This critical case study analyzes Michigan's implementation of Public Act 4 (PA4), also known as the "emergency management" (EM) takeover law. PA4 grants the state control of school districts with dire budgetary problems. As most U.S. school districts are citywide, PA4 gives the state direct control over all the (previously locally…

This case study explores policy implementation of a Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM)-focused charter school over a three-year period. Gateway Science Academy of St. Louis (GSA), a K-12 district, has applied the STEM-focused curriculum model for seven years. This case study uses the Fullan Change Theory's seven core…

In "Striving in Common," Jennifer Jellison Holme and Kara S. Finnigan seek to build a bridge between two largely disparate, yet interconnected, conversations--those among education reformers on the one hand, and urban reformers on the other. In this carefully considered volume, the authors show how the challenges faced by urban schools…

This article explores how one urban high school under threat of state closure developed a multifaceted literacy program to transform the teaching and learning of literacy in a novel university/school partnership. Analyses of ethnographic and quantitative school data illustrate how the evolution of the literacy program could be understood as a…

The Every Student Succeeds Act redefines the priorities of our nation's education system. Prior to its passage, turnaround strategies advanced solutions for low-performing schools. Research literature examining how these reforms impacted the schooling experiences of students attending these schools is lacking. We present the results of a…

On the whole, futurists usually suffer badly. Unforeseen challenges, new political realities, technological breakthroughs, and cultural patterns shape futures as well as markets. As one realist once said, "real life happens in-between plans." I suspect the future reality lies somewhere in between these two possible pathways. The larger…

In November 2011, a coalition of New York City (NYC) education organizers and advocacy groups launched the PS2013 campaign to place public education at the center of the 2013 mayoral race. Activists developed a complex and situated communications strategy to influence a new space of political engagement, namely mayoral elections. This article is…

This qualitative research study sought to understand teachers' resistance to English language educational change in Kyrgyzstan. The participants were six English teachers working in both rural and urban public schools in Kyrgyzstan. Analysis of non-participant observation and post-observation interviews revealed that, despite changes in English…

Learning trajectory (LT) research in mathematics education has shaped both instructional materials and assessments. But, the body of LT research has also been critiqued for not adequately considering equity and addressing student diversity. This study begins to fill this gap by characterizing the reasoning of 23 multilingual students who…

In this paper we study the effect on the math gender gap from attending a coeducational school with single-sex classrooms versus attending a school with coeducational classrooms. That is, we compare the performance of girls versus boys within schools with single-sex classrooms compared to the performance of girls versus boys within schools with…

Purpose: Understanding the relationship between distributed leadership and teachers commitment to change in the Chinese urban primary school context was the purpose of this study. Design/methodology/approach: Quantitative research method is used in this study. For ensuring comprehensiveness, this research employed a random sampling method. This…

By exploring how liberalism is at work through a federally driven effort to improve academic achievement in schools serving youth of color and those from low-income communities, this article attempts to advance an understanding of the mechanisms that reify structural inequity in urban schools. Based on both a critical analysis of School…

Background: Getting educational reforms "to scale" continues to be a primary preoccupation of scholars, but such studies tend to remain focused on the organizational or other characteristics of the school(s) receiving a given innovation. Purpose: This article brackets the organizational elements of reform dissemination to consider the…

In 2009, a group of local foundations, the school district, arts organizations, and the Mayor's Office launched the Boston Public Schools Arts Education Initiative (BPS-AE)--a multiyear, citywide, public--private initiative aimed at increasing BPS students' access to in-school arts education. Managed by a strong local intermediary with deep…

Insofar as urban school systems that are often identified as ineffective include such a large segment of U.S. P-12 students, it is vital to improve academic success. To provide context, the article first discusses key challenges facing urban schools. Second, the article identifies and briefly reviews a variety of approaches to reform models often…