School districts have increasingly adopted weighted student funding (WSF) formulas that allocate dollars, rather than staff positions, to schools in the name of equity and flexibility. While research to date has studied equity in some of these districts, there is no research that examines the entire cohort of WSF districts together. This paper…

The term "equity" is widely used by educational policy makers to describe myriad programs and practices aimed at closing the supposed racial achievement gap. Research about the way equity has been used in these policies typically explores how policy actors with low will and capacity frame and implement their reforms. Few studies,…

Segregation in America persists not just between schools and districts, but also within racially integrated schools where Black and Latinx students are often missing from the highest levels of courses. This single case study examines the changes in levels of courses offered and access to advanced classes in one school district from 2008 to 2018.…

This article examines how school boards in New Jersey navigated the COVID-19 pandemic, which also coincided with the national trauma and reactions related to the George Floyd murder and subsequent backlash. The politicization of issues during that first year of the pandemic foreshadowed profound changes in the world of many school boards in New…

Purpose: We examine the ways state education agency (SEA) and local education agency (LEA) leaders interpret and use educational policy to guide the provision of services for multilingual students classified as English learners (ELs) in their contexts. Our inquiry focuses on the external factors leaders describe that either enable or constrain…

This fourth of six briefs analyzing data from the 2020-2021 Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC), released earlier this year, focuses on the experiences of students with disabilities with disciplinary practices at both charter schools and traditional public schools. Though the COVID-19 pandemic was still in its early stages, concerns about the…

High school student participation in dual enrollment--a key strategy for increasing equitable access to postsecondary education and improving readiness for college--has been on the rise in California in recent years. Despite the overall increase in participation, however, large gaps between racial/ethnic subgroups persist. Also of concern, English…

In the United States, the right to education resides in the states. Every state constitution affirmatively requires state legislatures to maintain and support a system of elementary and secondary schools open to all resident children. Although the language of these constitutional provisions varies, in all cases they mandate states, through their…

Students with disabilities who are identified to receive special education services have the right to a free and appropriate public education until they reach the age of 21 according to The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act [IDEA] (2004). This includes developmentally appropriate sex and reproductive health education for youth with…

Researchers have shown that school districts can leverage the significant changes made to federal and state accountability systems to achieve more equitable outcomes for all students (Burns et al., 2019; Dodman, 2019; Hyler et al., 2021) It is also known that classroom practitioners use their agency to support or stall district level initiatives…

Boston Public Schools (BPS) serves approximately 49,000 students across 119 schools and is dedicated to providing equitable, high-quality education for every student, regardless of background or circumstance. While schools create improvement plans, they can struggle to use them as an adaptive tool. Central office leaders often collect these plans…

All school districts have children attending who have special dietary needs due to a disability or a food allergy or intolerance. In order for these children to attend school, their dietary needs must be addressed since they are unable to eat meals prepared for the general student population. There is federal legislation which provides guidance…

Purpose. Despite more than six decades of education reforms, public education systems have failed to provide equitable opportunities to quality education for all enrolled students. Additionally, public schooling lacks pathways to the emergent thinking and technologies necessary to envision equitable futures. This study examines education system…

The purpose of this position paper is to emphasize the importance gender equity within curriculum as a primary focus within our educational institutions to ensure equal access and representation for our students. This emphasis is based on data that supports how focusing on meaningful content connections, conducive environments with respect to the…

There is a nationwide concern among students, parents, and educators regarding high school administrators' inequitable disciplinary practices and students with disabilities (SWD) policies in the U.S. The problem addressed in this study was that high school SWDs in a local Midwestern urban school district have higher rates of suspension from school…