In the past several decades, Boston has been a proving ground for new strategies such as mayoral control, charter schools, and expanded access to early childhood education. Located in a state known for rigorous standards and accountability, Boston Public Schools (BPS) has consistently ranked among the top-performing large public school districts…

Equality and equity are often mischaracterized as interchangeable terms in public education. This may explain why efforts towards reform and restructure are often not met with any real measure of success. "Equity, Equality, and Reform in Contemporary Public Education" provides emerging research on the reformation of education curriculum…

This article examines the neoliberal influences on "Port City Schools" (PCS) unique district-wide extended learning time (ELT) initiative. Despite the recent popularity of ELT in urban schools, there have been few qualitative studies that question how stakeholders make sense of ELT on the ground. This research fills that gap in the…

This toolkit was created to make transition planning easier and offers easy-to-understand information about the purpose of transition planning, the goal and importance of age-appropriate assessments, and the required rules that are used by schools. It also includes information on the community partners that can provide youth with supports as…

English Learners (ELs) constitute one of the fastest growing demographic groups among school children in the United States, with the number of ELs in K-12 public schools increasing by about 14% over the seven-year period from 2002-03 to 2010-11. This rapid growth in ELs has coincided with the growth in charter schools. Although charter schools…

Arts education and special education within public schools have faced similar challenges in the wake of school reform. Services and programming have been reduced, leaving a larger gap in resources and accessibility. Because of loopholes in policy, new reform initiatives such as vouchers and charter schools will continue to marginalize students…

This Chicana Critical Feminist Testimonio reveals a Mexican/Mexican-American Ethic of Care and Testimonios of struggle and survival informing curriculum and pedagogy of one Mexican/Mexican-American female educator of predominantly Mexican/Mexican-American students. This work is part of a larger ethnographic study conducted through multiple…

For all the national and even international debate about the state of American education, public schooling in the U.S. is still a local matter--and the school district remains its hub. As administrators know, there's nothing abstract about the process of getting millions of students into their seats, assuring they receive the instruction they're…

This article takes up the question of equity, access, and cyber charter schools from the perspective of disability studies in education (DSE). DSE positions inclusion and educational access as social justice concerns. In doing so, we assert the importance of making visible the social justice implications of the current laws that impact cyber…

Overall, one in four rural children live in poverty, and of the 50 U.S. counties with the highest child-poverty rates, 48 are rural. Drug usage abounds. In the mid-2000s, rural 8th graders were 59 percent more likely than peers in large cities to use methamphetamines and 104 percent more likely to use any amphetamine, according to the National…

Our country has been trying to address the graduation crisis in many ways. We are seeing the impact of the efforts to improve graduation rates over the past twenty years including agreement among states to implement a common cohort-based graduation rate, research-based efforts to improve the transition to 9th grade, increased academic and social…

As the Montessori Method continues its expansion in public education, a social justice lens is needed to analyze its contributions and limitations, given the increase in racial and socioeconomic diversity in the United States. Furthermore, much of the work in Social Justice Education (SJE) focuses on classroom techniques and curriculum,…

In this amended excerpt from "Hope Against Hope", educational reform in post-Katrina New Orleans is considered from a journalistic perspective in presenting the story of Geraldlynn Stewart as she and her family navigate the new school system. In providing voices of lived experiences of Stewart as well as other individuals within this new…

Recent reforms in England's education system have been justified on the grounds that other countries have pursued similar approaches to education reform. Many such policies that by-pass or otherwise diminish meso-level institutions demonstrate a commitment to the idea of devolving authority to local actors. The current reforms in England and…

In 2012-2013, a working group of grassroots organizers and leaders from around the country met under the auspices of the "Annenberg Institute for School Reform" (AISR) and "Communities for Public Education Reform" (CPER) to explore the impact of rapid charter expansion on parents, students, and communities. The participants,…