Guided by evidence that teachers contribute to student achievement outcomes, researchers have been reexamining how to study instruction and the classroom opportunities teachers create for students. We describe our experience measuring students' opportunities to develop analytic, text-based writing skills. Utilizing multiple methods of data…

In this study, we use the US nationally representative Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Cohort to examine inequalities in opportunities to learn mathematics. Specifically, we examine the characteristics of US students' elementary school math teachers and the instruction they provide. While our findings are consistent with previous…

This brief highlights key information about enrichment activities, which represent one of the main components of the Massachusetts Expanded Learning Time (ELT) initiative. Over time, the ELT initiative has supported over two dozen schools across the Commonwealth. A comprehensive evaluation of the ELT initiative found that implementation of the…

Since the 2003-04 school year, Save the Children, U.S. Programs, has supported programming designed to improve reading skills among struggling students in rural areas. The literacy program includes both afterschool and in-school interventions with small groups of children. These are implemented by well-trained paraprofessionals and are designed to…

In seeking to understand how parent/child homework activity may provide a learning opportunity for parents as well as for children, the authors examined three bodies of literature: (1) research on parent involvement in homework; (2) research on parent reengagement with mathematics learning; and (3) research on the nature of parent/child math talk…

The National Summer Learning Association is the only national organization that focuses exclusively on learning during the summer months. It works to ensure that children and youth in high-poverty communities have access to quality summer learning opportunities that support their academic performance and healthy development through hands-on…

School suspensions are commonly used in schools to address challenging student behaviours, often on the understanding that suspensions send a clear message to the school community about what is acceptable behaviour. However, there is a growing body of evidence that school suspensions have a range of unintended negative consequences including…

For new educators, the obstacles of high-stakes testing, curricular mandates, and their own inexperience and self-doubt can render teaching for justice and equity overwhelming, seemingly impossible ideals. However, as students are increasingly tied to prescriptive curricula and academic performance standards, the goals of social justice and…

Writing is a powerful social tool that offers students opportunities to chisel their identities as they position themselves and others on issues and beliefs (Dyson, 1992). This article presents the story of how Mark, a fifth-grade student who resisted writing in certain classroom contexts, used positional writing practices to shape his identities.…