California and the nation are at the crossroads of a major shift in school accountability policy. At the state level, California's Local Control and Accountability Plan (LCAP) encourages the use of multiple measures of school performance used locally to support continuous improvement and strategic resource allocation. Similarly, the federal Every…

Exceptional management skills are crucial to success in educational environments. As school leaders, principals are expected to effectively supervise the school system while facing a multitude of issues and demands. "Multidimensional Perspectives on Principal Leadership Effectiveness" combines best practices and the latest approaches in…

How the young children of immigrants experience their early school years may in large part determine their academic future and negatively affect their emotional, social, and mental development. Children benefit from a positive, supportive learning environment where their contributions are valued; many from immigrant families, however, experience…

In "Streetsmart Schoolsmart", two respected scholars present original research on youth gangs and school success to explain why some boys become disengaged and join gangs while others do not. Chapters vividly describe how urban boys from different ethnic backgrounds (Asian, African American, and Latino) approach schooling and identify the…

A teacher education program offers opportunities to learn (OTL) consistent with its vision of what teachers need to know and be able to do. The "Teacher Education and Development Study: Learning to Teach Mathematics" of the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement provides, for the first time, the…

American education has problems, almost everyone is willing to concede, but many think those problems are mostly concentrated in America's large urban school districts. In the elite suburbs, where wealthy and politically influential people tend to live, the schools are assumed to be world-class. Unfortunately, what everyone knows is wrong. Even…

Previous research has documented that adverse life experiences during adolescence, particularly for ethnic minorities, have a long-term influence on income and asset attainment and that this relationship is largely mediated by educational achievement. We extend prior research by investigating three research questions. First, we investigate the…

The New Opportunities Initiative (NOI) is a Portuguese flagship programme to recognise and accredit prior learning (RPL, APL) and to endow low-skilled adults with upper secondary qualifications, which is defined as the minimum entry threshold to the exercise of a full citizenship in a knowledge-rich society. NOI's major achievement has been its…

Youth civic engagement occupies a central space in applied developmental science. However, understanding of the processes and contexts in which early adolescents become civically engaged is still limited. This study draws on a sample of approximately 4,000 students from 11 urban middle schools in Tennessee to address several gaps in the civic…

In America, education has long been viewed as the main instrument for achieving equality of opportunity. Despite many reform efforts over the past several decades, the US educational system has patently failed to ensure equal access for all to the essential knowledge, skills, problem-solving abilities, and reasoning abilities that are necessary to…

Achievement gaps between groups of students (minority and white, rich and poor, English speakers and English language learners) are complex and intractable. Increasingly, they are being seen as a result of disparities between opportunities for learning available to different groups. By changing the opportunity structures of schools and…

This paper examines how a teacher-led cluster of rural schools used evidence of student achievement to improve the quality of learning opportunities for students in mathematics. The teachers began to collect evidence in order to promote constructive dialogue and stimulate action. An inquiry cycle provided feedback to schools through the cluster…

Tanzania, like many other African countries, has experienced a rapid expansion of its secondary education sector. This has resulted in large numbers of secondary school graduates struggling to build a future through continuing education or finding employment.1 Students are faced with the difficult task of assessing their opportunities in the face…

The PDS Partnership between the University of Central Florida and Friendship Elementary School, a Title 1 school in Volusia County, focused on the National Association for Professional Development Schools' (PDS) "Essentials" in order to establish a shared vision of success for pre-service teachers. Key leaders from both the school and…

Help Wanted: Innovative, strategic-thinking entrepreneurs to turn around groups of low-performing schools. Competitive benefits, including working in newly formed operating units with charter-like autonomy, access to district's back-office resources and buildings, $3.5 billion federal money, and opportunity to transform schools for hundreds of…