The purpose of this study was to investigate the connection between principals' instructional practices and student achievement. A phenomenological case study examined 13 Title I elementary schools in central California that exhibited a) a high percentage of students from poverty, b) higher than average state assessment results, and c) principals…

The elementary school years are a particularly crucial time for children to engage in quality physical education (PE). Increasing the proportion of elementary schools that require daily PE is a Healthy People 2020 objective. Concerns over deficiencies in the quantity and quality of PE in California, especially in elementary schools, have been…

The School Improvement Grant (SIG), initially authorized in 1965 under the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, was passed to substantially support disadvantaged students' needs to raise students' achievement in their lowest-performing schools. This research addresses whether SIG funding alone is the catalyst to…

For the past several decades, the construct of parent involvement (PI) has framed much of the literature on school-family-community partnerships. In this study, the authors used a qualitative form of meta-analysis called "thematic synthesis" to explore a programmatic alternative to conventional PI known as "collective parent…

This research provides a unique seven-year trend analysis indicating that, while California has seen a decline in the use of suspensions in schools prior to the pandemic, the pace of the decline has slowed and large racial disparities in suspension rates remain. The research supports renewed advocacy efforts to eliminate schools' use of security…

In this article, we share preliminary data of our small pilot study utilizing Democratic Queer Theory framework (Camicia, 2016) and mixed methods data collection sought to understand if teachers are implementing LGBTQ+ curriculum in elementary schools. When evaluating the data collected, we found that California credential candidates are not…

This article explores an action-oriented research study designed to provide better understanding of ways to leverage school and community partnership through family engagement, focusing on the development and enactment of an approach to nurture family-school partnerships. Specifically, in partnership with seven school districts, a team of…

The First Amendment Schools project holds rich lessons in how to change school cultures into "laboratories of democracy"--as well as in how to increase the odds of success for any school reform effort. School reform programs of any sort need to make sure to build in sustainability, to provide ways to spread their lessons beyond the…

Combination classes are often created out of financial necessity rather than a desire to engage students in multiage learning. Teachers assigned to these classrooms come from the general teaching pool and may not have specialized training around the intricacies of multiage teaching. A review of the literature indicates that the United States has a…

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) makes sweeping changes to the way school performance is measured. Using the innovative measurement system developed by the CORE Districts in California, the authors explore how schools can be identified for support and improvement using a multiple measures framework. They show that 1) Different academic…

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) requires states to develop an accountability system that includes multiple measures of student academic performance and at least one additional indicator of "School Quality or Student Success" (SQSS). To support policymaking at both the state and federal level, the authors of "Identity Crisis:…

The primary objective of this paper is to suggest a mechanism by which current trends in public education, in particular the rise of externally defined numerical metrics of achievement to define school success, operate to shape school policy, curriculum and practice. Here, we argue that the modern school's focus on the cognitive dimension of…

Project Linking Learning ("Link") was created to target the needs of gifted students in urban school districts with historically underserved populations. Project Linking Learning implemented a linking curriculum between in-class instruction and an afterschool enrichment program for selected students in second through fifth grade.…

With the emphasis on high standards and fiscal accountability, there is a heightened need to inform the research linking student achievement to the allocation of resources. This mixed methods inquiry sought to study how schools utilized Title 1 and Title 1 stimulus funding from 2009-2011 to determine if correlations existed between areas of…

The purpose of this research study is to compare student achievement changes between matched QEIA and non-QEIA schools in an effort to infer effects of the most significant feature of QEIA funding, class size reduction. The study addressed the critical question--are there demonstrated, significant differences in student achievement gains between…