Since the implementation of the legislation of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and Title I there is one group to which the achievement gap has widened: the Black male. Not only are Black males are in the lowest percentage on every marker of educational success (Kirp, 2010). Black males lead the percentages for every negative educational…

Decades of federal and state education legislation enacted to increase student academic achievement and enhance school quality have pronounced impacts on teachers and their instructional practice. That impact is captured in the term intensification. Intensification is multifaceted and manifests as additional tasks accomplished simultaneously, with…

Florida Senate Bill 1720 drastically changed developmental education, beginning in fall 2014. This paper considers affected faculty members' perceptions and experiences with the passage and implementation of reform, according to focus group data provided by 294 participants at 21 Florida College System institutions between 2014 and 2019. We found…

Intellectual freedom and viewpoint diversity are hotly debated topics in academia, marked by an increase in legislation focusing on intellectual freedom and viewpoint diversity within academic settings. This study explores the impact of Florida House Bill 233 on public universities, including academics' morale. House Bill 233 purports to support…

The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) was enacted as an education intervention to close the achievement gap by increasing student attendance, graduation, and standard testing rates. NCLB held teachers and administrators accountable for successfully meeting adequate yearly progress gains. However, the emerging NCLB research uncovered a culture of…

Spurred by the 1986 IDEA reauthorization, the movement toward collaborative, or blended, preservice early childhood personnel preparation now spans an impressive 30-year history. In this paper, we trace the evolution of blended preparation by applying a conceptual framework that situates the development of blended program identity within a…

This study explores the impact of Florida House Bill 233 on teaching and learning in Florida's State University System. This bill purports to promote intellectual freedom and viewpoint diversity by permitting students to record classes and by creating a cause of action for faculty violating these principles. Faculty were invited to share…

This descriptive exploratory study describes teacher self-efficacy in providing LGBTQ+ support in the implicit and explicit social studies curriculum in the wake of numerous anti-LGBTQ+ legislation in education in Florida. Four high school social studies teachers from three different Florida public school districts were interviewed to answer three…

This constructivist study investigates and captures the lived experiences of three social studies educators as they make sense of civic education in a climate of high stakes testing and accountability. In spite of the deterioration of civic education over the years (Campaign for the Civic Mission of Schools, 2011), Florida was among the first…

The Every Student Succeeds Act prohibits the federal government from requiring the use of student achievement data for teacher accountability purposes. As states grapple with what to do about teacher accountability, it is critical to examine policy influences on a) the equitable distribution of effective teachers; and b) how teacher accountability…

Through policies like No Child Left Behind, the federal government incentivized the use of student performance data as a core strategy for improving student achievement. The assumption behind these efforts is that data will be used to guide teacher practice and promote high-quality instruction. This study examined how teachers describe using data…

There is a nationwide concern that too many students leave high school unprepared for college-level coursework and that students lack awareness of their level of preparation. Florida enacted Senate Bill 1908 creating a statewide program, the Florida College and Career Readiness Initiative (FCCRI), to reduce the need for postsecondary remediation.…

Florida's Race to the Top (RTTT) competition invited university-district partnerships to compete for funds aimed at improving principal preparation programs. In this article, we report findings from a qualitative case study focused on one program partnership funded by RTTT. Drawing upon interviews with faculty and relevant documents, we conducted…

The California State Teachers' Retirement System (CalSTRS) is in the midst of phasing in substantial increases in the contributions made by teachers, school districts, and the state of California. The phase-in period began in 2014-15. In the year prior, 2013-14, the total statutory contribution rate to CalSTRS from all parties was 18.3 percent of…

States, programs, and schools have long focused on the inputs of teacher preparation--the rules for candidates and the preparation programs they attend--because inputs were thought to predict teacher effectiveness, and because they were often the best option available. But in the early 2000s, policymakers began trying to evaluate preparation…