In the U.S., state guidance to schools in response to the COVID-19 pandemic was politicized. We used state-level political affiliation to explore whether access to curricular resources differed pre-pandemic or during pandemic remote teaching and teachers' reported control over curricular resources during pandemic teaching. We found that…

The purpose of this study was to analyze the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Southern California K-12 school districts and understand what district and site administrators have learned from their experiences and their decision-making responsibilities in managing the crisis. This study has brought to light the impact of the pandemic on students,…

While many standardized assessment measures exist to track child mental health treatment outcomes, the degree to which such tools have been adequately tested for reliability and validity across race, ethnicity, and class is uneven. This paper examines the corpus of published tests of psychometric properties for the ten standardized measures used…

Purpose: The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore and describe the perceived impact of Patterson's (2003) 7 servant leadership constructs on high school principals in establishing a culture of high performance. Methodology: The qualitative phenomenological method was decided by 8 thematic researchers to study the high school…

Farms and gardens are increasingly being recognized as dynamic educational settings through which learners can engage in a wide variety of activities and practices to connect with land, food, self, and community. Across these settings, teaching with political clarity represents a pathway for identifying, interrogating, and disrupting systems of…

Providing opportunities for youth who have been 'pushed out' of traditional schools to re-engage is an issue of social justice. The lack of equitable learning opportunities in the traditional science classroom is a contributing factor to youth being pushed out. Alternative education programs have the potential to support youth who have been…

The paradigm of test-based accountability has been a dominant force for decades, yet some argue that we have recently witnessed a dramatic change in the key beliefs influencing educational policy. To understand the extent of this transformation, we investigated the policy narrative supporting the adoption of a multiple measure accountability…

Community colleges have been hailed as a "cornerstone of American higher education", and act as an important access point to post-secondary education for a wide range of students, particularly socioeconomically disadvantaged students and underrepresented minorities. However, community colleges have also been criticized for poor…

First-year students enrolling into higher education institutions experience multiple transitions requiring the support of student success programs. Students who enter college undecided about a major face additional hurdles to their success and may experience low academic self-efficacy as a result. A strengths-based approach to assisting these…

Background and Context: Continuous improvement and networked improvement science have emerged as prominent approaches to improving schools. Although continuous improvement approaches have generated promising results in education, how these efforts come to be enacted remains a crucial question that can generate insight into how these approaches can…

Office hours are an integral component of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) courses at nearly all colleges and universities. Despite their ubiquity as a support mechanism, there has only been limited work examining how instructors approach office hours and what shapes these approaches. Here, we conduct a phenomenographic study to…

A data party is an engaging way to involve stakeholders in program evaluation. We explain the use of a data party for engaging 4-H program stakeholders (e.g., staff and volunteers) in data interpretation and helping them understand, embrace, and use program evaluation information to make data-driven decisions about their programs. We present two…

Parents who vary in their experience with formal schooling are likely to use different types of informal guidance with their children. However, rather than assuming a deficit approach we need evidence regarding how parents with limited schooling support their children's learning. Forty U.S. families of Mexican-heritage, from two levels of…

This knowledge brief is part of a continuing series designed to inform California education leaders about new research findings on key state policy topics. It summarizes recent findings on improving the access to, and the use of, teacher workforce data in California, and focuses on the importance of instituting a statewide teacher data system that…

Today, we revisit our initial stance of eliminating standardized test scores from the college admissions process to improve equity and student diversity. With refreshed data about test-optional admissions, we address the import of institutional responsiveness to redress persistent equity gaps that impact our state's workforce diversity and hiring…