The Arizona state legislature has aimed to pass a series of bills banning those in schools from teaching topics associated with inclusion, social justice, and equity. Since 2020, the legislature has targeted teaching 'critical race theory' (CRT), often (mis)using the term to refer to any ideas related to systemic discrimination and racial…

Amid the ongoing pandemic, school librarians across the country have been facing a different kind of battle, one that has been going on for years in some cases: the fight for every student to benefit from the instruction and carefully curated resources a certified school librarian can provide. Several states are working to introduce or retain…

In order to understand our present and future work in planting the seeds of solidarity, we excavate the past, through an exploration of transnational solidarity and the vestiges of U.S. legislative policy and philanthropy. Through life notes and sharing circles, we examine policies (Morrill Act of 1862, Refugee Act of 1980, and the Gates…

A-F school letter grade systems, currently used in 13 states across the United States (U.S.), are one popular version of the systems required by federal policy to help states define, rate, and label school quality every year. In this study, we explored the extent to which such grades assigned to schools, as based on objective measures including…

Background/Context: Opt-out is a national movement based on local efforts as most notably expressed in New York. While studies have addressed opt-out demographics and local impact, fewer studies address the political activism that extends beyond the act of refusing specific tests to changing standardized testing policy. Purpose/Objective/Research…

Physical accessibility at colleges and universities is a perennial and challenging issue. Some campuses have made efforts to address these challenges through a variety of advocacy initiatives, while others have used disability simulations to bring greater awareness of physical accessibility to campus communities. An alternative approach to…

The Coalition on Adult Basic Education (COABE) provides leadership, professional development, advocacy, and communication for the field of adult education. In our leadership role, we often have the opportunity to recognize exemplary work taking place at the state and local levels. Such was the case with a grassroots training that was developed to…

Youth who receive Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits experience disparate educational, employment, and economic outcomes when compared to youth with disabilities who do not receive these entitlements. Promoting the Readiness of Minors in Supplemental Security Income (PROMISE) was a 6-year national research demonstration project that…

Although current and former English Learner (EL) or "ever-EL" students comprise one of the fastest-growing K-12 populations, we still know relatively little about the factors that influence their college-going. Using Perna's seminal college-going model as a launching point, we propose a policy-driven empirical approach to explore how…

Despite the efforts of parents, educators, and activists to oppose standardized testing through the act of opting out, most states and federal law still require students to take annual standardized tests. While key arguments of the opt-out movement in a state legislative process are explored, this case study focuses on those legislators who…

Public education in the United States acts as a governmental tool of neoliberalism, through which state power and sovereignty are deployed and transformed in daily life. Here, I examine how the divergence of sovereignty is exerted over refugee students and their families in US public education. Drawing on 42 months of ethnographic data collected…

In its four years of life, the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) has blazed new pathways for policy and funding in K-12 arts education. Many states acted early to take advantage of these federal opportunities to expand students' access to the arts. Through its definitional language, suggested actions, and funding mechanisms, ESSA provides states…

This conceptual paper examines the question of the political imaginary in the neoliberal moment, and the crucial role that Ethnic Studies can play in realizing critical pedagogy's promise of emancipatory social transformation. After Arizona House Bill 2281, educational scholarship has paid renewed attention to Ethnic Studies classrooms as key…

Arizona has played a large part in the development and implementation of policy that directly inhibits equity of opportunity for the English learner (EL) population, the largest and most damaging of which came out of legislation passed due to the "Flores v. Arizona" case which concluded in 2015. This research article seeks to critically…

Little literature exists documenting how K-12 American Sign Language-English interpreters are supervised or evaluated, or how supervision and evaluation affect interpreters and deaf and hard of hearing students. To address this gap, the author asked 230 educational interpreters about their experiences of supervision. Using a critical policy…