How educational leaders initiate and sustain change is often hotly debated by those inside and outside of the system. Given the many reform initiatives of the past 30 years, and the resulting changes public educators have made lurching from initiative to initiative, one must ask if public education has truly improved. The answer to why public…

Teacher candidates benefit from dynamic clinical practices embedded in teacher preparation programs. In this article, we discuss Clinical Urban Plunge (CUP), a clinically-based approach to integrating social justice and equity education in our Middle Level Teaching and Learning Program at Northern Illinois University. More specifically, we explain…

The objective of this design case was to describe the development of an online graph-oriented tool to support the representation of collaborative argumentation for middle school students from a faculty expert's perspective and discuss the processes that were instrumental in developing the tool. Supported by the professional staff in the Digital…

This study investigated the perceptions of teachers of grades three, four, and five regarding differentiated instruction in conjunction with Standards-Based Report Card as aligned to the Common Core State Standards. The purpose of this study was specifically seeking teacher perceptions on how these phenomenon interact, as well as teacher to parent…

A pre- and postcourse survey was used to collect quantitative data on university students' perceptions and experiences of one hybrid course within a middle level education program. In addition, the survey contained questions addressing the possible impact the hybrid course had on students' perceptions of feeling prepared for urban education and…

In this paper, we report on our experience as rookies organizing, funding, and running a summer computing camp for middle school girls. The focus of the camp was building mobile applications using App Inventor. The three day/two night camp targeted girls in rural, high poverty school districts and was funded through an award from the National…

The purpose of the current study was to understand the association between bullying experiences (i.e., bullying, victimization, and defending) and social, emotional, and cognitive factors. The social factor was social skills (i.e., empathy, assertion, cooperation, responsibility); the emotional factor was emotional difficulties (i.e., personal…

The development of critical scientific literacy in primary and secondary school classrooms requires authentic inquiry with a basis in the real world. Pairing scientists with educators and employing informatics and visualization tools are two successful ways to achieve this. This article is based on rich data collected over eight years from middle…

While there is considerable research concerning co-teaching among special educators and regular classroom teachers, little work has been published regarding co-teaching that involves teacher candidates and their cooperating teachers. During the last three years, two middle level education faculty members involved in their University's Professional…

If we listen to them, the words of our students can provide a road map for instructional responses that meet their diverse literacy needs. In this article, Cara Gutzmer, a middle school literacy coach, and Phil Wilder, a teacher collaborator at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, discuss how a responsive teaching framework guided their…

The Schools to Watch: School Transformation Network Project is a whole school reform model designed to improve the educational practices, experiences, and outcomes of low-performing middle-grades schools. Developed by the National Forum to Accelerate Middle-Grades Reform, the four-year project was funded in 2010 by a U.S. Department of Education…

This is the second in an occasional series called "Promising Practices: What Works in the Midwest." The series was launched to showcase innovative initiatives and effective ways to address common challenges and unique opportunities in higher education. Promising practices enable educators and policymakers to compare and benchmark…

A consensus is emerging among researchers who study charter schools that general conclusions about whether or not charter schools nationally perform better than traditional public schools are difficult to achieve (Buddin & Zimmer, 2005). Rather than asking, "Are charter schools working?" the better questions to ask might be,…

The Chicago Annenberg Challenge, chaired from 1995 to 1999 by Barack Obama, is being portrayed by John McCain's campaign as an attempt to push radicalism on schools. Founders of the project say it has been distorted in the presidential campaign. The project undertaken in Chicago as part of a high-profile national initiative reflected, however,…

Few research studies have been conducted related to students identified as slow learners who are enrolled in general education classes. In this research study, the definition of a slow learner describes the student as one who has "not" been identified as a student with a learning disability. The purpose of this study was to…