The COVID-19 pandemic was an unprecedented event in modern educational history that resulted in a dramatic upheaval of the traditional school system. The shift from brick-and-mortar to virtual instruction resulted in profound anxiety and demand (Kush et al., 2021). As the quarantine ended, the return to the physical classroom brought with it new,…

Through a collaborative self-study of course redesign, we examined the process of restructuring our courses within a sociocultural context of teaching. Specifically, we explored the shifts we made in course transformation as we reconsidered dominant frameworks while reflecting on our practices, an exploration that allowed to us to reconfigure our…

Course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) are an alternative pedagogical approach to the apprenticeship model for high-impact research immersion experiences. A W.M. Keck-funded Research Immersion Program at a Hispanic-serving institution in Southern California proposed to expand the benefits of the CURE model by developing lower- and…

The purpose of this collective case study was to examine elementary music teachers' mental health and well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic. The research questions were: 1) What factors influenced music teachers' mental health and well-being during COVID-19; 2) How did music teachers support their own mental health and well-being during…

The COVID-19 pandemic began in the late months of 2019, and by the spring of 2020, to limit transmission of the virus, schools across the globe closed and transitioned to emergency online teaching. While the move to online teaching and learning was inevitable, many learners, especially in rural and remote areas, found that online schooling had…

Despite the growing descriptions of effective teacher community--and lessons about the conditions needed for them to survive--more research has been done on exemplars of strong professional community than on efforts to produce professional community where it doesn't already exist. Building professional community is important to school improvement…

This phenomenological qualitative study involved 15 veteran K-6 public school teachers--each having taught a minimum of 24 years--from several districts in Southern California. It identified and examined what factors influenced the ongoing commitment and engagement of these teachers over the course of their careers. Factors mirrored the study's…

Teachers who are no longer considered novices can have a difficult time admitting failures. There is an expectation that teachers should be "on" all the time, but disorientation can happen even to veteran teachers--or maybe especially to veteran teachers--if expectations are too high. Sarah Cooper, an experienced teacher and dean of…

California is on the precipice of implementing the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), which were developed through an initiative of the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers to reflect the knowledge and skills needed for success in college and careers. In California, one of 45 adopting states, the standards…

This article presents an interview with Judith Warren Little, the Carol Liu Professor of Education Policy at the Graduate School of Education, University of California, Berkeley. She is a sociologist whose research and teaching interests focus on the organizational and policy contexts of teaching and teacher learning. She concentrates especially…

Lucinda Lee Katz, head of Marin Country Day School (California), received the 2009 NAIS Diversity Leadership Award. This article presents an edited excerpt of her acceptance speech. In this speech, she outlines what is necessary to move school communities ahead in one's diversity work.

This study employed multiple regression modeling to examine the success of 63 California elementary schools in terms of (a) school-community social capital, (b) student academic performance, (c) student behavioral incident rate, and (d) teacher turnover rate with respect to the extent of school-community partnership programs. Also of interest to…

Nationally, the problem of teacher retention compounds the unstable nature of the educational situation, especially in urban, high-needs schools. Much of the instability of urban schools is due to teacher movement, the migration of teachers from school to another school within or between school districts, particularly from high-needs schools.…

This article describes 1st-year experimental effects of a large-scale reform providing professional development to elementary school teachers to implement an extended, inquiry-oriented science curriculum. Known as "immersion teaching" because it "immerses" teachers and students in the full cycle of scientific inquiry, this…

Many school accountability programs, including the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act are built on the premise that the threat of sanctions attached to failure will produce higher student achievement. However, the stigma associated with failing schools and the expected costs of possible future sanctions may lead experienced teachers to leave these…