Within the context of the U.S., there has always existed a parasitic dynamic between the white and the Black, where Black is relegated to a structural antagonism by the white. Research within education that has taken up the issue race and racism has resulted in preoccupations with examining the academic achievement gap, and pursuits of racial…

COVID-19 is laying bare two realities in education. Over the past several decades, is has been warned that schools are not making the most of the time they have with students. Despite those warnings, little has changed. Additionally, the school calendar is not friendly to working families. As the education community plans for the upcoming school…

Purpose: This paper discusses developments in citizenship education policy and practice in the Netherlands, and outlines key challenges as faced by the different stakeholders involved. Design/methodology/approach: Our discussion is based on existing research and policy documents in the Netherlands. The authors, from three Dutch universities, are…

Safety remains a key concern for parents and education policy makers. Homeschooling opponents argue that child abusers use homeschooling to isolate and harm their children while public school teachers and administrators, as mandatory reporters, reduce child maltreatment. Supporters of homeschooling argue that public schools expose children to…

This article summarizes and assesses federal K-12 compensatory education policies during the past six decades. It focuses on the centerpiece of that effort, Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. Related programs such as America 2000, Goals 2000, No Child Left Behind, and Every Student Succeeds Act are discussed. It…

Historical policy stories that situate teachers as the root cause of problems in public schools have long accompanied educational reforms, including No Child Left Behind. This article portrays the history of teacher blame as a defining component of the grammar of American educational reform. Nineteenth- and twentieth-century reformers identified…

No Child Left Behind and the Every Student Succeeds Act have made accountability central to conversations about education policy. But neither statute articulates a clear vision of what constitutes "quality" or "equity" in education, nor do they include a mechanism to ensure that schools have sufficient resources to pursue that…

Since its ratification in 1965, the ESEA and its reauthorizations have shaped educational policy and funding in the US. However, while the ESEA has been positioned as a fundamental system of educational governance to ensure quality in the nation's education system, it has been criticized for inconsistent support of diversity and the promotion of…

This report discusses the necessity of expanding school improvement policy and practice in order to meet the growing challenges related to reducing the achievement and opportunity gaps. Specifically, it highlights that student/learning supports are marginalized in current policy and that addressing the matter requires moving from a two to a three…

The "IDRA Newsletter" serves as a vehicle for communication with educators, school board members, decision-makers, parents, and the general public concerning the educational needs of all children across the United States. The focus of this issue is "Authentic Family & Community Engagement." Contents include: (1) Recent…

Having reviewed several pieces of strategy documents, policy papers, and literature, we concluded that there is no uniform definition of either institutional autonomy or academic freedom (AF). Many different points of view determine the interpretation of these terms. Furthermore, the policymakers (e.g., governments, legislators) can ignore the…

This report compiles the results of a survey of Maine superintendents and special education directors that was conducted in May of 2022. The purpose of the survey was to determine districts' awareness of ongoing policy conversations about transferring responsibility for preschool special education services from Child Development Services to School…

Despite the marginal success that anti-affirmative action groups have had at paring back the use of race in college admissions practices, affirmative action has remained largely in-tact as a tool to promote diversity on college campuses. But what might happen if "diversity"--the very thing that heretofore has protected affirmative…

Background/Context: In the spring of 2015, about 135,000 New Jersey students--almost 20% of the test-eligible children--did not take the state's test. Opposition of this magnitude directly contradicted a central stipulation of the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB), which required states to test 95% of their eligible students to…

The COVID-19 pandemic heightened tensions around standardized testing policy and prompted the United States Department of Education to allow states to request waivers from federal standardized testing requirements. Paul Bruno and Dan Goldhaber describe the waivers that states requested and received, what they suggest about how state test results…