The United States considers educating all students to a threshold of adequate outcomes to be a central goal of educational justice. The No Child Left Behind Act introduced evidence-based policy and accountability protocols to ensure that all students receive an education that enables them to meet adequacy standards. Unfortunately, evidence-based…

As the educational community continues to consider the impact of the proliferation of accountability-aimed reform on students, schools, and communities, the consequences of said reforms on teachers must be included. Results of this study indicate that even distant, broad educational policies manifest in specific and profound ways in teachers'…

As the "No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001" and high-stakes accountability have come to define the work of teachers, one wonders if "teaching" is becoming more or less attractive. Teaching in today's classrooms is arguably very different from teaching in classrooms from previous decades and generations. Moreover, the…

Diane Ravitch's book, "The death and life of the great American school system," is an exploration and critique of educational change in the United States since the report "A Nation at Risk" in 1983 and more specifically since the passing of the No Child Left Behind legislation in January, 2002. Arguably, there are several…

Federal policies intended to promote educational equity, especially through state accountability mechanisms, have mobilized efforts to improve outcomes for students with disabilities. Although these efforts have met with some success, achievement gaps remain. The authors argue that local cultures of teaching practices and decision making continue…

As a consequence of the federal "No Child Left Behind" (NCLB) law, there is tremendous pressure on school principals, teachers, school superintendents, district staff, state departments of education and governors to maximize the increase in student achievement that is obtained with every dollar of expenditure. Currently, teachers are…

Drawing from the surge of anti-bilingual education sentiments at the turn of the millennium, Ron Unz and the program he initiated, English for the Children, promoted Proposition 203 to dismantle bilingual and English as a second language (ESL) programs in Arizona's public schools. According to Unz's initiative, language-minority students were to…

The current policy context established by "No Child Left Behind (NCLB)" calls for schools and teachers to develop and execute plans of action they believe will effectively address achievement gaps. This article uses conceptual and research literature to explore the construct of teachers' collective sense of efficacy and its potential…

This paper examines school-related policies and strategies that have been proposed or justified, at least in part, on the basis of their potential for reducing black-white test score gaps. These include strategies, one of which is greater integration, to reduce differences in the quality of teachers faced by black and white students; school and…