Educators and researchers have been fighting the reading wars for the last century, with battles see-sawing literacy instruction in American schools from phonics to whole language and, most recently, back to phonics again. Over the last decade, 32 states and the District of Columbia have adopted new "science of reading" laws that require…

Chile is known for universal school choice policies and a high level of economic segregation. In part, segregation has been linked to selective school admission policies. Chile implemented a centralized school admission system (New School Admission System), where PK-12 schools must accept any applicant, and lottery assignment is used for…

The enrolment of Chinese middle-class children in elite international kindergartens is a big education industry in China. Our paper is situated in the broader sociology of elite schooling which has yet to fully explore how middle and upper middle-class parents are increasingly sending their children to elite international kindergartens. We present…

This qualitative study examines teacher educators' articulations about their beliefs and motivations for preparing the next generation of teachers. The study also explores how teacher educators conceptualise their roles as the teachers of prospective teachers. Employing case study design, the participants included 10 teacher educators who serve at…

As noted by many historians, the modern tale of American education is one of a pendulum swinging between concerns about excellence and those about equity. In many matters of policy and practice, excellence and equity are in tension, if not actual conflict. It can be assumed that progressives will always take the "equity" side. So if…

For far too long, the United States has neglected and wasted an enormous amount of human potential--much of it among groups that have never been given the opportunities they deserve. We're talking about bright students, advanced learners, striving pupils, and those with high but untapped potential--especially those who are Black, Hispanic, Native…

Using proprietary data collected prior to the establishment of the public Universal Prekindergarten program in New York City, this study finds statistically significant differences in test-taking rates for the city's Gifted & Talented (G & T) program between two matched samples of students--those who attended a public prekindergarten…

We estimate the effects of relative age in kindergarten using data from an experiment where children of the same age were randomly assigned to different kindergarten classmates. We exploit the resulting experimental variation in relative age in conjunction with variation in expected kindergarten entry age based on birth date to account for…

Empirical research on cultural and social capital has generally ignored the key role of institutions in setting standards that determine the contingent value of this capital. Furthermore, many studies presume that the yielding of profit from cultural, social, and economic capital is automatic. Bourdieu's concept of field highlights the ''rules of…

Despite the prevalence of charter schools in the United States, few experimental studies evaluate the impact of charter school attendance on students in the early elementary grades. Using data from a randomized lottery in which kindergarten students and their parents applied to two oversubscribed and well-established charter schools in Denver,…

In this paper, we examine whether expanded access to sought-after schools can improve academic achievement. The setting we study is the "open enrollment" system in the Chicago Public Schools (CPS). We use lottery data to avoid the critical issue of non-random selection of students into schools. Our analysis sample includes nearly 450…