creating Access .................................... 91
Findings for Research Question 2 ....................................................................................... 119
Classroom Practices ............................................................................................................ 120
Ms. Kelley’s Classroom Practices ...................................................................................... 121
Mr. Wright’s Classroom Practices ...................................................................................... 126
Differences between Mr. Wright’s and Ms. Kelley’s classroom practices ......................... 133
School Practices .................................................................................................................. 134
Summary of Findings ........................................................................................................... 152
CHAPTER FIVE: FINDINGS, CONCLUSIONS, AND IMPLICATIONS ....................... 155
Summary of Findings ........................................................................................................... 156
Research Question 1 ........................................................................................................... 156
Research Question 2 ........................................................................................................... 158
Conclusions and Implications for Practice ......................................................................... 160
Recommendations ................................................................................................................. 162
Limitations and Delimitations ............................................................................................. 163
Conclusion ............................................................................................................................. 163
REFERENCES .......................................................................................................................... 165
Appendix A: Observation Protocol ......................................................................................... 181
Appendix B: Interview Protocol .............................................................................................. 183
Appendix C: Information Sheet .............................................................................................. 186
Appendix D: Superintendent-Letter to Request Permission ................................................ 188
Appendix E: Principal-Letter to Request Permission ........................................................... 190
Appendix F: Teacher-Letter to Request Permission ............................................................. 192
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 6
LIST OF TABLES
Table 1: Reading Achievement Data 9
Table 2: Research Questions 82
Table 3: Background about Teachers and Classes Taught at The Time of The Study 90
Table 4: Enrollment by Ethnicity 90
Table 5: 2016 SBAC Overall Achievement Results (11th Grade Year of Testing) 145
Table 6: Distinctions Between Pedagogical Strategies Among Teachers 158
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 7
ABSTRACT
Due to the persisting underperformance of African American and Latino students, this qualitative
study seeks to explore the classroom and pedagogical practices that create or limit African
American and Latino high school students’ access to academic rigor. This qualitative study also
seeks to discover the extent to which African American and Latino high school students have
access to academic rigor. The purpose of this study is to add to current research and explore the
potential effects of increasing African American and Latino high school students’ access to
academic rigor. The following research questions will direct the study: What are some
pedagogical strategies that secondary educators describe that create access to academic rigor for
African American and Latino students? In what ways do classroom practices in high schools
reflect institutionalized perceptions about African American and Latino students’ ability to
engage in rigorous learning opportunities? The researcher will employ Critical Race Theory to
frame the analysis of the data collected from classroom observations, sample assignments, and
interviews of high school English teachers who teach both AP and/or college preparatory
courses.
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 8
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
African American and Latino students, who are among the lowest performing populations
in America’s public schools, are provided varied degrees of access to learning opportunities.
More often, however, African American and Latino students are commonly provided limited
access to academically rigorous learning experiences. Rather than cognitively demanding
learning experiences, they participate in experiences that require little or no critical thinking
skills (Torff, 2008). Limiting students’ access to rigorous academic experiences has been linked
to adverse academic outcomes (Ladson-Billings, 2006; Wyatt et al., 2011). According to the
National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reports, while the trends in their academic
achievement have improved over the past 40 years, African American and Latino students
continue to perform at lower rates than their White and Asian peers (NCES, 2013). National
Assessment of Educational Progress reading achievement data reported for 17-year-olds indicate
that White-Black gaps decreased from 53 points in 1971 to 20 points in 1988. Following 1988,
NAEP data reported for 17-year-olds indicate a widening of the gap to 29 points in 1990, 37
points in 1992, but dropped to 30 points in 1994. The remaining indicants following the 7-point
decrease in the gap between 1992 and 1994 illustrate fluctuations of one to three points between
increases and decreases in the White-Black gap between 1994 and 2008 until the 7-point gap
decrease in 2012 (NCES, 2013). In spite of the fluctuations and narrowing of the gap to 26
points in 2012, the White-Black gap persists (NCES, 2013). Similar trends occur for the White-
Hispanic score gap. The National Assessment of Educational Progress reading achievement data
reported for 17-year-olds indicate that initial White-Hispanic gaps decreased from 41 points in
1975 to 31points in 1980, 27 points in 1984, and 22 points in 1990 (NCES, 2013). Following
1990 findings, NAEP data shows a widening in the gap to 26 points in 1992 and 33 points in
1994 (NCES, 2013). (See Table 1)
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 9
Table 1
Reading Achievement Data
Years Assessed White-Black Gap White-Hispanic Gap
1971 53 0
1975 52 41
1980 50 31
1984 32 27
1988 20 24
1990 29 22
1992 37 26
1994 30 33
1996 29 30
1999 31 24
2004 29 29
27 22
2008 29 26
2012 26 21
Source: National Center for Education Statistics
The remaining data show fluctuations between four- and six-point increases and
decreases in the White-Hispanic gap between 1996 and 2012 except the narrowing that occurred
during the transition to the new test in 2004 when both tests were administered and there was a
7-point reduction in the score gap between the two test administrations (NCES, 2013). The
NAEP achievement trends for Latino students also show the gaps persisting over three decades
in spite of some narrowing (NCES, 2013). Each of the aforementioned data sets reflects a
persisting academic performance gap between African American and/or Latino students and their
White and Asian peers. The persistence of these gaps suggests flaws in schooling for African
American and Latino students (Rothstein, 2013).
Other data sources also indicate differences in outcomes for African American and Latino
populations when compared to their Caucasian and Asian peers. The data from various sources
reflect lower academic achievement in the core courses such as English and mathematics and
lower scores on assessments such as NAEP and Advanced Placement (AP) exams (College
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 10
Board, 2014; Hallet & Venegas, 2011; Klopfenstein, 2003). The national data also indicate
lower secondary graduation rates, lower college admission rates and lower college graduation
rates than their White and Asian peers (Condition of Education [COE], 2015; NAEP, 2012;
NCES, 2014). Even beyond postsecondary schooling, the data suggest African American and
Latino families experience lower employment rates, lower salaries, as well as living in the most
impoverished communities in the nation (Denavas-Walt & Proctor, 2013). The unemployment
rate for African Americans as of March 2015 was 10.1% whereas the unemployment rates for
White and Asians were 4.7% and 5.4 %, respectively (United States Department of Labor
[USDOL], 2015). The data reflect that the unemployment rates were twice the rate of Whites
and almost twice the rate of Asians. The US Census (2013) shows that African Americans at
27.2%, Latinos at 23.5%, Asians at 10.5%, and Whites at 9.6% live below the poverty line
(Denavas-Walt & Proctor, 2013). Each of the variances in outcomes between African American
and Latino populations in comparison to their White and Asian peers suggests demarcations
along racial lines that implicate the disparities in the quality of and access to academic
experiences based on race (Brown-Jeffy, 2006).
Varied efforts have been made to increase rigor and improve the academic achievement
of African American and Latino students. Some policymakers, scholars and/or educators have
pursued improved outcomes for African American and Latino students through an examination
of factors such as students’ socioeconomic status or school racial composition (Brown-Jeffy,
2006). Other policymakers, scholars, and/or educators sought changes by creating new policies
(NCLB, 2002; Ladson-Billings, 2010), assessments (Balfanz, 2009), and standards (Lee &
Ready, 2009). Efforts have also included courses-taking mandates (Lee & Ready, 2009),
adoption of new curriculum (Balfanz, 2009), and school-based interventions (Allensworth,
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 11
2009). Although these reform efforts have led to some achievement gains, as measured by some
improvement in areas on some assessments, such as NAEP scores and graduation rates, overall,
these attempts at reducing the gaps in achievement have mainly produced short-term results
(Allensworth et al., 2009?). Despite the many approaches that have been applied to reducing the
gaps in educational outcomes (Ladson-Billings, 2010), African American and Latino populations
are still trailing behind their Caucasian and Asian peers in many measured categories (NCES
2012, 2014, 2015). The persistent gaps in African American and Latino students’ academic
achievement continue to reflect a much larger issue than these efforts have addressed (Carter &
Welner, 2013; Darling-Hammond, 2010; Ladson-Billings, 2006). Thus, these phenomena have
important social and educational implications, especially for African American and Latino
students.
Limited attention has been given to the roles the perceptions, systems, policies, and
school-based factors, including access to academic rigor, play in the academic outcomes of
African American and Latino students. The research available suggests that redirecting the focus
to the manner in which these perceptions, systems, policies, and school-based factors function in
creating or limiting access may also reveal effective ways to improve the academic achievement
of African American and Latino students (Carter & Welner, 2013; Ladson-Billings, 2006).
The inadequate attention to African American and Latino students’ academic experiences
potentially makes inconspicuous an alternative approach to addressing the underperformance of
African American and Latino students (Carey, 2014). The inadequate attention to African
American and Latino students’ academic experiences may be one of the reasons they have
limited or no access to rigorous learning experiences (Boykin & Noguera, 2011). Many African
American and Latino students’ access to academically rigorous pedagogy and curriculum differs
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 12
from the access their White and Asian peers have. Darling-Hammond (2012) indicates the
school experiences for many African American and Latino students are replete with poor quality
course taking pathways, layers of intervention and remedial courses. Commonly these school
experiences entail rote and low cognitive demand learning activities for African American and
Latino students (Darling-Hammond, 2004). The low-level instruction and curriculum are
problematic. According to Wyatt, Wiley, Camara, and Proestler (2011), the rigor of the
curriculum is significant to students’ positive academic performance in high school and college.
Wyatt et al. (2011) also indicate the rigorous academic experiences are even more significant for
African American and Latino students. They point out that African American and Latino
students who completed courses beyond Algebra II also had increased bachelor’s degree
completion rates of 27.5% and 18.5%, whereas White students who completed courses beyond
Algebra II had increased bachelor’s degree rates of 10.4% over their white peers overall (Wyatt
et al., 2011). This data suggest that rigorous academic experiences may be more significant for
African American and Latino students because they are more likely to graduate high school with
fewer rigorous academic experiences than their White and Asian peers.
Wyatt et al. (2011) developed the Academic Rigor Index (ARI), using a 25-point scale, as
a tool to measure the degree of rigor of one’s high school academic experiences. The ultimate
goal for employing ARI was to find a way to measure students’ academic readiness (Wyatt et al.,
2011). Based on Wyatt’s et al. (2011) findings in English Language Arts, higher students’ scores
on the rigor index was associated with their higher academic preparation (Wyatt et al., 2011).
For example, the mean score for students who received a score of two on the ARI scale were
HSGPA (2.89), SAT-CR (406), SAT-M (407), SAT-W (396), and SAT Composite (1208)
(Wyatt et al., 2011). However, the mean score for students who received a mean score of 23 on
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 13
the ARI scale were HSGPA (3.93), SAT-CR (648), SAT-M (662), SAT-W (646), and SAT
Composite (1956) (Wyatt et al., 2011). According to the Academic Rigor Index study, these
data reflect stark differences between those students who received very little rigor in their
courses in contrast to those students who received high levels of rigor (Wyatt et al., 2011). Thus,
shedding light on the degree to which African American and Latino students have access to
rigorous academic experiences in comparison to their White and Asian peers may reveal
systemic and school-based practices that are contributing to the gaps in achievement for African
American and Latino students (Darling-Hammond, 2010).
Disparities in access to rigor are not new to the academic experiences of African
American or Latino students. Historically, African Americans and Latinos have been barred or
limited from high quality, rigorous, and, in some cases, any educational opportunities (Darling-
Hammond, 2010). During slavery, it was against the law for anyone to teach Blacks to read and
write (Ladson-Billings, 2013). Post-slavery and the Civil War, reconstruction opened a period of
educational access for African Americans as they were also allowed to vote and hold public
office. During this time, many Blacks gained access to education even though the schools were
segregated and lacking in adequate resources (Ladson-Billings, 2013). At the higher education
level, institutions like Spelman College, Morehouse College, Fisk University, and Howard
University were founded (Ladson-Billings, 2013).
Following reconstruction and extending to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Jim Crow
reinforced the separation of Blacks and Whites in nearly every aspect of society, including
schools (Cheng, 2008), again polarizing the degrees of access to quality academic experiences.
Though segregation was challenged in the Plessy v. Ferguson case “separate but equal” was
upheld by the US Supreme Court (Cheng, 2008). However, the U.S. Supreme Court, in the
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 14
Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954, later ruled the segregation of schools
unconstitutional. In spite of Brown v. Board case, states continued to segregate schools that
were separate and unequal (Ladson-Billings, 2013). Although the Civil Rights Act of 1964
ended de jure segregation, de facto segregation has persisted to obstruct equal educational
access, even today (Cheng, 2008).
In many of the ways that African Americans have been limited and sometimes barred
from high quality and rigorous educational opportunities historically, Latino students have also
experienced barriers to their education (Boykin & Noguera, 2011; Valencia, Menchaca, &
Donato, 2002). Post-1848, there were few school facilities to meet the needs of Latino students
(Valencia et al., 2002). When the number of schools for Latino students increased after the
1870s, a parallel increase in social discrimination occurred (Valencia et al., 2002). The rise of
social discrimination and oppression of Latino communities translated into the establishment of
segregated schools (Valencia et al., 2002). The segregated schools served to isolate Latino
students from White students (Orfield, 2013; Valencia et al., 2002). The isolation of Latino
students from White students signified more than a physical exclusion from White schools; it
also signified educational, social and economic exclusion from equitable access to opportunities
afforded White students (Valencia et al., 2002). According to Valencia et al. (2002), segregation
had played an integral part in denying Latino students’ equal access to opportunities in
education.
However, in spite of the historical and contemporary disparities in access, policymakers
and schools hold African American and Latino students to the same academic standards as White
students. Schools hold them accountable for passing courses and graduating from high school in
spite of the low quality and rigor of their learning experiences (NCLB, 2002; Boykin & Noguera,
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 15
2011). While holding African American and Latino students accountable, the nation continues to
institute policies and school practices that establish barriers for African American and Latino
students, thereby limiting their opportunities to succeed on mandated assessments and/or attain
their high school diplomas (Darling-Hammond, 2010). Schools frequently focus on remediation
strategies as the means for improving African American and Latino students’ academic
proficiency while White and Asian students are being provided with rigorous academic
experiences (Rothstein, 2013; Tienken & Zhao). This difference in school experiences highlights
the race-based inequities prevalent in the schooling of African American and Latino students
(Orfield, 2013). Additionally, few measures have been implemented to create access to
increasingly rigorous standards-based instruction and courses to account for gaps in access
created by the systems, policies, and school-based factors that have limited access to rigor
(Boykin & Noguera, 2011)
Carter and Welner (2013) indicate a common thread prevailing in the academic
experiences of African American, Latino, Caucasian, and Asian students in America’s public
schools is the variance in these populations’ access to academic rigor and positive outcomes.
Juxtaposing the persisting differences in academic achievement between African American and
Latino students in comparison to their Caucasian and Asian peers with the historical and
contemporary access to academic rigor helps to establish the significance (Moses & Rogers,
2013). The implications of these dichotomous academic experiences position race as an integral
factor in characterizing African American and Latino students’ access to academic rigor and
consequently their access to post secondary and future career opportunities (Zamudio et al.,
2013).
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 16
Statement of the Problem
Framing the low academic achievement of African Americans and Latino students as the
achievement gap overlooks the constraints social systems, policies, and educational institutions
place on African American and Latino students’ opportunities for learning and, thus, their
academic achievement (Moses & Rogers, 2013). Instead of focusing on repairing or replacing
the socially constructed systems that have limited African American and Latino students’
equitable access to high quality academic experiences, the attention has been directed mainly
toward what has been characterized as the achievement gap between African American and
Latino students compared to their White peers (Rothstein, 2013). Contextualizing the problem
as the achievement gap positions African American and Latino students as the problem (Ladson-
Billings, 2006). The No Child Left Behind Act (2002), changes in standards, and other
educational reform efforts have served to highlight the obstinacy of the so-called achievement
gap. Ladson-Billings (2006) and Darling-Hammond (2010) contend the issues underlying the
persisting achievement gap theory are the misguided attempts to eradicate the achievement gap
rather than reexamine the origin of responsibility for low achievement outcomes. Rarely do the
reform efforts focus on the social and institutional factors that contribute to inequitable
opportunities to learn, especially inequitable access to rigor (Darling-Hammond, 2010; Ladson-
Billings, 2006). Focusing on students as the problem prevents policy makers and educational
institutions from addressing the issues of students’ access to academically rigorous learning
experiences, which are the basis for academic achievement (Ladson-Billings, 2006). As the
research has demonstrated, continuing this approach appears to maintain the achievement gap or
contribute to only slight gains in African American and Latino students’ academic achievement
(Carter & Welner, 2013).
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 17
The existence of the gaps in most academic categories such as academic achievement and
graduation rates imply that an examination of the differences between African American and
Latino students’ academic experiences in comparison to their White and Asian peers’ academic
experiences may highlight the inequities in access to opportunities to learn at rigorous levels.
These inequities are potential causes for gaps in the skills and knowledge necessary to gain
admission to and successfully matriculate through higher educational institutions and future
career opportunities (Darling-Hammond, 2010). This is a serious problem for the individual
students involved because students’ educational attainment impacts their access to future
employment, housing, and economic attainment potential and calls for a race-level analysis.
Purpose of the Study
A great deal of research concentrates on the differences in the academic outcomes
between African American and Latino students in comparison to their White and Asian peers.
However, less research focuses on the degree to which African American and Latino students are
provided access to rigorous learning experiences. This study sets out to redirect the focus away
from deficit beliefs that lead to investment in the proliferation of remediation and intervention as
opposed to investment in enriching learning experiences that are accessible to African American
and Latino students. This study proposes to add to the research on access to rigor. This study
focuses on the potential effects of increasing African American and Latino students’ access to
rigor (Torff, 2014; Wyatt et al., 2011).
Research Questions
This study will investigate the following research questions:
1. What are some pedagogical strategies that secondary educators describe that create
access to academic rigor for African American and Latino students?
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 18
2. In what ways do school and classroom practices in high schools reflect institutionalized
perceptions about Africans American and Latino students’ ability to engage in rigorous
learning opportunities?
Theoretical Framework
The researcher will employ Critical Race Theory (CRT) to examine issues of access to
academic rigor for African American and Latino students. According to Delgado and Stefancic
(2012), CRT seeks to uncover the more subtle forms of racism. Through the use of CRT, the
researcher seeks to explore the intersection of the systemic and school-based factors that
contribute to the underachievement of African American and Latino students, resulting in an
access gap—a gap in the access to rigor and other educational opportunities. CRT allows the
researcher to explore the societal and schooling contexts that concurrently shape the academic
achievement for African American and Latino students. More specifically, it allows a close
examination of the role teachers’ pedagogy and curriculum play in contributing to and
potentially closing or narrowing the opportunity gap for African American and Latino high
school students compared to their school peers. Therefore, CRT will be used to frame the macro
level and micro level practices that serve as barriers to equitable educational access and
achievement for African American and Latino students (Zamudio et al., 2011). CRT will also
serve as a theoretical context for the potential counter-pedagogies to schooling of African
American and Latino students (Zamudio et al., 2011).
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 19
Significance of the Study
Limited access to academic rigor has both short and long-term consequences for African
American and Latino high school students (Wyatt et al., 2011). In the short-term, African
American and Latino high school students graduate from high school, gain admission to
universities, and compete academically at a lower rate than their White peers (Balfanz, 2009;
Brown-Jeffy, 2011). In the long-term, African American and Latino students graduate from
college, access career opportunities, and attain economic upward mobility at lower rates than
their White peers (Balfanz, 2009; Torff, 2008). This problem has increasing significance as
shifts in the ratio of White students to other students, including Latino, Asian, and African
American are occurring in the public schools in the United States (United States Department of
Education, 2014). Latino students are increasingly representing a larger percentage of the public
school population. The U.S. Department of Education (2014) projects that in the fall of 2024,
America’s high schools will have 52.9 million students enrolled: 45.6 percent White, 14.9
percent African American, and 29.2 percent Hispanic. Also, the U.S. Department of Education
(2014) projects the percentage of White students will continue to decrease. Some reports state
that Whites are already in the minority (NCES, 2013). The differences between the academic
achievements among African American and Latino students in comparison to White students
mirror the socioeconomic differences African Americans and Latinos experience as adults.
According to the U.S. Department of Education (2015), the 2012 employment rate for people
with less than a high school diploma is 56%; for those with high school completion, it is 69%;
for those with some college attendance, the rate is 73%; for those with a bachelor’s degree, it is
84%. These data indicate an increase in employment with the increase of educational attainment.
Both African and American and Latino students continue to live and attend schools in
segregated communities. Living and attending schools in segregated communities has
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 20
implications for African American and Latino students and their future children. According to
the U.S. Department of Education (2015), 39% of African American and 32% of Latino students
are living in poverty. Due to the large percentage of African American and Latino students
living in poverty, a greater percentage of them than their White peers also attend academically
and culturally impoverished public schools (U.S. Department of Education, 2015). Among the
high school students whose families are in the lowest and middle low status quartiles, the
dropout rates are 10.7% and 8.8% respectively (U.S. Department of Education, 2015). Among
the high school students whose families are in upper and middle high status quartiles, their
dropout rates are 3.2% and 5.0% respectively (U.S. Department of Education, 2015). Thus, the
short and long-term outcomes for African American and Latino students when they have
restricted access to academic rigor are large populations of people who lack social and economic
capital (Lleras, 2008). Unless [African American and Latino] students are provided access to
rigor in secondary schools at least comparable to that experienced [by White and Asian students]
overall (Wyatt et al., 2011), they are likely to remain unable to access high school graduation,
admission to college, college success, and future upward mobility and therefore continue both
the cycle of poverty and inadequate employment.
Limitations and Delimitations
Some of the limitations of the study were beyond the control of the researcher. Due to
the characteristics of qualitative research, the study may not be generalizable, but provide insight
about the topic under study from the descriptive data collection (Merriam, 2009). The second
limitation was that the observations and interviews were limited to teachers who consented to
participating in the study. Time limits in conducting the study were also limiting factors.
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 21
Definition of Terms
The definitions provided in this study are operational definitions of the key terms that
appear throughout this document. The definitions are presented in alphabetical order.
Academic Experiences. These are the learning experiences taking place in the context of school
in which students engage. These experiences can be characterized by high critical
thinking or low critical thinking activities (Wyatt et al., 2011).
Academic Rigor Index. Wyatt et al. (2011) developed the Academic Rigor Index (ARI), using a
25-point scale, as a tool to measure the degree of rigor of one’s high school academic
experiences. The ultimate goal for employing ARI was to find a way to measure
students’ academic readiness (Wyatt et al., 2011).
Access Gap. The differences between the students who have the advantage of having high-level
critical thinking learning experiences and the students who have the disadvantage of
having mainly low level critical thinking learning experiences (Torff, 2014).
African American and Black. This study will employ these referents interchangeably as the two
most prominent terms currently in use to describe people of color with ancestry linked to
the African diaspora who are also U.S. citizens.
Achievement Gap. The difference between mean assessment scores and other formal education
related assessments between Whites and marginalized groups (Rothstein, 2014).
Cognitive Demand. The amount of critical thinking and “academic intensity” required for
engagement in academic courses, instruction, and curriculum (Torff, 2008)
Common Core State Standards. Standards that describe the knowledge and skills students
should have after completing each academic year. These standards are more rigorous
than the previous state standards and are adopted by most states (Common Core State
Standards Initiative, 2016).
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 22
Counter Pedagogy. Instruction that provides alternatives to the deficit-based schooling
opportunities African American and Latino students currently experience (Zamudio et al.,
2011).
Critical Race Pedagogy. Instruction that allows for the exploration of race as a significant factor
to be considered in how schools limit African American and Latino students’ access to
rigorous instruction and curriculum (Zamudio et al., 2011).
Critical Race Theory. A theory that provides a framework for the examination of systemic racial
inequalities. This theory began with its use in legal challenges to systemic racism and
has been adapted to the field of education (Ladson-Billings, 2010).
Culturally Responsive Teaching. Instruction and curriculum that “affirms and validates” cultural
identities as essential elements in promoting learning in the classroom (Gay, 2010;
Hollie, personal communication, January 5, 2016).
Curriculum. The content including the texts and materials schools require for teachers to utilize
in carrying out instruction.
Education Debt. A term used by Ladson-Billings (2006) as a metaphor to describe the ways in
which America has limited or excluded marginalized groups from economic,
sociopolitical, moral, and historical contexts.
High Quality. For the purpose of this study, a term referring to learning experiences that engage
students in high critical thinking, culturally responsive, experiences (Wyatt et al., 2011).
Poor Quality. For the purpose of this study, it is a term referring to learning experiences that
engage students in low critical thinking experiences (Wyatt et al., 2011).
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 23
Latino, Hispanic. For the purpose of this study, interchangeable terms to include a group of
students living in the U.S. who share the common legacy of the Spanish language and
ancestry in the Americas south of the United States.
Marginalized Groups. A term referring to groups of people who have been limited or excluded
from equitable access to political, legal, and educational institutions.
Opportunity Gap. For the purpose of this study, access gap will be used to describe the
opportunity gap, because scholars utilize these interchangeably.
Pedagogy. A term referring to instruction that a teacher uses to engage students in learning.
Rigor. Rigorous learning entails engaging students in cognitively demanding learning
experiences and coursework (Pitre, 2014; Torff, 2011).
Rigor Gap. These are the differences between instruction that requires high critical thinking
skills in contrast to instruction that requires low cognitive demand (Wyatt et al., 2011).
Curriculum and instruction of poverty rendered for students have been disadvantaged by
the education system with their peers who are advantaged by the education system. This
difference can occur along both class and racial lines.
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 24
CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW
Chapter One of this study introduces the ongoing challenges to improving the academic
achievement for African American and Latino students. It explores the African American and
Latino students’ access to rigor as a possible challenge preventing the improvement of their
academic achievement. Chapter Two of this study focuses on issues of access to rigor. It
examines the ways in which systemic and school-based access gaps function as barriers to rigor
and contribute to the low achievement of African American and Latino students. This literature
review also explores the rigor gap as a type of access gap. The inaccessibility of opportunities
for rigorous learning experiences diminishes the quality of education students receive (Torff,
2014). There are three major sections to this literature review. The first section provides an
overview of the absence of rigor as an access gap. The second section highlights the societal
structures, policies and school contexts that concurrently shape African American and Latino
students’ access to rigor. More specifically, the second section closely examines the literature
regarding the roles teachers’ pedagogy and curriculum currently play in contributing to the
access gap, which continues to restrict African American and Latino students’ access to rigor. In
examining access, this literature review uses Critical Race Theory (CRT) as a means to frame the
perceptions, systems, policies, and practices that serve as barriers to equitable educational access
and achievement for African American and Latino students (Zamudio et al., 2011). In the final
section, this literature review explores structural strategies for creating access to rigor as
potential theoretical contexts for counter-pedagogies or alternatives to the schooling
opportunities African American and Latino students currently experience (Zamudio et al., 2011).
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 25
Shifting Lenses: Achievement Gap to Access Gap
The achievement gap is commonly defined as the difference between Black and Latino
students’ academic achievement as compared to White and Asian students’ academic
achievement (NCES, 2011), whereby White students serve as the standard of comparison
(Zamudio et al., 2011). The persisting low academic performance of African American and
Latino students has led to a plethora of approaches to framing this comparison. Some scholars
have pointed to the impact of poverty on African American and Latino students’ as a reason for
their low academic achievement (Payne, 2003). According to Rothstein (2013), students
residing in densely impoverished communities demonstrate “lower verbal” skills than their peers
experiencing similar social and economic circumstances in less densely impoverished
communities (p. 65). Barnett and Lamy (2013) point to parenting and the types of learning
experiences to which parents expose their children before they enter school as contributing
factors to later low achievement in school. Still some argue the students are to blame for their
own poor performance (Payne, 2003). While these arguments have dominated explanations of
the achievement gap, some scholars have suggested many of these arguments are flawed
(Ladson-Billings, 2006). Some scholars imply that attributing indicants such as poverty and/or
parenting as possible causes of the achievement gap places blame on the marginalized students
themselves and their families (Darling-Hammond, 2013; Ladson-Billings, 2006). According to
Ladson-Billings (2006), these approaches prove problematic because they interfere with
addressing the actual inequities and academic challenges African American and Latino students
face in U.S. public schools.
In spite of numerous frames and approaches to closing what has been called the
achievement gap, African American and Latino students continue to perform at low rates
academically (Boykin & Noguera, 2011). The NAEP reading trends over the past 41 years
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 26
indicate that while the score gap narrowed for African American and Latino students in
comparison to White students, Black and Latino students still trail behind their White peers by
26 points and 21 points respectively in reading achievement (NCES, 2013). The “Trends in
Academic Progress” (NCES, 2013) further evidence the deeply rooted nature of the issue by
pointing out there have been no significant changes in the White-Black or White-Hispanic
reading score gap since 2008. African American and Latino students’ graduation rates also trail
behind their White peers by 15% to 30%, though percentages vary (Balfanz, 2009). More
specifically, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES, 2015) indicates that, based on
the 2013 -14 school year data, the high school adjusted cohort graduation rate (a percentage
adjusted for those students who enter or leave the cohort), illustrates that Black and Latino
students graduate at rates of 72 .5 % and 76.3 % respectively, which is more than 10% lower
than their White and Asian peers at rates of 87.2% and 89.4% respectively.
The persisting low academic outcomes reflected in standardized test scores and
graduation rates for African American and Latino students throughout the United States have
also led to various and numerous attempts to narrow the achievement gap. In spite of the
interventions such as those directed toward mitigating the poverty or the perceived parent, and
student ability factors, national data from NAEP (2013) and COE (2013) collected over the past
two and a half decades demonstrate that most attempts at producing long-term academic
achievement outcomes for African American and Latino students have been ineffective or
minimally effective. A 2012 NAEP study of reading achievement, involving more than 50,000
students at the elementary, middle, and secondary levels from both public and private schools,
illustrates that although the White-Black and White-Hispanic gaps have narrowed (for 17-year-
olds) by 27 and 21 points respectively since1971 and 1975 respectively, the White-Black and
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 27
White-Hispanic gaps have narrowed only five points and three points respectively since 1999
(NCES, 2013). The slow and inconsistent pace at which narrowing has occurred, despite specific
attempts at addressing the achievement gap, suggests a deeper phenomenon than most traditional
research about the achievement gap has reported (Ladson-Billings, 2006). The disparities exist
in other types of data as well besides test scores. African American and Latino students also trail
behind their White and Asian peers in earning a bachelor’s degree (United States Department of
Education [USDOE], 2015). In spite of growth in the attainment of a bachelor’s degree or higher
for all reported ethnic groups (Black, Hispanic, White, Asian), the White-Black gap and White-
Hispanic gap in the attainment of a bachelor’s degree or higher has expanded 13% to 18% and
18% to 26% respectively (USDOE, 2015). In spite of numerous frames and approaches, African
American and Latino students continue to underperform academically. Few of the frames have
adequately addressed the complexities of identifying and narrowing the gaps in achievement for
African American and Latino students.
