Drawing on interviews with 88 middle school counselors tasked with implementing New York City's high school choice policy, we show that counselors largely question the policy's legitimacy and the equity of the high school assignments it produces. By highlighting issues of transparency and procedural fairness that threaten counselors' acceptance of…

Reading by third grade is a hot topic. Dozens of state legislatures have passed laws aimed at improving early reading, many of them mandating retention if the job is not done by the end of grade 3. Everyone from philanthropists to publishers, from parents to the press, have fixed on it. And setting aside too many people's assumptions to the…

Many urban districts use a portfolio management model, hoping to promote school choice and improve school performance. This model requires school closure, which has predominantly impacted lower income families. In 2013, Chicago Public Schools relocated Granger Elementary into one of 48 schools it closed, placing its middle-class parents in the…

Current educational research identifies the significant relationship between principal leadership and teacher retention. In recent years, distributive leadership has been praised as a supportive leadership framework for school improvement. Given its success with transforming schools, distributive leadership has been suggested as a positive…

Throughout the school year, recommendations were revised several times to reflect what was currently known about the SARS-CoV-2 virus and best public health practices as recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Wisconsin Department of Health Services (DHS). The situation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic…

Background: Although nearly all states in the United States require school districts to adopt anti-bullying policies, little research examines the effect of these policies on student bullying and health. Using a statewide sample, we investigated associations between the quality of school district anti-bullying policies and student bullying…

This model policy creates a comprehensive early literacy reading policy to ensure all students receive the support and interventions necessary to enter fourth grade as proficient readers.

C.B. Peterson Elementary School is identified as an at-risk school, as per the North West District School Board's (NWDSB) criteria. In light of rising diversity issues, the school board has released an Equity and Inclusion Policy, which is a top priority to C.B. Peterson's administration team. This new policy adds to the work intensification faced…

Teacher collaboration is a vital factor in successful school reform, and the networks in which educators are embedded support (or constrain) access to essential social capital resources. In this study, authors used social network analysis to examine the changing structure of teacher collaboration networks over the course of a rural District's…

In the face of stagnant achievement and persistent achievement gaps in mathematics, school districts have enacted a variety of changes to varying levels of success. On the heels of an Algebra for All model that failed to generate desired outcomes of students, San Francisco Unified School District adopted a policy in 2014 that dramatically changed…

Despite data-driven decision making being a ubiquitous part of policy and school reform efforts, little is known about how teachers use data for instructional decision making. Drawing on data from a qualitative case study of four elementary schools, we examine the logic and patterns of teacher decision making about differentiation and ability…

This paper is based on a study of 20 elementary teachers, especially in their tenth year of teaching (2013-2014). At this time, the teachers were working under heavy pressure from their government and school districts to implement "inquiry learning." While broadly accepting this pedagogy, however, the teachers varied substantially in…

School districts use a variety of policies to close budget gaps and stave off teacher layoffs and furloughs. More schools are implementing four-day school weeks to reduce overhead and transportation costs. The four-day week requires substantial schedule changes as schools must increase the length of their school day to meet minimum instructional…

Learning in data-rich environments has been a focus of learning sciences research since the inception of the field, with increasing interest in the ways learners "narrate data." This article examines the narration of data from the perspective of "learning on the move," identifying mobilities of data, and of the narratives in…

We examine how the community-driven leadership (CDL) of farmworker mothers challenged deficit practices of the local school board, which decided to close the school in the community. CDL is the ability of mothers to activate their community cultural wealth to mobilize their resources in search of better educational opportunities. The mothers…