Background/Context: Scholars and practitioners continue to work to identify ways to change structural conditions, school-level policy, and stakeholder mindsets to support minoritized youth in advanced coursework. Open access policies, in which students do not need a previous teacher's approval or a prerequisite grade to enroll in an advanced…

Since 2006, The James Irvine Foundation has invested more than $100 million in Linked Learning, a promising approach to transforming education in California. In 2009, the Foundation launched the California Linked Learning District Initiative ("the initiative") to demonstrate this approach in nine school districts. The multiyear…

Since 2006, The James Irvine Foundation has invested more than $100 million in Linked Learning, a promising approach to transforming education in California. In 2009, the Foundation launched the California Linked Learning District Initiative ("the initiative") to demonstrate this approach in nine school districts. The multiyear…

Drawing on a qualitative study of an educational reform and its external evaluation, I describe how a well-intentioned but poorly conceptualized evaluation helped perpetuate asymmetries in the generation and use of evaluation findings. This article explores this project's failure to clarify evaluator roles, identify intended users and expected…

Symonds, director of the Pathways to Prosperity Project, asserts that the current U.S. system of preparing students for successful adult lives fails too many youth. Citing data showing that only 40 percent of young Americans earn an associate's or bachelor's degree by age 27--and that many employers say they see candidates who don't have…

This article explores civic learning, civic participation, and the development of civic agency within the Council of Youth Research (the Council), a program that engages high school students in youth participatory action research projects that challenge school inequalities and mobilize others in pursuit of educational justice. We critique the…

Throughout the decades of educational reform cycles, the value of homework has proven either meaningful or meaningless depending on the reforming framework. Questions about homework as simply busy work or knowledge work, mere content distraction or content extension, ambivalence toward importance, or discipline of character all cloud any…

In 2005, the Hildago (Texas) Independent School District, in partnership with the University of Texas-Pan American, the University of Texas System, the Communities Foundation of Texas/Texas High School Project, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, promised that all of its students would earn college credits before graduating from high…

Improving the quality of secondary education in public schools requires involving all stakeholders in identifying and applying appropriate expectations. Many adult stakeholders are seeking action to eliminate the disparity between state and federal estimates of student achievement and to enable comparisons between the performance of students and…

"We know that education can be an arduous process. Countries use different approaches based on societal acceptances, but effective education always requires enormous efforts. Whether success is achieved, depends on the development of a rigorous and progressive curriculum, while at the same time providing all students the opportunity to…

Administrator perspectives regarding current and potential increased participation in post-secondary educational opportunities by Michigan high school students were explored in this descriptive quantitative study. Targeted concerns included current institutional levels of involvement, personal knowledge concerning program rules and regulations,…

For the past nine years, the Speak Up National Research Project has endeavored to stimulate new discussions around how technology tools and services can transform education and to provide a context to help educators, parents, and policy and business leaders think beyond today and envision tomorrow. In last year's report, "The New 3E's of…

This report summarizes the 2007-2008 program evaluation of professional development opportunities for teachers of English as a second language (ESL) in Austin Independent School District's Quality Teaching for English Learners (QTEL) program.