Physical restraint is an emergency procedure restricting the movement of an individual and is used in events where students pose an imminent threat of physical harm to themselves or others. Students with disabilities are subjected to these procedures seven times more than typically developing students. Over the past decade, there has been…

A recent Arkansas Department of Education analysis found highly rated early childhood programs serve many of the state's children. Yet 81,000 eligible children still lack access to publicly funded early learning experiences, particularly in rural areas, and enter kindergarten "not ready to learn." The LEARNS Act focuses on five key areas…

States have increasingly sought to house pre-K and child care in the same agency--often including the Head Start collaboration office and other early childhood services. This article discusses three major approaches: (1) Creating a new agency focused on early childhood; (2) Consolidating functions in a human services agency; and (3) Consolidating…

This quantitative study explored the relationship between the beliefs of school district superintendents regarding the implementation of trauma-informed strategies and their actions in supporting building principals with the implementation of those strategies within the K-12 school system in New York State. The findings suggest that…

The National Association of State Boards of Education (NASBE) convened its Task Force on Early Childhood Education in the larger context of educational reform of the 1980s, which was characterized by two competing perspectives. One focused on state-mandated testing and increased graduation requirements, in response to the alarm sounded by the…

Public school board members are charged with the responsibility and accountability to provide governance-level advocacy for equity and excellence in public education. This qualitative study examined the perceptions of school board members in three K--8 school districts in the midwestern part of the United States regarding the 50+ year Race-Based…

Concerns about a strong positive correlation between leadership and student success (Wood et al., 2013) coupled with community input around hiring from outside an organization, as opposed to hiring from within, contributes to the complexity of filling superintendent vacancies The limited research available on this issue is amplified due to the…

Current federal, state, and local policy and levels of investment in young children are not keeping pace with available information about brain development and what children need to become healthy, productive adults. The funding structures for early childhood are insufficient, and the reporting requirements are outdated. One of the most…

There is a wide gap between what research evidence identifies as effective reading intervention and what is currently offered in schools. This effectiveness study reports the results of a long-term research/school system partnership that is implementing reading intervention for children with reading difficulties in Canadian community schools. In…

For two decades, the state role in educating children before kindergarten has been growing, and it is accelerating. Enrollment in state-funded preschool today far exceeds that in federal Head Start, and states are the dominant provider at age 4, serving about half of all four-year-olds who attend any preschool program. New universal preschool…

Health education offers a natural curricular home for important life skills and ways students can optimize physical, social, and emotional health. Although many schools have implemented social and emotional learning (SEL), health education provides a broader framework by encompassing the connections between physical and emotional health and the…

Drawing on case-study data, this inquiry explores the lived experiences of four universal pre-kindergarten teachers to address the question: How do practitioners narratively interpret a local school district policy directive of child autonomy, use their professional capacities to reconstruct the directive to address diverse students' needs, and…

This article analyses the narratives and counter-narratives which characterised the struggle between the Chicago Public School Board (CPS) and the Chicago Teachers' Union (CTU) preceding the 2019 Chicago teachers' strike. This was an extraordinary event which has received little scholarly attention. The paper explores the types and uses of the…

This qualitative multiple case study is a follow-up to a study completed in 2007 that examined characteristics of rural school districts experiencing a high rate of superintendent turnover. The original study design incorporated extensive interviews with participants across four rural school districts; triangulating interview results with…

Educators often wonder exactly how the textbooks that end up in students' hands were approved. In this article, the author explores one significant stage in the process in California, the nation's largest textbook market. The Instructional Quality Commission (IQC), an advisory board to the California Department of Education's (CDE) State Board of…