What happens to race in public discussions about "race-neutral" college admissions policies? This article shows how race disappeared from elite political debate during hearings on Texas Senate Bill 175 (2009), the Top Ten Percent Plan (the Plan), which guaranteed college admissions to high school graduates from the top 10% of their…

With growing evidence that human capital investment is more efficiently spent on younger children coupled with wide variation in preschool access across states, this article uses a neoliberal approach to examine the potential social costs and benefits that could accrue should the United States decide to implement a centralized preschool…

Student's access to college is influenced both by their level of academic preparation to do college-level work and the cost of participating in postsecondary education--on this point researchers and policy makers seem to agree (Perna, 2006). The relative importance of each, however, is very much a subject of disagreement and that debate has…

This article explores the impact of standardization policies of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2001 on the American Indian/Alaska Native community and the ability of educational policy to promote sovereignty, liberty and equity within indigenous communities. Examining current research and data generated from the National Indian Education…

No Child Left Behind (NCLB) requires that two accountability strategies--raising standards and public pressure through publicizing performance data--be implemented simultaneously. However, when coupled, they may produce an inappropriate consequence for public opinion. The public may misunderstand the drop in achievement that occurs when the bar is…

Through a case study that highlights the role of rulemaking in the evolution of the "No Child Left Behind Act" (NCLB), this article provides strategies for educators who seek both to influence policy outcomes and to understand the dynamics of policymaking. This study examines the regulatory processes for NCLB, specifically related to the…

This article ethnographically examines the paradoxical situation in which one high-achieving New York City public school is "constructed" as failing when No Child Left Behind (NCLB) assessments are miscalculated. Drawing upon actor-network theory (ANT)--a perspective that aims to explain how people, their ideas, and the material objects…

Justice Goodwin Liu reexamined seminal affirmative action in higher education legal cases beginning with the landmark 1978 case, "Regents of the University of California v. Bakke" and leading up to the U.S. Supreme Court's 2003 decision in "Gratz v. Bollinger." Liu argued that the "Bakke and Gratz" lawsuits were…

The large number of limited English proficient (LEP) children in U.S. schools and the uncertainty about the impact of bilingual education versus English immersion on their achievement warrant rigorous investigation of the effects of "English immersion laws." We estimated the impact of "Question 2", the Massachusetts English…

Although educational policies for emergent bilinguals in New York City schools have historically supported the provision of bilingual education, the past decade has borne witness to a dramatic loss of bilingual education programs in city schools. This study examines the factors that determine language education policies adopted by school…

Drawing upon research on federalism, localism, and professional autonomy, this article explores how educational stakeholders used social media to discuss and organize against the implementation of Differentiated Accountability in a large Florida school district. The results showed that the stakeholders used social media to engage in sense making…

This article describes the central elements of the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act and, drawing from Spillane's distributed leadership perspective, examines the policy's impact on the homeless education situation. Although the initial passing and subsequent revisions to McKinney-Vento are depicted as providing numerous benefits for students…

The image of schooling tends to be benign, lulling parents and guardians into an assumption of safety for at least 6 hours each weekday. The complement to safety as an imagined state of schooling contains incidents of school violence and tragedy that feed communities' and parents' primeval fears about the well being of their children. The…

Since the adoption of Georgia's HOPE (Helping Outstanding Pupils Educationally) scholarship program, seven additional Southeastern states have adopted similar merit-based financial aid programs, most of which are also funded by state lotteries. This study examines why North Carolina after adopting a state lottery in 2005 did not allocate its…

This article examines the political discourse surrounding NCLB, educational reform, and how that discourse shaped perceptions of public education during the Bush Administration. Examining mass media campaigns in the New York Times and Time Magazine, the article demonstrates how the media has visually and textually framed and reinforced NCLB and…