However, the limited impact of traditional achievement gap research regarding African
American and Latino students has refocused some scholars to explore a more potentially viable
area of research—the systemic inequitable gaps in access. Given the possibility that some
scholars have overlooked the impact of schooling, other scholars argue that one of the major
challenges to addressing the underachievement of African American and Latino students is the
misdirected view of the problem (Darling-Hammond, 2010; Ladson-Billings, 2006, 2013).
Instead of the myopic focus on the achievement gap (Carey, 2014; Ladson-Billings, 2006),
sometimes suggestive of a blame the victim approach (Pitre, 2014), some researchers have
argued for an examination of the opportunity gap (Welner & Carter, 2013) in addition to the
access gap and the “education debt” (Ladson-Billings, 2006) as an approach and response to the
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 28
persisting low achievement of marginalized groups. Thus, rather than viewing the
underachievement of African American and Latino students through a deficit lens, scholars like
Darling-Hammond (2006) and Pitre (2014) call for policymakers and educational institutions to
address the inequities in access to rich rigorous curriculum and pedagogy as well as other
educational opportunities (such as qualified teachers, advanced and honors classes, culturally
responsive instruction, etc.).
Bensimon (2003) and Ladson-Billings (2006) extend the argument for addressing the
institutional inequities to access. Ladson-Billings (2006) adds that America is indebted to
marginalized students because it has restricted or limited their access to high quality education
through a history of inferior academic experiences. She also asserts the importance of
acknowledging the skill and knowledge gaps resulting from these inferior experiences (Ladson-
Billings, 2006). Examining these perspectives on the gaps experienced by African American and
Latino students through the lens that Welner and Carter (2013) provide suggests that
policymakers, scholars, and education professionals explore African American and Latino
students’ low academic outcomes in terms of systemic contributing factors rather than an
achievement gap perspective (Ladson-Billings, 2006; Pitre, 2009; Welner & Carter, 2013). The
rigor gap is one of those factors. Ladson-Billings (2006) explains that focusing on the
achievement gap—an outcome—based measure (Carter &Wellner, 2013) narrowly centers on
the surface of the problem and posits short-term approaches to the problem. She and other
scholars contend that fostering long-term solutions should concentrate on the underlying
systemic limitations to high quality education (Carter & Welner, 2013; Ladson-Billings, 2006;
Zamudio, et al., 2011). The perspectives presented here offer an argument for reframing the low
academic performance of African American and Latino students generally as an access gap
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 29
(Carter & Welner, 2013) and specifically as a rigor gap. Through this lens, the degree to which
African American and Latino students have access to equitable academic experiences and
outcomes can be more closely examined (Zamudio et al., 2011).
Academic Rigor
Understanding the achievement gap requires an understanding of the role the access to
rigorous learning plays in students’ opportunities to learn. A commonly held definition of
academic rigor entails engaging students in cognitively demanding learning experiences and
coursework (Pitre, 2014; Torff, 2011). However, scholars present variations on examples or
definitions of rigorous learning experiences. Torff (2011) indicates rigorous academic
experiences can include students engaging in inquiry-based activities, such as debates. Darling-
Hammond (2012) points out rigorous academic experiences should involve students problem
solving, while Ford and Moore (2013) assert rigorous academic experiences necessitate teachers
demonstrating high asset based expectations for students. A university study conducted by
Draeger et al. (2013) sought to develop a more definitive understanding of rigor. They
facilitated conversations among 30 members of their faculty. Following these preliminary
conversations, the researchers conducted five focus groups with 22 faculty volunteers, 104
anonymous surveys (with 23% of their faculty) and a workshop with six faculty members (the
small number of workshop members is due to scheduling conflicts) (Draeger et al., 2013). The
focus groups and anonymous surveys showed similar perceptions of rigor (Draeger et al., 2013).
While the researchers acknowledge their findings were not generalizable due to the small sample
size, they found that the most prominent academic rigor indicators were qualitative (i.e. requiring
high level thinking skills) and not quantitative (i.e., requiring increased number of assignments
or pages) (Draeger et al., 2013).
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 30
Based on the results from the study, Draeger, del Prado Hill, and Mahler (2013)
developed a model of rigor that integrates student engagement, authentic subject matter, high
cognitive demand, and suitable expectations for the context (such as the assignments, standards,
course of study, or institution). Draeger et al. (2013) assert all four of the following aspects of
learning—student engagement, authentic subject matter, high cognitive demand, and suitable
expectations for the context—should concurrently be present to demonstrate academic rigor and
effectuate the highest level of learning. Draeger’s et al. (2013) depiction of rigorous academic
experiences includes those characterized by multiple cognitive dimensions. They suggest that
rigorous activities engage students in evaluating, analyzing, and synthesizing concepts to
develop more complex ideas (2013). This definition is consistent with cognitive dimensions
included in Bloom’s Taxonomy (Krathwohl, 2002). The rigorous academic experiences
produced by the cognitive actions in Bloom’s Taxonomy foster students’ critical thinking and
construction of knowledge (Krathwohl, 2002). They are significant factors to improving
students’ ability to complete tasks associated with academic achievement (Draeger et al., 2013;
Boykin & Noguera, 2011; Torff, 2009).
Why Rigor Matters
Rigor is a factor to consider in educating all students; however, most African American
and Latino students are outsiders to the racially, socially, and economically dominant schools
where White middle class students are the majority and where access to rigorous learning
experience are typically found (Helm, 1997; Strayhorn, 2010). Rather, African American and
Latino students typically have limited access to rigorous academic experiences in U.S. public
schools (Burris, Wiley, Welner, & Murphy, 2008). Rigorous learning experiences are not
common in schools where African American and Latino students predominate, nor are they
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 31
equitably accessible to African American and Latino students when they are present in schools
where White middle class students are the majority (Darling-Hammond, 2013).
Many African American and Latino students’ academic histories are typically inferior to
their White and Asian peers’ academic histories (Boykin & Noguera, 2011; Darling-Hammond,
2010; Kozol, 1991; Ladson-Billings, 2006). In part, the inferior quality of education African
American and Latino students have experienced starting in kindergarten, has contributed to
African American and Latino students’ low academic performance in high school (Boykin &
Noguera, 2011; Darling-Hammond, 2010). According to Boykin and Noguera (2011), many
schools utilize African American and Latino students’ low academic performance and
unpreparedness in high school to rationalize providing them with low academic rigor. Thus,
schools across the US, instead of making rigorous learning experiences available to African
American and Latino students, continue to offer a preponderance of low-rigor and remediation
classes (Burris et al., 2008).
Educational institutions do not consider the manner in which academic histories replete
with low, remedial, and rudimentary learning have contributed to students’ undeveloped or
underdeveloped skills, which become more pronounced by the time these students reach high
school (Darling-Hammond; Tyson, 2013). Without the appropriate support, African American
and Latino students reach their secondary classrooms giving evidence of the cyclical effects of
the rigor gap existing long before students enter high school (Darling-Hammond, 2013). One of
the major ways the rigor gap materializes for low SES students (highly represented by African
American and Latino students) is through the diminished opportunities to think critically, solve
realistic problems, construct knowledge, and innovate novel ideas and products (Darling-
Hammond, 2010; Tienken & Zhao, 2013)
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 32
African American and Latino students’ experience the rigor gap because their learning
experiences often include a pedagogy that treats them as receptacles into which teachers attempt
to deposit knowledge (especially in preparation for standardized tests), rather than engaging
them in rigorous activities that allow them to construct knowledge (Carter & Welner, 2013;
Tienken & Zhao, 2013). Too frequently learning is assessed as students’ ability to recite or
repeat the teacher’s deposits of knowledge through a narrowed, test focused curriculum (Carter
& Welner, 2013; Tienken & Zhao, 2013; Torff & Sessions, 2006). African American and Latino
students typically spend instructional time learning from scripted lessons and countless hours of
test preparation on items that do not prepare them for the cognitive demand of the assessments
they must take nor build a foundation for their future learning (Darling-Hammond, 2013; Delpit,
2012; Tyson, 2013).
Overall, White and Asian students have a different experience with schools. It is
common for them to be socialized in their school experiences for leadership and problem solving
(Zamudio et al., 2011). They are expected to think critically and engage in inquiry (Darling-
Hammond, 2010; Zamudio et al., 2011). While African American and Latino students may be
given numerous opportunities to prepare for standards-based tests by practicing the types of
multiple choice items they will likely see on the exam, White and Asian students are more often
given opportunities to research, analyze, and problem solve issues they are more likely to see in
the real world (Darling-Hammond, 2013). This disparity in the educational experiences between
African American and Latino low-income students in contrast to the experiences of White
middle and upper class students highlights a reason for examining the construction and long-term
implications of the low cognitive demand learning experiences common to African American
and Latino students (Darling-Hammond, 2010).
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 33
Barriers to Rigor
Critical Race Theory (CRT) provides a framework for explaining some of the reasons for
the long-standing denial of rigorous learning experiences to African American and Latino
students. Critical Race Theory helps to explain the systems and school based factors that serve
as barriers to rigor for African American and Latino students (Zamudio et al., 2013). Critical
Race Theory allows an examination of the manner in which these barriers to rigor operate in the
schooling of African American and Latino students on the societal, policy, and school-based
levels (Zamudio et al. 2013). Exploring key factors that contribute to the rigor gap may assist
policy makers, scholars, and educators in eradicating the inequities schools perpetuate and in
developing effective strategies for creating access for African American and Latino students.
According to Pitre (2014) and Darling-Hammond (2010), the perpetuation of inequitable access
to rigor and thus, the opportunity gap, can be attributed to three major factors: segregation and
re-segregation of K-12 education institutions, limited access to qualified teachers, and
inequitable access to authentic curriculum (Brown-Jeffy, 2006).
Based on Sheurich and Young’s (1997) examination of the multiple layers of racism in
American society, Zamudio et al (2013) posit that hegemonic ideologies and racism are so
deeply entrenched in American culture that the engineering of racial inequality occurs on a
macro level in larger society and on the micro level of schooling. Critical Race Theory makes a
case that racism is nested within that structure (Sheurich and Young, 1997). The epistemologies
presented by the dominant culture contribute to the marginalization of certain groups, especially
African American and Latino populations (Zamudio et al., 2011). When systems and institutions
control people through socio-demographic location, physical isolation becomes a main
instrument for enforcing marginalization (Brown-Jeffy, 2006).
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 34
Segregation
Segregation has contributed to inequitable distribution of school funding and other
resources (Carey, 2014; Darling-Hammond, 2010, 2013; Zamudio et al., 2011). By isolating
African American, Latino, and other low-income students from the educational opportunities and
financial resources their more affluent White peers receive, states have restricted funding going
to poorer schools and disseminated larger amounts of funding to suburban schools where
residents pay higher property taxes (Ladson-Billings, 2013; Carey, 2014). Schools that serve
marginalized students are frequently underfunded (Carey, 2014). According to Braeden (2008),
between the span of 1999 and 2005, states expended less funding per student for the highest
poverty districts than the lowest poverty districts: 16 states expended $200 less per pupil to low
income districts (Braeden, 2008; Ladson-Billings, 2006). Districts that serve large African
American and Latino student populations received less funding than districts with low
populations of African American and Latino students (Braeden, 2008; Ladson-Billings, 2006). In
terms of state funding, eight states disbursed a per student minimum of $1000 less to high
minority districts than low minority districts (Braeden, 2008). According to Darling-Hammond,
(2010), the status of poorly funded high poverty schools, which are also the most segregated
schools, adversely impacts students’ access to rigor and achievement outcomes. There is a high
parallel between highly funded schools and those schools’ higher academic achievement
(Braeden, 2008). Thus, schools in impoverished communities experience heightened challenges
compared to schools in affluent communities (Stewart, 2007). As a result of this context, the
students frequently experience less academic success (Darling-Hammond, 2010; Ladson-
Billings, 2006). Disproportionate funding based on income and race is one of the major injustices
to African American and Latino low-income students. It is an example of the claims made by
CRT about racial oppression in the United States (Zamudio et al.2013).
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 35
CRT points to the results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP),
considered to provide a credible assessment of what students across the nation know and are able
to do, as evidence of the effects of systemic racism. In 2013, the results showed that among
twelfth graders 7% of African Americans, 12% of Latinos, 33% Whites and 11% of Asian scored
proficient in mathematics (NCES, 2013). The disparities are evident. In reading, 16% of
African Americans, 23% of Latinos in contrast to 47% of Whites and 47% of Asian Americans
scored proficient in reading (NCES, 2013). African American and Latino students performed at
significantly lower rates than White and Asian students (Brown-Jeffy, 2006; Ladson-Billings,
2006). CRT claims that academic outcomes are predictable based on race and class just as
opportunities to learn are based on race and class (especially at rigorous levels) (Ladson-Billings,
2006; Carey, 2014). African American and Latino students in segregated schools experience
overcrowded schools and classrooms with fewer resources and less per pupil funding (Darling-
Hammond, 2013). African American and Latino students disproportionately receive unqualified
teachers, insufficient access to courses to graduate on time, and inferior instruction (Darling-
Hammond, 2010, p.22-23; Kozol, 2005). These are important factors to consider because they
reflect a stratified society described in CRT. Schools offer a dichotomous experience for
students in predominantly African American and Latino schools in comparison to their peers in
predominantly White and Asian schools. These factors implicate a systemic means of limiting
African American and Latino students’ access to academic pursuits while maintaining access to
rigorous academic experiences for their peers.
Thus, segregation (and now resegregation) continues to serve as a barrier to educational
opportunities, including opportunities for rigorous learning experiences, for low-income African
American and Latino students. While Brown v. Board of Education (1954) called for an end to
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 36
segregation, the expectation that all students would have equitable access to educational
opportunities still had not been met more than sixty years later when schools remained
segregated and unequal. The isolation of students by race and socioeconomic status reflective of
a segregated history both by race and class, continues to negatively impact the quality of
education students of color receive (Carey, 2014; Pitre, 2014). The persistence of the parallels
between racial and socioeconomic segregation and academic achievement contextualizes the
systemic barriers to equitable access to rigor and emphasizes the role that the historic and social
factors still play in shaping US schooling (Carey, 2014; Darling-Hammond, 2010).
Attempts at Desegregation
The Brown v. Board of Education (1954) landmark case sought to create access to equal
educational opportunities by desegregating schools. The expectation was that it would result in
equal access to high quality education for students of color and rectify the inequalities of de jure
segregation (Darling-Hammond, 2010; Zamudio et al., 2011). Desegregation would allow
African American students to have the same or comparable learning opportunities as White
students. Proponents of this Supreme Court decision hoped that, by attending schools with
White students, African American students would have access to more resources and better
educational experiences which were also rigorous (Darling-Hammond, 2004). The attempts to
desegregate schools led to major challenges. Whites challenged desegregated schools through
various means including local assignment plans designed to preserve segregation. It took over
two decades following Brown v. Board of Education (1954) to see measurable evidence of
desegregation for students of color. Many of these changes were short-lived including the
desegregation of schools (Darling-Hammond, 2013). Thus, segregation continued to play a role
in denying African American (and Latino) students equitable access to the kind of educational
experiences that were accessible to White students (Darling-Hammond, 2013).
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 37
Another major challenge to academic rigor was that desegregated schools did not
automatically translate into equal access (Zamudio et al., 2011). The African American and
Latino students who attended desegregated schools still had very little, if any, access to rigor
(Zamudio et al., 2011). At desegregated schools, African American and Latino students were
typically tracked into basic, remedial, or special education courses; they were assigned to the
least rigorous courses (Burris et al, 2008; Hallet & Venegas, 2011) (discussed in greater detail in
the School Based Factors section). In the 1970s and 1980s when desegregation allowed students
of color to be bused to majority white schools (even though White parents were unwilling to
send their children to segregated schools serving majority African American students), those
students were in an environment of higher quality academic experiences, but it did not mean
African American students had access to rigorous academic experiences (Balfanz, 2009). The
desegregated schools just meant that African American and Latino students attended what had
been White schools but were still segregated by courses (Balfanz, 2009). Thus, the limitations
of desegregation also served as barriers because African American [and Latino] students still did
not have access to academically rigorous courses and the supports they needed to be successful
in them (Crosnoe, 2009).
The goal of desegregation as the desired outcome served to overshadow more significant
issues related to African American and Latino students’ access to equitable educational
opportunities, such as equitable school funding and rich learning experiences at all schools,
including those still serving predominantly students of color (Darling-Hammond, 2010; Zamudio
et al., 2011). African American and Latino students’ experiences, in comparison to their White
peers, were dichotomous—Whites still had more access to rigorous learning than African
American and Latino students (Darling-Hammond, 2010; Zamudio et al., 2011). Although
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 38
overall, opportunities for rigor were more prevalent in predominantly White schools, access to
the rigor was still limited for African American and Latino students (Crosnoe, 2011). In fact, in
some cases, the students who remained in their community schools had greater access to rigor
than those who left (Ladson-Billings, 2010). Some of them left behind Black teachers who still
operated under the concept of teaching as a mission. These teachers insisted that Black children
learn at rigorous levels (Ladson-Billings, 2010). Some of the research examined for this study
revealed that those teachers made a difference in spite of the poorly funded, under-resourced, and
inferior community schools that remained (Ladson-Billings, 2010). Despite the presence of
these teachers in predominantly African American and Latino schools, these students’ overall
access to rigor remains disproportionately low for multiple reasons, compared to the rigor
available to White and Asian students where they represent the majority (Ladson-Billings, 2010).
Resegregation
According to Balfanz (2009) and Darling-Hammond (2010), many African American and
Latino students still attend segregated schools. Approximately 75% of African American and
Latino students attend schools where they are the majority. Rouse and Kemple (2009) indicate
30% of minority high school students attend high schools that are 90% or more minority
compared to 40% of White high school students that attend high schools that are 90% or more
ethnic minorities. The NCES (2014) data inform a prognostication of similar findings if the
same study were conducted today. One of the primary challenges indicated by these data is that
the racial composition of public schools is not much different from the segregation prior to
Brown v. Board of Education (1954) (Zamudio et al, 2011). Some scholars, such as Orfield
(2013), who report similarities between racial composition pre-Brown v. Board of Education and
post-Brown v. Board of Education also highlight some similarities in the quality of academic
experiences indicating race still impacts education quality. Moreover, the concentration of
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 39
African American and Latino students in segregated schools is typically synonymous with high
poverty and calls attention to the socioeconomic divide in access to rigor—both factors
impacting African American and Latino students access to rigor and other equitable learning
experiences (Darling-Hammond, 2010, 2013). In other words, students’ racial factors and
socioeconomic factors are often intermingled (Gruskin, Campbell, & Paulu, 1987; Llera, 2008;
Moller & Stern, 2012) and serve as barometers of how much the systems, policies and schools
create access to educational opportunities.
The cycle of isolation in inferior schools perpetuates communities of poverty (Haberman,
1991; Lleras, 2008). The resegregation of African American and Latino students in communities
where they are isolated from rigorous academic experiences illustrates the manner by which
physical location potentially reinforces social constructions of racial hierarchy which can have
adverse impacts on those who are most oppressed (Lleras, 2008). Resegregation has helped
further cultivate and sustain the inferior conditions and the inequitable access to rigorous
pedagogy that characterize majority African American and Latino public schools. In Brown-
Jeffy’s (2006) race gap analysis, she indicates that the interconnectedness between a school’s
racial composition and socioeconomic composition relegates African American and Latino
students to learning environments that are not conducive to academic achievement. She also
suggests, even when the socioeconomic status is excluded, the racial composition has an even
greater impact on student achievement (Brown-Jeffy, 2006). Attitudes and beliefs about race
have led to legislation and education policies that exclude African American and Latino students
from educational opportunities (as well as employment, housing, and legal opportunities)
(Ladson-Billings, 2006; Valencia, 2002).
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 40
Partly, inferior schools exist as a result of policies (such as NCLB) that physically isolate
people of color from educational, economic, political, and social opportunities. These schools
commonly have limited resources, fewer qualified teachers, less rigorous courses (Lleras, 2008).
The students at these schools are commonly underprepared, low performing, and graduating at
low rates (Moses & Rogers, 2013). Such schools produce people who are less likely to compete
for high paying jobs because high paying jobs commonly require strong critical thinking and
problem-solving skills and school settings that promote low cognitive demand reduce African
American and Latino students’ opportunities to develop these skills (Darling-Hammond, 2010).
Thus, by restricting people’s access to rigorous and high quality educational experiences, they
are systemically restricted to menial and low wage jobs (Darling-Hammond, 2010). These
schools give evidence of critical race theory that schools are designed to reproduce the social
order put in place by the dominant group (Bourdieu, 1974; Straubhaar, 2013). These conditions
are typical of schools in high poverty areas with predominantly African American and Latino
student populations although in these same schools some of the teachers provide access to rigor
in spite of the conditions (Ladson-Billings, 2013).
According to Brown-Jeffy’s (2006) study, when African American students attend
schools where they represent fewer than 10% of the population, the gap in achievement between
Whites and African American students is greater than when White and African Americans attend
schools where African American and Latino students made up 55% or more of the school
population. She posits, the gap potentially exists at schools with the fewest percentages of
people of color because African American and Latino students feel socially isolated; however,
she does not hold the schools accountable for the low achievement outcomes or address the
degree of access at predominantly White schools (Brown-Jeffy, 2006). Brown-Jeffy (2006)
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 41
does not examine the specific characteristics of the schools related to the racial composition that
possibly contribute to these findings but notes there are inequalities.
Barriers to Rigor: Education Policies and Standards Implementation
Education policies can prove more deleterious for marginalized groups than beneficial
with regard to access to rigor (Darling-Hammond, 2010). Darling-Hammond (2010) argues that
the negative influence of political systems on educational reform policies often outweighs the
positive effects of research-based practices. Some of the policies that were originally intended to
narrow the achievement gap actually perpetuated it or widened it (Tienken & Zhao, 2013).
Although there was a long history of policies that served as barriers and proved to be harmful,
one of the most significant in recent history is No Child Left Behind (NCLB).
No Child Left Behind Act of 2002 (NCLB). Enacted with the intent to improve the
achievement outcomes for marginalized groups of students with histories of low academic
performance, the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2002 reinforced many of the inequities it
was intended to eradicate (Kantor & Lowe, 2013). This legislation led to policies that mandated
state standardized assessments to both measure achievement and penalize failing schools (Kantor
& Lowe, 2013). The policymakers who created it, sought to hold schools accountable for
student achievement (Kantor & Lowe, 2013), especially those students who were most
underserved—students of color, impoverished students, English Language Learners, and special
education students (Darling-Hammond, 2007; USDOE, 2002). Through the policy
implementation, high stakes testing, standards development, as well as influence on course-
taking shifts, NCLB created barriers to rigor for African American students, Latino students, and
other underserved groups (Darling-Hammond, 2010; Kantor & Lowe, 2013). The policy
resulted in instruction focused on test taking strategies rather than rigorous academic learning
experiences.
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 42
NCLB policy implementation. Although the NCLB Act of 2002 mandated that all
students, including the most underserved and at risk students, receive ‘highly qualified’ teachers
(USDOE, 2002), the flexibility of the policies created loopholes, allowing teachers who were
pursuing certification, but had not completed the certification requirements, to obtain an
alternative certification (Darling-Hammond, 2010). These loopholes—through the creation of
alternative programs for teachers to be hired—continued to limit African American and Latino
students’ access to high quality instruction (Berry, 2013). The uncredentialled teachers who had
not demonstrated (through credentialing) their ability to meet minimal state teaching standards
were most often assigned to students in low-income communities with majority African
American and Latino students (Berry, 2013; Darling-Hammond, 2010).
To some policymakers, the implementation benefited schools serving low SES and
predominantly African American and Latino students (Allensworth et al, 2009; Balfanz, 2009).
Some policymakers operated under the assumption that the increase in standards and
accountability experienced from NCLB improved the level of rigor and other aspects of
academic experiences for African American and Latino students (Allensworth et al., 2009).
Some policies implemented by policymakers seemed to be based on the assumption that the
increased standards led to the increased quality of academic experiences (Balfanz, 2009).
While the implementation of NCLB improved the usage of data to target instructional choices,
the NCLB policy also pressured teachers to narrow their curricular focus and center most
instruction around test preparation (CEP, 2009; Rothstein, 2004; Tienken & Zhao, 2013). This
shift limited students’ access to rigor. Although the standardized tests in states like California
included levels of rigor based on Bloom’s Taxonomy, most teaching in low-income community
schools only taught to the lower dimensions of Bloom’s Taxonomy (Tienken & Zhao, 2013).
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 43
The test-driven instruction lacked rigor (Darling-Hammond, 2010). In essence, this demand for
test taking strategies undid the effort of some of the more effective teachers in high poverty high
minority schools who had previously been committed to providing rigor (Delpit, 2005). In a
two-year study (from 2007 and 2009) of 18 schools among 16 districts and three states (Illinois,
Rhode Island, and Washington State) conducted by the Center on Education Policy (CEP)
engaged schools at each level of K-12 education in multiple case studies. For these case studies,
researchers collected their data through 105 comprehensive classroom observations and
numerous district and school stakeholder interviews (CEP, 2009). The Center on Education
Policy’s (2009) findings evidenced that most of the curriculum was standardized test-driven,
limited to what would be tested. While this study provides a comprehensive view of the impacts
of NCLB on instruction and pedagogy, it does not disaggregate outcomes based on the ethnic or
socioeconomic composition of the districts or schools studied (CEP, 2009). Moreover, many
teachers in the study asserted, data from testing resulted in policy shifts at the district (such as the
mandate for more intervention courses) and school level (such as fewer hours in social sciences
and more hours spent on math and English), rather than instructional improvements (CEP, 2009).
Because these types of shifts did not improve the quality of instruction, they did not impact
African American and Latino students’ overall academic achievement (Allensworth et al., 2009;
Balfanz, 2009). Other scholars made similar assertions about the lack of a positive impact of the
implementation of NCLB on instructional and curricular rigor (Darling-Hammond, 2007;
Tienken & Zhao, 2013).
An earlier study conducted by the CEP (2005) made links between assessments and
curriculum narrowing based on schools’ Title I status. According to the Center on Education
Policy (CEP, 2005), through the administration of a national survey to school districts,
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 44
researchers found that the implementation of high school exit exams furthered the gap. Although
teacher-led instruction increased, the quality of instruction decreased or reflected no change
(CEP, 2005). In many cases, the district relied on test preparation as a substitute for effective
pedagogy and curriculum; this practice resulted in a persisting achievement gap (CEP, 2005). In
this national survey, those districts with Title I funding mandated their elementary schools to
commit a set number of instructional minutes, in some cases 94 minutes and 53 minutes in
English and mathematics respectively (CEP, 2005).
In many districts, some subjects were decreased to allow more time for English and math
instruction (CEP, 2005). Twenty seven percent of the districts--among those implementing the
mandates--in 2004 indicated they decreased time in social science either somewhat or to a great
extent to increase instructional time in English and mathematics (CEP, 2005). Such measures
increased the instructional time spent preparing for standardized assessments in English and
mathematics (Darling-Hammond, 2010; Perna & Thomas, 2009). Narrowing the curriculum for
test preparation was common in schools where the majority of students are African American,
Latino, and poor (Tienken & Zhao, 2013). The approach to implementing NCLB was based in an
assumption that African American students needed remediation rather than rigor in order to pass
standardized tests. Thus, these measures impacted the academic quality many African American
and Latino students received, leading to decreased rigor and reducing the type of knowledge and
instructional experiences students would access—relying primarily on the knowledge tested
(Perna & Thomas, 2009).
Overall, the policymakers and scholars found efforts to increase hours in core subject
areas tested to be minimal (Lee & Ready, 2009). According to Darling-Hammond (2007), the
inadvertent outcomes of NCLB have proven most deleterious for the groups of students it was
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 45
created to assist. In many instances schools serving low income and students of color
populations that did increase achievement outcomes, were still penalized because all subgroups’
scores did not increase as indicated in the language in NCLB (Darling-Hammond, 2007).
Balfanz (2009) has made the claim that making progress on behalf of African American and
Latino students requires policies that support teachers to enhance the rigorous pedagogy rather
than policies solely created to increase course requirements without regards to the needs of the
students (Balfanz, 2009). Frequently policies do not consider the support needed for
implementation. The recent efforts to reform policies, such as NCLB, have focused on
accountability, mainly through testing and penalties; however, the pathway to reform extends
beyond increased standardized testing (Allensworth et al., 2009; Balfanz, 2009).
High-Quality Pedagogy and Curriculum Versus More Testing
The negative impact of the increasing demand for testing and accountability on African
American and Latino students is further evidenced when they are taught through disconnected,
low cognitive demand experiences to prepare them for testing (Carter & Welner, 2013; Darling-
Hammond, 2013; Delpit, 2012). White and Asian students are still more likely to be treated as
problem solvers, who are expected to co-construct knowledge and think critically (Carter &
Welner, 2013; Darling-Hammond, 2013; Delpit, 2012). Commonly, they are still taught through
collaborative, interactive and high cognitively demanding experiences (Darling-Hammond,
2013; Zamudio et al, 2011). Anyon (1980) argues a similar point based on social class in a study
about the relationship between school and work. In this study, she collected data from two to
three fifth grade classrooms at multiple schools (except one school where only one fifth grade
teacher was available). She interviewed various stakeholders (parents, teachers, etc.), observed
classrooms, and analyzed curriculum and other school related documents to explore the links
between social class and school between 1978 and 1979 (Anyon, 1980). Anyon (1980) describes
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 46
five levels of social class from two working class groups at the lowest end to children of
company executives and wealthy parents at the highest end. She indicates that students from the
working class were called upon to emulate step-by-step processes, copy notes, and answer quick-
fire questions spouted by their teachers (Anyon, 1980). Conversely, students from the wealthiest
families constructed knowledge, created new products, and problem solved (1980). While
Anyon focused on social class rather than race, the current parallels between socioeconomic
composition and racial composition of schools, as well as national data (NAEP, 2013), suggest
that most African American and Latino students would fall under Anyon’s classification of the
working class (or not have a designation at all). According the aforementioned research, both
explicitly and implicitly, the dichotomies in rigor reveal schools prepare African American and
Latino students (in contrast to White and Asian students) for their places in “different societies
and different economies” (Orfield, 2013, p.44).
