There is a serious need to reconsider the adult-led, grade-centered parent teacher meetings which are standard school practice. Schools and students would benefit from elevating PTMs with student voice and formative assessment that celebrates students' efforts and motivates them to continue learning. Under a reinvented framework for meetings,…

This Data Point examines parent and/or guardian involvement in various school-based engagement opportunities before the coronavirus pandemic. This information was reported by U.S. public school principals on the principal survey of the 2017-18 National Teacher and Principal Survey (NTPS). The NTPS is a sample survey of public and private K-12…

At the middle school level, active family engagement is difficult enough with native English speaking families but even more so with parents of English learners (ELs). Using a funds of knowledge approach in this article, we position families as knowledgeable participants with strengths who contribute significantly to their adolescent's academic…

Critical race theory (CRT) in education has been used to expose and analyze racism in K-12 schooling and higher education. However, the theory has been underutilized as an inventory lens applied to school leadership practice. Our paper takes on this inquiry by highlighting the work done by an administrative leadership team at a majority racially…

This randomized controlled study examined disciplinary outcomes for 201 students who made threats of violence at school. The students attended 40 schools randomly assigned to use the Virginia Student Threat Assessment Guidelines or follow a business-as-usual disciplinary approach in a control group. Logistic regression analyses found, after…

We explored the challenges that five newly qualified teachers (NQTs) faced in the teaching and learning situation and how they addressed their challenges. The teachers taught integrated science at the Junior High School (JHS; ages 12-15 years). Data were collected through observation, interview, and content analysis. We used the inductive and…

The authors explored different factors that were associated with mothers' and fathers' choice between two forms of parent-school communication: school briefing sessions and parent-teacher conferences. A total of 585 parents--295 mothers and 290 fathers from different households--who had at least one child enrolled in middle school in Korea were…

This research examined the idea that children's parent-oriented motivation underlies the benefits of parents' involvement on children's engagement and ultimately achievement in school. Beginning in the fall of 7th grade, 825 American and Chinese children (mean age = 12.73 years) reported on their parents' involvement in their learning as well as…

During the past three years, the author's administrative team at Milken Community High School in Los Angeles, a 7-12 school where the author is the middle school principal, has been discussing assessment. They decided that they wanted assessment to tell students what they did or did not do and enable them to self-adjust. To accomplish this, the…

This working paper explores reasons to encourage parents of English language learners (ELLs) to be involved in the learning process at the middle school level. Barriers to parental involvement of language minority students will be identified and successful, research-based strategies to increase parental involvement will be introduced. Five…

This report presents ways to identify the superior pupil and methods to provide for his needs. For the purposes of this report, superior pupils are defined as rapid learners in academic subjects. They are the pupils in the upper 20 percent in general intelligence whose abilities lend themselves readily to intellectual pursuits. This report…