Today's accountability policies and changing demographics have created conditions in which leaders must rapidly build school capacity and improve outcomes in culturally diverse schools. This article presents findings from a mixed-methods evaluation of an Arizona Turnaround Leadership Development Project. The project drew on studies of turnaround…

Latinas and Latinos are currently underrepresented in terms of our 21 st century student academic attainment and workforce, compared to the total U.S. Hispanic population. In a field such as mathematical sciences, Hispanic or Latino U.S. citizenship doctoral recipients only accounted for 3.04% in 2009-2010. While there are various initiatives to…

Adult Hispanic ESL students in rural San Luis, Arizona, face a challenging situation. Since San Luis lies on the southwestern tip of Arizona and borders with Mexico, Spanish is the predominant language. English, on the other hand, is mostly heard in classrooms. This can be a predicament for adult Hispanics who need to be proficient in English in…

Participation in Advanced Placement (AP) classes and AP test-taking are widely viewed as indicators of students' college readiness. We analyzed enrollment in AP courses and AP test outcomes in Arizona to document disparities in students' access to rigorous curricula in high school and outline some implications of these patterns for education…

Two decades ago academics based at the University of Arizona brought the anthropological concept of Funds of Knowledge into the educational realm, providing a new conceptual framework to counter deficit theorizing of Latino students and their families. The growing body of literature evidences the belief and hope of academics in the potential of…

This study examines the college aspirations and access of Latino, undocumented students. In a time when college access is limited and a college education is necessary, the issue of academically qualified, undocumented students trying to enter the higher education system under tremendous odds is one that deserves a closer study. This dissertation…

The purpose of this study was to help increase success for first-generation Latina students at Arizona State University by providing a group mentoring support experience during the spring semester of their sophomore year. Thirteen first-generation Latinas in their sophomore year were recruited from the Obama Scholars Program at Arizona State…

This article provides an analysis of Arizona's policy response in educating English language learners by conducting a narrative review. A critical Latina/o theory approach was used to analyze the data. This study reveals 5 salient policy responses: (a) severely limit bilingual education, (b) develop controversial funding solutions, (c) implement a…

The high percentage and the steady growth of Hispanic/Latino students in Arizona demand that special attention be placed on improving academic achievement and attainment. The need to support Hispanic/Latino parents in becoming meaningful positive contributors to their children's schooling continues to surface as a critical issue in school…

In the fall of 2014, students took the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT) to help determine their level of readiness for college. The PSAT/NMSQT 2014 State Summary Reports summarize the characteristics, scores and educational plans of the Class of 2016 and Class of 2017.

In the fall of 2014, students took the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT) to help determine their level of readiness for college. The PSAT/NMSQT 2014 State Summary Reports summarize the characteristics, scores and educational plans of the Class of 2016 and Class of 2017.

This dissertation addresses the rhetoric of deficiency that frames Latina/o students as lacking with regard to education. This dissertation begins by examining the cultural deficit model entrenched in colonial narratives of history that justify unequal access to resources in the US. I argue that the reimagining of the pejorative trope of…

While disproportionality in discipline referrals and discipline action has been fairly well established among African American students in the United States, especially males in urban school districts, little research has looked at disproportionality among American Indian and Latino students. This paper uses a large dataset from the State of…

This article presents a variety of issues related to the effects of restrictive language and educational policies that ultimately limits important resources for English language learners (i.e., services, funding, time, and information). The authors spotlight the state of Arizona as an unfortunate case of language control through policies, which…

Purpose: This study evaluated the extent to which the language of intervention, the child's development in Spanish, and the effects of English vocabulary, use, proficiency, and exposure predict differences in the rates of acquisition of English in Latino children with specific language impairment (SLI). Method: In this randomized controlled trial,…