Standards Implementation
Policymakers assumed that additional standards would increase the rigor because higher
expectations expressed in the standards would lead to African American and Latino students
achieving more (Balfanz, 2009). However, these beliefs did not account for the persisting skill
gaps held by African American and Latino students created by prior policies and practices
(Balfanz, 2009). The implementation of state standards was a major policy change that
influenced how schools provided learning experiences to students, especially African American
and Latino students. The rigor of the state standards varied from state to state (Lee & Ready,
2009). In each state, the standards served as the basis for standardized tests (Lee & Ready,
2009). While the standards movement enhanced expectations by increasing the content for
assessment and the manner in which students were assessed (Lee & Ready, 2009), many African
American and Latino students were provided with the same types of assignments and learning
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 47
experiences they were provided pre standards era (Balfanz, 2009; Lee & Ready, 2009). The
implementation of standards further highlighted the rigor gaps, because the standardized
assessments made known publicly the low skills and knowledge demonstrated by many African
American and Latino students (Lee & Ready, 2009). The standards movement led to
standardized tests used to hold schools and teachers accountable for students’ academic
outcomes and measure students’ achievement (Tienken & Zhao, 2013). As a result of how
policymakers and education institutions viewed standardized testing, schools serving students of
color commonly forced teachers to teach to the tests and limited teachers’ abilities to create
access to more rigorous learning experiences (Tienken & Zhao, 2013)—also reinforcing the
overall impact of NCLB. While the standards did not cause the narrowing of the curriculum, the
emphasis on standardized testing caused the narrowing of the curriculum (Tienken & Zhao,
2013)—limiting African American and Latino students’ access to rigor.
Common Core State Standards. The Common Core State Standards are measures that
describe the knowledge and skills students should have acquired by the culmination of an
academic year (Common Core State Standards Initiative, 2016). The Common Core State
Standards establish measures in math and English Language Arts and include literacy in other
subject areas such as social sciences (Common Core State Standards Initiative, 2016). State
standards came under increased scrutiny as policy makers at the national level noted the vast
discrepancy among state standards (CADOE, 2011) The Board of Governors sought to develop
more universal standards that prepared students with the critical thinking and problem solving
skills they needed to engage in the academic rigor of college (Boykin & Noguera, 2011; Lee &
Ready, 2009: Torff, 2009). They purported to end the discrepancies among state standards and
increase the rigor available to all students. Most states have adopted Common Core State
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 48
Standards (CA DOE, 2011). However, the CCSS are also causing some scholars and educators
to question whether the new standards reforms are actually creating greater access to rigor
(Tienken & Zhao, 2013). While CCSS increases the number of standards and the rigor of the
standards, some argue that they are not necessarily increasing access to rigor for students of color
(Darling-Hammond, 2010).
Tienken and Zhao (2013) contend that the implementation of the Common Core State
Standards initiative may have widened the access gap rather than narrowed it. They assert that
the Common Core State Standards continue to test the same skills as previous standardized
assessments and will likely lead teachers to teach only what is tested (Tienken & Zhao, 2013).
From this perspective, African American and Latino students remain underserved in spite of the
standards movement calling for greater accountability measures and high stakes testing, under
the No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top legislation. They are still underserved because
they are still trailing behind their White and Asian peers. Researchers suggest that solely
increasing graduation requirements, course offerings, standardized testing, and standards are
insufficient to improving achievement for urban students (Allensworth et al., 2009). However,
researchers suggest the need for shifts in teacher quality, pedagogy, and curriculum especially
for marginalized groups (Allensworth et al., 2009; Bennett, 2001). According to Tienken and
Zhao (2013), the implementation of universal standards and standardized testing creates deeper
inequities related to access. Students who fail according to the prescribed assessment measures
prompt practitioners to reduce them to remedial education and further widen the opportunity gap
(Tienken and Zhao, 2013) and more specifically the rigor gap. Most often, the students who are
most impacted by the “misguided” policies are impoverished students (Tienken and Zhao, 2013,
p. 118; Torff, 2008).
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 49
Increase in the Number of Courses
The increase in the number of secondary courses has generally served to improve
education quality in US public schools (Lee & Ready, 2009). In response to A Nation at Risk
(1983), policymakers increased the number of core courses required for high school graduation
(Balfanz, 2009; Corcoran & Silander, 2009; Parkay, Anctil, & Hass, 2014). On the surface, the
changes in course requirements meant more students were taking more college preparatory
courses and advanced courses (Balfanz, 2009; Lee & Ready, 2009). According to Lee and
Ready (2009), many policymakers put forth the proposition that the increase in math (by 17%)
and science (by 20%) course requirements between 1982 and 1987 would result in an increase in
academic rigor for students who were not previously college-bound. While many state
legislatures equated the increase of courses to increased rigor (Balfanz, 2009; Lee & Ready,
2009), the impact of the increase in the number of courses led to two acknowledgements. First,
there was the realization that quantitative shifts did not automatically translate to qualitative
outcomes in improved academic outcomes (Allensworth et al., 2009). Rather, more courses only
increased the number of classes taken but failed to increase access to rigorous learning
experiences (Allensworth et al., 2009). The increase in the number of classes translated to more
low-cognitive demand academic experiences for many African American and Latino students
(Allensworth et al., 2009). The pedagogy and curriculum did not change even though the
number of required courses increased.
Secondly, the increase in classes still reflected variations in course quality for students,
because mandates provided school districts with the flexibility to offer multiple courses with
significantly varying degrees of rigor and substance to fulfill a subject matter requirement
(Allensworth et al., 2009; Lee & Ready, 2009). For many African American and Latino
students, this meant that they were enrolled in additional courses that fulfilled the graduation
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 50
requirements but did not fulfill the requirements necessary to get into four-year colleges and
universities. In these courses, African American and Latino students were still frequently
offered low rigorous academic experiences (Lee & Ready, 2009). In this manner, the increase in
classes did not result in greater access to rigor. Commonly, African American and Latino
students were given different course titles that created space for schools to still offer low rigor in
those courses (Allensworth et al., 2009). For example, in some districts, students were allowed
to take business math to fulfill the math requirements for graduation, even if the business math
did not fulfill the state university requirements for admission (Allensworth et al., 2009; Balfanz,
2009). African American and Latino students were most impacted by such allowances
(Allensworth, 2009). Though the course titles were different, those students who were
previously performing at low levels were still experiencing subpar academic experiences that
lacked high cognitive demand (Allensworth et al., 2009; Lee & Ready, 2009). For many African
American and Latino students, the increase in courses evidenced minimal if any improvement
(Balfanz, 2009; Lee & Ready, 2009). In addition, within and between schools and districts
variances in instructional quality were prominent in spite of course increases: the policies did not
ensure schools adequately implemented policies surrounding course increases or provide trained
educators to teach the additional courses (Lee & Ready, 2009). The omission of these types of
considerations when setting educational policies, further perpetuated rigor gaps. This approach to
reform failed to impact the pedagogical and curricular quality and ultimately student
achievement outcomes, especially for students of color (Lee & Ready, 2009; Allensworth et al.,
2009). Therefore, the policy changes—though having long-term impacts on course taking
opportunities still limited marginalized students’ access to cognitively rigorous pedagogy and
curriculum.
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 51
Increase in college preparatory course for all. Following the increase in the number of
courses, educational reform sought to impact the types of courses all students were required to
take. (Lee & Ready, 2009). By developing course taking pathways to include college
preparatory courses such as math (Algebra and Geometry), English (American Literature and
Expository Composition), social science (World History and US History) and science (Biology
and Chemistry), policymakers sought to develop a more structured framework for educating all
students to reduce the disparities reflected in the achievement gap (Lee & Ready, 2009). The
belief that developing a curricular path consisting of courses all students would take guided these
shifts (Lee & Ready, 2009; Corcoran & Silander, 2009). For many, this satisfied the argument
for limiting alternative course tracks and offering fewer low rigor courses (Balfanz, 2009; Lee &
Ready, 2009).
While African American and Latino student did increase the number of college
preparatory courses, this policy change did not necessarily result in more access to rigor
(Balfanz, 2009; Lee & Ready, 2009). The skill gaps persisted between the skills African
American and Latino students developed and the skills they needed to succeed to meet the
college preparatory course mandates (Boykin & Noguera, 2011). Many African American and
Latino students remain with limited skills, low academically challenging experiences and a
history of inequitable opportunities to learn. Few policymakers have viewed the disparity as a
gap in opportunities to learn or access to rigor (Boykin &Noguera, 2011; Moses & Rogers,
2013); few policies or practices were implemented to narrow the gap between the low skills and
the demands of new course taking mandates (Carter & Welner, 2013). With the shifts to college
preparatory courses, policymakers attempted to remedy the factors that stratified marginalized
groups to low level and remedial courses (Allensworth et al., 2009; Lee & Ready, 2009).
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 52
Concerns surfaced regarding the substance of the courses as it became clear that rigorous course
titles may have merely served as substitutes for the lack of rigor in those courses (Lee & Ready,
2009). Thus, putting all students into college preparatory courses had minimal benefits for
underrepresented students; the quality of courses African American and Latino students were
now required to take did not prepare them for rigorous academic engagement (Lee & Ready,
2009).
Universal college preparatory curriculum. The increases in the number of courses and
college preparatory courses in previous reform efforts was not substantial enough to reverse the
increasing number of African American and Latino students who graduated from high school
college and career unready (Allensworth et al., 2009; Lee & Ready, 2009). Neither had remedial
courses proven effective in preparing students for rigorous academic engagement. Policies
shifted to the removal of remedial courses and implementation of college preparatory courses as
the sole type of courses offered (Lee & Ready, 2009). The adoption of a universal college
preparatory course pathway differed from previous efforts in that it made the previously selected
college preparatory courses mandatory for graduation and mirrored the requirements for
admission to four year colleges and universities (Corcoran & Silander, 2009). Some districts,
such as Chicago Public Schools (CPS) were among the first to adopt a universal college
preparatory curriculum (Allensworth et al., 2009; Lee & Ready, 2009). However, Chicago and
other districts around the nation, found major skill gaps between where the entering ninth grade
students were academically and the academic demands of the college preparatory courses
(Allensworth et al., 2009; Lee& Ready, 2009).
Due to the unsuccessful efforts of previous research and reform and the absence of
concessions around skill gaps, some policymakers began to shift their focus (Allensworth et al.,
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 53
2009). Instead, they considered the gaps between students’ skills and the academic demands that
the college preparatory courses would require. To address this gap, some districts implemented
support courses (Lee & Ready, 2009), which some districts referred to as intervention courses.
While students earned credits for these courses, these courses did not fulfill graduation or college
admission requirements (Lee & Ready, 2009). The implementation of the support courses for
the ninth grade students demonstrated the acknowledgement that simply adding a math and
English course did not automatically prepare the targeted students with skill gaps to handle the
rigor of college preparatory classes (Allensworth et al., 2009; Balfanz, 2009). Despite the
intentions of these intervention courses, students were still performing poorly in the core courses
the interventions were meant to support (Allensworth et al., 2009). Additionally, the
intervention courses often kept students from taking the college preparatory courses in a timely
manner (Balfanz, 2009). Without implementing a range of effective strategies to help students
access the rigor, adding intervention courses to support did not necessarily increase access
(Balfanz, 2009). Many of the intervention and support courses were minimally effective or
ineffective because they provided low cognitive demand experiences, still denying African
American and Latino students’ access to academic rigor (Allensworth, 2009; Balfanz, 2009).
The impact, whether unintentional or intentional, created more opportunities for African
American and Latino students to fail (Allensworth et al., 2009; Lee & Ready, 2009). These
courses still lacked rigor and frequently overwhelmed students instead of providing the access to
the increased academic demands of the core courses (Allensworth, et al., 2009). Such
challenges led to increased failure and dropouts in Chicago public schools (Allensworth et al.,
2009; Lee & Ready, 2009). Other districts around the nation found similar challenges with the
implementation of support and intervention courses (Allensworth et al., 2009; Lee & Ready,
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 54
2009). The findings suggested that the support classes lacked rigor and were commonly similar
to previous remedial courses (Allensworth et al., 2009). Instead of scaffolding students into
rigor, these courses tended to stay with basics under the assumption that is what these students
needed instead of structured access to rigor (Allensworth et al., 2009).
Implications of Policies, Standards, and Course-taking Shifts
These policy changes did not automatically translate into changes for marginalized
students; they did not necessarily reduce the effects of social stratification nor increase academic
achievement for all students (Lee & Ready, 2009). Some argue that these reform efforts may
have even had an inverse effect of decreasing access to enriching learning experiences and thus
increasing the opportunity gap (Tienken and Zhao, 2013). However, the Allensworth et al.
(2009) study of Chicago Public Schools showed more students did experience improvement in
instructional experiences due to the increase in college preparatory course taking, though the
rigor may have varied between courses of the same title. The improved instructional experiences
were most prominent for pre-policy low achieving students when they attended schools where
most students were low achieving (Allensworth et al., 2009). Conversely, low achieving
students who attended schools with mostly high achieving students were still enrolled in
remedial courses (Allensworth et al. 2009). The implications of the research and reforms are that
their foci were insufficient in addressing significant factors such as teacher qualifications and
instructional quality, which were not addressed. A major flaw was that they centered on creating
access to existing curriculum by adding courses and intervention, but without developing
improved curriculum and instructional practices (Lee & Ready, 2009). Thus, their findings
indicated increased college preparation for all does not automatically translate into equity in
curricular paths (Lee, Robinson, & Sebastian, 2012) or increased access to rigor (Lee & Ready,
2009).
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 55
The narrow focus on course taking potentially prevented the reforms from being more
effective (Allensworth et al., 2009). The research revealed the need to focus on teachers’
instructional and curricular quality and the manner in which course taking is implemented for
creating access to rigor (Allensworth et al., 2009). The research of Allensworth et al. (2009) also
implied the need for policies to incorporate more in-depth shifts in school level structures, such
as pedagogical and curricular quality.
Barriers to Rigor: School-based Structural Characteristics
Just as the policies that inform the schooling experiences of African American and Latino
students create challenges for effectively educating students of color; the school-based factors
that characterize many of their educational experiences are also problematic (Darling-Hammond,
2010; Ladson-Billings, 2010). The school-based characteristics—including schools’ climate and
culture, as well as organization and management—are institutional factors that further African
American and Latino students’ inequitable access to cognitively demanding experiences. These
factors can adversely or positively impact the quality of their academic experiences (Brown-
Jeffy, 2009; Ryabov &Hook, 2006).
High school organization and management. In addition to the school climate and
culture, the school’s organizational structure determines the degree to which students have
access to courses, as well as, the quality of courses African American (Stewart, 2007; Lleras,
2008) and Latino students can access (Lleras, 2008; Hallet and Venegas, 2011). The
organizational structure includes the school’s master schedule and course offerings, as well as
the policies for assigning courses to students (Darling-Hammond, 2010; Lee & Ready, 2009;
Lleras, 2008), and school agents frequently create disparate academic experiences for Black and
Latino students in comparison to White and Asian students. Some schools also limit the number
of enriching electives for students of color and low-income students (Darling-Hammond, 2010).
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 56
The master schedule rarely offers enriching culturally relevant courses or engages students of
color in rigorous, meaningful, and authentic learning experiences that provide students with real
world learning experiences (Darling-Hammond, 2010; Delpit, 2012; Gay, 2010).
Master schedule and course offerings: African American and Latino student
populations as the majority. Secondary schools limit access to rigor when they provide
students with excessive remedial and intervention courses. Public high schools where African
American and Latino students make up the majority of the school populations routinely offer a
greater percentage of substandard, remedial, intervention and special education courses and offer
a smaller percentage of advanced and honors courses (Darling-Hammond, 2010). However,
these courses that meet the minimum requirements for college admission offered at high schools
highly attended by African American and Latino students are often substandard, and they
inadequately prepare African American and Latino students for the academic rigor characteristic
of college admissions requirements and college coursework (Balfanz, 2009). The National
Center for Education Statistics (2009) indicates that passing college preparatory courses
evidences rigorous curriculum. NCES does not provide an accountability measure that ensures
the college preparatory courses offered meet the rigorous standards they are intended to meet
(NCES, 2009). Even if students successfully complete the college preparatory courses, if there
are no systems to ensure rigor, the courses can fail to prepare students for post-secondary
education. The under-preparation, influenced by substandard academic experiences, leaves
many African American and Latino students with the need to take additional high school courses
to supplement their low achievement in their primary English and math courses (characteristics
also discussed in Pedagogy and Curriculum sections) (Allensworth, et al., 2009; Balfanz, 2009).
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 57
Intervention. Schools can limit access to rigor when they increase the number of
intervention (or similar low level) courses (Lee & Ready, 2009). Darling-Hammond (2010)
suggests schools provide additional supports, even classes and school-wide college preparatory
classes to support them. However, other scholars and educators advocating for increased rigor
contend that, if college preparatory core courses provide structured access to rigor, students will
receive the support they need in their core classes and will not need the supplemental courses
(Carey, 2014). Other scholars indicate using courses to bridge the rigor gap can improve
students’ access, but schools need a great deal of support to implement such courses effectively,
and schools need to prepare students well in advance to students’ enrollment in college
preparatory classes (Balfanz, 2009). The intervention courses currently offered often mirror the
didactic, rote, fill- in- the- blank, remedial core courses (Allensworth, et al., 2009); therefore,
they are ineffective. More importantly, the existence of intervention courses that commonly
highlight the skill gaps evidences the absence of the rigor students should be receiving in their
college preparatory courses. By extending the culture of remediation through additional courses,
schools build stronger barriers to access (Allensworth et al, 2009). Rather than increasing
opportunities to learn at high levels by building knowledge, schools offer courses that repeat and
reinforce low-level thinking skills—they limit students’ skills and further enhance knowledge
and skill gaps (Torff, 2008).
Advanced Placement Courses. In the past, some high schools did not offer AP classes
(Balfanz, 2009). A study conducted by Alexander (2009) from 1980 to 1990 in the state of New
York, found the schools that did not offer AP courses were more frequently those schools that
served greater populations of low socioeconomic students and students of color (Alexander,
2002). Currently, Black and Latino students have increased access to AP classes when they
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 58
attend majority Black and Latino schools; however, they still have access to poorer quality and
fewer AP courses than their White and Asian peers. The increased AP course offerings have not
guaranteed underrepresented students access to cognitive rigor (Balfanz, 2009; Hallet &
Venegas, 2011). Researchers and some colleges are questioning whether the AP courses at
urban schools are adequately preparing African American and Latino students (Hallet &
Venegas, 2011). They suggest that the quality of AP courses at schools with high populations of
African American and Latino students is insufficient and less rigorous than the AP exam
demands. These scholars point to African American and Latino students’ low scores on AP
exams as evidence of the low rigor and poor course quality (Hallet & Venegas, 2011).
According to College Board (2013), African American were 14.5 percent of graduating Class of
2012 and 9.2 percent of AP course-takers. However, African American students only
represented 4.6 percent of AP exam takers and small percent of students passing AP classes
(College Board, 2013). The implications of these data—reflecting the low percentages of AP
course taking, exam taking, and exam passing among African American and Latino students—
support the inferences regarding the limited and potentially absence of course rigor, even in
some AP courses (Hallet & Venegas, 2011).
The limited quality of AP courses at schools predominantly serving students of color
poses even more challenges when African American and Latinos students’ only means of
accessing rigor is through AP classes. Schools which serve majority African American and
Latino student populations, commonly, still offer fewer AP courses and fewer other rigorous
courses (College Board, 2013). The College Board 10
th
Annual Report to the nation provides
evidence of this equity gap in access to AP courses (2013). The disparities in school course
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 59
offerings typically occur even when parallel racial compositions exist between schools within the
same districts.
Master schedules and course offerings: White and Asian student populations as the
majority. The construction of the master schedule establishes the frame for what classes are
offered and the number of students who can enroll in each course. The master schedules for
White and Asian students are often replete with honors, advanced and rigorous courses (Torff,
2014). Even among the college preparatory course pathway, White and Asian students
commonly have more access to rigorous courses (Torff, 2014). NCES defines rigorous
curriculum by the number of successfully completed credits toward twelfth grade graduation
within specified curricular areas, such as four years of English, three years of social science, four
years of math (including geometry, Algebra I/II, and pre-calculus or higher), three years of
science (including biology, physics and science), and three years of foreign language (NCES,
2009). These upper level content courses in predominantly White and Asian attended schools
frequently are more rigorous than those at schools serving predominantly African American and
Latino students. These classes in predominantly White and Asian schools are also not generally
(if at all) paired with intervention and support classes to the extent they are at predominantly
African American and Latinos schools (Allensworth et al., 2009).
While many education professionals argue race is not considered in students’ course
placement, whether intentionally or unintentionally, the schools’ master schedules frequently
reflect disparities in the racial composition of advanced courses in relation to the percentage of
students enrolled in the school (Ohrt, Lambie, & Leva, 2009). The master schedule is an artifact
of the hegemony that continues to regulate students’ access to quality education (Darling-
Hammond, 2010), including rigor. Schools that serve majority White and Asian populations
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 60
frequently offer a greater number of advanced and honors courses, as well as more enriching
electives, and fewer remedial and intervention courses in comparison to schools that serve
African American and Latino Students (Ohrt, Lambie & Pleva, 2009). Schools offer White
students rigorous courses and electives that include foreign languages and high-level
mathematics, science, and economic courses (Darling-Hammond, 2010). Although more students
from each ethnicity are completing more rigorous courses than in 1990 or 2005, the Nation’s
Report Card (2009) indicates that 6% Black and 8% Hispanic completed a rigorous curriculum in
comparison to 14% White and 29% Asian (NCES, 2009). Thus, the disparate course taking
variances evidenced in the Nation’s Report Card imply that African American and Latino
students are still not accessing rigorous curriculums at the same level as their White and Asian
peers. The master schedule plays a key role in this disparity.
Furthermore, those who create master schedules can set class sizes that overcrowd classes
typically taken by African American and Latino students to allow for keeping under enrolled
Advanced Placement classes in the master schedule (Ohrt, Lambie & Pleva, 2009), or they can
fill the advanced classes with the narrow spectrum of students who traditionally take them,
leaving little, if any, room for African American and Latino students, who may be newcomers to
AP classes, (Darling-Hammond, 2013; Tyson, 2013). Since there are no policies mandating that
African American and Latino students have equal access to AP and Honors courses, African
American and Latino students are generally not channeled into these courses. According to
NCES (2009), students could have completed a rigorous course pathway even if they did not
complete AP courses; however, not offering African American and Latino students AP courses
makes them less competitive for college admission because they do not earn the extra grade
points or AP credit at the same rate as their peers (Balfanz, 2009).
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 61
Perceptions and tracking. The perceptions of educators can also contribute to the level
of academic press that characterizes the school. Academic press reflects the extent to which
teachers involve students in cognitively demanding and complex learning experiences and the
frequency in which the cognitive engagement occurs (Brown-Jeffy, 2009; Ford & Moore, 2013).
Schools that serve large populations of African American and Latino students commonly have
low academic press (Brown-Jeffy, 2006). Even when African American students attend schools
with majority populations of White and Asian students—where the academic press is usually
stronger—African American and Latino students may not experience the same level of academic
press as their peers (Brown-Jeffy, 2006). This is important to consider because it speaks the
degree which students have access to academic press culturally and ultimately with regard to
instruction, further shedding light on their access to rigor without regard for the racial
composition of the school (Lleras, 2008).
Racial stereotypes of African American and Latino students’ ability to engage in rigorous
academic learning are commonly used to rationalize denying them access to rigorous learning
experiences and environments with high academic press. Common stereotypes about African
American and Latino characterize them as less capable than their white peers (Boykin &
Noguera, 2011); “lazy” (Tyson, 2013, p.173); and “intellectually inferior” (Tyson, 2013, p. 175).
They are also frequently considered to be unmotivated, “dysfunctional,” and “low achiev[ing]”
(Carter, 2013, p. 144). These, and other, deficit-based perceptions of African American and
Latino students are reflected in the experiences schools create for them, limiting their access to
rigor (Tyson, 2013) and contributing to the academic disparities of African American and Latino
high schools in comparison to White and Asian students (Noguera, 2008). In acting on these
stereotypes, Goldsmith (2004) contends that schools create an anti-intellectual school culture and
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 62
obstruct students’ access to cultural capital, which is a tool for determining one’s position in
society, including one’s access to higher education, future careers, and economic and housing
opportunities.
The Nations’ Report Card (2009) does not implicate particular types of schools based on
racial composition for the differences in courses by ethnicity, but the data do indicate significant
differences in course taking by ethnicity (NCES, 2009). In a study conducted in Texas by Moore
and Slate (2008), they utilized the Academic Excellence Indicator System (AEIS) and
disaggregated information regarding race-based percentages of students enrolled in Advanced
Placement (AP) courses at all Texas public high schools between 2004 to 2006 (two academic
years). They reported that 17% of the overall student population was enrolled in AP courses
based on the calculations of scores. The disaggregation, according to racial composition,
indicated that African American, Latino, and Asian were enrolled in AP courses at the rates of
approximately 10%, 10%, and 17% respectively (Moore & Slate, 2008). Although Moore and
Slate (2008) do not make definitive assertions about the role of race in AP course enrollment,
these findings suggest significant inequities in AP course enrollment based on these groups’ AP
participation. Thus, the outcomes in these courses implied access (Ohrt, Lambie & Leva, 2009).
The master schedule controls students’ learning experiences and can restrict African American
and Latino students to cognitively low learning experiences when they are limited in their course
taking and in the quality of the courses they take (Carter, 2013). More importantly, master
schedules are commonly constructed so that more White and Asian students can complete a more
rigorous course of study than their African American and Latino peers (Carter, 2013).
According to Noguera (2008), educational institutions operate on racial stereotypes about
African American and Latino students which impact the climate and culture in which African
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 63
American and Latino students learn—contexts which are frequently different from those for
White and Asian students (Tyson, 2013). Due to the deficit beliefs and perceptions many
educators hold (Darling-Hammond, 2010; Oakes & Guiton, 1983), African American and Latino
students are less likely to be enrolled in cognitively rigorous courses. While researchers such as
Johnson (2006) indicate no evidence of racial differences in course assignments (see Johnson’s
text Title), several other researchers suggest students’ race is one of the major factors that often
influences students’ placement in advanced or lower level courses (Archibald, Glutting, Qian,
2009; Riegle-Crumb and Grodsky, 2010) and race-based course placement is a form of tracking.
Tracking is when students are grouped by academic ability or curricular path—these pathways
determine whether students are tracked into advanced, general, or remedial courses (Oakes,
1985). Tracking can serve as an obstacle to rigor, because educational professionals often assign
and constrict students to the aforementioned prescribed paths in ways that are related to race and
class—remedial, basic, or advanced course-taking path—leaving those placed in the lower tracks
isolated from academic rigor. The lower tracks often serve as barriers to rich and meaningful
learning and contribute to the underachievement for those who are denied access to the higher-
level courses. Yet, African American and Latino students are disproportionately enrolled in these
lower track classes (Allensworth, Nomi, Montgomery, & Lee, 2009; Darling-Hammond, 2010).
Those students in the lower tracks remain isolated from academic rigor.
To some degree, counselors can serve as gatekeepers to students’ access to advanced
courses. (Darling-Hammond, 2010; Hallett & Venegas, 2011; Talbert-Johnson, 2004). Schools
that serve a low percentage of African American and Latino students (usually less than 25
percent) frequently have low proportions of African American and Latino students enrolled in
Advanced Placement courses in relation to the number of students attending the school (Ohrt,
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 64
Lambie, & leva, 2009). According to several researchers, counselors are three times more likely
to place White students in AP classes than African American students (Conger, Long, and
Iatarola, 2009; Lee and Ready, 2009). Tyson (2013) notes the incongruent placements between
African American and White students into AP courses occur even when students show similar
academic records. She points out, an examination of student outcomes on a California
Achievement Test (CAT) revealed a 53% difference between the rates at which the top one
percent of Whites and Black eighth grade students were assigned to high level English courses
(Tyson, 2013).
Another way schools’ agents restrict access is by setting prerequisite courses for
enrollment in honors and advanced courses (Balfanz, 2009). The prerequisites serve as barriers
because many African American and Latino students have spent most of their academic career in
low-level courses instead of taking the prerequisites for AP and Honors classes. The school
agents utilize the students’ academic history to rationalize channeling African American and
Latino students into basic, intervention, and/or remedial courses (Lee, Robinson & Sebastian,
2012). School agents assert African American and Latino students cannot handle the rigor of the
high level courses and rationalize the low level courses are more appropriate for them (Barnard-
Brak, McGaha-Garnett& Burley, 2011).
Moreover, once assigned to courses with low cognitive demand, African American and
Latino students are frequently prevented from transitioning to higher tracks. In some cases, if
students do not enter the advanced track by the beginning of high school, they are frequently not
allowed to change course pathways at a later time. Another challenge to African American and
Latino students’ access to advanced courses is that counselors rarely reexamine students’ initial
course placement to inform later course assignments (Oakes & Guiton, 1995). Failure to review
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 65
students’ course taking pathway for reassignments further prevents African American and Latino
students from having equitable access to rigorous courses (Tyson, 2013). Overall, restricting
African American and Latino students’ access to advanced courses may contribute to their
underdeveloped or undeveloped critical thinking skills, because of the academic limitations
schools are more likely to provide African American and Latino students (Boykin & Noguera,
2011). This structural component of schools can subordinate students of color (Oakes &
Guiton, 1995). Thus, the disproportionate placement of African American students into low-
level courses reinforces the rigor gaps (Brown-Jeffy, 2011). Zamudio et al. (2011) implies
school agents rarely acknowledge their role in contributing to these inequities (Zamudio et al.,
2011). They overlook the consequences of limiting African American and Latino students to
low level classroom experiences (Brown-Jeffy, 2011). Additionally, the perception that
students’ academic capacity is unalterable further bolsters the impact of tracking students into
low-level courses (Oakes & Guiton, 1995).
