Students in poverty need both academic and social supports. Former New York City Schools Chancellor Rudy Crew and scholar Pedro Noguera argue that students in poverty need both intensive academic and social supports. They maintain that U.S. education policy, with its focus on academic accountability, has generally failed to grasp this dual…

Understanding how and why rising racial and economic segregation impacts achievement gaps is critical to closing them. Analyzing data from every school district in the U.S., researchers sean reardon, Erin Fahle, Heewon Jang, and Ericka Weathers evaluate how growing racial segregation interacts with unequal economic opportunities and contributes to…

The author, a consultant on equity in schools, relates how she helped a high school's leadership team become aware of, and begin to overcome, patterns in their interactions that silenced certain voices and perspectives. Aguilar explores the concept of implicit bias--which was likely behind these leaders' harmful patterns and also contributed to…

At J. Sterling Morton High School District 201 in Cicero, Illinois, nearly 65 percent of the students are English learners. In 2014, the school started looking into how to create a culture where multilingual students were considered an asset. They created a dual-language program with an emphasis on pride and changing the status of bilingualism in…

Most students have gaps in their background knowledge and basic skills-gaps that can stand in the way of learning new concepts. For example, a student may be excited about studying probability--until he realizes that today's lesson on probability will require him to use fractions. As his brain searches frantically for his dim recollection of the…

If you asked Latino students how to improve schools for young people like themselves, what might they say? What recommendations might they have for educators committed to improving their education? The author invited a group of Latino high school students to join him as part of a research project. Their goal was to examine schooling experiences…

The wallpaper effect describes a phenomenon in which educators try to make data-drive decisions but rely exclusively on summary data (the outer layer of the wallpaper) for their information. These summary data may obscure reality--the layers and layers of systemic practices and policies that establish the conditions under which students learn.…

Universal preschool has the potential to close the knowledge gap--but only if we consider how to best teach preschoolers. Unbridled enthusiasm for universal preschool must be balanced with thoughtful consideration of what goes on in these classrooms, and what activities will most support children's learning. Content-centered classrooms help…

"Residential segregation's causes are both knowable and known," writes Richard Rothstein. According to Rothstein, those causes are "20th century federal, state, and local policies explicitly designed to separate the races." Even seasoned policymakers are convinced that the residential isolation of low-income black children is…

What's the best way to turn around a persistently low-performing school? Is it better to simply replace the principal and teachers, or is it necessary to reopen under new charter management? Maybe policymakers are asking the wrong question, writes Halley Potter. What if, instead of replacing the adults at the school, we changed the mix of…

Has the academic achievement gap between high-income and low-income students changed over the last few decades? If so, why? And what can schools do about it? Researcher Sean F. Reardon conducted a comprehensive analysis of research to answer these questions and came up with some striking findings. In this article, he shows that income-related…

According to Dill, data suggest that one in 50 U.S. children experiences homelessness in any given year. Most educators are only gradually awakening to the prevalence of homeless students and the signs of homelessness in children. This article describes the signs of a student who is experiencing homelessness, the services and resources schools are…

The video "Wealth Inequality in America" sets forth a compelling animated chart depicting three ideas: (1) how Americans think wealth is distributed in the United States;(2) how they believe wealth ideally should be distributed; and (3) how the estimated $54 trillion of U.S. wealth is really divided. The hard-to-miss conclusion of the…

For the last decade, Steven Farr and his colleagues at Teach For America (TFA) have studied the most highly effective TFA teachers--those whose students make remarkable academic progress. In this article, Farr describes the qualities that distinguish these great teachers from less effective TFA teachers. They have identified six leadership…

Of all the challenges we face in education today, the author can think of none greater than the challenge of motivating, educating, and empowering black male learners. The fact that this group of students is in crisis is evident on multiple levels, starting with graduation rates. According to the Schott Foundation (2008), the U.S. high school…