For far too many students, schools are "not" places of belonging. This is due, in part, to the cultural mismatch between schools and students that, despite even the best of intentions, too often leads to student harm and negative student outcomes. Gloria McDaniel-Hall and Nina F. Weisling provide insights for understanding…

The field of mathematics education has engaged in perennial debate about whether transmission-oriented or constructivist approaches to teaching will best help students learn. Yet, both fluency, learned through step-by-step procedural instruction, and the mathematical flexibility that comes from constructivist methods play an important role in…

Over the past year, debates over the prevalence, distribution, and effects of teacher vacancy and underqualification have dominated many education narratives. Authors J. Cameron Anglum, Andrew R. Diemer, Walter G. Ecton, and Tuan D. Nguyen consider these debates in the context of growing interest in career and technical education (CTE) in high…

The literature on teaching controversial issues offers a framework to help teachers make appropriate judgments about which topics are worthy of deliberation and what information is reasonable to consider in a classroom. Wayne Journell describes four criteria for evaluating the openness of issues, explains why the behavioral criterion is neither…

Despite progress in recent years, members of the LGBTQ+ community remain underrepresented and underserved in the school system. Ferial Pearson and Steven Gill draw on research literature and their own experiences as out queer educators to recommend a set of actions educators can take to reduce harm to members of these communities in school. They…

Whom can educators look to as an exemplar of kind and compassionate teaching? Gabrielle Vogt and Ann Monroe explore the life and work of Fred Rogers as an unconventional teacher. By focusing on relationships, treating each child as unique, honoring children's emotions, and communicating a positive message, Rogers showed care for children and their…

During a time when teacher turnover is high, retention is low, and some positions go unfilled for years at a time, the conditions have never been more favorable to redesign the fundamental way we staff our nation's schools. Brent W. Maddin and Randy L. Mahlerwein describe how Arizona's Mesa Public Schools and Arizona State University are working…

Recent discussions about critical race theory (CRT) have exposed, once again, the heated disagreements that prevail in the United States regarding the nature of its racial past and present. This debate is highly significant in itself, but the dispute is also noteworthy for revealing how quickly a contentious issue can become a lightning rod for…

The High School for Recording Arts in St. Paul, Minnesota, serves students who've had trouble in more traditional schools. Yet, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the school was able to maintain, and even exceed, its prepandemic metrics of achievement. Michael Lipset and Linda Nathan attribute this success to the school's unique staffing structure.…

Schools exist to educate, yet the emphasis on age-based, grade-level standards fails to account for the wide range of academic readiness that exists in every classroom. Special education programs exist to meet student needs; gifted education should be no different. The authors, all gifted education researchers, present a vision for a model of…

Teachers may be confused or put off by buzzwords like "design thinking," but the concept is a useful one: To solve stubborn, everyday problems of practice in schools, they should approach those problems strategically and systematically. Specifically, explain the authors, teachers gain new insights into challenges they face when they take…

There is a need for Vietnamese language education for the Vietnamese American community in the United States, and the Vietnamese Language Program at Westminster High School (WHS) in Orange County, California, has been able to preserve the Vietnamese language. Students in the program also learn about their heritage and culture to stay connected to…

The education model in which a single teacher instructs a single classroom of students has been remarkably persistent, but teacher shortages, low morale, and poor teacher retention are signs that it's not working well for teachers. Ray Reutzel and Parker Fawson describe how Utah's Center for the School of the Future is seeking to redesign the…

Avoiding the discussion of controversial topics in U.S. classrooms deprives students of an important part of their learning. Jonathan Zimmerman and Emily Robertson, authors of "The Case for Contention: Teaching Controversial Issues in American Schools" (University of Chicago Press, 2017) say Americans are terrible at having informed,…

Teacher activist groups (TAGs), which are formed both locally and through online communities, appear to be a growing force in response to the more corporate-driven reform movement of recent decades. The author explains how TAGs seek to influence education policy and practice through organized collective actions, such as protests, letter-writing…