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 66
Teacher Qualifications
In addition to the course offerings and counselor supported tracking, marginalized
students have limited access to high quality instruction when they are provided minimally
qualified teachers who have not been adequately prepared to teach (Ford & Moore, 2013;
Talbert-Johnson, 2004). According to Pitre (2014), marginalized students more frequently
receive unqualified teachers than their White peers. These teachers tend to lack adequate
credentialing, content knowledge, pedagogical and curricular proficiency, and/or teaching
experience (Darling-Hammond, 2010; Pitre, 2014, p.213). The NCES (2010) indicates the
distribution of secondary teachers who lacked a subject matter degree or certification in their
primary teaching discipline differed by the schools’ racial composition. Their experiences were
different in the following ways: the teachers serving 50 percent or more Black, Hispanic, and
White students, respectively, teaching math (25%, 15%, and 8%) and English (13%, 15%, and
6%) lacked adequate certification (NCES, 2010). More importantly, the percentage of
unqualified teachers poses the greatest challenge to improving student achievement, because
teacher quality has recurrently been linked to student achievement (Darling-Hammond, 2010;
Pitre, 2014; Talbert-Johnson, 2004; Taylor, 2006). Taylor (2006) and Zwick and Himelfarb
(2011) emphasize, among school structures, the strongest correlation exists between teacher
qualities and experience when related to academic achievement (Taylor, 2006; Zwick &
Himelfarb, 2011). When students are limited to less qualified teachers with less experience, those
teachers may be unable to manage the additional challenges African American and Latino
students may face when they have experienced poor and limited academic histories (Darling-
Hammond, 2013).
Some scholars argue African American and Latino students’ teachers frequently
circumvent traditional certification programs due to the high need for teachers in schools serving
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 67
marginalized students, (Talbert-Johnson, 2004). Ford and Moore (2013) underscore the assertion
that unqualified teachers tend to lack pedagogical and content knowledge. They typically
demonstrate less ability to address the skill gaps and increase the access to rigor for African
American and Latino students (Noguera, 2008). The emphasis on the link between teacher
quality and student achievement further elucidates the role schools play in the rigor gap. Poor
teacher quality and inexperience are more prevalent among institutions serving large populations
of African American and Latino, as well as low SES students (Lleras, 2008; Taylor, 2006).
Because a schools’ socioeconomic status often links to teachers’ experience and qualification
(Gloria Ladson-Billings, 2006; and Zwick & Himelfarb, 2011), race and SES serve as barriers to
access for these marginalized groups. In these ways, the limited qualifications of the educators
that serve African American and Latino students implicate educational systems that make race
and class based decisions (Riegle-Crumb & Grodsky, 2010; Lleras, 2008) and limit African
American and Latino students’ access to rigor.
Teachers qualifications and cultural competence. In addition to lacking traditional
certifications, many teachers assigned to schools with majority African American and Latino
students are unprepared to teach to the range of diversity among students in their classrooms
(Gay, 2007)—the lack of cultural competence is also problematic among more qualified teachers
(Darling-Hammond, 2006; Ladson-Billings, 2006; Talbert-Johnson, 2004). Talbert-Johnson
(2004) suggests that cultural competence be included in evaluating teachers’ qualifications.
According to Darling-Hammond (2010; Ford and Moore, 2013; and Gay 2013), in order for
teachers to provide diverse student populations with equitable access to learn, they must also
provide students with culturally responsive pedagogy. Teachers need preparation to provide
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 68
students with such instruction yet rarely receive adequate professional development or
preparation in teacher preparation programs or inservice education.
Teachers’ perceptions and pedagogy. Many teachers convey their racial and ethnic
biases through their expectations of students (Pitre, 2014). Talbert-Johnson (2004) argues that
teachers often view African American and [Latino] students, versus their White and Asian peers,
through dichotomous lenses. The findings, based on Tenenbaum and Ruck’s (2007) meta-
analysis of previous studies, illustrate teachers have more positive perceptions of White and
Asian students than African American and Latino students. While Tenenbaum and Ruck (2007)
note the date of publication poses limitations to the relevance to current teacher’s perceptions,
more recent research has indicated similar findings (Darling-Hammond, 2010; Ford & Moore,
2013; Oakes & Guiton, 1995; Torff, 2011). In both affluent and low socioeconomic schools,
teachers commonly have lower expectations for African American and Latino students viewing
them as less capable (Ford & Moore, 2013). Conversely, teachers commonly have higher
expectations for White and Asian students viewing them as more capable (Darling-Hammond,
2010). Because these perceptions are prevalent throughout America, many teachers acquiesce to
these stereotypical characterizations of African American and Latino students’ intelligence
implying they are inferior (Pitre, 2014).
The negative and deficit oriented beliefs about African American and Latino students
reflect in the pedagogical and curricular quality teachers render students in multiple ways
including the quality of instruction, intensiveness of cognitive experiences, and quality of
feedback (Harber et al., 2012). Crumb and Grodsky (2010) and Posselt, Jaquette, Bielby, and
Bastedo (2004) point to similar effects of deficit beliefs. When teachers’ perceptions of African
American and Latino students are negative, teachers tend to expose them to limited rigor
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 69
(Darling-Hammond, 2012, 2010; Ford & Moore, 2013; Lleras, 2008: Oakes & Guiton, 1995;
Torff, 2011). Believing students are incapable of handling the demands of high critical thinking
activities (Torff, 2011) cause many teachers to give African American and Latino students rote
and remedial worksheets that require low-level skills (Darling-Hammond, 2010; Delpit, 2012;
Zamudio et al. 2011). Solórzano and Ornelas (2004) indicate analogous findings for
predominantly Latino high school students. Thus, in the same way that the perceptions about
African American and Latino students are dichotomous and inequitable, the instructional and
curricular quality many teachers provide African American and Latino students are dichotomous
and inequitable. Pitre (2014) exemplifies the juxtaposition of classroom experiences for African
American and Latino students versus White and Asian students employing a description
provided by one of her graduate students. She implies the pedagogical dichotomies are teacher
centered and controlled vs. student centered and unpredictable (a result of multiple outcomes
based on students’ construction of knowledge); inauthentic and lower order versus authentic and
inquiry-based (Pitre, 2014). These dichotomies reflect a system that disempowers African
American and Latino students and concurrently empowers White and Asian students.
Consequently, the deficit beliefs become inculcated in the practice and come to characterize the
pedagogy for most African American and Latino students (Pitre, 2014). When students continue
to experience low cognitively demanding learning experiences it minimizes their academic
growth and can lead to low academic outcomes (Torff, 2011; Darling-Hammond, 2013). The
under-teaching and under-preparation of African American and Latinos students relates to low
cognitive demand of many learning experiences (Torff, 2011). It leads many African American
and Latino students to lack the skills they need to be successful on critical thinking and problem
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 70
solving tasks in the classroom and the real world (Boykin and Noguera, 2011; Ford & Moore,
2013).
Just as African American and Latino students in comparison to their White and Asian
peers experience education differently, they experience two different academic outcomes.
Because perceptions influence instructional rigor and curricula, deficit beliefs can also
significantly impact students’ academic outcomes (Pringle, Lyons, & Booker, 2010; Ford &
Moore, 2013). Tenenbaum and Ruck (2007) imply the poor academic achievement of African
American and Latino students serve as evidence of the poor instructional quality many of them
receive. For this reason, Riegle-Crumb and Grodsky (2010) contend that African American and
Latino students bear the consequences of teachers who have low expectations of their academic
ability, especially if those low expectations translate into learning experiences that are situated in
the low cognitive domain. Some research suggests that limiting African American and Latino
students’ access to rigor translates into limiting their academic achievement—contributing to
poor achievement outcomes (Riegle-Crumb & Grodsky, 2010). Conversely, studies show that
instructional practices (Ladson-Billings, 2006; Malecki & Damaray, 2006) and rigorous
coursework significantly correlates with fostering academic achievement—advanced coursework
usually involves increased instructional materials, level, and quality (Lee & Ready, 2009; Lleras,
2008). Thus, the low rigorous activities serve to stratify African American and Latino students
(Barnard-Brak, McGaha-Garnett & Burley, 2011; Hallett & Venegas, 2011) and further reinforce
the skill gaps (Fergus, Noguera, and Martin, 2014)
One of the causes of the skill gaps experienced by African American and Latino students
is the rigor gap (Torff, 2008). Subsequently, teachers create rigor gaps when they determine the
level of cognitive demand to assign instructional experiences based on deficit beliefs about
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 71
students’ economic disadvantage or race (Torff, 2008). In the absence of rigor, some scholars
contend that the system disadvantages African American, Latino, and low socioeconomic
students and refutes that students arrive to school disadvantaged (Darling-Hammond, 2010). By
overlooking that students are disadvantaged by the systemic inequities they commonly encounter
when teachers underestimate their potential, educators can further underprepare African
American and Latino students by providing them with low cognitively demanding learning
activities rather than creating access to rigor learning experiences (Torff, 2008). Whether
intentionally or unintentionally, educators rarely fault the instructional methods for the adverse
academic outcomes of African American and Latino students or the extent to which their
perceptions undergird their instructional choices for African American and Latino students.
(Brown-Jeffy, 2006)
Structural Strategies for Creating Access to Rigor
The persisting low achievement outcomes for African American and Latino students
suggests that policymakers and schools should consider alternative approaches to educating
African American and Latino students. One possible way of increasing the academic
achievement of African American and Latino students is through the use of counter-pedagogy
(Brown-Jeffy & Coooper, 2011). Some scholars contend that increasing students’ access to
enriching academic experiences can reverse the impact of the poor academic histories many
African American and Latino students have experienced (Brown-Jeffy & Coooper, 2011). In
efforts to address the low achievement of African American and Latino students through
instruction, some researchers have proposed instructional strategies observed at high performing
schools for African American and Latino students (Ladson-Billings, 2009; Pitre, 2009).
Although Shernoff and Schmidt (2008) indicate that some scholars believe enhancements in
instructional quality impact African American student engagement the least, more researchers
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 72
assert the importance of instructional quality for increasing African American and Latino
students’ achievement outcomes (Allensworth et al., 2009; Darling-Hammond, 2010; Boykin
and Noguera, 2010; cite others here). Freire (1974) contends that traditional approaches, such as
using the banking system model, are dehumanizing to students and are insufficient to foster
academic growth. Other scholars and educators argue that rigorous academic experiences are
integral for African American and Latino students to become competitive for postsecondary
opportunities (Darling-Hammond, 2010).
Pitre (2014) indicates four qualities that are evident at high-performing schools that
primarily serve low socioeconomic African American and Latino students. Effective educators
engage all students in authentic experiences and challenge them with cognitively demanding
pedagogy (Delpit, 2012; Pitre, 2014). Effective educators also employ students’ cultural
contexts as the foundation for building new knowledge and believe that students are capable of
high levels of rigor (Delpit, 2012; Pitre, 2014). Fergus, Noguera, and Martin (2010) also propose
a four-prong approach inclusive of raising expectations and providing culturally relevant
curriculum. Fergus, Noguera, and Martin (2010) also suggest addressing the skill gaps and
increasing college preparation. The latter two approaches can be viewed as possible outcomes
of the strategies proposed by Delpit (2012) and Pitre (2014). Overall, Delpit (2012) and Pitre
(2009) contend that educators employ asset based belief systems as the framework for their
instruction. To explain the relationship of the more prevalent instructional strategies, this
section of the literature review will explore the sometimes intersecting and collective use of the
four strategies for increasing access rigor and narrowing the gaps.
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 73
Outcomes of Rigor
Many scholars have called for an increase in cognitive demands of course work,
especially for African American and Latino students (Allensworth et al., 2009; Balfanz, 2009;
Darling-Hammond, 2010, Delpit, 2012; Lee & Ready, 2009). Delpit (2012) and Torff (2011)
imply that critical thinking is a necessary component of rigor and Lee and Ready (2009) assert
that rigor increases academic outcomes. For these reasons, Delpit (2012) contends educators
must require critical thinking from their students even when met with resistance (Delpit, 2012,
p123). Delpit (2012) references a Native teacher who informs her students that they do not have
option to avoid thinking nor allow anyone else to be their thinkers. Delpit (2012) employs this
reference to emphasize teachers need to teach marginalized students to think critically to counter
their victimization by larger society. Enacting rigorous pedagogy and curriculum suggests that
educators engage their students in critical thinking. Engaging students in cognitively demanding
learning experiences enhances their academic growth and bolsters them to more positive
academic achievement outcomes (Torff, 2011; Darling-Hammond, 2010). Allensworth et al.
(2009) emphasize the importance of instructional quality to foster academic achievement for all
students.
In spite of some deficit-oriented research, more research has supported that economically
disadvantaged (Torff, 2011) and ethnic minority students also benefit from more rigor (Darling-
Hammond, 2010; Ladson-Billings, 2006). Other scholars echo this argument (Delpit, 2010;
Noguera, 2010). Darling-Hammond (2013) points to a study conducted by Robert Dreeben that
found when students begin in similar academic locations and are provided the same high quality
instruction, they achieve at similar levels. The benefits of rigorous pedagogy and curricula
suggest all students need to engage in rigorous learning experiences (Matusevich, Conner and
Hargett, 2009).
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 74
Access to culturally responsive instruction and rigor. While Culturally Responsive
Instruction (CRI) does not automatically translate into rigor, it can serve as a tool for creating
access to rigor (personal communication, January 5, 2016). In many US public schools, African
American and Latino students do not see themselves validated and affirmed in the instruction or
curricula (Gay, 2010). Rather, when cultures and histories are acknowledged in the classroom,
they are typically conveyed through a hegemonic lens--these stories are told as a mono-cultural
and monolingual story and lack the lenses from the multiple perspectives that make up the
classroom (Gay, 2010). In spite of the technological improvements, textbooks maintain their
curricular dominance in most American public classrooms (Gay, 2010). Many of these texts are
still predominantly European American and continue to validate and reinforce dominant
ideologies (Brown-Jeffy, 2011; Gay, 2010). In addition to valuing the dominant ideologies,
frequently these same texts also omit, minimize, or misrepresent the histories and cultures of
marginalized groups (Brown-Jeffy, 2011). As recently as September 30, 2015, a fifteen-year old
student sent his mother an image from his McGraw Hill textbook. It read, “The Atlantic Slave
Trade between the 1500s and 1800s brought millions of workers from Africa to the southern
United States to work on agricultural plantations” (Holohan, 2015, np). Although the publisher
agreed to correct the ebook, it committed to correcting the errors in the next edition of the print
book—a change that may not occur for years (Levin, 2015). If Gay is correct, then the current
event (about the textbook), serves as a “cultural artifact” (Gay, 2010, p.133-134). This cultural
artifact, in 2015, provides inaccurate information about slavery and evidences the diversity
challenges present in schools and society; it highlights areas where schools can consider shifting
curricula and instruction to value and validate the diversity of the students in the classrooms
rather than omit cultural backgrounds for students of color (Delpit, 2012).
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 75
In response to the Eurocentric curricula in American public schools, several scholars
propose reflecting on the quality of the instruction and revising it to engage students in authentic
learning experiences that value the funds of knowledge they bring from their cultures,
communities, and lived experiences (Delpit, 2012, p.55; Gay, 2005). Some argue that validating
and affirming African American and Latino students’ identities can serve to create access to
rigor. However, one of the challenges for many schools in low-income areas is they focus on the
knowledge students lack rather than the knowledge students take to school with them (Delpit,
2012). Delpit (2012) proposes that instead of judging students by their lack of knowledge,
educators have a responsibility to facilitate students’ acquisition of the knowledge they will need
to be successful in American society
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 76
CHAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGY
Chapter one introduces the issues of access to rigor for African American and Latino
students. Chapter two provides a review of literature examining the perceptions, systems,
policies, and school-based practices influencing students’ access to rigor and achievement. It also
introduces pedagogical approaches to potentially increasing access to rigor. Chapter three
designed a study that gained further understanding of African American and Latino students’
access and barriers to academic rigor in high school. Chapter three also offers the methodology
for the manner in which the researcher collected data for this study.
Purpose of the Study
Several studies have examined the underachievement of African American and Latino
students. More recently scholars have begun to examine African American and Latino students’
underachievement as a symptom of the limitations of educational opportunities and access to
academic rigor. This study sought to extend the current research to shed light on how teachers’
perceptions and the learning experiences they provide to students can limit or advance African
American and Latino students’ access to rigor. The research design allowed the researcher to
examine the measures that are being taken or can be taken in the future so that policymakers,
schools, and educators may begin to counteract some of the systemic and school based factors
that contribute to the degree to which African American and Latino students have access to
academic rigor.
Research Questions
This study investigated the following research questions:
1. What are some pedagogical strategies that secondary educators describe that create
access to academic rigor for African American and Latino students?
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 77
2. In what ways do school and classroom practices in high schools reflect institutionalized
perceptions about African American and Latino students’ ability to engage in rigorous
learning opportunities?
Rationale for Qualitative Research Methods Design
The researcher employed qualitative research to conduct this study. Qualitative research
is the most effective way to examine the educational systems and practices that are contributing
to the degree to which African American and Latino students have access to rigorous learning
experiences. Qualitative research is also an effective way to examine educators’ perceptions,
pedagogy and curriculum related to African American and Latino students’ access to rigor.
According to Merriam (2009), qualitative researchers investigate and explore how people
perceive and construct meaning in their natural contexts. The qualitative research approach
allows the researcher to richly describe and analyze the instructional experiences teachers create
for students in the setting in which the instruction occurs (Merriam, 2009). Through the rich
description that qualitative research allows, the researcher was able to “analy[ze] how some
situations and events influence others” (Maxwell, 2013, p. 29). Conducting qualitative research
provided descriptive evidence of teachers’ perspectives and practices. Conducting qualitative
research also allowed the researcher to observe the participants in their classrooms—a natural
environment in which the phenomenon of learning occurs (Merriam, 2009). Finally, a
qualitative approach also supported the researchers’ examination of the manner in which some
teachers utilized pedagogical strategies and curriculum to create access for African American
and Latino secondary students.
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 78
Sample and Population
The researcher employed nonprobability purposeful convenience sampling, because the
intent of this study was not to generalize results to other settings (Merriam, 2009). Rather, the
researcher selected nonprobability purposeful convenience sampling because it allowed the
researcher to select specific populations that possessed particular characteristics about which the
researcher sought to gain insight (Merriam, 2009). In this study, two teachers at a diverse high
school were the targeted population. The unit of analysis was the learning experiences to which
African American and Latino students had access. The students’ learning experiences served as
evidence of the cognitive demand of instruction, texts, and assignments as well as the kind of
support teachers were providing to meet the cognitive demand. The use of Common Core State
Standards addressed during the observations and a checklist adapted from Draeger et al. (2013),
Early, Rogge, and Decci (2014), and Wyatt et al. (2012) were used (following the observations)
as a proxy to assess the level of rigor in the learning experiences to which students had access in
the classroom.
The researcher conducted the study at one public high school. The criteria for high
school selection included one public high school with a diverse student population that included
at least a five percent African American and five percent Latino student. Conducting research at
one diverse public high school with these criteria allowed the researcher to more deeply explore
the academic experiences to which African American and Latino students had access in a diverse
school setting. At the high school, the researcher visited eleventh grade English and Freshman
Seminar classes (included an interdisciplinary English and social science curriculum) —the
classes included Advanced Placement (AP), college preparatory (CP), and Freshman Seminar
classes. Selecting AP and CP as well as the Freshman Seminar courses provided insight into the
degree of access offered African American and Latino students in each type of course. One
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 79
teacher taught both AP and CP eleventh grade courses. The other teacher taught Freshman
Seminar but had previously taught AP Language and Composition (usually an eleventh grade AP
English course). An observation of an AP and general education course taught by the same
teacher participant and a Freshmen Seminar course taught by a teacher who chose not to teach
AP Language and Composition anymore allowed the researcher to observe differences and
similarities in how the teacher participants perceived and provided rigorous learning experiences
in each context. The researcher visited Advanced Placement English Language and Composition
classes because the AP Language course is designed by College Board to be rigorous and the
Advanced Placement English Language course is designed around reading and writing
informational texts (College Board, 2016). The researcher selected the Freshman Seminar (an
integration of both English and Social Science) course to explore the degree to which African
American and Latino students had access in each type of course. The Common Core has
initiated a push toward building students’ reading and writing more informational texts
(California Department of Education [CADOE], 2013). This shift towards higher information
literacy expectations establishes English and Social Science as two key areas to explore rigor.
By examining the degree of access in both English Language Arts and a Social Science blended
course, the researcher examined the extent to which educators created access to the rigor of the
Common Core State Standards which are frequently utilized to determine students’ preparation
for pursuing postsecondary and career opportunities (CADOE, 2013).
All students were required to take AP English and College Preparatory English (or their
equivalents) in eleventh grade as a graduation requirement. The high school site for this study
had implemented Freshman Seminar for every enrolled ninth grade student. This course focused
on writing across the curriculum. Writing and reading proficiency are commonly used on
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 80
standardized tests as primary indicators of students’ achievement. However, the levels of rigor
in the curriculum differ significantly. The Advanced Placement curriculum is presumably more
rigorous than the curriculum of the College Preparatory courses (also known as a general
courses). However, the curriculum in both English classes are designed to promote reading and
writing proficiency, which is also required for content specific classes (including social science
classes) across disciplines in both secondary and post-secondary academic settings.
Grade eleven classes were selected because eleventh grade is the year secondary students
are assessed in English Language Arts to determine college readiness. Eleventh grade students
take the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC), an exam based on the Common
Core State Standards. While the SBAC data was not considered in the analysis of data collected,
the standards on which the SBAC is founded, the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for
high school English in conjunction with the College and Career Readiness anchor standards
together established the criteria to determine students’ preparedness for post-secondary and
future careers (CADOE, 2013). Since the Common Core State Standards [CADOE, 2013],
College and Career Readiness anchor standards, and the SBAC exam place an emphasis on
students’ academic preparation, a study of eleventh grade English classrooms provided greater
insight into students’ degree of access to rigor. The researcher selected the Freshmen Seminar
because it provided insights into the types of learning experiences in which students engaged that
might have prepared them for later English course-taking. The study examined students’
academic experiences based on their access to the cognitive demand of the standards in the one
selected school for students enrolled in the College Preparatory and Advanced Placement classes
observed. The researcher utilized a checklist adapted from Draeger et al. (2013), Early, Rogge
and Decci (2013), and Wyatt et al. (2012) to measure the cognitive demand.
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 81
Instrumentation
In order to conduct this study, the researcher conducted observations, interviews, and
gathered documents such as syllabi and sample assignments from teacher participants to answer
the two research questions. The researcher observed and interviewed English teachers that
volunteered at one high school site to gain greater insight regarding teachers’ perceptions of rigor
and how they created access to rigor for their students. Using convenience sampling, the
researcher observed and interviewed two English teachers that taught (or have taught) both AP
and CP English classes. The researcher observed each teacher for at least four class periods
(each course was observed at least twice during a single day) for the kinds of learning
experiences provided. Then, the researcher conducted the interview with teachers of the classes
observed during the time the teachers had available. Prior to conducting the observations and
interviews, the observation and interview protocols were field tested with two teachers, an
English and Social studies teacher at another school to determine the reliability and validity of
instruments used. However, none of the data collected from the test site was included in this
study.
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 82
Table 2
Research Questions
Research Questions Interview Observations Documents
Research Question # 1
What are some pedagogical
strategies that secondary
educators describe that create
access to academic rigor for
African American and Latino
students?
Teachers in their
classrooms
Teachers in their
classrooms
Teachers
Course Outlines/Text
Titles
Assignments/Tasks/P
rojects/Writing
Prompts/Rubrics (No
Names)
Research Question #2
In what ways do school and
classroom practices in high
schools reflect institutionalized
perceptions about African
American and Latino students’
ability to engage in rigorous
learning opportunities?
Teachers in their
classrooms
Teachers in their
classrooms
Assignments/Tasks/
Writing Prompts (No
Names)
Text Titles
Seating Arrangement
Observations. The researcher used a semi-structured scripting observation protocol to
conduct observations of the academic experiences to which African American and Latino
students had access in the selected classes. Scripting allowed the observer to note objectively
what was said and heard without attempting to simultaneously analyze what was seen and heard.
During the observations, the researcher typed what she saw and heard the teacher and students do
and say, respectively. The researcher noted the time approximately every five-minutes to
document the teachers’ instructional strategies and shifts. The researcher also recorded the times
to note students exhibiting off task and on task behaviors (Knight & Smith, 2004), because
engagement plays a key role in defining rigor (Early et al., 2012; Draeger et al., 2013). The
researcher also noted the racial makeup of each class observed (when students’ ethnicity could
be inferred by observation), as well as the teachers’ interactions with African American and
Latino students (when possible). Further, the observer looked for how African American and
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 83
Latino students interacted among themselves and other students around academic activities.
Conducting the observations created opportunities for the researcher to observe evidence of
instruction and classroom discourses based around the Common Core Standards, which require
high cognitive demand as a proxy for rigor in the teaching and learning experiences in the
classrooms observed. Classroom observations allowed the researcher to document exhibited
behaviors and events as they took place in the natural settings of the school (Creswell, 2014).
Following the use of scripting for observations, the researcher utilized a classroom observation
checklist to analyze the data collected from the observations. The instrument was based on
existing instruments and key factors of rigor found in the literature review. A checklist compiled
from Draeger et al. (2013), Early, Rogge and Decci (2013), Matusevich, O’Conner and Hargett
(2009), Waxman and Padrón (2004) and Wyatt et al. (2012) were used to assess the level of rigor
and cognitive demand in the learning experiences to which students had access in the classroom.
Interviews. The researcher began with semi-structured interviews designed and adapted
from Francis (2012) and Willoughby (2013). Conducting interviews of AP English and college
preparatory teachers allowed the researcher to engage in a one-to-one conversation to capture
pertinent information related to the focus of the study (Merriam, 2009). Interviews created
opportunities to obtain information about the teacher participants ‘feelings, thoughts, and
perceptions’ or other phenomena that the researcher was unable observe (Merriam, 2009).
Conducting interviews in this study allowed the researcher to gain insight about the teachers’
perceptions of rigor and students’ ability to engage in rigorous learning activities. Conducting
interviews also revealed how those perceptions influenced the academic experiences to which
students had access. The interviews were voluntary. The researcher organized the interviews
based on the availability of the participants. With availability in mind, the researcher interviewed
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 84
the two teachers observed in their classrooms. The researcher interviewed each teacher, one time
each, using 45 – 60 minute semi-structured interviews. Based on availability, the researcher
followed up with one teacher to ask clarifying questions. (The other teacher no longer worked at
the school.) The researcher selected an eleventh grade English course, because eleventh grade is
the level at which college preparation is frequently determined. The researcher selected an
English teacher who taught the Freshman Seminar (with AP Language experience) to gain
insights regarding the types of ELA learning experiences the school provided prior to their
eleventh grade year of ELA coursework. Interviewing eleventh grade English and Freshmen
seminar teachers regarding their perceptions and implementation of rigor was also used to
validate what the researcher observed.
The researcher employed digital voice recording applications on her cell phone and
digital voice recorder (with the participants’ permission) while taking typed notes (because the
researcher can type without looking at the keys allowing the researcher to pay more attention to
the participants). The researcher submitted the recorded interviews to an external transcribing
agency to have the notes transcribed. Following the completion of the interview with each
teacher, the researcher gave participants a $15 gift card.
In order to gain access to the school sites, the researcher submitted the district’s
application and a letter providing an overview of the content and purpose of the research to the
district. Following permission from the district, the researcher submitted a similar letter to the
principal. The letters were adapted from another dissertation (Francis, 2012) and were submitted
to the district, principals, and teachers after permission was gained at each level using email.
Document collection. Following the interview, the researcher requested a limited
number of documents related to the research questions. The researcher requested a sample of
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 85
each teacher participant’s assignment prompts, writing prompts, text titles, and/or course outlines
to gain an overview of the overall learning experiences to which the students in each class had
access and where the observed learning experiences fell within the scope of the course. The
assignments reflected the standards being taught, and how teachers were asking students to
demonstrate proficiency with those standards, and the extent to which teachers created access to
rigor. The researcher selected assignments that evidenced the level of rigor teachers were
expecting from students to demonstrate proficiency to further shed light on the level of rigor of
the assignments. For this reason, the researcher looked for the kinds of assignments the teacher
had posted on the board, online, and/or the assignments (provided on paper). The documents
collected also served as artifacts of the learning activities that students experienced.
Credibility and Trustworthiness
The researcher in this study utilized triangulation to improve the validity and reliability of
the findings. Utilizing multiple data sources allowed the researcher to substantiate the findings
that developed from the data gathering process (Merriam, 2009). Collecting data from surveys,
observations, interviews, and documents allowed the researcher to utilize the data sources to
verify the findings from other data sources. To further enhance the credibility of the findings,
the researcher followed-up with one of the participants (because only she was available) to
clarify some of the information collected from the interviews and observations. Additionally, the
researcher employed “rich, thick descriptions” of the setting and events to increase credibility
(Merriam, 2009, p.229).
Ethical Considerations
Prior to contacting school sites and participants, as well as conducting the study, the
researcher gained approval from the Institutional Review Board (IRB) at USC in order to ensure
that all research was conducted in an ethical manner and protected all human subjects.
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 86
Following approval from the IRB, the researcher requested permission from the school district.
The researcher emailed the school district (See Appendices). Once the school district approved
the research, the researcher contacted the administrator by email at the school site where the
research was conducted. The researcher provided the site a letter that explicated the potential
benefits of the findings from this study on creating access to rigor. Once the principal consented,
the researcher contacted the recommended eleventh grade English teachers that met the selection
criteria and volunteered at the site. For the purpose of this study, English teachers were selected
because standardized assessments of reading and writing are most often utilized to measure
student achievement.
In order to protect the privacy and rights of the human subjects, the researcher obtained
the participants consent prior to collecting data. The researcher also informed all participants of
the purpose and methods of the study conducted. Also, the researcher informed the participants
that the information they provided is voluntary and confidential and is protected in the following
ways: used pseudonyms and omitted any information that would allow others to identify the
participants and their school sites.
Data Analysis
The researcher organized the analysis of the data by research questions. The researcher
then identified and utilized recurring themes developed from the data collection processes related
to each research question to further organize the analysis of data. Initially, the researcher
employed open coding to help “construct categories” from the interviews, documents and
observation notes (Merriam, 2009, p.179). From here, the researcher transitioned to analytical
coding that stems from the researcher grouping data into categories and making meaning of the
data (Merriam, 2009). The researcher used triangulation of the data sources to validate the
findings.
