The students who walk into the office of Jaydeen Santos at the University of Vermont (UVM) are burdened by a familiar litany of troubles. They feel isolated. Homesick. Overwhelmed by classes. Unsure where to turn. Santos, the student services advisor at UVM's Mosaic Center for Students of Color, knows just how they feel. Because 17 years ago, she…

High-quality summer learning programs in a given city are often only able to address a fraction of the need. Lack of access to program data and absence of stakeholder coordination compounds the problem. Working together to systematically increase program quality and provide more high-quality summer learning opportunities where families need them…

This brief reviews state plans submitted to the U.S. Department of Education as of October 1, 2017. It focuses on three key topics for early learning in the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA): setting clear goals and policy priorities for early learning, integrating early learning into school improvement, and supporting early childhood educator…

The purpose of this article is to describe and encourage an approach to a public relations course that can be applied to any discipline. Grounded in the experiential learning theory, students prepare for 16 weeks to present an issue-based campaign to a targeted, live audience at an oncampus venue. Using the course textbook and required readings as…

Over the past three decades, much of the conversation about LGBTQ students in schools has centered on safety--anti-bullying policies, the "safe space" of gay-straight alliances, and "safe zones" marked by rainbow-colored stickers on classroom doors. In this article, Michael Sadowski argues that it's time to move beyond safety…

This article invites a conversation about how critical participatory research transforms the production of knowledge, enables a complex chronicling of counter stories, and nurtures the contestation of dominant narratives with the very people who have been misrepresented as Others. Through a series of research stories fomented in prison,…

Attention to the core practices of teaching necessitates core pedagogies in teacher preparation. This article outlines the diffusion of one such pedagogy from medical to teacher education. The concept of clinical simulations is outlined through the lens of "signature pedagogies" and their uncertain, engaging, formative qualities.…

"Safe Is Not Enough" illustrates how educators can support the positive development of LGBTQ students in a comprehensive way so as to create truly inclusive school communities. Using examples from classrooms, schools, and districts across the country, Michael Sadowski identifies emerging practices such as creating an LGBTQ-inclusive…

This report explores school climate for transgender and gender nonconforming youth in New York State since the passage of the Dignity Act. Telling the stories of real New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) clients, it documents the experiences of students facing discrimination. In some of these cases, the NYCLU was able to work with students to…

Why is hope such an important concept for schools to consider? Research has clearly demonstrated that more hopeful students perform better in school and in life than less hopeful students. Hopeful thought reflects the belief that one can find pathways to desired goals and become motivated to use those pathways. As a result, hope drives the…

Technology alone won't be enough to improve teaching and learning to where it needs to be for 21st century skills. Where it is being done successfully, teachers collectively share a vision of promoting deeper learning in all their students, and have collaboratively redesigned the role of the teacher to that of facilitator who uses technology as a…

The idea that principals should focus more closely on teaching and learning did not emerge prominently until the mid-1990s. Then educators and policy makers began to realize that school leadership matters to student achievement. In a dozen years of working with states, districts, researchers and others, the Wallace Foundation has pinpointed five…

Kunskapsskolan is a chain of independent secondary schools which functions as a comprehensive platform for personalised education, known as the Kunskapsskolan programme (KED). What is special about this programme is that students set their own objectives, work independently and are assessed against their personal academic goals. Kunskapsskolan is…

In this article, the author discusses how college administrators are increasingly prioritizing dating violence prevention and intervention services. To combat dating violence, campus groups and programming are becoming more prevalent as increased awareness of dating violence forces students and administrators alike to address a problem that…

This article describes the collaborative efforts of the Webster Central School District in New York, USA, and the Learning Forward's Center for Results consultants, in the fall of 2010 in a focus to improve the elementary literacy program. The School District realized it was vital to have a strong, sustained foundation of professional and student…