Student mobility refers to students changing schools. In this series of research briefs, the Houston Education Research Consortium (HERC) examines and describes the amount of student mobility in Texas, with particular focus on Houston area public schools. This second research brief focuses on providing an overview of how much mobility takes place…

Background/Context: Calls to increase participation in and access to STEM education have been loud and frequent. These democratizing efforts have targeted the aspirations and expectations of non-dominant students attending U.S. secondary schools, promising pathways to college and opportunities for social mobility, yet the results have been mixed.…

In a series of research briefs, the Houston Education Research Consortium (HERC) examines and describes the amount of student mobility in Texas, with particular focus on Houston area public schools. This third research brief provides an overview of how much mobility takes place within districts, between districts, and outside of the Texas public…

The purpose of this study was to understand the unique stressors faced by physical educators working in New York City schools. Participants included 34 New York City physical educators who participated in semi-structured interviews about their experiences teaching in an urban context. Qualitative data analysis resulted in the construction of four…

The COVID-19 pandemic revealed that, instead of narrowing, the digital divide has widened. During the pandemic, we received data on the inequitable uses of technology in different K-8 schools. The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to examine the digital divide in the US K-8 school system and the school leader's role in…

This study explores the transformative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on education, focusing on the increased reliance on online learning tools as the "new normal." The study delves into the challenges and opportunities faced by Mississippi schools in integrating technology during the pandemic, examining the perspectives of teachers…

This demonstration brief provides teaching and learning stories from districts and schools implementing PBIS with an integrated systems focus and is organized across the following areas: (a) the context of the school/district, (b) the changes made in the systems, (c) the impact of the changes made in the systems, and (d) next steps to improve the…

The purpose of this Action Research study was to examine and improve the instructional practices and social-emotional learning for multilingual learners in third-grade, urban public school classrooms. Participants and data collected in Cycle 1 consisted of six interviews with third-grade classroom and special education teachers, three classroom…

Background/Context: In thousands of classrooms throughout the United States and internationally, behavior management apps have become an integral part of schools' discipline machineries. Such apps are designed to help teachers enforce rules, especially when it comes to rewards and punishments within school token economies. To understand how these…

With the introduction and implementation of core literacy, scientific thinking (ST) has become an essential goal and key dimension of science teaching. At present, there is no agreement on how to cultivate students' ST. This study took 238 sixth grade students from a public primary school in urban China as research sample, built a theoretical…

Teacher emotional wellbeing can exert a strong influence over the ability to effectively perform important aspects of the job, including fostering healthy teacher-student relationships. Our investigation explores one understudied aspect of teacher wellbeing, the presence of secondary traumatic stress (STS). Across helping professions, STS has been…

Interdistrict desegregation programs, which provide opportunities for urban children of color to attend suburban schools, are a potential means of addressing persistent racial inequalities in educational opportunities and outcomes. These voluntary programs offer a test of whether nonresident students can leverage the resources and social capital…

This case study offers a recounting and analysis of the experiences of one urban educator, in a public high school mathematics classroom setting, working to integrate critical mathematics curricula and pedagogy with youth and in collaboration with a community organization. This project helps to unveil complexities that teachers may experience when…

This dissertation thesis examines the lived experiences, life stories, and storytelling of five Afro-Caribbean and Latina people, who are all local from the borough of Queens, alumni of New York City's public schools, and since then, became their local public school teachers, classroom practitioners, and local community teachers. We refer to this…

Purpose: Building on the growing interest in school-based "making" and "makerspaces," this paper aims to map the emergence of a literacy-oriented makerspace in a non-selective urban public high school. It examines how competing conceptions of literacy came to be negotiated as students and teachers shaped this new space for…