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 87
CHAPTER FOUR: FINDINGS
Chapter One introduces the issues of access to rigor for African American and Latino
students. Chapter Two provides a review of literature examining the perceptions, systems,
policies, and school-based practices influencing students’ access to rigor with an emphasis on
African American and Latino students. It also includes pedagogical approaches to potentially
increase students’ access to rigor. Chapter Three provides details of the study design to gain
further understanding of barriers and access to rigor in high school. It offers the methodology
used to collect the data for this study.
Chapter Four presents findings that extend current research regarding how school and
classroom practices shape learning experiences that limit or advance access to rigor. The
research design allowed for an examination of the measures being taken or which can be taken in
the future so that policymakers, schools, and teachers may identify and act on systemic and
school-based factors that determine the degree to which African American and Latino students
have access to academic rigor.
This chapter is organized by research question, themes, and subthemes. Some
differences in subthemes emerged from the interviews, observations, and documents collected
from each teacher. The interviews, observations, and documents were triangulated to answer the
following research questions:
1. What pedagogical strategies do secondary educators describe that create access to
academic rigor for African American and Latino students?
2. In what ways do school and classroom practices in high schools reflect institutionalized
perceptions about African American and Latino students’ ability to engage in rigorous
learning opportunities?
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 88
Answering Research Question 1 required establishing both teachers’ definitions of rigor
and contextualized their pedagogical strategies for creating access to rigor. This section begins
with the teachers’ definitions and exemplifications of rigor. Next, the teachers’ strategies for
creating access to rigor are included. Research Question 2 was designed to explore the extent to
which the classroom and school practices reflected institutionalized perceptions of African
American and Latino students’ ability to engage in rigorous learning opportunities. Findings
related to both research questions were based on the analyses resulting from the triangulation of
the interviews, observations, and documents.
For the purpose of this study, the researcher used dimensions of rigor (Draeger et al.
2013), Bloom’s taxonomy and the Common Core State Standards in English language arts to
frame the analysis of the findings. Draeger and colleagues provided concrete descriptors—active
learning, higher-order thinking, meaningful content, and appropriate expectations—used to
describe the degrees of rigor each teacher employed. To further explore the findings, the
researcher filtered the findings through a critical race theory (CRT) lens. CRT asserts that
racism is embedded in the social and structural tenets of American society—it is “normal, not
aberrant, in American Society” (Delgado, 1995, p. xiv). Because racism is a normal and
established part of American society, CRT functions to uncover racism as it occurs in various
forms and locations in society—including education (Ladson-Billings, 1998). CRT also
acknowledges that the “the dialogue of people of color has been silenced” (Ladson-Billings,
1998, p.14), which also reflects in the experiences of students of color. Ladson-Billings asserted,
“CRT can be a powerful explanatory tool for the sustained inequity that people of color
experience” (p.18) and that CRT acknowledges the importance of remedying the past treatment
of African American and [Latino Students] to provide them with opportunities to access the same
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 89
academic opportunities of their White peers (Ladson-Billings, 1998). For this reason, CRT
served to explore the strategies teachers employed to create access to rigor for African American
and Latino students. It also functioned to examine the ways in which school and classroom
practices reflected institutionalized perceptions about African American and Latino students’
ability to engage in rigorous learning opportunities.
Findings for Research Question 1
The first research question asked, “What pedagogical strategies do secondary educators
describe that create access to academic rigor for African American and Latino students?”
Teachers’ Profiles and School Enrollment
The researcher interviewed and observed two teachers at a large high school in Southern
California. Teacher 1, Mr. Wright, identified himself as biracial—Japanese and White. At the
time of this study, he had taught for 9 years and had spent his entire teaching career at Sunrise
High School. While he had previously taught AP English Language and Composition (for 5
years), he taught the Freshman Seminar courses at the time of the study. In addition to the
Freshman Seminar, he also taught Ethnic Studies and Bible as Literature and Existential
Literature (a senior elective).
Teacher 2, Ms. Kelly identified as Caucasian and Jewish. She had taught for 36 years
and had spent most of her teaching career at Sunrise High School. She had taught AP English
Language for much of the time she had been at Sunrise High School. In addition to teaching AP
English Language and Composition, Ms. Kelly also taught college preparatory English courses
in which she collaborated with a special education teacher.
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 90
Table 3
Background about Teachers and Classes Taught at The Time of The Study
Descriptors Teacher 1 Teacher 2
Number of
Years
Teaching
9 36
Classes
Freshmen Seminar, Ethnic Studies,
and Bible/Existential Literature
AP Language and College
Preparatory Eleventh Grade English
Grade 9
th
/Mixed grades 11
th
grade
Gender Male Female
The school had a diverse student population. White and Latino students made up most of the
student population.
Table 4
Enrollment by Ethnicity
Ethnicity Enrollment (%)
African American 8.8%
American Indian 0.1%
Filipino 0.9%
Hispanic/Latino 36.4%
Pacific Islander 0.2%
White 38.1%
2+ Races 7.4%
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 91
Not Reported 0.9%
California Department of Education (CADOE)
Teachers’ Definitions of Rigor and Strategies for Creating Access
According to Loughran (2006), “pedagogy is the art and science of educating children”
(p.2). It is about the relationship between teaching and learning and how together they lead to
growth in knowledge and understanding through meaningful practice” (p. 2). Hollie (2017)
defined pedagogy as “‘how’ and ‘why’ of teaching, the strategic use of methods, and the
rationale behind why instructional decisions are made” (p. 25). The researcher employed these
definitions to provide an overarching definition of pedagogy for this study. Whereas Ms. Kelley
and Mr. Wright’s definitions of rigor were important to making meaning of the interviews,
observations and documents (examples of the assignments given) related to their pedagogical
strategies. While Ms. Kelley stated she did not employ strategies that specifically created access
to rigor for African American and Latino high school students, she indicated that the pedagogical
strategies she described were intended to create access to rigor for all students. Conversely, Mr.
Wright suggested he utilized pedagogical strategies that were culturally responsive and helped
create access to rigor for these students in addition to his other students.
Some of the interview questions sought to determine the teachers’ definitions of rigor and
the interview questions, observations, and documents served to exemplify the degree to which
their definitions of rigor were consistent with the research literature and cognitive demand of the
California Common Core State Standards. Based on the interviews and lessons observed, the
teacher participants presented differing perspectives of academic rigor.
Ms. Kelley’s definition of rigor. During the interview, Ms. Kelley initially defined rigor
as “pushing students forward” and “challenging them to think.” She explained what she meant,
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 92
[Rigor] is not the same for every student. For some, rigor is getting up in front of the
class, but it’s building their skills. It’s pushing them beyond where they were at when you
first met them, challenging them to think.
Ms. Kelley’s explication of rigor revealed the complexities and nuances found in the multiple
ways rigor has been defined. She recognized that students were at different levels of
performance and some might find most assignments challenging. Though assignments might be
challenging for some students, this criterion might not be a sufficient indicator of rigor. Based
on this rationale, certain low-rigor level assignments could be rigorous for some students who
are not prepared with the skills to successfully complete these assignments. However, this would
not make them rigorous in relation to criteria expressed in grade-level California Common Core
State Standards, Draeger and colleagues’ (2013) dimensions of rigor, or alignment with cognitive
dimensions of higher-order thinking expressed in Bloom’s taxonomy. Ms. Kelley defined rigor
in terms of what she did to involve students in learning rather than in terms of cognitive demand.
According to Drager et al., rigor entails the cognitive demand and types of experiences in which
students are engaged. Ms. Kelly’s initial definition of rigor overlooked key characteristics of
higher-order thinking. It did not match the appropriate level of expectations as stated in the
grade-level CCSS-ELA (California Department of Education [CADOE], 2013); it did not include
considerations for meaningful content and active learning (Draeger et al., 2013). Rather, the
definition she provided appeared to define scaffolding that could foster students’ progression
toward rigor. It was more akin to Vygotsky’s (1978) zone of proximal development theory that
calls upon teachers to join students where they are in their development and take them to a
higher level.
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 93
As the interview progressed, Ms. Kelley adjusted her definition of rigor. She provided a
definition of rigor that aligned more with the higher domains of Bloom’s taxonomy (Draeger et
al., 2013; Krathwohl, 2001). As she described why she believed rigor was important, she began
to redefine it through what she desired and did not desire from her students. She stated, “I don’t
want students just regurgitating what they already know. I want them thinking because I want
them to be informed citizens, and you have to be able to make judgments and think about things
and solve problems.” In this statement, she was referring to students’ ability to make judgments,
which Bloom’s taxonomy lists as analysis and evaluation: both are higher-order cognitive
actions. As she offered examples of rigor, her definition of rigor became clearer and aligned
more with what rigor entails.
Expository research-based writing. Ms. Kelley indicated that one example of a rigorous
assignment was the expository writing assignment to research a social movement (selected by
the students) she assigned to her college preparatory English class. According to Ms. Kelley, the
expository essay was rigorous because of the way she structured the research process. In the first
phase, she said students “weren’t all doing the same thing.” Students were working on different
social movements requiring them “to work independently” and “problem solve.” She stated, “It
had to include informative texts, personal accounts and visuals, so it was a lot.” In describing all
parts of the assignment, she suggested the importance of having students integrate varied text
types (print and non-print texts) in their essays. Conducting research to answer questions about
the social movement and supporting interpretations of their findings through a synthesis of
multiple sources aligns with CCSS-ELA writing standards W.11-12.2, W.11-12.2b, W.11-12.7,
W.11-12.8, and W.11-12.9. (CADOE, 2013).
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 94
The expository research-based essay also satisfied multiple dimensions of Draeger and
colleagues’ model of rigor by engaging students in active learning (researching and writing)
while using higher-order thinking skills (analyzing, evaluating, and creating) about meaningful
content (social movements) at appropriate expectations. Ms. Kelley expounded that the search
and selection of such texts “[were] about problem solving.” For many of her students, one of the
main challenges was figuring out how to find the information. Once her students found the
appropriate types of texts relevant to their research topic, they had to determine “what stages of
the [social] movement they were going to write about.” She implied that giving students the
choice to select the beginning, middle, or end of the social movement for their research
contributed to the rigor of the assignment. She also suggested that the components involved in
completing the research-based essay required high levels of critical thinking and exemplified the
ways she “challenge[d] my students to think.” She implied that the process of finding the types
of texts that were relevant to their research topic was rigorous because students had to choose
from a wealth of sources. Instructing students to research and integrate relevant details from
print and non-print texts aligns with the CCSS-ELA writing standard W.11-12.8 (CADOE,
2013).
While Ms. Kelley did not elaborate, the characteristics of the research process indicated
that students had to distinguish between texts that were reliable and unreliable and either relevant
or irrelevant. Students had to select and evaluate the credibility and relevance of the texts and
parts of texts that would be most useful in helping them develop their ideas. The expository
research essay assignment evidenced that she gave her students rigorous tasks; however, she did
not explain how she scaffolded students to be able to complete this assignment that had high
cognitive demand. Other than her description of studying the anti-slavery movement together,
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 95
she did not explain the specific strategies she used to scaffold for the students’ independent
writing assignment. In this example, she was unclear about whether she scaffolded at an earlier
time, believed students could do the assignment on their own, or was aware of the scaffolding
they needed. Because she was unclear about how she supported their completion of what she
had assigned, it was unclear how the other assignments leading to the expository essay aligned
with what students needed to know and be able to do to engage in rigorous work. Though the
assignment was rigorous, the pedagogy described did not support students in successfully
completing the assignment. Also, it was not clear whether students were successful with these
tasks and whether success was different for different racial groups.
Creativity and speaking. Ms. Kelley also characterized as rigorous the second
assignment related to the social movement they selected. She indicated that she had students
“take something they found particularly interesting and inspiring, do a creative project with it
that makes a connection to them personally.” According to Anderson and Krathwohl (2001),
coherence involves “putting elements together to form a novel coherent whole or make an
original product” (p. 213). However, it was unclear whether her reference to creativity aligned
with Bloom’s definition of create as a cognitive action (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001). Having
students create is among the highest cognitive actions according to Bloom’s taxonomy
(Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001), but the implications of creating a personal connection itself is
not sufficient to satisfy the definition of create. Though the products that students completed
could have demonstrated high cognitive action, Ms. Kelley did not explain any specific
boundaries of the assignment or provide any examples of what students might produce to meet
the demands of high cognitive action. Thus, sharing a personal connection itself was not
rigorous. Her pedagogy, as she described it, did not align with the cognitive actions analyze,
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evaluate or create under Bloom’s taxonomy, nor did it align with the California standards
language describing rigor.
Ms. Kelly described the second component of the creative project, presentations to the
class, as rigorous because “a lot of [students] are petrified to do [presentations].” Overcoming
their fear of speaking in public might challenge students but does not necessarily meet the
criteria of high cognitive demand characteristic of rigor. She did not mention the content of their
oral presentations to identify the level of rigor. Here, Ms. Kelley used the terms “challenging”
and “rigorous” interchangeably, although the terms are not always synonymous, especially in
defining rigor. A task can be challenging without being rigorous based on the definitions of
rigor reflected in the research literature and the standards. Additionally, while the Common Core
State Standards include presenting, the standard focuses specifically on what the students are
presenting and how they are presenting the information (CCSS, 2013). According to the SL.11-
12.4 anchor strand, students should
Present information, findings, and supporting evidence, conveying a clear and distinct
perspective and a logical argument, such that listeners can follow the line of reasoning,
alternative or opposing perspectives are addressed, and the organization, development,
substance, and style are appropriate to purpose, audience, and a range of formal and
informal tasks” (CCSS, 2013, p.69).
However, she did not address these elements of the CCSS-ELA in her explication of why this
assignment was particularly rigorous, nor did she indicate research- or evidence-based pedagogy
that enables students to engage in activities with high cognitive demand.
Ms. Kelley’s strategies for creating access to rigor. In addition to exemplifying rigor
through the types of assignments Ms. Kelley gave, she described scaffolding as a significant tool
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 97
for creating access to rigor and explained a few of the strategies she used to scaffold. In some
cases, she did not specifically state whether the pedagogical strategies she utilized were reserved
specifically for her AP and/or college preparatory (CP) classes, but she implied most of the
following strategies were ones she utilized to scaffold in all her classes based on the needs of her
students. Also, while she did indicate how some of the strategies benefited English learners, she
did not indicate whether any of the needs were based on cultural responsiveness in most cases.
Mostly, she discussed the instructional strategies she used in terms of the whole class rather than
speaking specifically to the needs of African American and Latino high school students. She
pointed out the strategies she employed benefited all students. Her descriptions of the strategies
she employed reflected few culturally responsive strategies and provided a limited view of
cultural responsiveness as she only indicated her use of some culturally relevant texts and
strategies, as well as student choice. The latter was reflected mostly in unit-based culminating
projects.
Scaffolding complex materials. Ms. Kelley described her approach to text selection as a
scaffold to complex materials. She pointed out that she thought “[the book was] pitched at a
very challenging level for this class.” To create access to the newly adopted textbook in CP
English, she explained,
I try and pick the things from the textbook I can be excited about, so I have fun with it
because if I’m bored to tears, which I am by some of it, it’s pretty hard to get them
excited about it.
Ms. Kelley suggested that her attitude toward a text influenced students’ responses to that text.
While selecting texts that she could be excited about might have influenced students’ responses
to the readings (even those she perceived as coming from diverse perspectives), her interests
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might not have matched the students’ interests. Although she selected texts that provided
different perspectives and provided students with topical choices in culminating projects, it was
unclear how she tapped into her students’ interests in terms of initial text selections. Rather, her
descriptions of tapping into students’ interests more clearly occurred following her selection of
texts. It did not appear that she offered students opportunities to self-select texts to add to the
unit. Allowing students choice could assist with engagement in higher-level thinking activities
because teachers could use choice to access students’ prior knowledge, provide culturally
responsive texts, and help students access the complex texts. Research shows that selecting
materials that are culturally responsive and complex may have a greater impact on creating
access to complex materials (Gay, 2005; Hollie, 2013).
Preselecting excerpts from texts. Ms. Kelley preselected passages from the texts
students were reading to create access to rigor. She pointed out,
I preselected scenes to read out loud in class and then assigned some other scenes to the
kids to read on their own and, of course, what I was doing was making sure that the
scenes we read in class were the ones that the test and everything would cover, and so, I
had this idea that everybody knows the play at this level and then if you want to go
beyond that, you can.
Ms. Kelley used this strategy to ensure that students accessed what she viewed as the most
important parts because she did not trust that all students would read for homework. While she
explained that she preselected particular passages for her students to focus on in class and
another set to read at home, she did not explain whether this strategy eventually transferred
responsibility of text selection to her students. During observations of her AP classes, Ms.
Kelley modeled how she utilized the preselected passages to engage students in discussions of
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the text. She instructed students to take notes while she selected key passages from The Great
Gatsby. Observations of Ms. Kelley’s commentary and the students’ responses provided limited
insight into how using preselected excerpts provided specific tools that helped students read texts
and make meaning of the reading independently. Additionally, there were no observable
differences between how African American and Latino students in comparison to their White
and Asian peers responded. Perhaps reserving these particular parts of the text to whole class
discussions provided an opportunity to model selecting significant parts of the text, which is
helpful (Ambrose et al., 2010).
Teacher-directed questioning. Another scaffolding strategy emerged from the
observations, which did not surface during the interviews. Ms. Kelley employed teacher-
directed questioning to help students access the text. As she pointed to particular passages in
The Great Gatsby, she demonstrated how she posed specific questions to help students make
meaning of the preselected excerpts. First, Ms. Kelly had students turn to page 68 (one of the
preselected passages) and read a few sentences. Next, she explained, “When a writer spends a
lot of time on a description, it has some importance.” Then, she posed questions. She had
students respond by writing their responses on the board at the beginning and respond verbally
the remainder of the class period. While students wrote their responses on the board, the
students at their seats discussed the novel with each other. Her AP students, including those
students the researcher could identify as African American and Latino, appeared to be interested
in the text selections she made.
During the lesson, the following behaviors were observed: several students raised their
hands, volunteered to go to the board, and had sidebar discussions about the text which all were
evidence that the majority of the students were engaged. As students continued to demonstrate
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different forms of engagement, Ms. Kelley continued to pose questions and respond to students
as a means to monitor and scaffold students’ learning. Although her approaches to scaffolding
the text were primarily teacher-directed, most students appeared curious and interested in
understanding the details of the text. Those students who were talking while she was explaining
parts of the book were still talking about the novel. A few students asked questions to clarify
and understand key components of the novel. Another student cited the text as she responded to
Ms. Kelley’s prompting to consider the structure of Chapter 4. The observed actions illustrated
how most students responded to preselected passages as a means to help them access The Great
Gatsby. Among students who responded, there were no observable differences based on
ethnicity. While Ms. Kelley did appear to engage most of the students in a question-and-answer
session about the novel, it was still unclear when the students would engage in a student
discussion or activity to deepen their analysis of the text without the teacher’s assistance.
Frontloading. Ms. Kelley also used frontloading to scaffold complex texts,
demonstrating that frontloading could create access to rigor. She described how she broke down
a piece and built on students’ prior knowledge:
When I look at a piece, I try to figure out how to break it down and introduce it. So, I
don’t just say, “Here, start reading this.” So, like, when we did The Crucible, I knew
they had studied the Puritans and the witchcraft trials a little bit in history, but I didn’t
know [how much they had covered in each US History class]. It depended on who they
had for history and so we talked a lot about that. We talked about hysteria. I gave them
the context of when Miller wrote it. I tried to get them interested in all those things
before we started reading the play.
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Through her use of frontloading to give background to the text, Ms. Kelley appeared to map out
the knowledge that led students to understand the context of the text. It was the scaffolding
students needed. According to Buehl (2017), frontloading can prepare students with the
academic knowledge necessary to read complex texts.
However, Ms. Kelley seemed to still assume all students could independently read the
text and make meaning from it. In the description she provided, it was unclear how she assessed
students’ ability to access the texts independently at some point as a result of the frontloading she
had provided. She did not explain how she guided students in breaking down the text or how she
built, specifically, students skills to read the text independently. Thus, the frontloading without
evidence of gradual release suggested that she was accommodating what she believed to be
inadequacies. By remaining a long time in the scaffolding process without appropriate formative
assessments, she reflected the view that some students were so lacking that she had to do the
bulk of the thinking for them. For this reason, she might not be scaffolding because scaffolding
leads students to independence. What appeared to be missing was that she prepared them for
complex texts, but she provided no evidence that students grew in their ability to make meaning
independently. It was not clear that the teaching and learning process led from “I do” (teacher)
to “We do” (teacher and students together) to “You do” (students acting independently) with
complex texts. Based on the description she provided, there was limited evidence of gradual
release. Also, it was unclear how she built students’ background skills (even though she built
their background knowledge) to make meaning of the text. During the observations of classes
reading different texts, teacher talk exceeded student-to-student interaction. The teacher talk
occurred most of the times while student talk occurred less frequently. Thus, student-to-student
academic discourse was limited and frequently directed toward her. If the observations are
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indicative of the approaches to complex texts after frontloading, the limited student-to-student
discourse provided minimal evidence of how she employed frontloading to help students access
the rigor of complex texts once the scaffold had been removed.
Acting out tone words. In her CP English class, Ms. Kelley demonstrated how she had
students act out the meaning of words as a form of scaffolding to rigor. Using a teacher-directed
approach, she reviewed the content vocabulary: frame, special elements and tone (the words
selected were those identified in the students’ textbook). After reviewing the content vocabulary
from the textbook, she had the students participate in a tone activity. She instructed students to
form pairs. In each pair, students collaborated to create a single sentence, but each had to apply
a different tone. Students took turns acting out their sentences in front of the class. Based on
each student’s performance of the sentence, the rest of the class inferred the tone conveyed by
the word. This exercise gave her students an opportunity to create and determine how to convey
their intended tones. The performers were actively learning peripheral content (understanding
tone) that was important to engaging in higher-order thinking when analyzing future texts
(Draeger et al., 2013). Ms. Kelley utilized this pedagogical strategy to help students develop
knowledge of a content specific term: tone. While addressing tone is important to accessing
complex texts, she did not provide evidence of the tools she had provided students to make
meaning of new tone words or draw inferences about the tone of texts. Thus, it was unclear how
she assessed students’ ability to use their understanding of tone to make meaning of texts (she
only alluded generally to the common assessments her department created). Hollie (2012)
asserts the importance of teaching students strategies for approaching complex vocabulary.
Thus, the activity remained a scaffolding exercise, which did help students better understand the
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tone words and text covered during the activity but might not have bridged gaps for reading
complex texts generally.
Vocabulary. Ms. Kelley stated that she used a specific vocabulary strategy to scaffold
the rigorous words her professional learning community (PLC) assigned. The vocabulary card
strategy appeared to be based loosely on the Frayer model (Allen, 2007). She explained the
strategy:
We give pretty difficult vocabulary, and, with every vocabulary word, we give the
definition. But the students do a sentence and a drawing. For students who can show
their understanding through the drawing instead of through the sentence, I think that
scaffolds rigor in that they’re still accountable to these difficult words. But they may
have [difficulty conveying the meaning], especially English learners. While a sentence
might be constructed in a way that doesn’t show their grasp of the word that well, the
drawing sometimes really can.
In Ms. Kelley’s description of the strategy, she did not clarify whether she also pre-taught
students the meaning of the words or just gave them the definition of the word. According to
Delpit (2012) and Pitre (2014), effective vocabulary instruction includes a study or discussion of
the new vocabulary before teachers expect students to use them in sentences. While one aspect
of her approach to new vocabulary was unclear, having students draw images that reflected the
meaning of the new words more closely aligned with effective vocabulary instruction described
in the research (Delpit, 2012; Pitre, 2014).
Ms. Kelley elaborated that the vocabulary card strategy was effective because it gave the
students who were struggling with the vocabulary more than one way to demonstrate their
understanding of designated words. However, this perspective might overlook that students
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needed to be able to use their knowledge of the words to write sentences in order to complete
assignments. This strategy served as evidence that students could perform that single task (or
part of the task), but it did not give evidence they could use it independently or in a different
context (although the strategy could be used differently.) According to Hollie (2012), effective
vocabulary instruction focuses on teaching vocabulary acquisition strategies (such as inferring
meaning from context clues or morphemes), rather than focusing primarily on teaching the
meaning of the words. Also, students’ inability to use the difficult words in a sentence may
demonstrate the degree to which they are held accountable for meeting the demands of the
CCSS-ELA standards, as well as make effective use of the difficult words. This example
suggested cognitive engagement at lower domains of Bloom’s taxonomy: knowledge and
comprehension. Students developed some skills, but this strategy was not designed to get them
to think independently with complex texts or in their own writing when they encountered new
words.
A follow-up observation of Ms. Kelley reviewing the vocabulary words with her classes
further illustrated the degree to which this strategy created access to rigor. After having students
create a sentence and illustrate the meaning of the assigned vocabulary for homework, she
selected students, using equity cards, to share their drawing and sentence. Each selected student
went to the front of the class and placed her or his card on the document reader. She proceeded
to read the sentence and discuss the card while each student stood to the side, usually with one
hand behind his or her back paying attention to the projector screen when she invited him or her
to explain the sentence or image. A couple of students prematurely removed their cards before
Ms. Kelley finished explaining them. She had to ask them to return the card to the document
reader so that she could continue to walk the class through the students’ sentences and
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 105
illustration. In this case, she did not provide the students with an opportunity to take charge of
their own learning: she dominated the discourse. By not providing any of her students with the
opportunity to engage in academic discourse, she limited their engagement in the learning and
access to rigor.
A question that emerged from the findings regarding the vocabulary instruction was how
Ms. Kelley connected the vocabulary scaffolding lessons to students’ ability to read texts with
comprehension. Without scaffolding students in a way that intentionally takes them to higher
levels of Bloom, students might be able to perform an assigned task, but there was limited
evidence that they could engage in higher levels of Bloom’s taxonomy requiring them to engage
texts with cognitive functions such as making inferences, finding coherence in texts, and making
judgments about texts independently. Based on the observations and interview, several of the
tasks she assigned were not requiring students to engage in higher-order thinking independently.
Also, she did not provide evidence of what students were doing unprompted by the teacher or the
specific exercises in a book to demonstrate that they were making meaning of texts. Although
she did provide students with some opportunities to practice independently during the class
period, the observations did not show students demonstrating high cognitive interaction with the
texts. “While some forms of (appropriately timed) scaffolding, modeling, and instructional
guidance by mentors appear to be important, immersion in meaningful practice is essential”
(Gee, 2001, p.719). Effective scaffolding strategies require the transfer of responsibility to the
students at some point during the course (Ambrose, Bridges, DiPietro, Lovett & Norman, 2010).
Some of her teaching provided examples of Mr. Wright’s statement that teachers often do the
thinking for students suggesting too much was being orchestrated by the teacher instead of
released to students.
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Differentiating instruction. Ms. Kelley implemented Differentiating Wednesdays during
the current school year. On these days, she used differentiation, another strategy, for helping a
wide spectrum of students access rigor. She said,
I actually [came] up with three different lesson plans for Wednesdays, and then I
communicate[d] those to the two other adults, a co-teacher and teacher’s assistant who
work[ed] with my class that day. So, it [took] a lot of planning to do that.
She described how students were grouped on Differentiation Wednesdays: “Those who [were]
behind, those who [were] working on their skills, and those who want[ed] to do some advanced
work beyond what the other kids [were] doing.” The advanced group read a separate book.
Each week, the advanced group read a chapter and discussed it. Ms. Kelley’s description of
Differentiating Wednesdays suggested that students could choose to participate in the advanced
group. However, it also appeared that if a student did not choose the advanced group when the
group began, the student might not be able to join the advanced group until after the completion
of the novel. Important questions emerged from this finding: How often did the students in each
group change? Were the students usually in the same groups? Specifically, did African
American and Latino students usually remain in the same groups? While answers to these
questions did not emerge from the findings, the findings led to multiple interpretations.
Although not observed, one interpretation of Differentiating Wednesdays was that they might
provide both scaffolds and enrichment for students who needed them, respectively. A second
interpretation of the finding was that Ms. Kelley was trying to deal with the realities of students’
skill and knowledge gaps. A third interpretation was that this could be a misunderstanding of
differentiation because it appeared that she differentiated once a week rather than integrating it
regularly as a daily practice. Another interpretation was that Differentiating Wednesdays was
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the primary way she differentiated instruction. Finally, while differentiating instruction in this
way might create access to rigor, it might be difficult for teachers who did not have the other
adults in their classes to duplicate.
Mr. Wright’s definition of rigor. Mr. Wright, like Ms. Kelley, asserted that “rigor is
different for every student” and “one size does not fit all.” However, he provided a clearer
explanation of the students’ role in rigorous learning experiences. He asserted, “[rigor] is not
just letting a kid slide by” and hoping the student would show he or she could demonstrate the
skill or knowledge at a later time. Rather, it was holding each student accountable for
demonstrating mastery of the standard. Through his definition of rigor, Mr. Wright established a
relationship between student accountability and the teacher’s role in engaging students in rigor.
He explained that the teacher’s role was to “hold students accountable,” requiring them to
engage in the learning and “ensur[ing] all students are not just meeting the standards, but they
[are having] multiple opportunities to meet those standards in different ways.” According to
him, students “are given the opportunity to redo work until they meet that standard.” He added
that “students have [a range of] intelligences and they can demonstrate their mastery of a skill or
concept in ways [that align with their intelligences] and be aware of that.” He suggested the
students’ role in being accountable was to draw upon their intelligences and take advantage of
the multiple opportunities provided by the teacher to grow and demonstrate mastery of the
standards. His explanation of the relationship between his role and the students’ role illustrated
that students’ mastery of the standards was a key measure of rigor and that he saw himself as
scaffolding them into rigor.
Analyzing and evaluating primary texts. Mr. Wright conveyed his belief that using
primary texts was integral to developing rigorous learning experiences. He pointed out that he
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utilized “lots of primary sources” to design rigorous tasks. He explained that he employed the
website Facing History and Ourselves, documents from New York Times, and the books A
Different Mirror and Voices of a People’s History because they contain primary sources and
described that having students draw their own inferences from primary texts is a form of rigor.
He added that the value of primary texts in relation to rigor could be assessed by the cognitive
demand of the texts as defined in the Common Core State Standards and [by Lexile]. Mr.
Wright’s introduction to historical events through primary sources provided students with
opportunities to engage with meaningful content. According to Draeger et al. (2013),
meaningful content refers to subject matter that is significant to meeting the course objectives
and serves as one dimension of rigor rather than the short synopses typically found in textbooks.
From the observations, it was evident that Mr. Wright “immersed[d] them in meaningful
practice,” an approach that is integral to students’ academic outcomes (Gee, 2001, p. 719).
