Making sense of change and how to think about change has never been more important. In the United States alone, 50 of 80 million total enrolled school-aged children and young adults (preschool to college) must adapt to the shift of formal education online due to the COVID-19 pandemic. And what were once leading disruptors, the Internet and…

In this paper, we re-imagine Thirdspace (Soja, 1996, 2010) theory as framework for examining the complex digital equity issues confronting the learning ecologies of families of low socioeconomic status (SES). At the intersection of home, school, and community, families confront embedded practices and existing temporal, sociocultural, and spatial…

Susan Patrick is the president and chief executive officer of the International Association for K-12 Online Learning (iNACOL). She is the former director of the Office of Educational Technology at the U.S. Department of Education. As director, she published the U.S. National Educational Technology Plan for Congress and managed research and…

The Afterschool Alliance and MetLife Foundation are proud to celebrate a fifth round of the MetLife Foundation Afterschool Innovator Awards. For the past five years, we have collaborated to highlight the work of quality afterschool programs that support children, families and communities across the nation. This compendium is a compilation of four…

America's K-12 education system faces three significant challenges: (1) increased global demands for skilled workers, (2) significant financial shortfalls, and (3) a looming teacher shortage. Independently, these factors present significant challenges for U.S. schools. In combination, they create a national imperative for swift action to create a…