The shift from the No Child Left Behind Act to the recently authorized Every Student Succeeds Act could beckon a renaissance of K-12 arts education in the U.S. Over the past decade, NCLB's increased emphasis on accountability testing in core subjects has coincided with a notable decline in school-based arts exposure. Recognizing this trend and…

School accountability has been a part of public education conversations since the development of No Child Left Beyond (NCLB) in 2001. These accountability policies were developed with a core mission of holding schools, districts, and states accountable to the academic growth and achievement of all students and all student groups, and for the last…

University education partners have great potential to facilitate schools' moving from a school led traditional approach for family involvement to an asset based, empowerment approach to partnerships. On this journey, educators grapple with the cognitive dissonance of change as they engage their emerging multilingual families in the lives of their…

The authors discuss an urban public school district's efforts to reinsert play after its mandated disappearance for fourteen years under a scripted curriculum imposed to meet the goals of the No Child Left Behind law. The authors analyze field notes, teacher and administrator interviews, coaching records, and surveys to chart the impact on…

The national track record for state-to-district assistance is not stellar. It is tactics in the absence of strategy and activities in the absence of accomplishment. The problem is systemic: State departments need to transform their organizational structures to facilitate rather than hinder effective assistance strategies. The starting place is…

Purpose: This article examines factors that affect school board policy making about student diversity within two southern urban-suburban school districts experiencing changing demographics: Jefferson County Public Schools and the Wake County Public School System. Both districts have a history of voluntary integration efforts, and research shows…

Implementing school choice programs and bolstering parental engagement are both frequently touted as critical steps in improving educational outcomes in US schools. Many policy makers contend that by providing parents with more schooling options for their children, parents will become more involved in their children's education, resulting in…

Supplemental educational services are designed to contribute tremendous support to local school districts and communities through state-approved provider programs. The state, however, prior to approving supplemental educational services provider programs, must utilize all available resources to assist in the process of screening and approving…

Rates of student homelessness have increased dramatically throughout the United States in recent years, yet there has been a dearth of scholarly analysis devoted to key organizations' engagement of the issue. Given that the federal McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act has taken on a central, but underexamined role in shaping this engagement,…

The debate over the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) generally overlooks--or looks past--what may be the most fundamental flaw in that legislation. As the law is now written, decisions regarding what the young should know and be able to do are removed from the hands of parents and local community leaders and turned over to officials…

In this article, the author describes how his district develops clearly focused professional learning communities (PLCs) and raises its student achievement rating from "one of the worst" to one of the best. Sanger Unified School District in California's Central Valley had been named one of the worst school districts in California. It…

In an effort to meet the societal demands for a better prepared workforce and the educational reform movements, such as the "No Child Left Behind Act of 2001," school districts have begun to partner with post-secondary institutions. In particular, community colleges and high schools are working together to make education more affordable,…

Today's children spend less and less time in the outdoors, leading Richard Louv in 2008 to coin the term "nature deficit disorder." Louv pointed out that experiences with nature are essential to a child's physical and emotional development and that the lack of these types of experiences has led to an increase in child obesity, attention…

A federal policy in the United States has required sweeping changes in K-12 education. With No Child Left Behind legislation, schools are challenged to create conditions that bring each student to federally-set academic proficiency levels. Many schools have become more attentive to data about student performance and how it can inform their…

Effective evidence-based action requires getting the right data into the right hands at the right time to help make decisions. The Data Quality Campaign (2011) has provided suggestions to state education agencies for effectively using data within state longitudinal data systems. One suggestion is to identify "the variety of ways available…