Having students analyze primary sources, Mr. Wright both engaged students with
meaningful content and equipped them to make meaning from complex texts. His use of primary
sources as rigorous involved the cognitive actions in which he had students engage to make
meaning. According to Mr. Wright, as a common practice, he asked students to “synthesize
sources on their own” and draw inferences about the meaning of those combined sources. He
said, “they’re synthesizing all sorts of different information and coming to really unique and
important conclusions.” This cognitive action is akin to Bloom’s term of finding coherence
among multiple sources or details and requires higher-order thinking. In Mr. Wright’s class,
observations and a review of assignments (Letter Assignment and the Civil Action Project)
evidenced that students had to draw parallels and find coherence between the historical events
and primary sources—cognitive actions that align with the Common Core State Standards.
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According to the Common Core State Standards English Language Arts [CCSS-ELA (2013)],
students should be able to reference evidence from primary sources to substantiate and inform
their interpretation of texts. Through analyzing and evaluating primary texts, Mr. Wright
exposed his students to texts at different Lexile levels from multiple perspectives, including
people of color. Rather than treating the literature as something distant or far away, he helped to
humanize the texts by helping students see that the textbook is really derived from lived
experiences. It appeared that he integrated texts reflecting the lives of people of color throughout
his courses; whereas, Ms. Kelley selected fewer of these texts that she assigned at different times
in the semester which she attributed to the limited representation of people of color in the newly
adopted textbook.
Facilitating students’ synthesis and inference making of primary texts also engaged
students with another dimension of rigor—expectations (Draeger et al, 2013). The expectations
were established by the Common Core State Standards-ELA (RI. 9-10.1, W.9-10.7) (CCSS,
2013). During the observations of their whole class, small group discussions, and the letters
(which are discussed in greater detail in later sections), Mr. Wright illustrated students were able
to complete some of these tasks. Also, it appeared that the African American and Latino
students engaged in these actions at varied levels similar to other students in the class. Some
students integrated the sources they found independently more effectively than others. Other
students relied more heavily on their observations and personal experiences to carry their
arguments rather than establishing the coherence between their personal experiences and sources
they found independently.
The interviews and observations revealed that Mr. Wright used the primary texts to offer
opportunities for his students to engage in critical thinking. According to Mr. Wright, “[T]he
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biggest problem with our society right now, I think, is that information is being mediated [for
other people].” As he elaborated, it was clear that he believed too often teachers did the analysis
of texts for students rather than guiding students in learning how to do it for themselves. He said
he often stated these words to students: “Don’t let other people interpret these things. You read
the texts yourself, and you draw your own conclusions. Don’t let other people tell you what to
think; you think for yourself.” As he was clear that students needed opportunities to make
meaning on their own, he also implied that this process required effective instruction and clear
details for every assignment. Thus, Mr. Wright fostered students’ analytic and evaluative skills
by having them make connections, find coherence, identify inconsistencies between the sources,
and ultimately make their own judgments about the quality and credibility of the information
they read. He often had students engage in these activities as a class supporting one another in
small groups under the teacher’s facilitation. His assignments called for these actions, and as
students performed them in class, he gathered information about students’ various abilities to
perform them in addition to the written work he required of individual students. Students had the
opportunity to learn from one another as well as from him. They explored race and racism
through each other’s lived experiences. His assignments called on students to engage publicly
and socially in the kinds of thinking tasks they were expected to perform independently with
text. The kinds of analysis Mr. Wright fostered with his students enabled them to function in the
higher domain of Bloom’s taxonomy (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001; Draeger et al., 2013). Mr.
Wright engaged his students in sociocultural and socio-constructivist pedagogy.
Writing complexity and frequency. Mr. Wright’s definition of rigor extended to the
products that resulted from the cognitive actions in which he had students engage. He explained
that his students wrote, in the first quarter of the semester, a synthesis essay about eugenics,
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based on a poem modeled after “You Bring out the Mexican in Me,” a letter modeled after Ta-
Nehisi Coates’s letter to his son, and Lisa Delpit’s letter to her daughter. He elaborated that
having students produce three different modes of writing, treating a common subject within the
designated time allowed them to demonstrate rigor in a variety of ways. The frequency and
coherence of each of these assignments, though in different discursive modes, built on the other.
Mr. Wright emphasized, “everything builds in my class.” Through this approach to writing, he
embedded rigor in the assignments he created. Building a sequence of scaffolding tasks is
consistent with Bloom’s taxonomy.
One of the ways Mr. Wright guided students to construct text reflecting complex thought
was to have them complete these writing assignments in which they read and analyzed the
assigned mentor texts written in different modes. He had students write their own poems
modeled after poems such as “You Bring Out the Mexican in Me.” He used the letters as a
framework for writing synthesis essays and understanding the difference when writing for
different audiences. He explained he employed his prior experiences with teaching AP English
Language and norming the AP Language essays as a framework for showing students “there’s all
kinds of rhetoric and lots of different modes,” because he wanted students to have experienced
(in Freshman Seminar) the type of writing they would later see in AP English Language.
Modeling the essays after the AP Exam helped his students “[a]nalyze in detail how a complex
primary source is structured, including how key sentences, paragraphs, and larger portions of the
text contribute to the whole” (National Governors Association, 2010, p.81).
As students analyzed these components of the texts, he suggested that students make
similar rhetorical choices in their responses to the mentor texts he assigned. These mentor texts
became sources of inspiration as well as tools for helping students construct meaning from their
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lived experiences. One example that evidenced this during the researcher’s observations was
students’ selection of key excerpts from the letters they wrote to demonstrate their learning about
racism. In addition to making similar rhetorical choices as the writer, students learned different
ways to approach a theme, which writers’ may treat in a variety of ways. From there, Mr.
Wright invited students to use their own devices to write on the same theme as Delpit and
Coates. This required students to create an original piece.
Mr. Wright asked students to select a passage no longer than one paragraph from the
letters they wrote to share with the class. Then, their classmates were asked to write one thing
they agreed or disagreed with based on their personal experiences, readings, and observations.
Following their whole class participation, students were asked to share their responses in small
groups. Through these activities, the class wrote a response and then engaged in small group
discussions based on student-created texts. Mr. Wright demonstrated how this kind of activity
sent the message that he valued, affirmed and validated every student in his classroom. Through
this strategy students were actively engaged in co-constructing meaning. These instructional
strategies demonstrated Mr. Wright’s emphasis on the socio-cultural element in teaching and
learning. He also demonstrated that he valued the contributions students made to one another’s
learning.
Mr. Wright’s Strategies for Creating Access to Rigor. According to Mr. Wright,
making rigor accessible to each student required that teachers offer students “multiple access
points over and over again into the curriculum based on the students’ own experiences and
observations.” He contended that making rigor accessible involved inquiring about students’
needs, knowledge levels, and skill levels as well as the ways the teacher could support them. He
indicated that the teacher’s role in ensuring students had access to that curriculum was to provide
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 113
that “extra push for wherever the students [were] so they can get over that threshold.” His
depiction of rigor illustrated a shift from teacher to shared responsibility between the teacher and
the students. His description of his role in creating access to rigor aligned with Vygotsky’s
(1978) zone of proximal development.
Decentering the classroom through discussions. Mr. Wright characterized decentering
the classroom as an important component of rigorous learning. This focus provided further
evidence that creating socio-cultural learning experiences helped his students access rigor. The
observations demonstrated that, in his approach to rigor, he created a structure where all students
could participate. One way he accomplished whole class participation was through discussions.
He explained that his students engaged in discussions where they had to “opt out” instead of “opt
in.” He elaborated they were all automatically included and described this as “decenter[ing] the
classroom with the microphone.” Embedded in this approach was the notion that each student
was an important part of the conversation and served as a source of knowledge (Muller, 1993).
To begin the discussion, every student, one at a time, shared an excerpt from the letters he or she
wrote previously. As students shared their excerpts with the whole class, they demonstrated their
attempts at making meaning. The following were some statements the students shared during the
decentering activity:
Student 1: People are questioned and criticized. It is a social construct.
Student 2: I don’t think that racism is going to ever be out of society. Racism is going to
be around for a long time.
Student 3: There are many types of racism: active, passive, and anti-racism [anti-racist]
Student 4: You are not taught about racism. No one talks about it if it doesn’t directly
affect them. They make it seem like it’s not a problem.
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In response to the comments students shared, Mr. Wright asked them to write a response to what
they heard. All of this was preparation for meaningful discussions when they moved into their
small groups. After every student shared and wrote his or her responses, students entered their
small groups. In the small groups, students reflected on their written comments and discussed
their views based on their learning, the letters, readings and commentary. It appeared
decentering the classroom served as a way for him to ensure his students were actively learning
and the small group discussions served to deepen their insights and analysis of their learning
about racism. It appeared he believed students could co-construct knowledge when they worked
together under the tutelage of a teacher. The kinds of questions they grappled with required
analysis and evaluation.
Mr. Wright added other ways he used discussions to engage students in rigor. He
elaborated that rigor meant giving students “the chance to talk in pairs, talk to a small group, talk
to an entire class.” For him, discussions served as a way for students to share their lived
experiences and make connections to the course content. He emphasized the importance of
students utilizing their personal experiences to access course content. Through this approach, he
demonstrated that student experiences served as sources of knowledge that were valued and
integral to co-constructing meaning. He then reiterated the importance of “giving them lots of
different ways to deal with this [the course content]” and then giving them an opportunity to see
that learning doesn’t happen just from the textbook, but from each other.” Muller (1993) asserts,
teachers must provide multiple and meaningful occasions for students to respond fully to the
course materials—emotionally, intellectually, communally, and individually” (p. 603). When
students connect new content with their prior knowledge and experiences, they can make
meaning of the new content (Delpit, 2012; Pitre, 2014). According to Common Core Speaking
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and Listening Standards (CCSS.ELA, 2013), students “[r]espond thoughtfully to diverse
perspectives, summarize points of agreement and disagreement, and, when warranted, qualify or
justify their own views and understanding and make new connections in light of the evidence
and reasoning presented” (p. 68). Mr. Wright might not have stated it, but it was apparent in the
observations that through discussions, the teacher’s role was to help clarify meaning, alter
misconceptions, see inconsistences, and help students think more deeply. By decentering the
classroom and using discussions, he created access to rigorous learning experiences. He
deepened their understanding of course content and held students accountable for engaging in a
process for making meaning.
Posing questions for examination. Another way Mr. Wright facilitated students’ access
to rigor was through the types of questions he posed that prompted the types of thinking required
to answer them. He exemplified the importance of high-quality questions through his description
of a Civic Action Project he assigned in two different courses. In the project, students had to
select an issue impacting the world, United States, city, and/or school. Students could select
from the list or select an issue of their own. Based on their selected issue, students had to
research the issue, create an action plan to assist an existing organization with their work in
addressing the issue, and develop a method for sharing their findings. To guide students, he
provided students with several questions. He began with two overarching questions to guide
their research and data collection: “What current events or pressing issues should we consider for
each of the topics? Why would it be important to take action on this issue?” He asked the class
to apply these two questions to a list of 12 different topics from which they might make their
selection. The topics included immigration, racism in America, transgender rights, indigenous
people’s rights, Islam phobia, and diversity and support for minority students in AP classes. He
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modeled the types of questions students should use to facilitate their inquiry using specific
examples of questions based on a unit they completed previously: “What happened?” “How it
happened?” “Why it happened?” He followed these by modeling more specific questions: “Why
was the eugenics movement so influential?” “What was the philosophy that influenced people?”
“How did that shape policy?” For Mr. Wright, these questions were important to helping
students make meaning of texts and creating access to the high cognitive demand of the project.
He used these questions to not only challenge students to interact with members of their
community and write essays but to also take action and do something about the social issues
observed in their worlds. Modeling what students were expected to do using the eugenics unit
they completed earlier in the semester and discussing one of the topics from the list showed
students how they might approach the Civil Action Project and served as a scaffold.
Mr. Wright had his students collect data, collaborate, set up a meeting with an on-campus
club or off-campus organization, develop a social media/awareness campaign, take direct action,
evaluate the effectiveness of their plan of action, and present their work to the class, faculty, or
community. Imbedded in each of these steps, were responses to questions he posed during the
course and in preparation for the project. He utilized questions to deepen students’ exploration
of a topic that led to making judgments and problem solving. Through these questions, he
scaffolded and then engaged his students in higher-order thinking, facilitating students’ cognitive
movements between understanding and evaluating and creating (Krathwohl, 2002). By having
students respond to the questions and complete these tasks, Mr. Wright had students operating in
two or more dimensions of rigor, such as higher-order thinking and meaningful content (Draeger
et al., 2013). The interviews and observations suggested that he utilized the writing assignments,
discussions, and a discussion of expectations of the project to determine students’ preparedness.
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All of the combined instructional strategies (pedagogy) provided a connected and coherent
approach to scaffolding for the higher-order skills represented in the Common Core Standards
and in the attributes of rigor (Draeger et al., 2013).
Authentic learning experiences through real-world projects. Mr. Wright engaged his
students in rigor through the Civil Action Project. He argued that, in this way, he provided the
students with “real, practical, historical, empowering” learning experiences that “[gave] students
multiple opportunities to demonstrate” their engagement with rigor. He created a source of
authentic learning for his students through real-world projects. He demonstrated the belief that
students should examine a wealth of information extensively and employ their deepened
knowledge in both academic and real-world contexts (Francis, 2016). He reflected that it is the
teacher’s role to engage students’ in such high cognitive demand learning experiences (Francis,
2016).
Mr. Wright depicted the project as integral to students realizing that each of them “can be
an agent of change.” According to him, empowering his students meant helping them learn how
to construct meaning from their lived experiences and understand that some of those events were
rooted in history. He implied that students were to explore the historical significance of events
as insights into current events and policies such as “walkouts” and “illegal immigration.” In this
example, he pointed out the historical roots of illegal immigration. He showed a video about the
Bath Riots in 1917 to illustrate various ways people had attempted to evade immigration laws:
“topics not frequently addressed in students’ textbooks.” He explained that one of the origins of
illegal immigration emerged from day laborers who wanted to avoid being stripped of their
clothes and sprayed with chemicals every day when they entered the United States to work. He
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added that the day laborers began to find other ways to cross the border, which became known as
illegal immigration.
Mr. Wright asserted such lessons were important to helping students explore the
“historical processes at work” in many contemporary issues. He explained rigor meant helping
students explore ways “they can be involved in a democratic process. The only answer isn’t just
vote.” He pointed out “there’s a lot of things going on, especially when you know so many of
the social movements happened through youth movements, and it didn’t happen only through
waiting to vote next time.” He held the students “accountable” for exploring civic engagement
and identifying ways to effect change in their world beyond the walls of their classrooms. The
real-world context of the social justice project provided meaningful content that engaged
students in active learning at a higher cognitive dimension consistent with the multidimensional
model of rigor (Draeger et al., 2013). The project also aligned with the description of a rigorous
and meaningful project that would provide students with skills to use beyond the classroom
(Pitre, 2014).
Also, Mr. Wright conveyed to students that youth was not an excuse for them to opt out
of events in their world, but it was a tool for empowerment. During the interview and
observations, he asserted, “It’s youth that create change.” As he continued with his examples of
rigor, he argued that to empower youth was to give them space and “allow them choice.” During
the observations of his classes, he challenged students to consider how people made changes in
their community and country. He compelled them to ponder ways to become active participants
in those changes. He invited them to take action. This kind of challenge to students called for
high levels of cognition and emotional commitment. They had to analyze and evaluate situations
they encountered in the literature and in their own life experiences in the world and from those
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critiques invent or create courses of action. Engaging students in cognitive actions represented
in the higher levels of Bloom’s taxonomy and in the language of the California Common Core
Standards to construct knowledge relevant to their own experiences or interests demonstrates
confidence in their cognitive abilities and increases their capacity to engage independently in
rigorous learning opportunities.
Findings for Research Question 2
The second research question asked, “In what ways do school and classroom practices in
high schools reflect institutionalized perceptions about African American and Latino students’
ability to engage in rigorous learning opportunities?”
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Classroom Practices
Throughout the interviews, both teachers might have included classroom practices that
acknowledged and affirmed African American and Latino students. However, only one appeared
to intentionally employ classroom practices identified to support the learning of African
American and Latino students. It was unclear if Ms. Kelly included classroom practices that
supported her students of color. According to both teachers, they employed practices that they
viewed were equally beneficial to all students. Mr. Wright appeared to recognize the role that
institutionalized views of race could play in influencing a classroom culture. Despite the
challenges and misunderstandings that could have occurred when he taught about race in a
diverse classroom, he chose to teach about race so that each of his students could see that
differences did not mean that any race of people was better than another. Rather, he posited that
a class community must begin to identify the social ills and address them. Through this practice,
he exhibited the value he placed on students’ contribution to a rigorous classroom environment,
including students of color as equals with other students in the class. Overall, students appeared
to participate at equal rates. Creating a space for students of color to participate in rich and
complex conversations is different from traditional classroom practices that frequently do not
address the diversity in the classroom but ignore marginalized groups (Carter, 2013; Ladson-
Billings, 1998). Mr. Wright and Ms. Kelley demonstrated different views of the importance of
classroom practices in building a culture of rigor. While there were some similarities, several
practices were different and conveyed perceptions of African American and Latino students’
abilities to engage in rigorous learning experiences, though not explicitly.
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Ms. Kelley’s Classroom Practices
Ms. Kelley’s classroom practices were evidenced through her approach to establishing
the importance of rigor, implementing rigor, pushing students, and building a culture of respect
in her classroom.
The Importance of Rigor. During the interviews, Ms. Kelley’s definition of rigor
revealed she believed her students were capable, but she identified herself as playing a critical
role in scaffolding in relation to providing students’ access to rigor. She explained, “it’s building
their skills, it’s pushing them beyond where they were when you first met them and challenging
them to think.” This is a key part of the zone of proximal development (Vygotsky, 1978). This
aspect of her definition revealed that she believed she was an essential part of her students’
growth. According to her explanation, she built, pushed, and challenged them. Because she did
not explain the students’ role in rigor, she seemed to have less trust in their ability to co-construct
it with her. The observations revealed similar findings: Ms. Kelley appeared to employ a less
student-centered approach to providing students with academically rigorous assignments. Her
teacher-directed practices implied the view that students could not access the academic rigor
independently and accessed it minimally with her instruction. It was not clear when she released
responsibility to the students.
When examined in relation to the practices observed, Ms. Kelley seemingly believed in
explicit instruction as a form of scaffolding. It appeared that explicit instruction began at the
lower level of cognitive engagement in her classes. Her slower, more deliberate, and less
cognitively demanding move toward rigor indicated that she believed more structured tasks
helped students engage in the rigor. She provided a great deal of frontloading (e.g., tone activity
and vocabulary strategy) and teacher-directed scaffolding. She built what she perceived to be the
necessary scaffolding skills before engaging in higher-order thinking. By using a more teacher-
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directed approach to ensure students had skills for the assignment, she appeared to have less
confidence in students’ ability engage in rigor and inserted herself more during the actual
lessons, limiting the cognitive engagement of student-to-teacher and student-to-student
discourse.
Implementing rigor. In response to interview questions about the implementation of
rigor, Ms. Kelley discussed the challenges from students that she sometimes encountered;
however, she provided general responses. Her responses did not address any specific ethnic
groups. She indicated that, when she gave students rigorous assignments, she determined
whether to continue with an assignment based on how they responded. If she determined an
assignment was necessary, she said one approach was “I tried to adjust it.” She explained that an
annotated bibliography was an example of an assignment that she considered necessary to
students’ preparation for college. She stated, “[If] I think [an assignment] is rigorous and it
bombs, and kids don’t react to it, sometimes I have to look at it and say, maybe this wasn’t even
necessary. Maybe I should just throw this away.” She later added, “But there might be other
things that I’ll either put off, give them more time [to complete] or chuck [it].” This rather trial
and error approach raises the question of whether she employed research and evidence-based
practices to ensure all students’ access to rigor. A few potential interpretations emerged from
Ms. Kelley’s approaches to rigorous assignments when students did not respond to them: (1) she
recognized when to restructure an assignment, but only when an assignment failed to produce the
desired goals; (2) she realized it may have been an inappropriate assignment; (3) she noticed the
need to scaffold more; or (4) she questioned the students’ ability to learn the knowledge or skills.
Pushing students. Ms. Kelly emphasized the importance of pushing students toward
rigor. Ms. Kelley indicated that she “does not let kids not to do assignments.” She pointed out,
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“I just hound them to turn in everything.” When students were falling behind,” she said, I wrote
to their parents and their counselors, which we called advisors.” She went to other adults in the
students’ lives. She did not mention any differences among students of different ethnic or
socioeconomic groups when she used this approach. School-wide data, however, demonstrated
that African American and Latino students had the greatest difficulty in meeting standards. She
referred to her students generally suggesting that all “kids” were held accountable for completing
assignments. She added that one of the challenges of holding students accountable in this way
was “the time it took to just chase kids down for the assignments.” This practice provided a few
possible interpretations. It suggested (1) she viewed her students as capable, but they just did not
do the work; (2) she perceived all her students were capable even if they have different levels of
preparation; (3) she considered her classroom practices insufficient and she relied on parents and
other adults to help move students’ toward to rigor. In either case, her interview responses
implied a race neutral approach to classroom practices (Ladson-Billings, 1998). She did not
mention any culturally responsive practices that might have supported her efforts to push
students. But most important in Ms. Kelley’s analysis was her propensity to make after-the-fact
changes versus making effective first decisions about instruction, which put her in a remediation
mode instead of guiding students through rigorous cognitive actions that build their capacity for
independent rigorous thinking.
Importance of building a culture of respect. Ms. Kelley established a culture of respect
in her classroom through subtle and nuanced strategies. Her most direct statements occurred at
the beginning of the class periods. In her CP class, she began the class announcing, “I’m going
to ask everyone that has an electronic device to put them away.” In her AP class, after the
completion of the quiz, she stated, “If you took out your electronics [while] you were waiting for
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us to recommence, now you are going to put them away.” Here, it appeared that she reinforced a
classroom practice, reflecting a structural focus, that she perceived would contribute to an
environment where everyone learned.
Other evidence of a culture of respect required keen observations. When the researcher
entered her CP class, she felt a sense of calmness and safety. The students were calm. With
each question posed, students raised their hands and then responded. They appeared to have a
respect for her. This feeling permeated the classroom throughout the day. This sense of
calmness and safety seemed important to establishing the context that Ms. Kelley provided for
her students. It also served as a positive context for learning (Hollie, 2017). During her CP
class, she was reviewing the content vocabulary when she noticed a student was distracted, but
quiet. She quietly walked over and asked, “Are you okay?” Later in that period as students
shared their responses to the textbook with the class, an African American male raised his hand
and began to make his response. A White male student began to add to his response. Ms. Kelly
respectfully interrupted the White male student and encouraged the African American male
student to continue, “Finish your sentence and [he] can add to what you say.” The African
American male continued his response. By waiting and encouraging the African American male
student to speak before allowing the White male student to add or cut short his classmate’s
contribution, she modeled wait time and the kind of respect she expected the students to exhibit,
even if it required taking little longer for a response. She demonstrated respect for their
knowledge when she ensured that the students wait and sent a message that what the student had
to say was important. Though this is an important practice for establishing the equal importance
of every student’s contribution, she seemed to be the regulator of the respect versus a process
that enabled students to govern themselves as they interacted with one another. Also, while it
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was evident that she had established respect between her and her students in the classroom, it
was not evident that she purposely employed culturally responsive classroom management
strategies. However, the culture of respect that she established appeared to reflect two other
elements of classroom management that Hollie (2012) described (in addition to respect) as
integral to culturally responsive practices: rapport and relationship.
In addition to using wait time to help establish a culture of respect between the teacher
and students as well as among the students, Ms. Kelley acknowledged the presence of students
from varied backgrounds and their contribution to the knowledge building in her classroom. She
pulled an African American male student to the side who had missed class the previous day. She
said, “Let me talk to you for a second about the work you missed yesterday.” Here, she showed
that she paid attention to each of her students. Acknowledging students’ presence was important
to establishing a culture of respect and making students feel they were part of the learning
community (Hollie, 2012). For students to access rigor, they must feel safe and acknowledged in
their learning environment. Ms. Kelly seemed to establish a culture of respect in her classroom.
While she established a culture of respect, the observations did not reveal any other specific
practices that were intentionally directed toward African and American or Latino students or any
other ethnic or socioeconomic groups. In the case of protecting the African American students’
response time, she was acting in a protective manner.
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Mr. Wright’s Classroom Practices
Mr. Wright’s classroom practices were evidenced through his approach to community
building, nurturing a climate of rigor, being culturally responsive, and providing his students
with a guaranteed curriculum.
Community building in the classroom. During the observations, it appeared that
classroom community building emerged as an integral aspect of the academic environment in
Mr. Wright’s classroom and reflected his perceptions of students’ ability to engage in academic
rigor. His practices implied that all students were capable of the rigorous experiences he
provided. Although there were no observable community building practices that he specifically
selected to address the needs of his African American and Latino students, he created a format
for student engagement that encouraged all students to participate. When he told students they
had to opt out versus opt in to the dialogue, he was communicating that the dialogue space was
open to everyone equally and everyone was expected to participate.
During the interview, he posed the question, “How do we help the students with privilege
recognize their privileges, at the same time that [we] empower students who are marginalized?”
The observations of Mr. Wright’s classes suggested he used this question to shape how students
interacted with one another. His observed practice of explaining the importance of discussions
about racism highlighted racism as a topic relevant to classroom community as well as a problem
that needed solving—perhaps because of the diversity of the student population. He asserted,
“We have to talk about it [racism] in order to determine what we have to do about it.” The
question and the statement in conjunction with the prior assignments and the project students
were beginning to complete, conveyed the perception that students did not enter his classroom
with knowledge of each other but needed him to implement practices that would create a
knowledgeable and inclusive community for all learners. Through this practice, Mr. Wright
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accomplished two things: he prioritized discussions of race and reinforced the importance of
community in building classroom culture. By having students discuss issues related to race, he
was giving them responsibility as they participated in a classroom that was aware of race and
their responsibility to engage in anti-racists behaviors (Lopez, 2016).
In addition, Mr. Wright repeated the pronoun “we,” suggesting that, as a community, they
each had a role to play in the classroom community as well as problem solving and addressing
social ills, especially those resulting around topics of race and racism. He highlighted topics of
race as integral to classroom discussions and suggested their importance in developing a
classroom community. These kinds of discussions required high cognitive demand and he
trusted all his students’ abilities to engage in such discussions. He added, “It’s really important
that we share what we wrote with each other.” He emphasized the importance of students
sharing what they wrote with each other to develop collective and individual understandings of
race.
Mr. Wright’s emphasis on the importance of everyone sharing further underscored the
significance of building community in his class and the role race discussions played in
developing a safe community. His statement affirmed that he believed all students had
something valuable to offer. He also validated the importance of sharing when he defined
respect. He emphasized that “respect means listening to your classmates.” Mr. Wright, rather
than using euphemisms and veiled references to race, put it front and center as an important topic
for their own development. He demonstrated that building a classroom community where
students felt safe was an ongoing process, especially when discussing topics as complicated and
tough as race and racism. He reminded students to “listen to [their] classmates” and write down
“one thing [they] agree with or have a question about.” Through such practices, Mr. Wright
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established behavioral expectations seemingly to support a culture of respect, community, and
scholarship. He demonstrated that respect was a way of valuing students (Hollie, 2017). He
illustrated rigor could come from other students. He showed that students wrestling with each
other’s ideas was rigorous. Mr. Wright reinforced behavioral expectations throughout the class
period to emphasize the importance of not just listening to each other. This approach illustrated
the echoes of community, accountability, and problem solving that reverberated through each
part of his classes. Through this practice, he created a space where students felt safe to take risks
and reflected the perspective that in the classroom communities he created all students were
capable of engaging in rigorous cognitive tasks. This could go far toward reducing or
eliminating stereotype threat that Steele (1997) found contributes to African American students’
ability to demonstrate their thinking in an academic setting.
Nurturing a climate of rigor. The observations also revealed that discussions about
race served as integral components of building a learning community that could nurture a climate
of rigor. After establishing a sense of we in the learning community in spite of differences, Mr.
Wright seemingly demonstrated how it supported the practice of student-to-student engagement
in rigorous discourse. The types of student-to-student interaction developed during the class
period. Students began with a pass-the-microphone exercise where students preselected a quote
from a letter they wrote in the previous assignment. As students shared their responses with the
class, each student expounded on the quote they selected from their writing (without reading
from their papers). Rather, students provided thoughtful answers and showed they were co-
constructing and extending the meaning of race and racism. One student made a biological
argument about race. She commented on an excerpt she wrote in the letter assignment. In the
commentary, she questioned the reality of differences among people of different races when
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“fruit flies have about 10 times more genetic variation.” She characterized definitions of skin
tone as “shallow” and “recently developed based simply on the locations of someone’s
ancestors.” She elaborated that the extent of one’s melanin relied on one’s exposure to the sun.
She ended her argument by asserting, “if race and racism aren’t biological, what are they? A
social construct.” This student’s responses along with other students’ responses illustrated that
Mr. Wright created a space where students where allowed think out loud and take chances. They
made meaning of the course content using their own as well as others’ lenses (Muller, 1993).
Mr. Wright demonstrated that the diversity represented among his students was a
potential source of rigor (Lopez, 2016). Students were forced to grapple with views different
from their own, using analysis and evaluation as important tools. His approach to fostering a
climate conducive to rigor for every student in his classroom countered institutional perspectives
of African American and Latino students’ limited ability to engage in rigorous learning
experiences (Ladson-Billings, 1998); he included all his students’ in such learning experiences.
He facilitated conversations that seemed to matter to every student in the classroom. Every
student participated by the end of the second round in the class period. In both classes, Mr.
Wright ended this part of the lesson with “I want to thank everyone that shared.” His response at
the end echoed the respect that the students seemed to have for each other further highlighting
that rigor could happen when students felt safe. One student even noted that she did not realize
some of the experiences that were shared regarding racism occurred.
He further validated and affirmed students’ voices as he indicated that he was “looking
for students to draw from other resources.” The implications of having students synthesize and
marshal evidence from other sources in addition to their own experiences created a parallel
between the value of the students’ experiences and the sources they incorporated. Here, he
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implied their experiences were just as valid and authentic as the sources they included (Nieto,
2000; Lopez, 2016). His practice of creating a space where students’ voices were integral to the
learning is a practice that is not prevalent in many schools (Carter, 2013; Ladson-Billings, 1998).
