Florida's Broward County Public Schools and the University of Chicago engaged in a Research-Practice Partnership (RPP) to scale teacher practices that support students' critical thinking. As part of the RPP, Jeanne Century's research team conducted research to determine what barriers might limit the spread of these practices. The findings show…

There is a long-held but inaccurate belief that new teachers' expertise and talent is mostly innate and that it peaks and plateaus within their first few years of teaching. William Slotnik and Bryan Goodwin explain that school systems need to abandon this conventional wisdom and instead build true talent development systems that support the…

The relationship between research and practice in K-12 is complicated and fraught. Research publications are unlikely to become more "user-friendly," and teachers are unlikely to change their practice quickly or more willingly -- nor should they. Recognize that reality, Isobel Stevenson and Richard Lemons explain that schools need to…

Spatial reasoning -- the ability to mentally visualize, transform, and recognize symbolic information -- is known to predict long-term success in many educational and occupational areas, including in STEM. Despite this, spatial reasoning measures are virtually absent in K-12 tests. Thus, such strengths are not prioritized in gifted identification…

Considering the key role of social-emotional and character development (SECD) competencies in college, career, and life success--and considering that many of those competencies are teachable--there is no excuse for failing to incorporate them systematically into our education system. That would be the equivalent of depriving children of oxygen.…

Principal leadership is a crucial element in high-performing schools. Research reveals that principals are second only to teachers in impacting student achievement at school. Accordingly, how school leaders are prepared has received increasing attention in recent years. Drawing from the findings of recent reports highlighting exemplary programs…

In the context of both rising antisemitism in the U.S. and the increasing popularity of states mandating the teaching of the Holocaust in K-12 schools, William Smith asks, are such legislative mandates effective? Can states achieve ambitious goals like preventing future genocides and reducing antisemitism by requiring that students learn about the…

As school and district leaders become more aware of how racial bias and racism affects interactions within the schools, some have sought to provide anti-bias training to faculty and staff. Drawing on the research into anti-bias and racial equity training, and their own experiences, Gislaine Ngounou and Nancy Gutierrez explain why it is beneficial…

When Trudy Knowles needed a change in her elementary curriculum class, she decided to teach her students to juggle. Her excuse was that juggling would impress their future students, but she soon realized that learning a skill like juggling can give teachers a better understanding of how students feel when they learn something new. Here, she shares…

Despite the enthusiasm around social-emotional learning, the vast number of skills, dispositions, and attitudes we hope to infuse into students will overwhelm even the most ambitious schools. However, a single core capacity underlies a great many social-emotional learning outcomes: social perspective taking. Recent research on this process of…

In the past decade, research-practice partnerships (RPPs) have grown in number and reputation. Stephanie Brown and Annie Allen describe the varied ways partnerships facilitate more sustained and productive relationships between researchers and practitioners. They share key findings from a comparative case study of three different types of RPPs…

School counselors play a key role in promoting students' academic achievement, social and emotional development, and college and career readiness. The author reviews the research on counselors' work in these areas and discusses how schools can ensure that their counselors are better able to succeed in supporting students.

Public schooling in the 19th century cultivated in students a shared sense of identity as citizens with a common culture. However, posits David Labaree, U.S. schools are less effective than they used to be at serving this purpose, making their value to the nation-state open to questioning. Labaree considers three common functions that public…

Anxiety, one of the most common underlying causes of challenging student behavior, typically goes undiscovered and unaddressed through school-based behavior supports. Jessica Minahan and Stuart Ablon combine their expertise as a behavior analyst and a psychologist to outline how best to support students whose anxiety leads to challenging behavior.…

In their recent book "In Search of Deeper Learning" (Harvard University Press, 2019), scholars Jal Mehta and Sarah Fine argue that if high schools are to help adolescents flourish as individuals and members of a community, they must do more than teach them academic skills and content -- they must also give them meaningful opportunities…