Focusing on a large study of the implementation of secondary English Language Arts curriculum in California and Washington, we assess how teachers use learning goals to support students developing expert learning practices. Highlighting the value of goal setting to support students' agency in learning to write, we describe teachers' reasons for…

In October 2023, the California Department of Education released test scores for all students in Grades 3-8 and 11 for the 2022-23 school year. These results represent an opportunity to analyze whether and to what extent student learning has rebounded after the dramatic declines in scores resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic and related school…

The goal of this study was to examine IXL usage among high school students in California and its relation to academic performance in math and ELA, as measured by the Smarter Balanced Summative Assessment (SBA). At the high school level in California, the SBA is taken only by 11th- grade students each year. We analyzed students' math and ELA SBA…

The authors examine the functions of literacy in three accountability-driven English language arts classrooms. To explore the interplay between transmission-oriented, standards-based instruction and local interpretations and uses of literacy, they employed Pennycook's (2010) notion of relocalization. The authors examine how accountability…

The feeling of voicelessness creates a sense of internalized powerlessness for students in their schooling and preparation for learning and success. The San Joaquin Valley is surrounded by farms as well as correctional institutions and service industries. Each of these industries is interconnected with students' lives, with some having family…

Seventh- and 8th-grade students in a within-teacher randomized control study read from visual-syntactic formatted text for 44 min per week over the course of 1 year. On the annual state assessment, we found small statistically significant improvements on the overall English Language Arts scaled score (ES = 0.05, p < 0.05) and the writing…

Background: Classroom discourse featuring meaning making supports students achieving discipline-specific learning. However, moving beyond recitation requires developing beliefs, skills, structures, and practices. Any theorizing we do about developing discussion practice must attend to realities of culturally and linguistically diverse classrooms.…

This quantitative study investigated the learning outcomes of students with disabilities in comparison to their non-disabled peers in a TK-12th grade school that offers a sixth-twelfth grade virtual public charter school program that currently serves students in the state of California. No differences were found between groups indicating…

Transition curricula are courses, learning modules, or online tutorials typically developed jointly by secondary and postsecondary faculty and offered no later than 12th grade to students at risk of being placed into remedial math or English programs in college. Based on interviews and other data, this brief describes key elements of English…

Resilience, as defined by the literature, deals with the relationship between individuals and their environment. This capstone project followed elementary students over a three-year period to investigate and determine the impact a co-teaching intervention model has on resilience, grade-point average (GPA), state testing scores in English language…

This study explores how two high school English language arts (ELA) teachers leveraged disciplinary literacy practices in their classrooms to help students explore their identities as citizens and imagine a more just and equitable democratic society. Using a figured worlds framework, the study articulates a sociocritical approach to civic literacy…

One district, South Bay Union School District, devises and executes a comprehensive strategy that includes training for district staff, teachers and coaches, including using PLCs and professional development in the implementation of Common Core English language arts standards.

Purpose: The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to identify and describe effective instructional strategies for English language arts and mathematics perceived by expert fourth and fifth grade elementary teachers in southern California to reduce the achievement gap in high poverty and high English language learner (ELL)…

The Center on Standards, Alignment, Instruction, and Learning (C-SAIL), funded by the Institute of Education Sciences, examines how college- and career-readiness (CCR) standards are implemented, if they improve student learning, and what instructional tools measure and support their implementation. This brief presents findings from C-SAIL's…

A growing body of research explores theoretical models of teaching for social justice in P-12 classrooms and in teacher education. However, many of these models fail to account for the relationship between teachers' social justice frameworks and their classroom practices. In this article, I use vignettes drawn from a recent study of secondary…