This article centers on Faith, a Latinx bilingual student who, because of her failure to pass a standardized exam in English language arts, had to repeat 11th-grade English. Despite this stigma of being a "repeater," during the year-long ethnographic study I conducted in her classroom, Faith proved to be an insightful and critical reader…

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…

Teachers in the US are increasingly required to use scripted curricula. Such instructional materials often reflect the overwhelming whiteness of the publishing industry through a lack of representation of authors and protagonists outside of white, middle-class normative characters. Implementation of such curricula stands in direct contrast to…

In seeking out a means of encouraging eighth-grade readers in their literacy and communication development, a university professor and middle grades educator collaborated in an action research study focused on expanding connection and collaboration amongst and between students. Through a theoretical lens grounded in social constructivism, this…

Purpose: This paper aims to examine the reading of a book-length fiction or non-fiction text in one disciplinary literacy (DL) teacher education course. This paper considers how the assignment may help pre- and in-service teachers understand literacy as multifaceted and connected within and beyond their content areas (Moje, 2015). The research…

This paper explores enabling conditions for scaling high-quality project-based learning (PBL) to understand factors that influence how PBL spreads, whether and how it can be sustained and the extent to which it informs meaningful change in schools. We report on a year-long collaboration across three research projects. Each project team analyzed…

Purpose: Adaptivity has long been recognized as a key aspect of teaching and shown to be particularly important for English Language Arts (ELA) teachers leading discussions about texts. Teachers' abilities to make such adjustments are especially important when facilitating discussions in digital contexts, as was made clear with the shift to…

How can comedy be used as an effective tool and truly help innovate the learning experience? This paper outlines how aspects of comedy have been creatively integrated into primary and secondary academic curricula such as English Language Arts, social studies, drama, as well as in areas of mental health and wellness. The essay demonstrates, for…

All Florida schools teach the Florida Standards in English Language Arts (ELA) and Mathematics and the Next Generation Sunshine State Standards (NGSSS) in Science and Social Studies. Student performance provides important information to parents/guardians, teachers, policy makers, and the general public regarding how well students are learning.…

Policymakers and practitioners increasingly have looked to instructional materials to signal the content that students are expected to learn and how to teach that content. The American Instructional Resources Survey (AIRS) has been investigating adoption and use of instructional materials in K-12 public schools in the spring of each school year…

With more than two decades of on-the-ground experience impacting 300,000 educators and 3 million students, NIET's success is grounded in research. The success of NIET's work is evident in the positive findings from evaluations of impact. In NIET's 2022-23 Research Summary, we summarize findings from five new studies and highlight selected findings…

Michael Simonson's equivalency theory provided support for this study. Simonson's equivalency theory is built around the idea that while there should be different learning experiences for online and seated students, those learning experiences should be equivalent. Equivalency theory includes equivalency, learning experiences, appropriate…

For the past decade, the number of homeless youth in the United States has drastically increased, with public schools now consistently serving over one million homeless students each year. Research spanning three decades has linked youth homelessness and poorer academic achievement. In addition to decreased academic achievement, homeless and…

This phenomenological study sought to examine the lived experiences of Pennsylvania school leaders in elementary or middle schools with an economically disadvantaged student population of 50% or greater and English Language Arts proficiency exceeding 60% as measured by the 2021-2022 Pennsylvania System of School Assessment. Across the Commonwealth…

Purpose: This paper aims to explore how teachers' choice of text, centering of student voices and collaboration with the community around a language arts curriculum impacted the engagement and learning experiences of 85 11th and 12th-grade refugee background students designated as English language learners. Design/methodology/approach: A…