The nation's largest school district is engaged in a fierce debate over the merits and drawbacks of mayoral control as a legislative deadline looms for renewing the governance arrangement. The 2002 law that gave New York City's mayor authority over the school system will "sunset" on June 30 unless state lawmakers step in, as they are…

In 1999, the United States Department of Education began its Small Learning Community Program in an effort to support the breakup of large schools into smaller learning communities. In an effort to improve the academic success rate of students, President George W. Bush signed into law the "No Child Left Behind Act of 2001" (NCLB). NCLB…

In 2008, educational leaders from the Arizona Department of Education (ADE) assigned a group of turnaround specialists to work in four failing public schools in a large, urban school district in Phoenix, Arizona in hopes of improving those schools. The utilization of turnaround specialists in failing schools was Arizona's method of enacting…

Student mobility is the phenomenon of students in grades K-12 changing schools for reasons other than customary promotion from elementary school to middle school or from middle school to high school. This non-promotional school change can occur during the school year or in the summer between school years. It may involve residential change, school…

With the onset of No Child left behind legislation, the English Language Learner (ELL) subgroup gained new attention. Schools and districts failing to meet accountability targets began to seek out programs and strategies that would better ensure the academic progress of those students who were learning grade-level content while learning English.…

There has been little data collected on how much testing actually goes on in America's schools and how the results are used. So in the Spring of 2014, the Council staff developed and launched a survey of assessment practices. This report presents the findings from that survey and subsequent Council analysis and review of the data. It also offers…

Title I of the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act, as reauthorized by the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), requires states to establish standards, assessments, and accountability systems to ensure that every child achieves proficiency in reading and mathematics by the year 2014. This report describes exploratory analyses of the effects…

Teacher retention is a persistent issue that impacts school improvement. The retention and attrition of both new and experienced teachers is quite challenging for administrators throughout school districts, particularly in large urban schools. While it is reasonable that some degree of teacher turnover in schools is inevitable, the exiting of…

Under No Child Left Behind Act 2001, the Reading First initiative was a component geared toward strengthening literacy skills in schools that were in need of improvement. Despite the intervention attempts through this initiative, research shows that students continue to struggle in literacy, which widens the achievement gap in urban school…

The public usually thinks of large urban schools when it considers reforms to the American education system. But rural students account for a large and growing segment of the school-age population, and their needs have too often been overlooked in school improvement efforts. Policymakers and the public must make rural education a priority if the…

The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) requires that all public school students, including English language learners, achieve proficiency in reading, math, and science by 2014 as measured on state assessments. English language learners enrolled in public schools for the first time receive a 1-year deferment from these state assessments in subjects…

Principals in urban settings serve elementary schools often densely populated with highly mobile, ethnically diverse, and economically disadvantaged students. Due to the changing landscape of increasing accountability issues required by the "No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB)" (2001), principals must adjust the mission of the school…

Urban public schools in the United States face the problem of failure to reach academic goals of performance mandated by the No Child Left Behind Act. It was hypothesized that use of Senge's leadership model might result in academic performance in one urban elementary school. Based on Senge's shared vision leadership model as the theoretical…

This article examines the case of the Winston Society, a short-lived wikispace created by a high school English teacher to foster collaborative knowledge-making and social activism among educators. Through an examination of the wiki, questionnaires, and a focal group interview, this paper describes an examination of reasons the "Winston…

This article discusses what David Berliner (2005) has called the perverse "spectacle of fear" (208) surrounding issues of teacher quality and accountability in contemporary school reform. Drawing principally on the critical semiotics of Roland Barthes' essay, "The World of Wrestling" (1957), it examines the way that this…