In a 2011 article in this journal, Hornby and Lafaele provided a comprehensive model to understand barriers that may adversely impact effectiveness of parental involvement (PI) in education. The proposed explanatory model provides researchers with a new comprehensive and systematic perspective of the phenomenon in question with references from an…

This article explores how TCTELA's 2024 Teachers of the Year forged the future through their literacy teaching at the elementary, middle school, high school, and college levels. Each essay captures how they understand their work as literacy educators and intentionally educate their students toward a brighter future amid trying local contexts. The…

The interaction analysis presented by Kim and Roth examines nine students, their teachers, the learning task and materials in a mixed second and third grade science classroom during the school day. In the research narrative readers are introduced to two resourceful and creative groups of students as they work on a task assigned by their…

Does the current drive to incorporate social and emotional learning (SEL) into the K-12 curriculum represent a positive reform that will lead schools to educate the "whole student" and ultimately boost young people's academic success? Or is it a distracting fad that comes with high opportunity costs? Common sense and considerable…

Functional behavior assessment is a technique supported by research, to assess behavior to determine causes of behavior and develop effective behavior interventions. In this article we discuss how special and general education teachers are prepared to assess students when they struggle academically, but are not typically prepared to assess…

Reading by third grade is a hot topic. Dozens of state legislatures have passed laws aimed at improving early reading, many of them mandating retention if the job is not done by the end of grade 3. Everyone from philanthropists to publishers, from parents to the press, have fixed on it. And setting aside too many people's assumptions to the…

This brief draws on interviews with school principals, community school managers (CSMs), and district leaders in two community schools and focused on school improvement efforts based on Oakland Unified School District's (OUSD) full-service community schools model (FSCS). New Highland RISE Community Elementary School (RISE Community) and Elmhurst…

In this commentary on "Does Sorting Students Improve Scores? An Analysis of Class Composition" (Collins and Gan 2013), the author discusses the findings in Collins and Gan's study on grouping to provide appropriate-level instruction to promote students' academic growth. This commentary critiques the credibility and validity of the…

In this commentary, John Woodward observes that, when judged collectively, the pre-K to Grade 4 research in this special section not only exemplifies the effects of the Institute of Education Sciences' emphasis on large-scale empirical studies over the last decade, but it also demonstrates how the field of special education has moved away from a…

This article looks at the extent of parental cheating to get their child of primary-school age into a local faith school.

Members of an Innovation School committee from Florida Gulf Coast University and the School District of Lee County share their individual and collective perspectives on designing anew traditional public school as an inquiry-based innovation school through an articulated partnership. Perspectives are shared through the lens of narrative inquiry and…

Although using the five-paragraph formula to teach essay writing is a ubiquitous practice--and many K-12 teachers defend it--Campbell argues that having students write according to this formula does more harm than good. The formula's tight structure stops the very critical thinking students need to do to strengthen their cognition and their…

This essay doubles as a critique of the brutal violence visited upon the immigrant community in Austin, Texas, in the wake of Donald Trump's presidency, and a deeply personal account related to the establishment of Academia Cuauhtli, a language and culture revitalization project in Austin, Texas. It narrates our origins as a community-anchored,…

For this 10th article in the series reviewing recent court decisions concerning appropriate school psychology practice from both professional and legal perspectives, the focus is eligibility under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). For this purpose, the courts have generally agreed that, based on the definitions in the IDEA's…

This forum article is a response to the article by Alandeom W. Oliveira, Patterson Rogers, Cassie F. Quigley, Denis Sambursky, Kimberly Barss, and Seema Rivera, The article explores agency from the perspective of both personal action and an understanding of causality within environmental systems, and it explores environmental read-alouds as…