Current approaches to secondary school are producing high numbers of dropouts and low numbers of students well prepared for college and careers. Given global demand for better education quality and relevance, a reform movement in the US that blends rigorous academic learning and applied technical study may be of interest to other countries. Yet…

Over the past 20 years, both charter schools and pre-kindergarten education have taken on increasingly prominent roles in the schooling of America's children. Charter schools in 43 states now serve more than 2.6 million students--roughly six percent of all students attending public schools. More than two-thirds of four-year-olds attend some form…

Persistent school segregation may allow advantaged groups to hoard educational opportunities and consign minority students to lower-quality educational experiences. Although minority students are concentrated in low-achieving schools, relatively little previous research directly links segregation to measures of school quality based on student…

For years, student test scores drove much of the conversation about school quality and student learning. But new state plans under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) show that policymakers are using a broader set of measures to assess school quality. In addition to math and reading performance, many states will also look at core subjects such…

Textbooks are a vital component in many higher education contexts. Increasing textbook prices, coupled with general rising costs of higher education have led some instructors to experiment with substituting open educational resources (OER) for commercial textbooks as their primary class curriculum. This article synthesizes the results of 16…

For the past decade and a half, the fight to improve America's schools has been fought largely on two fronts: academic standards as one battleground, and accountability the other, with the issue of mandatory testing adding heat to a very public--and increasingly politicized--debate. The questions for policymakers and educators are as direct as…

Summer learning loss contributes significantly to the achievement gap between low income students and their more affluent peers. That makes high quality summer learning programs a smart investment for school districts concerned about success for all students. Such investments have become easier thanks to the flexibility built into the Local…

Concerns about the new coronavirus, with the consequent school closures and with significant economic fallout, are having profound effects on the public education landscape, from how educators deliver instruction to the amount of revenue available for operating schools. Produced by WestEd as part of a collection of Crisis Response Resources, this…

The for-profit college sector is arguably the most controversial and least understood sector of higher education today. The past decade has ushered in a wealth of public concern and scrutiny as to whether for-profit colleges and universities are providing a quality education to underserved student populations. While their politicization has…

Publicly funded pre-K is often touted as a means to narrow achievement gaps, but this goal is less likely to be achieved if poor and/or minority children do not, at a minimum, attend equal quality pre-K as their non-poor, non-minority peers. In this paper, I find large "quality gaps" in public pre-K between poor, minority students and…

The purpose of this Delphi study was to identify the professional learning activities that experts perceive are necessary for local education agencies (LEAs) to effectively implement California's Quality Professional Learning Standards (QPLS) in alignment with the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) Priority 2. The study also examined the degree…

The Commission on Teacher Credentialing's current "Accreditation Framework" was adopted in 2006. The accreditation system is the primary means by which the Commission ensures quality in educator preparation in California. The system is designed as a 7 year cycle comprised of three major components or activities: (1) biennial reports; (2)…

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,…

Legislating civics education initiatives can be an arduous process that takes time and resources, and requires buy-in from various stakeholders. Some state officials--including superintendents of public education and chief justices--have used their authority to more quickly advance civics education initiatives and programs without legislation.…

This project was a dissertation of practice designed as a needs assessment of a specific program. Specifically, the project identified the needs of an After School Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) program in a Southern California School District (SCSD). The purpose was to provide recommendations to address the needs of…