The focus of this special edition is students' literacy development over the school years. Drawing on data that includes classroom interactions, analyses of texts, and interviews with students, this edition builds on the seminal treatment of the question of literacy transitions provided in Christie and Derewianka (2008). This paper aims to…

Two decades ago, the New Jersey Supreme Court in "Abbott v. Burke" mandated that the state establish high quality preschool education in the 31 highest-poverty school districts. New Jersey created a pre-K program with high standards and a continuous improvement system that transformed a patchwork of private and public programs into a…

Growing up in poverty increases youth risk for developing aggressive behavior problems which, in turn, are associated with a host of problematic outcomes, including school drop-out, substance use, mental health problems, and delinquency. In part, this may be due to exposure to adverse school contexts that create socialization influences supporting…

Previous studies about ELs have reported data on active English Learners--defined as those students who have not yet reached proficiency on a state English test--at a specific moment in time. This study, for the first time, analyzed the long-term trajectories of 18,000 CPS students who began kindergarten as ELs and followed their progress all the…

This study hypothesized that HISD prekindergarten participation consistently correlated with better educational outcomes for students. Taking into account students' age differences through kindergarten enrollment, propensity score matching controlled for students' background characteristics. Three cohorts of students in this study were eligible or…

President Obama and others have demonstrated considerable interest in the Tulsa school-based pre-K program, one of a handful of universal pre-K programs in the U.S. The short-term effects of high-quality pre-K on school readiness are now well-established. At the same time, questions have been raised as to whether these effects persist over time.…