In this personal account, the author recounts navigating a school uniform policy as a new teacher in a large public high school in Baltimore. He loosely situates this telling in the recent history of the public school uniform movement, of which Baltimore was central. Writing in an urgent present tense, the author details the many complexities…

Young people have long been on the front lines of pushing for systemic change. The Prichard Committee Student Voice Team, consisting of 100 self-selected students from across Kentucky, works to improve schools and society. This article describes the Student Voice Team, an extension of the Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence, an organization…

Administrative leadership at School District 7 navigates diverse perspectives on implementing artificial intelligence (AI) in their high schools. Planning for the new school year, the superintendent grapples with AI and how it has impacted her four high schools in the past year. This case is written for k-12 school policy and leadership students…

This case explores the complex ways unaccompanied Latinx Indigenous minors experience the intersection of immigration policies and U.S. school policies and practices and the implications this has for school leaders. As such, we present three critical incidents that center three students' experience with and through U.S. schooling--from enrollment,…

Over the past decade the District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) has sought to expand participation in Advanced Placement (AP) courses in order to improve high school outcomes (attendance, achievement, and graduation) and longer-term outcomes (postsecondary enrollment and degree completion). DCPS wants to understand policies and recommendations…

This policy brief was adapted from "English as a Second Language at California's Community Colleges: An Early Examination of AB 705 Reforms." In Fall 2021, colleges began implementing reforms to English as a Second Language (ESL) that were mandated by Assembly Bill 705 (AB 705). In recognition of the need for effective and equitable ESL…

The purpose of this APA BEA Racial Disparities Task Force report is to examine the role of racism and bias on educational opportunity and achievement disparities experienced by children. Specifically, we seek to link racism explicitly to opportunity gaps by examining how racism operates on multiple levels. Using critical race theory,…

Explosions in America's incarceration rates have sparked critical examinations of root causes of entry into the criminal justice system. Researchers have predominantly focused on what is known as the school-to-prison pipeline. Solutions have centered on revising school policies and practices targeting certain students for disciplinary sanctions…

Academic cheating occurs frequently in schools. Cheating is a deliberative act, in that students make a conscious decision to engage in academic dishonesty. Students' achievement goals, which are malleable, often guide the ways that students make such decisions. Educators can incorporate various instructional practices and support academic…

The COVID-19 pandemic has posed an unprecedented education equity crisis in California. Since mid-March, almost all California schools and colleges have closed in response to the pandemic, requiring education leaders and administrators to stretch their resources to create or improve distance learning plans, support students' basic needs, and…

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA; 2015) requires states to broaden school accountability beyond achievement on standardized tests and high school graduation rates. In this Hamilton Project strategy paper, we articulate a framework for states as they oversee implementation of statewide accountability plans under ESSA and describe how states…

Chicago's public school system is decidedly less diverse and less affluent than the city that hosts it. In order to combat racial and socioeconomic segregation within the district, and to encourage greater diversity and opportunity for the district's most competitive and popular programs, Chicago Public Schools (CPS) designed an innovative system…

University researchers face a significant obstacle when studying schools: their lives as researchers began in schools. How can researchers enter the contemporary high school and see the movement of bodies through those halls as something other than a confirmation or rejection of their own schooling experiences? What special intellectual and…

Transgender students have unique and intense needs to be addressed for a safer and more inclusive school experience. Experiencing harassment and feeling unsafe at school can lead to negative educational outcomes, such as depression, victimization, poor academic outcomes, substance abuse, school avoidance, risky sexual behavior, suicidal ideation,…

In the social sciences, public access to data is now the norm at a variety of federal agencies, such as the National Science Foundation. This openness dramatically expanded the quality of research that social scientists can pursue, and it discourages unscrupulous practices such as inventing or manipulating data. It also means, essentially, that…