Selection within the educational domain breeds a special kind of suspicion. Whether it is the absence of transparency in the selection procedure, the observable outcomes of the selection, or the criteria of selection itself, there is much to corroborate the suspicion many have that selection in practice is unfair. And certainly as it concerns…

Capstone projects serve as the centerpiece for an assessment system that values problem-solving and frames assessment as learning opportunities for students and teachers. Every January and May for one week, Chelsea High School, in Chelsea, Massachusetts, breaks from their traditional, four- periods-a-day bell schedule and the fast pace of a…

Recognizing school improvement networks as a leading strategy for large-scale high school reform, this analysis examines developmental evaluation as an approach to examining school improvement networks as "learning systems" able to produce, use, and refine practical knowledge in large numbers of schools. Through a case study of one…

Because school counselors are limited in the time they have to accomplish all the tasks for which they are accountable, they must find ways to provide direct individual services to students effectively and efficiently. For this reason, high school counselors should have a brief theory of counseling and subsequent techniques to utilize in a school…

This report mainly aims to provide a critical and in-depth analysis of the K-12 Case, "Divided Loyalty" by Holy and Tartar (2004). The case recounts how the manifestation of inadequate leadership skills in a school setting could affect negatively the performance of students.

This paper explores New Zealand (NZ) physics teachers' and physics educators' views about Initial Teacher Education (ITE). Perspectives of physics teachers nationally indicated that in general, teachers considered themselves not well-prepared in some content areas including electronics, modern physics, and atomic and nuclear physics. This may be…

As the education field strives to differentiate and personalize learning to cater to each student, two related movements are gaining attention: competency-based education and blended learning. In competency-based models, students advance on the basis of mastery, rather than according to the traditional methods of counting progress in terms of time…

This work focuses on an experience of social learning realized in six Italian high schools in the 2012-2013 academic year. In this experience we used ThinkTag Smart, a new learning platform, to train 400 students. After an introduction concerning Information and Communication Technologies in Italian schools, this contribution will describe the…

The Learning Partners Program (LPP) is designed to promote interschool collaborative learning. Using the Framework for Great Schools as a lens, the program creates triads of schools by matching a host school with strong practices in a specific learning focus area (LFA) with two partner schools interested in strengthening their practices in that…

Educational leaders attempting to enact equity-focused change in their schools are frequently met with fierce opposition by politically powerful parents whose children are well served by the status quo. The purpose of this conceptual article is to: (a) explore the utility of "Critical Race Theory" as a framework for helping K-12 school…

In the sphere of education, social media has posed enormous challenges and unleashed its potential as a venue to communicate with stakeholders. This case is a fictionalized version of several real cases related to the school leaders' struggle with utilizing social media to accomplish changes in schools. This case describes two high school…

Recent attention to youth activism for school reform reveals positive student outcomes. Yet educators may object to the use of social actions in schools, diminishing opportunities for these benefits to accrue. This paper analyzes educators' conceptions about the proper exercise of student voice within schools and how these coincide with…

As teachers progress in life and career, generation gaps may begin to appear that decrease not only the effectiveness of interaction with students but also the ability to produce generationally relevant course content. Situated in a framework of socioculturalism (Vygotsky 1978), this article presents The STORRI Method--a strategy for exploring and…

Recovery high schools are secondary schools designed specifically for students recovering from substance use or co-occurring disorders. Studies have affirmed the chronic nature of substance use disorders and the developmental value of social supports for adolescents. As part of understanding human growth and development, training programs for…

Although bullying continues to be a growing public health concern in schools across the United States, there are considerable gaps in the American understanding of effective prevention approaches for addressing this seemingly intractable issue. This article applies a public health approach to addressing bullying through the multitiered Positive…