Facing the typical challenges of urban schooling, including overcrowded schools, mediocre academic outcomes, and high dropout rates, the Los Angeles Unified School District has been at the epicenter of big-city education reform over the past decade. This article takes a look at the past 10 years of reform strategies in Los Angeles, and how…

Theater-based approaches have been implemented globally as a health education and behavior change strategy for decades. Studies have shown that live theater performances can engage an audience and influence the knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors of audience members. Moreover, literature has shown that adolescents find theater-based interventions…

Many of California's urban public schools, both traditional and charter, have seen dramatic changes in enrollment during the past two decades. These trends have contributed to fiscal and facilities issues for both types of schools, but they also represent an opportunity for better cross-sector collaboration. In our new report, "Changing…

This study examines the experiences of 15 Latinx sixth-grade students in Los Angeles who participated in a yearlong journalism-based media literacy program embedded in their social studies classes. Students researched, interviewed, wrote, and published articles on the Internet about social justice themes, like immigration, racism, and LGBTQ…

Although much attention in the education research literature has been placed on comparing the effectiveness of charter schools to the effectiveness in traditional public schools, far less work has gone toward developing a better understanding of the differences in spending and resource allocation between the two sectors. This report aims to help…

This article explores the recurring narratives on race, place and representation that emerged in the talk of Chicana/o and Latina/o sixth-graders at a middle school in East Los Angeles, California. Discourse analytic methods are used to closely examine how these narratives were constructed within the contexts of everyday classroom interactions.…

Policy efforts to enhance postsecondary access and completion often emphasize the construct of college readiness (CR). While most research has focused on defining and measuring CR, less has examined the perspectives of first generation students and the urban high school contexts in which many prepare for college. This study utilizes data from an…

The Leaders' Evaluation and Analysis Development (LEAD) Tool provides the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) with a data set to measure the level of teacher effectiveness at every school site. The LEAD Tool data variables also provide teacher, principal, and schools with data that may have a relationship with a school's overall academic…

Since the passing of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB), neoliberal policies, such as standardized curriculum, high-stakes tests, accountability measures, school choice, charter schools, value-added models and school privatization have pushed social justice teaching to the margins. As a result, many educators endure demoralization, teach…

A growing body of research investigates how intermediary organizations (IOs) and their networks navigate, promote, and produce evidence on social media. To date, scholars have underexplored blogs, an important milieu in which IOs produce and disseminate information. In this analysis, we broaden the emerging scholarship on evidence brokering by…

Little is known about the connection between arts-integrated education and social-emotional learning, particularly for students with disabilities. This paper draws on data from a case study of a federally-funded arts integration program called Everyday Arts for Special Education (EASE) to identify the mechanisms by which arts-integrated teaching…

Background: Scholars have argued that far too little research has examined the complex processes that many Black males undertake in constructing identities that function in schools (Howard & Flennaugh, 2011; Howard, Flennaugh, & Terry, 2012; Terry, Flennaugh, Blackmon, & Howard, 2014). Some have highlighted the perpetuation of a false…

All students and their families should know their rights, whether or not they seek to challenge a disciplinary decision. Well-informed students, families, educators and community stakeholders can use this information to advocate for fair disciplinary practices in their school and district. This booklet is based on New Jersey state law. While an…

The recent global pandemic triggered by the spread of COVID-19 left the majority of school systems across the United States moving quickly toward remote learning and hybrid models of education. As school buildings closed, many K-12 school systems adopted a form of whole-school distance learning, leaving students to learn from home and families to…

The environmental education (EE) field has encountered persistent challenges in fostering the integration of EE practices in public schools, a challenge that may be addressed through integration of EE with the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) in the United States. In addition to the potential for fostering EE, the integration of EE and…