Teacher performance, retention among math completers in first five years

June 7, 2024 - This project is a collaboration effort involving eight California State University campuses that offer a single subject credential program in mathematics. The PIs and co-PIs named below will conduct research together to establish a robust knowledge base on teacher effectiveness and retention among single subject credential program completers in mathematics in the first five years of teaching in both high-need and non-high-need school districts in California.

Individual PIs and co-PIs will also be responsible for recruiting and working with their participants. We will describe the mutually determining impact and roles of various social ecological factors and their nuances in early secondary math teachers’ enactment of effective math teaching practices and decisions to either stay, persist or leave based on their self study accounts. We will establish new evidence-based insight that will support recommendations for:

• Strengthening programs and initiatives that develop effective math teaching and retention longterm;
• Dealing with variations, which make the work of math teaching in either high-need or non-high-need schools very complicated, in order to reduce early math teacher turnover, improve early math teaching, address concerns that affect student performance and the entire social ecology;
• Improving credential, induction, and credential-to-induction transition programs.

Sayonita Ghosh Hajra, co-principal investigator representing Sacramento State, will be involved in all aspects of the collaborative project, which include:

• Establishing and maintaining their own institutional database of math completer data;
• Leading the mixed methods data collection, analysis, and writing at their respective institutions;
• Participating in meetings to review literature, plan data collection and analysis, and develop analyses and reports; and supporting the implementation of the dissemination plan.

"This study will provide a knowledge base on Teacher Effectiveness and Retention among Single Subject Credential Program completers in mathematics in the first five years of teaching in both high-need and non-high-need school districts in California," Hajra said.

Award Amount - $74,998 (subaward)
Project Duration - 3 years
Funding Agency - National Science Foundation (project 2345187)

Principal Investigator - Dr. Ferdinand Rivera, San Jose State University

Co-Principal Investigator(s) - Drs. Cheryl Roddick, Peter Gao, and Carlos Garcia, San Jose State University; Dr. Greisy Winkici-Landman, California Polytechnic State in Pomona; Dr. Julie McNamara, CSU East Bay; Drs. Babette Benken and Brian Katz, CSU Long Beach; Dr. Dennis Kombe, CSU Monterey Bay; Dr. Sayonita Ghosh Hajra, Department of Mathematics & Statistics, Sac State; Dr. Agnes Tuska, Fresno State University; Dr. Rong-Ji Chen, CSU San Marcos.

Exploring how SSI recipients approach work-related decision making

June 7, 2024 - This yearlong grant project, funded by the Social Security Administration (SSA) to inform their policy making, will use community-based participatory research (CBPR) techniques alongside qualitative methods across two research sites (in Sacramento and Pittsburgh) to explore how SSI recipients approach work-related decision making.

Social Security’s Supplemental Security Income (SSI) is a public assistance program that provides monthly cash benefits to people with disabilities and older adults who have not participated in formal work. Average SSI benefit levels reach just below the Federal Poverty Line, and recipients must navigate a web of complex and outdated administrative policies to maintain benefits. A significant body of research demonstrates that people who participate in SSI rarely return to the workforce in their lifetimes. Simultaneously, qualitative and survey research often finds that people receiving disability benefits desire to work yet face perceived employment disincentives and barriers.

This exploration is twofold: First, it takes up questions of how individuals’ ethnoracial and disability backgrounds may impact their orientation towards the potential risk of returning to the workforce; and second, it explores potential barriers to employment as they relate to recipient understanding of SSA policy and associated administrative burden. This project is conducted in partnership with Rebecca Vallas at the National Academy for Social Insurance (NASI) who will support dissemination efforts. Findings will inform SSA on reasons why SSI recipients choose to engage in work - both formal and informal - or not, and the role of structural inequities and SSA policies in these decision-making processes.

“The gap between people’s desire and capacity to transition from SSA disability benefits to employment is a persistent social policy," said Katie Savin, the project's Principal Investigator. "This grant allows us to learn from those closest to the problem – SSI recipients – to better understand the structural and contextual factors that keep disabled people out of a labor market they desire to participate in.”

Award Amount - $179,810
Project Duration - Feb. 2024-Feb. 2025
Funding Agency - Social Security Administration via the Retirement and Disability Research Consortium at University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Principal Investigator - Katie Savin, assistant professor, School of Social Work, College of Health and Human Services.

Co-Principal Investigator(s) - Nev Jones, assistant professor, School of Social Work, University of Pittsburgh.