Immigrant parents are not all alike. They vary in language skills as well as their understanding of U.S. culture. All of this affects their ability, if not inclination, to become engaged in their children's education. Educators can assist families by understanding the stages of immigrant parent involvement, which identifies parents' needs, skills,…

As transgender people have received greater visibility and acceptance, as well as increased legal protections, educators have begun to examine their school policies and practices with an eye toward legal compliance and a desire to be welcoming to all students. Melinda Mangin shares insights from interviews with educators who have sought to improve…

Colorblindness is socially acceptable bias that lives in our personal and institutional beliefs. Its existence inhibits our ability to recognize and respond to the realities of the lives of students of color. The author outlines several activities that educators can use to surface beliefs about race during staff meetings and the like.

When it comes to measuring the quality of a school, policy leaders tend to embrace standardized tests as the go-to indicator, whereas parents and community members tend to rely on reputation, word-of-mouth, and what they perceive with their own eyes. The authors suggest a better approach: a new framework that looks at three categories of inputs…

Schools that achieve strong results for black students address racial dynamics directly, empower students to bring their whole selves to school, and teach in ways that leverage students' experiences and cultures. These schools do four things to ensure success with their black students: They direct attention, strategies, and resources to black…

Racial stress and trauma negatively impact the psychological and academic outcomes of Black youth. Riana Elyse Anderson, Farzana Saleem, and James Huguley encourage parents and teachers to explore racial experiences and resulting stress and trauma through racial socialization, or competent conversations and behaviors regarding race and racism, to…

Not all schools are obsessed with ensuring high test scores for students. Some schools have designed themselves around a priority of creating safe, empathetic learning environments. The Chrysalis Charter School in Palo Cedro, California, has a mission of developing a culture of kindness. The Minnesota New Country School in Henderson, Minnesota,…

Today's youth increasingly are being expected to engage in civil deliberation in classrooms while simultaneously living in a society with a high level of political incivility. However, teaching students to argue--particularly in oral form--is enormously complex and challenging work. In this article, the authors report on a study of four high…

Whether they work in a rural, urban, or suburban district, all teachers should expect to confront children who have had adverse childhood experiences involving trauma. All teachers should understand how trauma affects students' social, emotional, and academic growth. The more that teachers understand how traumatic experiences affect student…

Resiliency is what propels many students to continue moving forward under difficult learning and life conditions. We intuitively think that such resilience is a character quality that cannot be taught. On the contrary, when a teacher sets the right conditions and culture for it in the classroom by teaching collaboration and communication skills,…

Research tells us that children's social-emotional development can propel learning. A new program, SECURe, embeds that research into classroom management strategies that improve teaching and learning. Across all classrooms and grade levels, four principles of effective management are constant: Effective classroom management is based in…

The authors quantify and unpack the prevalence and effects of bullying on children and adolescents before prescribing provisos for schools to consider when planning preventive and responsive approaches to bullying.

The author tells of the experience of co-founding a group of male teachers of color within the Boston Teacher Residency program. The group's theory of action was that professional development focused on addressing the unique challenges of male teachers of color would help these teachers develop tools and strategies to navigate their school…

Through establishing caring relationships with adolescents, secondary teachers cultivate classroom communities that propagate care and promote academic success. Developing a caring classroom community begins on the first day of school and continues throughout the school year. In such communities, educators establish a safe and academic-focused…

Educators Rising, an initiative of PDK International, has developed five microcredentials that allow aspiring teachers to demonstrate what they know and are able to do through experiences very similar to what professional teachers do every day. [This article contains a sidebar: "Microcredentials in the Teacher Academy Classroom: Rigor,…