However, there was no evidence that this practice was deliberately specific to African American
and Latino students.
Cultural responsiveness in Mr. Wright’s class. Mr. Wright described culturally
responsive pedagogy as a tool for helping him understand his students. He explained it allowed
him to “support them to give them experiences they need to give them access to the curriculum.”
He added, “I think it’s the building block of equity.” According to him, culturally responsive
pedagogy bridge to rigor was it offered opportunities for students to “see themselves reflected in
the curriculum,” which aligned with research about culturally responsive pedagogy (Gay, 2010;
Hollie, 2012; Ladson-Billings, 1998; Lopez, 2016).
The students’ voices were also validated and affirmed in Mr. Wright’s classes through
classroom practices. One way he approached cultural responsiveness was to deal straight
forward with race and culture. In addition to having students read texts related to race and
racism, Mr. Wright had students write their own responses. He then made their responses texts
for the rest of the class to read and comment. In this way, he validated their opinions and giving
them an opportunity to critique one another. Hollie (2012) and Lopez (2016) suggest that
cultural responsiveness increases students’ opportunities to learn.
Mr. Wright demonstrated his cultural responsiveness through a lesson he provided his
Freshman Seminars. He began by having students respond to each other’s comments: “Students
write down one thing they agree or disagree with or have questions about.” He then informed
them they would have opportunity to respond to the students’ responses by sharing in small
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groups. As one student of color shared, “[society believes] this is a good school because there
are more White people here.” Another student pointed out every single group “that is considered
a race has racism in it.” After a few minutes, students got up and moved to another group based
on an appointment grouping strategy he used throughout the classroom. The group dynamics
showed students who were engaged and listening to each other. They appeared open and
respectful of each other’s opinions. Students’ diversity of interactions evidenced the teacher’s
underlying view that all students were capable of engaging in rich academic and thoughtful
discussions as they utilized academic vocabulary, connected discussions to their experiences, and
employed analogies connecting to other disciplines. Through these discussions, he facilitated
students’ respect for one another and encountered the race issue head on: he opened a forum so
that students could have respect for one another’s point of view.
In a culturally responsive classroom, every student has expertise to offer and reflects the
degree to which teachers’ value the students in his classroom (Hollie, 2012). Mr. Wright
proposed race to develop solutions using a social justice lens. He suggested that engaging
students in such lessons made them accountable for addressing issues in the world in which they
lived. Despite his concerns that other teachers were afraid to approach issues of race, he
countered some of the institutionalized perceptions of students’ abilities to engage in these
subjects. During the interview, he discussed his use of culturally responsive strategies and
pointed out that all students benefited from culturally responsive pedagogy. He implied that he
did not choose to incorporate culturally responsive instruction only because African American
and Latino students specifically benefit from such instruction, but because it benefited all
students.
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He seemed to believe all students, including African American and Latino students, had
something to say. Talking about race because it was such a complex subject demonstrated the
view all his students were capable of engaging in rigor. One way he demonstrated his
perceptions of African American and Latino students was he expected them all to bring
something to the conversation and talk about race because much of it was about their lives. He
was up front about it. By having them engage with one another, he made sure all students were
involved. He seemingly perceived that African American and Latino students could hold their
own in these discussions. He demonstrated that race was a rigorous topic and believed all
students were mature enough to handle it. In a diverse classroom, it was a difficult discussion to
have, but it was probably one of the most challenging things people could deal with. Discussions
of race foster critical thinking. Also, Mr. Wright created a space where different funds of
knowledge were validated in an environment that dispelled some of the notions that African
American and Latino students did not have much to contribute.
Making sure students have a guaranteed curriculum. Mr. Wright explained that
creating access to a guaranteed standards-based curriculum meant, “having a lot of access points
into the curriculum from their own experiences and observations [and intelligences].” He
indicated that having multiple access points could include “doing an academic paper, writing a
letter to a loved one, and having discussions in class.” He acknowledged the concept of multiple
intelligences by stating that students could meet the standards in different ways and implied that,
without creating multiple access points and providing multiple approaches, students were often
allowed to “slide by” with the assumption that “on the next thing they will get it.” He exhibited
confidence by insisting that students should not be allowed to “slide by,” but, rather, expected to
meet the standards with the appropriate assistance from the teacher.
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Mr. Wright perceived the teacher’s role was “to be that extra push…so they [students]
can get over that threshold.” He implicated that expectations were evidenced by what the teacher
did. Thus, he exemplified that the teacher’s role in rigor was to do whatever was necessary
including sitting with the student until he or she responded to a rigorous assignment. He gave an
example of sitting with a student for seven hours until he could pass a big test. He “changed the
wording of the question” and “asked things in different ways.” However, he may have been
indicating that sitting with a student for seven hours may suggest that he had not appropriately
scaffolded the assignment for the student. Also, a vital consideration that emerged from Mr.
Wright’s depiction of creating access was that it was not enough for the teacher to just give the
students standards-based assignments. Rather, the teacher must have actively bridged the skill
and knowledge gaps to create access to a “guaranteed curriculum”—a rigorous curriculum.
Differences between Mr. Wright’s and Ms. Kelley’s classroom practices
Both Mr. Wright and Ms. Kelley expressed the belief that all students should engage in
rigorous learning experiences, but they explained different approaches to what rigor was and
how to facilitate students’ access to it. Neither mentioned using particular practices for African
American and Latino students. However, many of the instructional practices used by Mr. Wright
are consistent with elements of culturally responsive pedagogy: social engagement among
students to construct knowledge, building on students’ prior knowledge, and helping students
become confident about the value of their own experiences (Hollie, 2017). The differences in
their approaches to rigor revealed differences in the nature of their belief regarding students’
ability to engage in student-to-student discourse. The differences were reflected in the level of
critical thinking displayed in the academic discourse in which students were involved. While
Mr. Wright emphasized students’ engagement with high cognitive demand tasks, Ms. Kelly
spent much less time discussing students’ engagement with rigor. Engagement did not seem to
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be as important. While both teachers conveyed that all students should have opportunities to
engage in rigor, the description regarding how students arrive there was significantly different.
School Practices
The researcher explored school practices through teacher interviews and observations.
Master schedule: How students are assigned to courses. Interviews with Mr. Wright
and Ms. Kelley shed light on the benefits and remaining challenges of shifting to what some
consider a more equitable AP program. During the interviews, both discussed SHS policy for
AP course-taking, and both teachers indicated that SHS implemented an opt-in policy allowing
any student to take these courses. Mr. Wright explained that all students had the opportunity to
“opt into AP courses.” Ms. Kelley elaborated, “[in] the AP classes now, it’s just total self-
selection. You want to take an AP class, you sign up for it.” While the interviews showed SHS
made these courses available structurally to all students who desired to take them, they also
indicated gaps in efforts to make them accessible to all students, especially those who had been
underrepresented previously in AP classes. Based on the interviews, it did not appear that SHS
implemented practices for students who were academically unprepared.
According to Ms. Kelley, who was in favor of the opt-in policy, many AP teachers did
not agree with the opt-in policy. She reported, “At our school, 60% of 11th graders are in AP
and they’re not in there because they’re highly skilled.” She explained that many people
criticized this policy, but she emphasized she did not agree with them. She pointed out that
many teachers indicated their dissatisfaction with the increased number of low-skilled students
enrolling in these courses. She did not indicate whether those teachers made references to
particular ethnic groups. However, statistically, African American and Latino students are the
most vulnerable. These findings that emerged from Ms. Kelley’s interview potentially reflected
one or more perceptions about African American and Latino students. Teachers potentially
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believed African American and Latino students were capable of participating successfully in AP
classes, but they needed better preparation. Teachers potentially needed to restore criteria for
students’ entrance to AP classes to ensure they were adequately prepared for the rigor of these
classes. Some teachers potentially wanted better preparation for themselves to facilitate all
students’ success in AP classes. Finally, some teachers’ overt or implicit biases potentially
caused them to see students of color from a deficit perspective. Such perceptions could have
been detrimental to students’ academic progress and could have adversely impacted the types of
academic experiences those dissatisfied teachers provided the lower skilled students (Oates,
2009). Potentially, teachers’ perceptions of students were reflected in the types of academic
experiences they created for their students (Oates, 2009). While Mr. Wright explained his efforts
to prepare the ninth graders who took his freshman seminar course, the interviews with Ms.
Kelly and Mr. Wright implied that neither the school nor other teachers seemed to be assuming
responsibility for students’ readiness to take AP. Also, it was not clear whether teachers of these
classes were receiving additional professional development to support unprepared students. To
some extent, the school created a barrier because it did not effectively prepare teachers to receive
these students. The school potentially created a negative experience for teachers and students.
Structural versus substantive options. SHS provided both CP and AP courses. The CP
classes were the default classes for students not taking AP classes. Observations of Ms. Kelley’s
CP courses provided some evidence of what the school practices revealed about perceptions of
African American and Latino students’ abilities to engage in rigor. According to Ms. Kelley,
removing barriers to AP classes had led to “more students of color [enrolling] in AP classes than
when [she] first started teaching.” Despite the increase in African American and Latino
students’ AP course enrollment (especially AP English Language), African American and Latino
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students were still under-enrolled proportionately. “The [college preparatory] classes are still
more diverse [than the AP classes], and they are definitely way more male [than the AP
courses].” She indicated that male students of color did not frequently want to enroll in AP
English classes. She added, “There’s a whole social thing about boys of color in English,” but
she did not expound on what she meant by “social thing.” According to Boykin and Noguera (as
cited in Pitre, 2012), African American and Latino students may intentionally dodge advanced
courses because they are used to poor grades (Pitre, 2014). However, she offered this as a factor
that potentially contributed to the low enrollment or absence of African American and Latino
students in AP. The question emerged as to why African American and Latino males felt so
disinclined to enroll in these courses. However, implementing a rigorous academic program that
created access to rigor may have required more than just increasing the number of students of
color and students overall in AP courses. Solórzano and Ornelas (2004) recommended students
access to “intensive academic support” to increase access to AP courses for students of color (p.
24).
The intersection of race and gender also emerged from the interview with Ms. Kelly
regarding AP course enrollment and was highlighted when she pointed out that the “college prep
English courses (the default grade-level English class) were also 75% male [regardless of race].”
She asserted this was not due to a difference in ability because her CP students were similar in
skill level to her AP students. She indicated that key differences were effort and attendance. She
added, “There were kids in the P [college preparatory] class who were just dealing with, you
know, very or difficult home situations.” While she indicated some of the challenges students
may have faced at home, she did not mention any practices or programs SHS implemented to
address those challenges. The absence of practices at SHS to address such factors potentially
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 137
reflected the perception that those students who were capable would take AP courses. However,
the absence of such practices suggested that the underrepresentation of African American and
Latino students in AP course was not perceived as an issue that warranted being addressed at
SHS.
Rigor with limited access. African American and Latino students in AP likely
experienced more rigor than they did in their CP classes. However, their experiences in those
courses potentially still served as barriers to their access to rigor because teachers may not have
received adequate professional development to scaffold students to ensure equitable access to the
rigor. African American and Latino students (as well as other students) who may not have had
rigorous academic experiences prior to opting into AP classes potentially needed more
scaffolding and other strategies to help them access the rigor characteristic of AP classes
(Burton, Whitman, Yepes‐Baraya, Cline, & Kim, 2002). Teachers already dissatisfied with the
opt-in policies may have limited some students’ access to additional supports because they felt
all students who entered AP should have entered AP ready. It raised a question as to what
teachers thought their job was. The implication of this finding is that simply offering
opportunities to enroll in AP classes was potentially insufficient for equitable access for students
of color, particularly African American and Latino students. This finding suggested that SHS
potentially lacked targeted practices that reflected a belief that African American and Latino
students were capable, with appropriate instruction, of being successful in AP classes. It seemed
they were more focused on perceptions of students’ ability rather than on the supports students
needed. Ms. Kelley expounded even more deeply and said that African American students were
such a small population of the school that the school might not consider it important to provide
them specialized support. Neither did Latino students receive specialized support to be
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successful in AP classes. Rather, offering AP classes versus CP classes reflected the school’s
attempt to sort students by perceptions of their abilities.
Under-preparedness for AP. An alternative lens, the students’ under-preparedness
possibly limited the potential benefits of the opt-in policy, emerged from the responses about AP.
However beneficial the self-selection, SHS overlooked that students might not have selected AP
courses because they had not been prepared to access the AP curriculum due to their academic
histories. Students who recognized their gaps in skills likely were less inclined to enroll in
courses they perceived were beyond their reach. Further, there appeared to be an absence or
limited presence of programs or tools in place for those students who did not previously have
access to advanced courses. This phenomenon suggested that creating equity and access to AP
starts before students can opt in or out of AP courses.
Thus, creating access means equipping students with tools prior to high school if
possible, but, at the latest, as soon as students enter the ninth grade. Mr. Wright posited a related
point when discussing his freshman course when he pointed out that he considered the skills
students needed to be successful in AP as he created assignments for his freshman course. He
explained,
When I hear kids telling me about their experience in AP Lang, that’s why I was like I’ll
go down to freshman [classes] because I think it’s important that it’s a class, it’s
something that everybody takes, and then I can turn around at the end of the year and be
like, ‘You wrote an essay that you’ll have to write in AP Lang. You can do this.’ I know
what the expectations are.
Mr. Wright made an important point and, perhaps, uncovered a gap at SHS: the absence or
limited preparation for the demands of AP. Mr. Wright suggested the need to provide students
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with AP-like experiences long before they entered AP courses. He pointed out, “we’re doing
everything the AP class does.” While he acknowledged when he taught AP and CP, the CP did
not write as many essays or move as quickly through the lessons, he noted that they wrote the
“same types of essays giving them the same texts, doing the same kinds of things, but just not too
fast.” Again, he highlighted the importance of implementing practices that help to prepare
students for the demands of the later AP courses so that they were more likely to opt in. Here, he
highlighted the absence of school-wide practices that prepared students for AP. It appeared that
students were expected to walk into their AP classes already prepared for the rigor.
In consideration of preparing students prior to AP enrollment, Mr. Wright indicated that
AP US History and AP US European History teachers were planning to provide professional
development (PD) on document-based questions (DBQs) for the freshman seminar instructors.
He explained,
We’ll get together, eventually by the end of this semester. Hopefully, we’ll all have been
normed, the AP US History and the AP US European History teachers will teach us how
to do DBQs, and so the expectation is that every single ninth grader does at least one
DBQ at the end of their freshman year.
Mr. Wright recognized the importance of beginning to prepare students’ early in their high
school careers and suggested that other teachers at SHS were beginning to consider the
importance of such preparation. He stated that SHS needed to lay the groundwork for students to
understand “the level of expectation that [they need] to meet, when [they are] in those AP
classes.” He asserted,
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We want everybody to be in these classes because we think that they’re good. We think
that if you take an AP class, you’ll be that much more successful when you get to college
because you’re an intelligent person, and we know that you can do it.
Here, Mr. Wright implied a shift to more equitable practices in the social science department, but
he suggested that several of the English courses might not be making similar shifts. He pointed
out that they wanted everybody in the AP classes; however, his observation countered Ms.
Kelley’s observation that many AP teachers criticized the shift to the opt-in policy.
Importance of validating and affirming African American and Latino students. While
the school provided an opt-in policy for AP classes, Mr. Wright reported that all his students of
color enrolled in AP classes noted they were the only students of color enrolled in the class.
Specifically, the students indicated, “I’m the only one and everybody just looks at me, and I
don’t know if I feel, like, comfortable there.” According to Mr. Wright, it appeared that many
students of color might feel uncomfortable in their AP classes, which might provide another
explanation as to why many students of color opted out of AP selection (Tyson, 2013). He
pointed out features of the AP curriculum that might have contributed to the students’
sentiments. He reported that his students often complained, “We’ll read one thing on Frederick
Douglass and everyone will just look at me and be like, what do you think?”
Mr. Wright’s depiction of the AP Language courses was supported, at least in part, by
Ms. Kelley’s indication that she includes one novel by an African American author and shorter
texts to provide additional culturally responsive texts. According to Mr. Wright, the other
context of AP courses for students of color was that their culture and language were “completely
absent from the curriculum.” Although the AP English curriculum did include authors from
African American and Latino cultures, they comprised only a small portion of students’ overall
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AP English class experience. It is not sufficient to just include one or two texts from African
American and Latino students’ cultural background, cultural responsiveness is far more
inclusive—it draws from the culture that students bring to the classroom (Lopez, 2016). This
finding suggested that, if courses were not culturally inclusive or responsive and students could
not see themselves, there may be an implied exclusion, especially among teachers concerned
about the open enrollment to AP courses. Students who were opting out of AP classes,
especially African American and Latino males, might be subject to such perceptions evidenced
by teachers’ selected curriculum. By not including enough African American and Latino
subjects in the curriculum, those teachers did not create equitable access to the curriculum.
Students’ interests are linked to cultural coherence between their lives and their school
experiences. This might have limited the potential effectiveness of the open-enrollment policy
for AP courses. Considering the insights offered by Mr. Wright about the curriculum and the
ways some students felt, the findings potentially explained the lower enrollment of students of
color, especially African American male students. It also suggested that there might be some
institutionalized barriers such as the curriculum and instruction that contributed to this
phenomenon.
Allocation of teacher time and support. A recurring theme that emerged multiple times
during the interviews with Mr. Wright and Ms. Kelley was the allocation of teacher time and
support. Mr. Wright emphasized that teacher time was instrumental to implementing effectively
rigor school-wide. Mr. Wright explained that while SHS provided some time for teachers to
plan, prepare, and implement rigorous lessons, it did not provide sufficient time to meet
effectively the demands of both creating rigorous learning experiences and ensuring all students’
access to those learning experiences. Ms. Kelley concurred, as, according to her, insufficient
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teacher time posed one of the greatest school-wide challenges to implementing academic rigor.
She emphasized, “There’s so much [meaning multiple tasks for teachers], you know, just this
month we’ve got the state testing.” Ms. Kelley implied her understanding that state testing was
necessary, but she suggested that the district and school consider such demands on teachers’ time
when establishing mandates and agendas for how teachers were to spend their PLC structured
time. Most of the time provided by the school was provided in PLCs which occurred at least
twice a month. Additionally, as the district and school considered these factors, she implied that,
beyond the limitations of the PLC time provided, teachers need substantially more support to
create and implement rigor effectively. The efforts that SHS made to increase teacher
collaboration offered some opportunities for teachers to develop lessons and activities to create
access to rigor for all students. However, Mr. Wright and Ms. Kelley asserted that the time
provided was insufficient.
Mr. Wright desired more time in PLCs because the time allotted did not provide
sufficient time to “norm ourselves” and establish a consensus on what rigor was at SHS. He
asserted,
I know that I’m doing all of this stuff, but I don’t know what the rigor, the level of rigor
is like in other classes. I have an assumption that my freshman course is the most
rigorous of all the freshman courses.
Mr. Wright’s postulation about the presence or level of rigor in other courses signaled that the
opportunities to collaborate in PLCs might not have led to the development of common
definitions or understandings of rigor and what it should look like in their respective disciplines.
As a result of this finding, it could be inferred that measures to ensure all students had equitable
access to rigor might be predicated on which teachers the students had and may not have
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occurred consistently at SHS. Ms. Kelley made a similar point when she referenced differences
in how much coverage of a topic students experienced in their U.S. history courses.
Both Mr. Wright and Ms. Kelley made the point that teachers have difficulty creating
high cognitive demand learning experiences for all students in a diverse setting without time and
support. Mr. Wright highlighted, “I’m doing all of this stuff on my own.” He considered the
hours and opportunities he took to gather resources from his university studies, conduct personal
research, and attend self-selected PDs as integral steps in creating rigorous learning for his
students. He added that it took a substantial amount of time to develop ways to make this wealth
of information accessible and meaningful for all his students. Mr. Wright’s passionate and in-
depth depiction of what he did to create rigorous experiences illustrated the extensive amount of
time beyond what the school allocated—time most teachers may not have had or been willing to
expend.
He added that teachers needed more time to “create standard [based] assessments and
then bring back those assessments and talk about what makes an excellent paper and what
doesn’t.” However, he felt he was spending too much of his own home time planning with rigor.
One of his criteria for rigor was that students needed to do extensive standards-based writing
assignments. He asserted that teachers needed more time to identify the skills they were teaching
and develop effective strategies for teaching them to ensure that students could meet the
demands of rigorous tasks. Mr. Wright stated, “I have an assumption that my freshman seminar
is the most rigorous of all freshman seminar classes, to be honest. I don’t know if the other
teachers have done three writing assignments in the first grading period.” Mr. Wright implied
that other teachers’ freshman courses may not be as rigorous as his because the other teachers
may not have had the time outside of school that he made to meet this demand. He specifically
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mentioned teachers’ need for time to calibrate the assessments. Mr. Wright suggested that
teachers may be overwhelmed by the varied tasks, unjustified expectations and lack of support
needed to meet the expectations of using PLCs to create rigor throughout their respective
department. He asserted,
If the district and school leaders give teachers the time and the money, we’ll make sure
that it happens because there’s not a teacher on campus, I guarantee you, that doesn’t
have the best interest of kids. Everyone wants what’s best.
He posited that teachers’ intent for the kids was present, but “the time and the space and the
money are the missing factors limiting teachers’ abilities to collectively establish rigor that is
consistent across classrooms and teachers.” Mr. Wright assumed that the addition of time would
make the difference. He implied that all teachers would employ the increased time to create
more rigorous assignments.
Contrary to Mr. Wright’s assertions, more time in PLCs alone was not necessarily
sufficient. He also made a case that the time they had in PLCs may not have been used properly.
Limitations on how to use PLC time may have contributed to the inconsistent practices among
teachers. Also, Mr. Wright made the point that the ineffectiveness may be based on the “million
other things to do in the PLCs that [were] getting in the way of being able to create standards-
based assessments.” While Ms. Kelley did not go into as much detail as Mr. Wright, she did
report that time was the most significant school-wide factor that served as a barrier to creating
access to rigor for all students. She acknowledged the need to improve, but she emphasized that
they could not accomplish it within the current time constraints. It was also not clear whether
teachers had been prepared to engage effectively in PLCs. Also, inadequate preparation for
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 145
teachers to engage effectively in PLCs may have contributed to some of the challenges that
teachers had with the time already allotted.
While Mr. Wright and Ms. Kelley had a high level of agreement about the need for more
time as well as funding to collaborate and implement learning experiences, they did not state
how these limitations of time and support posed challenges for creating access to rigor for
African American and Latino students specifically. While both teachers stated the need for
teachers to have more time to plan instruction that gave all students access rigor, they did not
acknowledge the wide disparity between African American and White students compared to
White and Asian students. While both teachers provided general explanations, the school-wide
data from SBAC scores suggested that African American and Latino students might be the most
impacted by limited preparation time. Further, African American students seemed to be the most
affected of all racial groups. African Americans indicated a large disparity in the performance
on standardized tests in comparison to White and Asian students (Table 5).
Table 5
2016 SBAC Overall Achievement Results (11th Grade Year of Testing)
Ethnicity Exceeded or
Met Standards
Nearly Met or Not Met Standards
Black or African American 37% 63%
Asian
(Does not include Filipino)
79% 21%
Latino 52% 48
White
73% 27
According to the CADOE (2016), African American/Black students were trailing behind
their Asian and White peers by 42% and 36% respectively in meeting or exceeding the standards
on the SBAC in 2016. They were also trailing behind Latino/Hispanic students by 15%.
Latino/Hispanic students were trailing behind their Asian and White peers by 27% and 21% in
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 146
meeting or exceeding the standards on the SBAC. Ms. Kelley alluded to some programs or
strategies that were implemented to provide some support to English learners though she did not
elaborate. However, she suggested that she was not aware of programs or specific school-wide
strategies for African American students. She added that they were such a small population of
SHS, implying that, because of their small numbers, they did not require those additional school-
wide supports.
Professional learning communities (PLCs). In response to the question about how
teachers were prepared to write or design high rigor assignments and performance tasks, Ms.
Kelley referenced her work in the PLCs. She shared that she participated in at least two PLCs:
the AP English Language and CP English PLCs. She explained that these PLCs were
responsible for the design of the AP English Language and eleventh grade English courses.
According to her, the PLCs were used to provide opportunities for teachers to collaborate,
evaluate student work, create rigorous lessons, and develop instructional strategies and
assessments (Darling-Hammond, 2009). She elaborated that it prepared teachers to design
rigorous assignments “because we have to bring student work in and judge it together, and I
think those people who have more experience share it with the people who have less experience.
So, I think it’s a very collaborative department.” The ability of less experienced teachers to
collaborate with more experienced teachers to design rigorous lessons is an asset that schools
with predominantly or all new or less experienced teachers may not have.
Ms. Kelley described her department as a “collaborative department.” She suggested that
the highly collaborative quality of her department heightened their ability to design rigorous
assignments and performance tasks. One implication of her description of her department was
that the more experienced teachers used PLCs to foster the pedagogical skills and content
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 147
knowledge of the less experienced teachers. A second implication of her description of her
department was that, because the English PLCs collaborated on assignments, lessons, and
instructional strategies, all students experienced rigor at the same level in all classes. She added
that teachers had flexibility to design lessons and instructional tools and the PLCs serve sources
of accountability. However, Ms. Kelly did not explain how the PLCs served as sources of
accountability. Her description of the ways teachers prepared to ensure students’ access to rigor
might not have been in practice long enough to have made an impact. While such flexibility
could be beneficial to teachers who used that as an opportunity to develop instruction based on
the needs of the students in their classrooms, some teachers might not have chosen to take
advantage of such opportunities. These components of school practices detailed the benefits of
PLCs in preparing teachers to design rigorous learning experiences for students. She did not
discuss how SHS incorporated culturally responsive pedagogy or other types of culturally
responsive practices in their planning during PLCs.
Mr. Wright provided another perspective of PLCs; he pointed out a couple of challenges
with the freshman seminar PLCs. While Mr. Wright indicated that SHS provided opportunities
for teachers to collaborate in PLCs, the PLCs needed to be more effective. According to Mr.
Wright, the interdisciplinary PLCs for the freshman seminar could be challenging because
multiple departments came together, and the intra-departmental supports were weakened. He
suggested that not having time with other teachers who taught the same subject made it difficult
to effectively collaborate.
Professional development on rigor. In addition to a call for PLC time for more
planning, Mr. Wright and Ms. Kelley suggested that SHS needed more effective professional
development for effective instruction. However, Ms. Kelley did not believe there was a need for
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professional development specifically targeted to providing rigor. Unlike Ms. Kelly, Mr. Wright
believed professional development specifically developing rigorous learning experiences for
their students was needed. Ms. Kelly believed that professional development instruction in
general would lead to more students having access to rigor. However, she overlooked the
specific needs African American and Latino students might have.
Both teachers agreed that teachers needed more time and definitive professional
development. Regarding the time the school had allotted to teachers to choose for themselves
the areas of focus for their own growth, both teachers expressed that most of the instructional
improvement had come from teachers who were willing to use their own time to research and
attend training and who benefitted from the flexibility the school provided. They sought
curricular resources and instructional tools to hone their pedagogy and practices, including those
related to teaching about race. Ms. Kelley pointed to the College Board scoring as her PD for
AP. Mr. Wright emphasized, “I care deeply about this.” He illustrated this by describing how he
took every opportunity to attend external PD not offered by his school or district on diversity and
culture and history. Mr. Wright emphasized that he and his colleagues’ who took advantage of
the flexibility were doing so because the school structure did not provide the access to the
curricular resources and instructional tools to support their teaching about race and culture. He
had attended the Cito conference in Tucson to learn from Mexican American Studies and the
Japanese National Museum. He also indicated he learned a lot from his university courses.
While he referenced Mexican American and Japanese National Museum, it was not clear what
specific professional development he received related to the African American culture.
However, with limited professional development specifically focused on rigor and how to
create access to it, Mr. Wright believed that it was difficult to ensure school-wide rigor.
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 149
However, he pointed out that SHS was beginning to prepare teachers more effectively to develop
rigorous assignments and performance tasks. He indicated “we get together, we design tasks.
We’re were just given this Marzano training with Common Core. [That is] something we don’t
do, but we’re working toward it.” He noted that they were working toward “guaranteeing
rigorous curriculum for all students.” He implied that SHS would likely see the benefits of the
Marzano training the following school year.
While both teachers insinuated the limitations of current school-wide professional
development about rigor, both also attributed what they considered to be their own effective
implementation of rigor to external professional development that they sought out but did not
feel that it occurred enough in the school. Mr. Wright pointed out that he took advantage of
every opportunity to attend and participate in workshops. It appeared the school had not made
professional development around rigor a priority, especially in the face of huge academic
performance gaps with African American and Latino students remaining far below other groups
on standardized tests.
School-wide PD on cultural responsiveness and race. Howard (2010) argued that
discussions about race in school practices are potentially integral to improving academic
outcomes for underperforming students. Specifically, research shows that African American and
Latino students, especially, are more academically successful when their learning environment is
culturally responsive and racial issues are discussed openly (Gay, 2010). According to Mr.
Wright, there was little evidence that the cultural and race-based discussion practices occurred
school-wide. However, Howard (2010) argued that discussions about race matter. Thus, Mr.
Wright’s position that teachers’ lack of knowledge and discomfort with teaching about race often
interfered with their ability to create access to rigor for students of color align with the arguments
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that both Howard and Gay pose about race in education (Gay, 2010; Howard, 2010). According
to Mr. Wright, creating a culturally responsive school and classroom involved the ability to
engage students in conversations about race. To further establish the significance of
conversations about race, Mr. Wright utilized his freshman seminar. He began by framing this
freshman interdisciplinary class as a “race and membership class.” He stated, “I don’t blame the
teachers” for being “super uncomfortable” talking about race. As he stated, the school does not
provide adequate professional development on the subject. He asserted not equipping teachers
with the skills and language to talk about race in their classrooms impacted the quality of the
pedagogy and curriculum teachers were able to provide. While addressing issues related to race
is not the only form of cultural responsiveness, it becomes significant when students feel
excluded from the curriculum because of the absence or limited inclusion of race consideration
in the curriculum (Howard, 2012).
The exclusion of race from the curriculum sends a message that race is unimportant and
that those students excluded are unimportant. Mr. Wright’s comments on cultural
responsiveness and race suggested that, while teachers may have received some professional
development on cultural responsiveness and/or race, they were not effectively prepared with the
conceptual understanding, language or tools to facilitate discussions about race in their
classrooms or integrate cultural responsive pedagogy in their daily practices. Mr. Wright pointed
out that he used external resources that he obtained from his university courses and external PDs.
