School improvement depends, fundamentally, upon collective agency--a group capability to work productively together and solve problems. Unfortunately, many schools operate in contexts of adversity that can pose considerable challenges with developing collective agency. Schools serving high-poverty communities of color often face chronic resource…

The study examined the perceptions of school leaders in developing collective efficacy and the ways in which they enact leadership to advance or impede the professional learning communities' ability to produce the intended results. A mixed-method case study at a public unified school district in southern California was conducted, which included…

Science is a human endeavor; the way it is taught, applied, and in some cases exclude populations from having access to it, may affect people for generations (NGSS Lead States 2013). Science education continues to be a complex civil rights issue (Tate 2001), but there is hope. Movements to promote just, equitable, and inclusive opportunities to…

Rigorous learning opportunities at high schools in low-income neighborhoods are limited and ineffective, and in these settings the Advanced Placement (AP) program has mostly eluded successful implementation. In this study, Suneal Kolluri analyzes two schools in the same low-income, Latinx neighborhood that, despite comparable numerical gains, have…

Background: Over the past two decades, inclusive STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) high schools have emerged as one strategy for increasing and broadening participation in STEM majors and careers, particularly for currently underrepresented students in those fields. However, limited research has examined whether strategies…

California's shift towards continuous improvement in education makes understanding how districts and schools can learn to improve a more pressing question than ever. The CORE Improvement Community (CIC), a network of California school districts engaged in learning about improvement together, is an important testing ground to learn about what this…

The Internationals Network for Public Schools has a reputation for engaging in culturally and linguistically responsive pedagogy with immigrant youth. The 19 schools in the internationals school network serve the unique academic and emotional needs of recently arrived immigrant youth who are English language learners. INPS schools are in New York,…

Quad Blogging was implemented to connect students beyond classroom walls to explore social issues. Four middle school classrooms in New Jersey, Vermont, California and Qatar served as the research sites. Students engaged in collaborative inquiry around social issues, identifying a social issue specific to their context. Final products included…

Part of the Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education (SCOPE) research series titled "Teachers' Time: Collaborating for Learning, Teaching, and Leading," this case study looks at Hillsdale High School, a large, comprehensive high school located in San Mateo, California, a high-tech enclave of Silicon Valley nestled 23 miles…

Purpose. The purpose of this study was to determine if a significant difference in the degree of teamness in high school teams whose schools have strong evidence of the five dimensions of a Professional Learning Community, compared to high school teams in schools that do not have strong evidence of the five dimensions of a Professional Learning…

Part of the Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education (SCOPE) research series titled "Teachers' Time: Collaborating for Learning, Teaching, and Leading," this case study looks at the Santa Monica Alternative School House (SMASH), a K-8 public school in the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District (SMMUSD). It is a school of…

Research has addressed what instructional conditions may inhibit or promote scientific argumentation. Little research, however, has paid attention to interpersonal factors that influence collaborative argumentation. The present study examines the ways interpersonal factors affected group dynamics, which influence the features of collaborative…

We report on the scaling up of a high school content literacy framework, Reading Apprenticeship, over a period of four years as part of the independent evaluation of an Investing in Innovation grant from the U.S. Department of Education to WestEd's Strategic Literacy Institute (SLI). Our goal was to understand the school processes that support…

Originally founded as a private means for diplomats' children to earn an internationally recognized high school diploma, today the International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma Programme (DP) serves students from a variety of backgrounds in 144 countries. The IB mission and Learner Profile--consisting of ten attributes to foster in students--suggest…

As states are working to align their education systems with the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in support of the goal of graduating all students ready for college, careers and life, academic and career and technical education (CTE) leaders at the state and local levels can and should maximize this opportunity to finally break down the silos…