This document presents an in-depth exploration of the challenges and dynamics in discussing Critical Race Theory (CRT) in Texas high schools, particularly in the wake of House Bill 3979, often called the Critical Race Theory Bill. The author, a Mexican female educator, and a recent doctoral graduate, utilizes a unique narrative bridging academic…

The role of the principal includes various obligations and responsibilities, including leading the school's special education (SPED) program. Many aspects inform how SPED students respond to the curriculum, including their learning needs, race, socioeconomic class, and other aspects that intersect and make their needs more complex. The researcher…

Objective: To explore the perspectives and practices of high school health education teachers implementing health literacy with a focus on the social determinants of health within the context of a concern for social justice. Design: Qualitative content analysis was used to assess high school teachers' accounts of the practices used to teach health…

The Texas Legislature passed House Bill 5 in 2013 to adopt the Foundation High School Program, a new graduation program intended to support youth college and career readiness. Texan students entering grade 9 were guided to enroll in one or more endorsements with a specific curriculum designed to introduce them to STEM, Business & Industry,…

Research on early college high schools exists, however a gap in literature reveals that "there is an absence of studies that specifically address the ways in which leaders enact justice" (Theoharis, 2007, pg. 222). Numerous stakeholder groups such as educational leaders, public servants, and researchers can benefit from the outcomes of…

Anti-immigrant vitriol is growing, even disturbing our educational spaces. Teachers are also affected by the negative discourses around them and need to develop knowledge that shapes their attitudes and actions regarding immigrant youth. This article details a professional development with high school teachers that used reader response to develop…

The "IDRA Newsletter" serves as a vehicle for communication with educators, school board members, decision-makers, parents, and the general public concerning the educational needs of all children across the United States. The focus of this issue is "Bridging the Digital Divide." Contents include: (1) Texas High School Attrition…

In this essay, Nicole Mirra and Antero Garcia explore how young people from six demographically distinct communities across the United States understand the social and political issues affecting their lives, engage in storytelling and dialogue across differences, and collaboratively imagine humanizing and hopeful civic futures. Drawing from…

In most cases, the curriculum chosen for wide-use does not mirror or address the pressing needs of bi/multilingual learners, especially for those who are in middle and high school settings. In light of this and the increasingly negative national discourse surrounding minoritized students, our focus in this article is to offer in-service teachers a…

This case study research identified culturally relevant leadership practices that influence the outreach, recruitment, and retention of Hispanic girls in Texas Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (T-STEM) programs in a School District in the Southwest Border region. Educators have a social justice responsibility to challenge the inequitable…

Purpose: The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the experiences of women high school principals to uncover challenges contributing to the underrepresentation of women in secondary school leadership. Moreover, this work is situated within the larger movement of educational leadership for social justice, with a focused application of a…

Many assume low-income, emergent bilingual Latinos have poor reading attitudes. To investigate this issue, we surveyed 1,503 Texas public high school students through stratified cluster sampling to determine their reading attitudes. Most represented Latinos and mixed-race Latinos/Whites who heard Spanish at home and whose mother tongue was…

The purpose of this qualitative inquiry was to examine the perceptions and experiences of Latina students, who were underperforming in an early college high school (ECHS), regarding their achievement and experiences. Additionally, the school's institutional documents were used to critically assess the viability of the ECHS as an equity-oriented,…

Through random sampling, we surveyed 2,568 high school students throughout Texas to determine their reading attitudes vis-à-vis individual and school background variables. Sources were the Rhody reading attitude scale and public domain campus summary data; the lenses of attitude theory and social justice informed this study. Significant…

Classrooms tend to be absolute spaces, places where fluidity is rejected and nearly everything--from people, to ideas, to practices and policies--is viewed and organized through binary logic. Because binary logic is implicitly accepted as the natural order in schools and the structures resulting from it are highly unmalleable, individuals who…