The education of young people is a vital task in a democracy with significant implications for both for young people themselves and for the state. How authority over schooling should be shared and organized is, therefore, a vital question in a democracy. This dissertation takes on that question and ultimately defends a broadly democratic account…

Historically, teachers had been delegated the primary responsibility for the organization and management of classroom instruction in US public schools. While this delegation afforded teachers professional autonomy in their work, it has also resulted in disparities in students' educational experiences and outcomes within and between classrooms,…

The World Bank's (WB) growing emphasis on decentralizing educational systems has sparked widespread discussion in the literature. This study examines whether WB reforms are indeed associated with decentralizing educational systems in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), as commonly assumed. Using unique, untapped country-level panel data on…

This study focuses on how admissions at selective colleges and universities represent key racialized organizations. We analyzed data from 50 individual interviews of admissions professionals, through a theory of racialized organizations to recognize admissions as practices that consistently reproduces systemic inequities. We reveal how…

We studied a case of a school in a high need setting that undertook multiple simultaneous initiatives during a major school reorganization. We focused on the simultaneous implementations of two comprehensive initiatives, one related to ambitious mathematics teaching and one related to the Understanding by Design curriculum writing process. We…