From climate disaster to the specter of nuclear annihilation to the rise of fascism and destruction of democracy to the advent of AI and other potentially destructive technologies, a number of material threats are matched by symbolic threats that undermine the capacities of people to respond. The war on public and critical education and the public…

The purpose of this hermeneutic phenomenological case study was to investigate how school safety protocols have changed in a suburban county since the Sandy Hook Elementary 2012 school shooting. Through interviews of district safety directors and school resource officers and analyzing district school safety documents, this study showed how…

Douglas Kellner's "Re-Visioning Education: Cultural Studies, Critical Media and Digital Literacies, and Democracy" provides a comprehensive account of his critical theory of education that combines his work in philosophy of education, cultural studies, and media and digital literacies aimed at a critical theory of education and radical…

This document is the first of a semi-annual "stocktaking" publication to analyze various political trends impacting education and young people. Bellwether hopes to help the field separate signal from noise and provide context around various issues and trends affecting the sector. The impact of COVID-19 school closures on schools and…

This study investigates the impact of statewide Restorative Justice (RJ) reforms on school suspensions and bullying outcomes in Michigan and Texas, amidst a broader movement away from zero-tolerance policies. Since the Gun-Free Schools Act of 1994, zero-tolerance approaches have led to increased suspensions, particularly affecting marginalized…

With a new Governor, State Superintendent, and Legislators in Sacramento and a diminished federal role in education, there is an opportunity for California's leaders to take stock of recent educational reforms and make necessary improvements. Several high-profile reforms over the past few years, including the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF)…

This poll was conducted between April 26-May 6, 2023 among a sample of 961 Teachers. The interviews were conducted online. Results based on the full survey have a measure of precision of plus or minus 3.46 percentage points. Among the key findings are: (1) Private school and charter school teachers say they are thriving to a much higher degree…

Despite mounting evidence that zero-tolerance policies do not deter misbehavior, teachers and administrators continue to respond to a range of student infractions through punitive measures, such as ticketing, expelling, and suspending students. Black boys, black girls, and Latinx students are most adversely affected by discipline in the era of…

Mounting evidence indicates that students of color are more likely than their white peers to receive exclusionary discipline (out-of-school suspensions and expulsions), but alleviating these disparities requires an understanding of what drives them. In this study, we use seven years of student- and infraction-level data from every public school in…

Positive academic performance is a strong indicator of subsequent positive life course outcomes (e.g., employment) as well as underrepresentation in psychiatric populations, drug use, school dropout, and subsequent legal trouble (A. Farn & J. Adams, 2016). As such, helping all children to be successful in school is a top priority for parents,…

The 2018 PDK Poll of the Public's Attitudes Toward the Public Schools finds that Americans trust and support teachers, but they draw the line at wanting their own children to join a profession they see as undervalued and low-paid. An overwhelming 78% of public school parents say they would support teachers in their community if they went on strike…