He added, “I happened to go to a super liberal college where they equipped me with the language
to be able to deal with all these wonderful texts from all these different cultural backgrounds.”
He emphasized the importance of these courses in preparing him to teach a course as complex as
the Freshman Seminar. He expounded,
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I got trained in all of that stuff. I got all of that in college, but not everybody’s getting
that. And, so, then we’re like, okay, now teach this class on it when we haven’t really
dealt with ourselves as teachers.
Gay (2010) also argued for conversations about culture and race. Howard (2010) added, when
educators have knowledge about race and its role in educational contexts, educators move toward
eradicating the academic gaps between White students and students of color. He added that
teachers should “listen to students talk about their racialized experiences” (Howard, 2010,
p.122). Howard’s (2010) statement suggests teachers would learn much about racial issues from
listening to their students. Identifying and addressing racial disparities can contribute to more
teachers examining deficit views of students of color and to creating access to academic rigor. A
discussion of race can lead to an examination of the racial disparities (Delpit, 2012; Howard,
2010; Ladson-Billings, 2013; Nieto, 2000).
According to Mr. Wright, the complexities of teaching about race and membership were
not only relevant to the freshman seminar course but to the entire school. He indicated that the
district and school were responsible for providing resources and support for fostering
conversations and providing training about race, but Ms. Kelley gave it less emphasis than
course content. His observation underscored a more significant factor influencing the quality of
discussions about race when he stated, “We haven’t really dealt with us as teachers.” He cited
“horror stories” he heard from students about teachers who struggled to teach about differences:
“They teach about how people treat differences showing Happy Feet, the penguin who couldn’t
sing.” These practices reflected a deficit view of students’ ability to engage in meaningful
dialogue displaying analysis and evaluation skills. While he indicated that this example is a
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 152
rumor, at minimum, on a symbolic level, it reflected a gap in knowledge and content about race
and membership at least for some of those who teach the freshman seminar.
The impression Ms. Kelley gave about professional development for culturally
responsiveness school-wide was that it was sporadic and not in-depth. This statement suggested
that discussions not occurring between teachers and the students and were also not occurring
among adults on campus. Mr. Wright suggested that creating an institutional culture of rigor
inclusive of all students required a school-wide shift. In response to the challenges presented
here, he argued the need for SHS to provide training to prepare all teachers to talk and teach
about race so that “it just doesn’t happen based on the randomness of a student’s schedule or the
happenstance of the world that brings you up on all of this information.” He posed a pertinent
question: “How can we institutionalize this so it just doesn’t happen based on the randomness of
[your] schedule or the happenstance of the world that brings you upon all of this information?”
The absence of such discussions could support faulty institutionalized beliefs about African
American and Latino students’ ability to engage in rigorous learning experiences (Howard,
2010). Thus, the absence of or limited discussions of race reflect a colorblind approach to
educating students. The approach to race as an insignificant factor in educating African
American and Latino students reflect subtleties of racism explained through a CRT lens.
Colorblind approaches ignore the academic histories of African American and Latino students
(Zamudio et al., 2010).
Summary of Findings
Mr. Wright and Ms. Kelley’s perceptions of rigor materialized through their process and
pedagogy. Mr. Wright believed the way he structured his assignments and the way he engaged
students gave them access to rigor, so he did not begin with many less-rigorous tasks. He
constructed rigorous assignments that integrated engagement and linked personal experiences.
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 153
He also built scaffolding into assignments rather than separate scaffolding tasks and provided
authentic tasks by having students analyze, evaluate, and question rigorous texts. Through such
experiences, he had students operate at the highest levels of cognitive demand. He actually
asked students to engage in these cognitive actions with the text.
Additionally, Mr. Wright combined rigorous reading, speaking and writing activities.
This teaching strategy is consistent with culturally responsive pedagogy. He created a social
context for rigorous learning where students engaged in academic discourse by articulating their
analyses and co-constructing meaning. His interview and observations of students building on
one another’s knowledge provided evidence that knowledge was socially constructed in his
classes through discussions of race and racism which fostered students’ ability to write
independently after engaging in high levels of cognition to develop content. Thus, Mr. Wright
inserted himself in how he designed learning experiences, allowing himself to step back during
the lessons and facilitate students’ co-construction of knowledge. Instead of engaging in direct
instruction, he played the roles of observer, listener, facilitator, and co-constructor.
Students were engaged in rigor at different levels in both classes. In Mr. Wright’s class,
students analyzed two texts written by African American authors and, using their learning about
race and racism, analyzed the connection between their lived experiences. They were making
meaning, interacting, and extending meaning. In Ms. Kelley’s class, students were engaged in
rigor at a different level. She asked some high-level questions requiring students to discuss the
writer’s choices, but she guided the discussion. Student-to-student interactions were minimal,
and students were not engaged in deep discussions of the text; rather, they stayed closer to the
surface.
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 154
Both teachers created access to rigor and included some culturally responsive practices.
However, it can be argued that, in some cases, by just respecting humanity, it is possible to reach
students without explicit culturally responsive practices for specific groups but there are levels.
Thus, the findings suggest there are multiple ways make instruction and curriculum responsive
without targeting specific ethnicities.
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 155
CHAPTER FIVE: FINDINGS, CONCLUSIONS, AND IMPLICATIONS
The purpose of this study was to explore the strategies teachers employed to create access
to rigor for African American and Latino high school students and the ways in which classroom
and school practices reflected institutionalized perceptions of these students’ ability to engage in
rigorous learning experiences. The findings revealed, while some classroom and school practices
might have provided equal access to rigor, said access was not consistently equitable. This
study highlighted ways that school and classroom practices reinforced institutionalized
perceptions of African American and Latino high school students. The study also revealed
practices that created access to rigor were present but might not be reflected in school-wide
practices.
Secondly, this study also explored the strategies teachers employed to create access to
rigor. An overall finding was that participants did not distinguish pedagogical strategies for
African American and Latino students as separate from those provided for other students. They
saw themselves as providing equal opportunities; however, they did not see a need to provide
strategies that might have closed prior opportunity or access gaps that African American and
Latino students might have experienced. They did not see a need to do anything special to give
them equitable opportunities. Their classroom practices and instructional strategies treated
African American and Latino students as if they came to the classroom with the same skills and
background as other students, yet school academic performance data, like results on standardized
tests and four-year college acceptance rates, showed African American and Latino students were
lagging behind Asian and White students. That was the largest challenge according to data
collected in this study through interviews and classroom observations. The school’s practices
demonstrated confusion about the difference between equal and equitable.
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 156
This chapter summarizes results obtained through interviews, observations, and
documents to provide a summary of findings, implications, conclusions, and recommendations
for future practice and research.
Summary of Findings
The summary of findings is organized by research questions.
Research Question 1
The first research question asked, “What are some pedagogical strategies that secondary
educators describe that create access to academic rigor for African American and Latino
students?”
• There was no school-wide operative definition of rigor. Although the participating
teachers had some points of agreement, they did not provide a common understanding of
rigor.
• In the absence of an agreed-on definition of rigor, Teacher 2 often confused scaffolding
with rigor.
• Teacher 1 added one way he ensured that all students had access to rigor was by
providing them with multiple opportunities to access the curriculum and demonstrate
mastery of the standards. He considered this as a way to provide students with tools to
access the standards.
• Teacher 1 used decentering the classroom with pairs, small groups and whole class to
give students access to rigor. In this manner, students served as sources of knowledge,
establishing the importance of valuing and affirming students lived experiences.
• Teacher 1’s approach to cultural responsiveness was to encourage students to bring in
their own knowledge and cultural experiences. He believed that, in doing that, he was
enabling them to access a rigorous curriculum as they made connections to their own past
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 157
experiences. Although this instructional strategy was not designed specifically for
African American and Latino students, it applied to all students who had various cultural
backgrounds. He treated youth as culture as well for students to be able to access the
curriculum.
• Even though the participants did not say that they did anything specifically for African
American and Latino students, these students appeared most engaged when they were
participating in small group and whole-group discussions. They seemed to be engaging
in higher-level cognition. Conversely, they seemed least committed when the
conversations were between teacher and students rather than student and student with the
teacher acting as a facilitator or expert. Thus, students appeared to have greater access to
knowledge through rigorous discourse when it involved students in discourse with each
other rather than discourse between teacher and student. Teacher 1 appeared to give
students opportunities for these discussions in each of the observations.
• Teacher 1 asserted the importance of creating authentic learning experiences through
real-world projects as a means to engage students in high order thinking. He indicated
that integral to completing real-world projects is the ability to hold students accountable
for integrating what they learned into their lives and communities.
• Teacher 2’s approach to providing access to rigor was to provide structured and teacher-
directed scaffolding to ensure students had the skills and content knowledge required to
meet standards and succeed in advanced classes.
• While one teacher employed some strategies specifically designed to give African
American and Latino high school students’ access to rigor, the other teacher did not
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 158
employ strategies specifically designed to give African American and Latino high school
students’ access to rigor.
Table 6
Distinctions Between Pedagogical Strategies Among Teachers
Distinctions Among Teachers
Teacher 1 Teacher 2
Provided clearer definition of rigor Often confused scaffolding with rigor
Provided multiple opportunities and
approaches to rigor by imbedding the scaffolds
throughout
Provided structured and teacher-directed
scaffolding
Mostly student-to-student interactions (whole
class, small group, partner discussions)
Mostly teacher-directed instruction (Teacher to
student questioning)
Incorporated students’ personal experiences
and knowledge throughout learning
experiences
Sometimes selected texts with cultural
connections and provided student choice in
culminating projects
Emphasized the importance of authentic real-
world projects and holding students’
accountable for applying their new knowledge
to their school and local communities
Provided students with research-based writing
assignments
Research Question 2
The second research question asked, “In what ways do school and classroom practices in
high schools reflect institutionalized perceptions about African American and Latino students’
ability to engage in rigorous learning opportunities?”
• Both teachers agreed that one reason teachers did not provide enough access to rigor for
any of their students was that it was hard work and teachers were not allotted sufficient
time to plan rigorous instruction for all students, including African American and Latino
students. Both teachers said they did not receive sufficient professional development
from their school on rigor for any of their students. They did not indicate that they felt
African American or Latino students needed distinct classroom practices to access rigor.
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 159
• The differences between Teacher 1 and Teacher 2’s implementation of culturally
responsive pedagogy suggested that Teacher 1’s self-initiated extensive external
professional development had contributed to his more consistent use of cultural
responsive pedagogy in his classroom reflected by more student-to-student interactions
and student engagement. He stated these were not opportunities provided by the school.
• From the interviews, the teachers seem to indicate that more teachers do not integrate
strategies Ladson-Billings (2009) and Gay (2010) have identified as culturally responsive
practices because the teacher education programs and schools do not promote teachers
understanding of differences between race and culture. They do not understand the
relationship between culture and learning.
• Teacher 2 asserted that Sunrise High School did not need to provide specific professional
development on academic rigor. She believed it should emerge organically from the
professional development on curriculum and instruction in general. In this sense, it
appeared she did not believe African American and Latino students differ significantly
from other students, nor did she acknowledge needs they may have as a result of the
educational and societal inequities they have experienced.
• AP classes appeared to be the school’s default definition of rigor. While Sunrise High
School offered an AP option to all students, it did not provide additional support to
African American and Latino students or to their teachers to ensure these students had
access to the rigor in AP. Teacher 2 stated the absence of this support may be attributable
to the small population of African American students at Sunrise High, although Latinos
had a large representation in the school.
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 160
• Classroom observations indicated students (particularly African American and Latino
students) had greater access to knowledge when teachers engaged them in sociocultural
and socio-constructivist ways of learning rather than when instruction was teacher-
centered.
• Even though the school offered the AP option, overall, students of color, especially
males, elected not to take AP courses.
• Rather than integrating differentiated instruction throughout the curriculum, Teacher 2
provided a differentiated Wednesday, a time in which students were assigned to small
groups. However, she did not base the groups on race or perceptions of students’ capacity
to learn. She created differentiated assignments based on students’ skills and knowledge.
Conclusions and Implications for Practice
• Given the data that showed a significant gap between African American and Latino
students compared to White and Asian students, it appeared that the school was not
adequately providing instruction that gave African American and Latino students
equitable opportunities to learn. Those opportunities might include greater access to
rigor. The school was specifically failing to give African American and Latino students
equitable access to rigor required by the standards, which were embedded in the school
curriculum and assessed through standardized testing on which African American and
Latino students, on average, did not perform as well as their White and Asian peers.
• An implication of the findings was that culture might play a large role in determining
what is considered “rigorous.” The absence of culturally responsive instruction might be
a factor in whether African American and Latino students had access to rigor in the
classroom.
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 161
• If the two teachers in the study were indicative of the entire school, several conclusions
emerged from the absence of a school-wide shared understanding of rigor. Without this
school-wide common understanding, it was left to individual teachers to define rigor.
Leaving it to teachers to define rigor allowed for potential misunderstandings about rigor,
suggesting that some students had access to rigor and some did not.
• The absence of a school-wide operative definition of rigor also allowed teachers to
choose which students they viewed as capable of handling rigorous learning experiences,
potentially contributing to the African American and Latino students’ low academic
outcomes reflected in SBAC scores.
• Because the school did not have a school-wide measure for rigor, teachers frequently
spent most of their time on scaffolding without moving their students toward rigorous
tasks. This lack of clarity led some teachers to confuse scaffolding with rigor.
• Providing the option for all students to take AP courses without specific practices and
support limited African American and Latino students’ access to opportunities that came
with taking AP courses. Fewer students would be competitively eligible for 4-year
universities, especially African American and Latino males.
• African American and Latino students’ academic performance was unlikely to improve,
and they would remain underrepresented in advanced classes and college admissions
unless the school found a way to support their success in these classes.
• If schools did not prepare teachers to integrate academic rigor in their instruction, the
access gap would continue to perpetuate a perceived academic gap.
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 162
Recommendations
The school might find more success in providing equitable opportunities to learn for
African American and Latino students, who were demonstrating lower academic performance
than their Asian and White peers, by implementing recommendations based on the findings of
this study.
• Provide teachers with more professional development on creating rigorous and culturally
responsive pedagogy and improve practices to ensure that teachers effectively integrate
academic rigor and culturally responsive pedagogy across classrooms. Professional
development on rigor and culturally responsive pedagogy should also provide teachers
with strategies for talking about race in the classroom and among themselves. Teachers
need knowledge of the relationship between culture and cognition to ensure all students
have equitable access to rigor.
• The observations and interviews indicate that providing teachers with professional
development on instructional strategies related to decentering the classroom can help
them effectively engage students in higher order thinking in a social context to create
access to rigor.
• Culturally responsive pedagogy is an important medium for giving students access to
rigor.
• Restructure the time set aside for professional learning communities and professional
development for teachers to plan instruction and assessments that reflect school-wide
definitions of rigor.
• Spend more time helping teachers understand the cognitive demand of standards as a way
to ensure students’ access to rigor.
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 163
• In addition to professional development, the school should provide additional classroom
observations with commonly applied standards of rigorous culturally responsive
opportunities to learn.
• Create a school-wide definition of rigor and provide models and a means for verifying
rigor through formative and summative assessments.
• Create and/or expand programs to recruit and prepare African American and Latino
students to take more upper-level courses (AP and higher levels of math and science
courses). Select teachers demonstrating skill in culturally responsive and rigorous
instruction to teach introductory AP and higher levels of math and science classes with
large numbers of African American and Latino students to prepare them for future upper-
level classes.
Limitations and Delimitations
The observations left somewhat unanswered whether a teacher-directed heavily
scaffolded way of teaching is more effective than the built-in scaffolding around rigorous tasks
and academic discourse. While this study included a Latino student population only 2% lower
than the White student population, the African American population was less than 10% of the
student population. Due to the small number of teacher participants and small population, this
study cannot be generalized to other sites where the ratio of African American and Latino
students to White students differed from that at Sunrise High School.
Conclusion
The findings from the study reveal the benefits of school and classroom practices that
provide equitable opportunities for students to access academic rigor. The study also illustrated
the gaps that may still exist even when a school provides equal opportunities, as compared to
equitable opportunities, for African American and Latino students to engage in rigorous learning
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 164
experiences. If African American and Latino students do not receive more specific school and
classroom practices and pedagogical strategies, African American (especially) and Latino
students may continue to academically trail behind their White and Asian peers.
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 165
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Appendix A
Observation Protocol
Teacher Number _________
Class Title
Number of Students ____________
Students’ Ethnicity
African American Latino White Asian
Male Female
What is the seating configuration?
Bulletin Boards
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Source: Rousseau (2016)
Intervals/
Times
(5
minutes)
Intervals (5
minutes)
Teacher
(What does the
researcher see
the teacher
doing?)
Intervals (5
minutes)
Students
(What does the
researcher see the
students’ doing?)
Comme
nts and
Questio
ns
Interval
1
a) What are
teachers doing in
relation to all
students?
a) What are
all students
doing?
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 183
Appendix B
Interview Protocol
School Number _________
Teacher Number _________
How do you identify yourself racially and/or ethnically? _____________________
Class Title (s) _____________________
Teacher’s Experience
1. How many years have you been teaching?
2. How many years have you been teaching at this school?
3. How many years have you been teaching the following (courses observed):
Rigor in Courses Observed
We will begin with how you define rigor:
4. How do you define academic rigor?
5. Share information about why you believe rigor is important?
6. What are two examples of assignments and/or learning experiences that you believe to be
rigorous in the context of the classroom?
7. Please describe two ways in which you attempt to nurture a climate of academic rigor in your
classroom. (Francis)
8. In what ways does requiring rigor require more planning on your part as a teacher?
Next, we will explore how you evaluate your instructional methods and tools for creating
rigor
9. How do you evaluate instructional methods and materials to determine their level of rigor?
10. How do you evaluate the Common Core standards to determine the level of cognitive
demand?
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 184
11. In what ways does the Common Core help you design the learning experiences that you
consider to be rigorous?
12. What other sources do you use to design rigorous tasks (for example the cognitive and
knowledge dimensions of Bloom’s Taxonomy)?
Now, we will explore the ways in which you have been prepared to employ rigorous
assignments and tasks:
13. How does your school prepare teachers to write or design high rigor assignments and
performance tasks?
14. To what extent do you have flexibility to design lessons and instructional tools?
15. How does your staff work together to collaborate to create lessons and assessments that
reflect rigor?
Next, we will explore your experiences with implementing rigor:
16. Describe two instructional methods you use to scaffold students into rigor?
17. Which of the two do you believe is more important in helping students’ access academic
rigor—students’ academic ability or students’ academic effort? How do you distinguish
students’ academic ability from students’ effort? Can you elaborate on your answer?
18. Briefly describe two of your most positive experiences implementing academic rigor?
19. Can you briefly describe how you felt and responded when you attempted to implement
academic rigor and most of your students did not respond positively and did not meet
expectations?
20. Briefly describe some of the different ways you have observed AA students respond to
rigorous learning activities and assignments?
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 185
21. Briefly describe some of the different ways you have observed Latino students respond to
rigorous learning activities and assignments?
22. Briefly describe some of the different ways you have observed White and/or Asian students
respond to rigorous learning activities and assignments?
23. To what extent have there been school wide barriers to implementing academic rigor?
Finally, we will explore your perceptions of the relationship between rigor and Culturally
Responsive Pedagogy
24. How do you define culturally responsive pedagogy and instruction
25. To what extent have you had training or PD on Culturally Responsive Pedagogy and
Instruction
26. What role do you think culturally responsive instruction plays in engaging students in highly
rigorous tasks?
Sources: Francis, Rousseau
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 186
Appendix C
Information Sheet
University of Southern California
Rossier School of Education
Waite Phillip Hall
3470 Trousdale Parkway
Los Angeles, CA 90089
INFORMATION SHEET FOR RESEARCH
THE AUDACITY TO TEACH: CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR FOR AFRICAN
AMERICAN AND LATINO HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS.
You are invited to participate in a research study conducted by Marquisha Flowers under the
supervision of Sylvia Rousseau at the University of Southern California because you are a
teacher from a high school with diverse student enrollment. Research studies include only people
who voluntarily choose to take part. This document explains information about this study. You
should ask questions about anything that is unclear to you.
PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
This study explores the potential effects of increasing African American and Latino students’
access to rigor.
PARTICIPANT INVOLVEMENT
If you agree to participate in this study, you will be asked to participate in observations and an
interview.
--I will observe 1 English Teacher and 1 Social Science teacher at a high school site. Optimally, I
will observe one teacher who teaches AP Language and Eleventh Grade English and one teacher
who teaches AP US History and US History.
--Teacher participants' classroom pedagogical practices will be observed two class periods for
each course (AP English Language, English, AP US History, and United States History).
--I will conduct two semi-structured interviews with participating teachers at the same school site
following the last observation of each participating teacher observed. I will interview each
teacher once for 45-60 minutes in their classrooms. The interviews will be audio recorded. You
do not have to answer any questions you don’t want to; if you don’t want to be taped,
handwritten notes will be taken.
--I will also collect samples of assignments, syllabi, etc. from the teacher. (I will not collect any
student work.)
PAYMENT/COMPENSATION FOR PARTICIPATION
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 187
Participants who complete both the observations and interview will receive a $15 Starbucks gift
card. Gift cards will be provided right after each person’s interview has been completed.
ALTERNATIVES TO PARTICIPATION
Your alternative is to not participate. Your relationship with your employer will not be affected
whether you participate or not in this study.
CONFIDENTIALITY
The information collected via audio recordings and transcripts will be stored on a password-
protected computer owned by the principal investigator. The participant has the right to
review/edit audio recordings or transcripts. Any identifiable information obtained through
interviews and observations in connection with this study will remain confidential. Your
responses will be coded with a false name (pseudonym) and maintained separately. The audio
recordings will be destroyed once the dissertation has been completed. The identifiers and de-
identified data will also be destroyed at the completion of the dissertation.
The members of the research team and the University of Southern California’s Human Subjects
Protection Program (HSPP) may access the data. The HSPP reviews and monitors research
studies to protect the rights and welfare of research subjects.
When the results of the research are published or discussed in conferences, no identifiable
information will be used. When the results are shared with your school site, pseudonyms and
numbers will be used as a substitute for names, school, and district. If you don’t want your de-
identified data shared with your school, you should not participate.
Due to the small sample size, you may be identifiable from your responses, even though
identifiers will not be shared. If you are not comfortable with your responses being tied back to
you, you should not participate.
INVESTIGATOR CONTACT INFORMATION
If you have any questions or concerns about the research, please feel free to contact Principal
Investigator Marquisha Flowers via email at ________________ or phone at ______________.
IRB CONTACT INFORMATION
If you have questions, concerns, or complaints about your rights as a research participant or the
research in general and are unable to contact the research team, or if you want to talk to someone
independent of the research team, please contact the University Park Institutional Review Board
(UPIRB), 3720 South Flower Street #301, Los Angeles, CA 90089-0702, (213) 821-5272 or
upirb@usc.edu.
Subject: Request to Conduct Research
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 188
Appendix D
Superintendent-Letter to Request Permission
Dear Superintendent:
My name is Marquisha Flowers. I am a doctoral student at the University of Southern
California. I am writing to request access to conduct research at your secondary school site.
To invite participants, I am requesting the opportunity to email your high school principals to
request permission to email, call, and/or communicate with their teachers. If permitted, I would
like to observe, interview, and collect samples of assignments from an English teacher and social
science teacher at each site. I am seeking educators who teach both the Advanced Placement
English Language and general eleventh grade English courses (if available). I am also seeking
educators who teach both the Advanced Placement United States History and general United
States History courses (if available). In the case that a teacher does not teach both the Advanced
Placement and general education courses, I would like to request the opportunity to conduct my
study with both an Advanced Placement and general education teacher in the English and social
science content areas. I would also like to request information about Advanced Placement
course offerings. I will assign the district, school sites and teachers pseudonyms and will not
make any identifiable district, school or teacher information public.
My study is entitled The Audacity to Teach: Creating Access to Rigor for African American and
Latino High School Students. It is a qualitative study that seeks to explore the academic
experiences that teachers provide African American and Latino secondary students. It seeks to
discover the degree to which African American and Latino secondary students have access to
academic rigor. The purpose of this study is to extend the current research to shed light on how
schools’ and teachers’ perceptions and the learning experiences they provide secondary students
can advance or limit African American and Latino students’ access to rigor. The following
research questions will direct the study: In what ways do school and classroom practices in high
schools reflect institutionalized perceptions about African American and Latino students’ ability
to engage in rigorous learning opportunities? What are some pedagogical strategies that
secondary educators describe that create access to academic rigor for African American and
Latino students?
Participation in this study is completely voluntary. Any identifiable information obtained in
connection with this study will remain confidential. Their responses will be coded with a false
name (pseudonym) and maintained separately. The audiotapes will be destroyed once the
dissertation has been completed. If you have questions and/or provide consent to contact your
high school principals and conduct research at two of your high schools, please contact me via
email at (email) or (cell number).
Thank you in advance for your consideration of my request.
Sincerely,
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 189
Marquisha Flowers, NBCT
Doctoral Candidate
University of Southern California
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 190
Appendix E
Principal-Letter to Request Permission
Subject: Request to Conduct Research at Your School Site
Dear Principal:
My name is Marquisha Flowers. I am a doctoral student at the University of Southern
California. I am writing to request access to conduct research at two of your secondary school
sites.
To invite participants, I am requesting the opportunity to email your high school principals to
request permission to email, call, and/or communicate with their teachers. If permitted, I would
like to observe, interview, and collect samples of assignments from an English teacher and social
science teacher at each site. I am seeking educators who teach both the Advanced Placement
English Language and general eleventh grade English courses (if available). I am also seeking
educators who teach both the Advanced Placement United States History and general United
States History courses (if available). In the case that a teacher does not teach both the Advanced
Placement and general education courses, I would like to request the opportunity to conduct my
study with both an Advanced Placement and general education teacher in the English and social
science content areas. I would also like to request information about Advanced Placement
course offerings. I will assign the district, school sites and teachers pseudonyms and will not
make any identifiable district, school or teacher information public.
My study is entitled The Audacity to Teach: Creating Access to Rigor for African American and
Latino High School Students. It is a qualitative study that seeks to explore the academic
experiences that teachers provide African American and Latino secondary students. It seeks to
discover the degree to which African American and Latino secondary students have access to
academic rigor. The purpose of this study is to extend the current research to shed light on how
schools’ and teachers’ perceptions and the learning experiences they provide secondary students
can limit or advance African American and Latino students’ access to rigor. The following
research questions will direct the study: In what ways do school and classroom practices in high
schools reflect institutionalized perceptions about African American and Latino students’ ability
to engage in rigorous learning opportunities? What are some pedagogical strategies that
secondary educators describe that create access to academic rigor for African American and
Latino students?
Participation in this study is completely voluntary. Any identifiable information obtained in
connection with this study will remain confidential. Their responses will be coded with a false
name (pseudonym) and maintained separately. The audiotapes will be destroyed once the
dissertation has been completed. If you have questions or provide consent to contact your high
school principals and conduct research at two of your high schools, please contact me at via
email at _____________ or ________________.
Thank you in advance for your consideration of my request.
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 191
Sincerely,
Marquisha Flowers, NBCT
Doctoral Candidate
University of Southern California
CREATING ACCESS TO RIGOR 192
Appendix F
English Teacher- Letter to Request Permission
Marquisha Flowers
Dear English Teacher,
My name is Marquisha Flowers, and I am a doctoral candidate in the Rossier School of
Education at University of Southern California. I am conducting a research study as part of my
dissertation, African American and Latino High School Students access to academic rigor.
You are cordially invited to participate in the study, because you have been identified as a
current eleventh grade AP English and/or college preparatory English teacher.
If you agree, you are requested to participate in observations of your instructional practices
during three class periods of your AP and/or eleventh grade English courses. If you agree, you
are also requested to participate in an audiotaped interview. The interview is anticipated to last
approximately 1 hour.
Participation in this study is completely voluntary. Your identity as a participant will remain
confidential at all times during and after the study.
If you have questions or would like to participate, please contact me at _____________ or via
phone at _________________.
Thank you in advance for your participation,
Marquisha D. Flowers
Doctoral Candidate - Rossier School of Education
University of Southern California
Abstract (if available)
Abstract
Due to the persisting underperformance of African American and Latino students, this qualitative study seeks to explore the classroom and pedagogical practices that create or limit African American and Latino high school students’ access to academic rigor. This qualitative study also seeks to discover the extent to which African American and Latino high school students have access to academic rigor. The purpose of this study is to add to current research and explore the potential effects of increasing African American and Latino high school students’ access to academic rigor. The following research questions will direct the study: What are some pedagogical strategies that secondary educators describe that create access to academic rigor for African American and Latino students? In what ways do classroom practices in high schools reflect institutionalized perceptions about African American and Latino students’ ability to engage in rigorous learning opportunities?
Linked assets
University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses
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Asset Metadata
Creator
Flowers, Marquisha Denise
(author)
Core Title
The audacity to teach: creating access to rigor for African American and Latino high school students
School
Rossier School of Education
Degree
Doctor of Education
Degree Program
Education (Leadership)
Publication Date
05/01/2018
Defense Date
10/03/2017
Publisher
University of Southern California
(original),
University of Southern California. Libraries
(digital)
Tag
academic rigor,access to rigor,classroom practices,High school students,OAI-PMH Harvest,opportunity gap,pedagogical strategies,rigor gap
Format
application/pdf
(imt)
Language
English
Contributor
Electronically uploaded by the author
(provenance)
Advisor
Rousseau, Sylvia (
committee chair
), Carbone, Paula (
committee member
), Pascarella, John (
committee member
)
Creator Email
mdflower@usc.edu,professorflowers1@gmail.com
Permanent Link (DOI)
https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c40-499476
Unique identifier
UC11266783
Identifier
etd-FlowersMar-6298.pdf (filename),usctheses-c40-499476 (legacy record id)
Legacy Identifier
etd-FlowersMar-6298.pdf
Dmrecord
499476
Document Type
Dissertation
Format
application/pdf (imt)
Rights
Flowers, Marquisha Denise
Type
texts
Source
University of Southern California
(contributing entity),
University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses
(collection)
Access Conditions
The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...
Repository Name
University of Southern California Digital Library
Repository Location
USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA
Tags
academic rigor
access to rigor
classroom practices
opportunity gap
pedagogical strategies
rigor gap