This study is a hermeneutic phenomenological investigation into the lived experiences of teachers implementing the National Core Art Standards alongside the California Visual Art Standards, with a specific lens on culturally responsive teaching practices. Utilizing Geneva Gay's theoretical framework for culturally responsive teaching, this study…

In 2014, the National Coalition for Core Arts Standards (NCCAS) released the National Core Arts Standards (NCAS) to encourage excellence in fine arts education and to support educators in implementing best practices. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to understand and explore elementary music teachers' lived experiences regarding…

No Child Left Behind legislation developed goals for every student to be proficient in each academic subject by 2014. California's students are far from meeting this goal, especially in mathematics. One Southern Californian school district, renamed Green Valley Unified School District for anonymity, began using Cognitively Guided Instruction…

In 2006, the California legislature released $14 million to the schools of California to create school gardens through the California Instructional School Garden Bill (CA Assembly Bill 1535, 2006). This study examined the differences and similarities of school gardens as learning spaces by exploring a fifth grade school standards-based mathematics…

Implementation of the curriculum-centered, standards-based federally mandated reform, No Child Left Behind, has placed pressure on teachers, particularly those working in schools comprised of highly diverse and impoverished students, to have their students attain predetermined levels on high stakes, standardized tests. When schools have not met…