In March 2020, the coronavirus shuttered schools across the United States and the world. In the first year of the pandemic, school systems faced difficult decisions about how to deliver instruction while maintaining the safety and wellbeing of students, families, faculty, and staff. As the months passed, the consequences from this public health…

The public education landscape has changed dramatically since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Communities and school systems throughout the country have faced unimaginable consequences from this public health crisis and the disruption to K-12 public schools. The pandemic's disproportionate impact on low-income communities of color, along with…

School choice has the potential to be a tool for desegregation, but research suggests that choice more often exacerbates segregation than remedies it. In the past several years, hundreds of 'intentionally diverse' charter schools have opened across the country, potentially countering the link between charter schools and segregation. Yet, these…

Background/Context: Community colleges are drawing renewed attention from policy makers and advocates seeking to increase college attendance and completion. Nearly half of all students awarded a bachelor's degree attended a community college. However, we know little about how community college students decide where and how to pursue postsecondary…

While there is a robust literature examining the patterns and causes of teacher turnover, few articles to date have critically examined the measures of turnover used in these studies. Yet, an assessment of the way turnover is measured is important, as the measures become the means by which the "problem" of turnover becomes defined and…

Objective: For many students, community college is a convenient first step toward a bachelor's degree. Yet, although more than 80% of those who enroll in community colleges intend to transfer to a 4-year institution, fewer than 35% do so within 6 years. Quantitative data reveal the presence of a transfer gap and there is extensive research on…

This article investigates legal and political issues as they relate to school vouchers serving students of color. Specifically, we draw on the empirical, historical, and legal research to examine whether school vouchers will create a more equitable system of education for poor students of color. First, we present a history of vouchers, including…

Many community college students express a desire to transfer to a 4-year institution, but few achieve that goal. In this article, we examine what conditions lead to successful student transfer and which serve as barriers. Drawing on data from a longitudinal qualitative study of 61 transfer-intending students in Texas and using qualitative…

Teachers are the most important in-school factor that affect student learning. Yet many schools, particularly low-income urban schools, have a difficult time hiring and retaining teachers. When multiple teachers leave a school each year, multiple years in a row, those schools lose not only human capital, but teachers lose the strong social ties…

A growing body of research examines the role of elite networks, power, and race in the advocacy for market-based reforms and their ultimate effects on students, teachers, and communities of color. Yet, less research explores how such reforms interact with gender in the workplace, especially how policies such as school choice, competition, and…