Education reform is a contested and complicated terrain where multiple stakeholders with competing visions seek to influence the direction of reform in alignment with their own interests. As a result of these competing visions, education policy is not value free or neutral and favors those who hold the political and economic power to maintain the…

In the wake of China's "Double Reduction" policy, the prohibition of after-school tutoring centers has led to a rise in parental assistance in their children's homework, concurrently elevating parental anxiety as homework assistant. This research aims to explore the effect of parental self-efficacy on the parental anxiety as homework…

Research has suggested that measures of both general classroom observational tools (Classroom Organization and Teacher Emotional/Instructional Support) and content-specific observational tools (Ambitious Math Instruction and Errors and Imprecision) are related to K-6 student math achievement and therefore there is encouragement to use both types…

Background or Context: There is increasing research focusing on dual language (DL) education program policies and practices regarding who has access to bilingualism and whose bilingualism is valued and represented. However, limited research is situated in the context of Chinese-English DL education and its service of emergent bilingual learners…

Large-scale learning assessments can be used to generate performance and contextual data on student learning outcomes. They can be national, regional, or international; school based or household based. The UNESCO International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP-UNESCO) has conducted a qualitative study to explore both how and why learning…

A growing number of schools are adopting social-emotional learning (SEL) programs to address students' social, emotional, and academic needs. The proliferation of school-based SEL programs has spurred more research to investigate the ways in which educators enact SEL in schools. However, very few studies have considered the role school leaders…

Although the number of countries conducting large-scale assessments has increased significantly over the past two decades, this has not necessarily led to the effective use of learning assessment data in policy-making and planning. To better understand the reasons for this, the UNESCO International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP)…

Turkey's Ministry of National Education aims to identify and develop valuable characteristics to prepare the nation's young for their professional life as adults. The Ministry has been conducting an extensive and comprehensive review of the educational system since the beginning of 2000. Educational system was implemented in time for the 2012/2013…

Previous studies about ELs have reported data on active English Learners--defined as those students who have not yet reached proficiency on a state English test--at a specific moment in time. This study, for the first time, analyzed the long-term trajectories of 18,000 CPS students who began kindergarten as ELs and followed their progress all the…

Background/context: In an era of accountability and standardization, elementary social studies is consistently losing its curricular foothold to English/language arts, math, and science instruction. Purpose: This article examines the relationship between elementary teachers' perceptions of instructional autonomy, teaching context, state testing…

This qualitative study explored Teach for America (TFA) alumni teachers' discourse on Arizona language policy, conducted with eight teachers in the Phoenix metropolitan area who received their professional teacher preparation from TFA, a national organization that uses alternative paths to certification to place teachers in low-income schools.…

Schools nationwide are transitioning to the Common Core--our advice to you: Don't go it alone! Our new book, "Common Core Literacy Lesson Plans: Ready-to-Use Resources, K-5," shows you that teaching the Common Core State Standards in the elementary grades doesn't have to be intimidating! This easy-to-use guide provides model lesson plans for…

This study looks at the question of whether charter schools are more innovative in their provision of extended time policies than a matched set of traditional public schools. Data for this study was collected from a sample of traditional public and charter schools that partner with the Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA) for interim…

This longitudinal quantitative study compared literacy achievement of students from second through sixth grade based on two organizational systems: graded (traditional) and nongraded (multiage) classrooms. The California Standards Test (CST) scaled and proficiency scores for English-Language Arts (ELA) were used as the study's independent variable…

Federal legislation has prescribed the increased use of statewide achievement tests as the culmination of a student's knowledge and ability at the end of a grade level; however, schools need to be able to predict those who are at-risk of performing poorly on these high-stakes tests. Three studies served to identify a means of predicting statewide…