Background: The demographic landscape in the United States has shifted dramatically since "Brown v. Board of Education," leading to more complex diversity in many school districts than the diversity contemplated nearly 60 years ago. Desegregation research has shown that countywide districts are better able to maintain diverse schools,…

The articles in this special issue examine the increasingly complex relationship between segregation, desegregation, and integration in a sociopolitical environment vastly different from that of the initial days of desegregation. These issues are examined from historical and political perspectives, contextualizing the complexities of segregation,…

Background: In principle, value-added modeling (VAM) might be justified if it can be shown to be a more reliable indicator of teacher quality than existing indicators for existing low-stakes decisions that are already being made, such as the award of small merit bonuses. However, a growing number of researchers now advocate the use of VAM to…

Background/Context: Contemporary state and national policy rhetoric reflects increased press for "evidence-based" decision making within programs of teacher education, including admonitions that programs develop a "culture of evidence" in making decisions regarding policy and practice. Recent case study reports suggest that…

Background/Context: Prior research on "Milliken v. Bradley" focuses on the failure of this case to implement interdistrict busing in the highly segregated Detroit schools. Much of this work focuses explicitly on desegregation, rather than on equity and addressing individual, systemic, institutional, and organizational challenges that may…

Background: Scholars widely acknowledge that politics help explain why policies are adopted and how they play out in states, districts, and schools. To date, political analyses of education reform tend to isolate a particular policy and examine the politics of its adoption or implementation, but pay less attention to the effects of the politics of…

Background: Prevailing perceptions of Asian Americans as model minorities have long situated this population within postracial discourse, an assumption that highlights their educational success as evidence of the declining significance of race and racism, placing them as models of success for other people of color. Despite evidence to repudiate…

In the present offering we challenge the presumption that the educational testing of students provides objective information about such students. This presumption largely rests on an empiricist account of science. In light of mounting criticism, however, empiricist foundationalism has given way to a social epistemology. From this standpoint,…

Background/Context: Institutional theories sometimes characterize the normative influence of institutions as diffusing like waves and as exerting uniform pressures on individuals. This article contributes to a growing literature on the microfoundations of institutions, investigating how intraorganizational networks mediate the diffusion of…

The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) was designed by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to evaluate the quality, equity, and efficiency of school systems around the world. Specifically, the PISA has assessed 15-year-old students' reading, mathematics, and science literacy on a 3-year cycle, since…

Background: Local control has historically been a prominent principle in education policymaking and governance. Culminating with the passage of No Child Left Behind (NCLB), however, the politics of education have been nationalized to an unprecedented degree, and local control has all but disappeared as a principle framing education policymaking.…

Background/Context: Despite problems with accountability systems under No Child Left Behind, the policy has been widely commended for exposing the depth and breadth of educational inequality in the United States. As states implement new accountability systems, there is growing concern that attention to achievement gaps and the performance of…

Background/Context: This paper arises out of frustration with the results of school reforms carried out over the past few decades. These efforts have failed. They need to be abandoned. In their place must come recognition that income inequality causes many social problems, including problems associated with education. Sadly, compared to all other…

Background/Context: Endowments of institutions of higher education in the United States have attracted widespread attention in recent decades due to their meteoric rise in value and their precipitous decline during the recent recession. But there has been little research on the beginnings of the significant interest in and importance of…

Background/Context: This article presents a review of research relevant to postsecondary writing remediation. The purpose of the review is to assess empirical support for policy aimed at improving the degree completion rates of students who arrive at tertiary settings underprepared to write. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study: Our…