Student ratings, a critical component in policy efforts to assess and improve teaching, are often collected using questionnaires, and inferences about teachers are then based on aggregated student survey responses. While considerable attention has been paid to the reliability and validity of these aggregates, much less attention has been paid to…

The central purpose of this article is to explore research, issues, and perspectives on the implementation of service learning programs to improve student achievement in at-risk student populations. The implementation of service learning programs takes place within multiple contexts and across several terrains. The complexities of implementing…

Imagine the complex factors that influence a child's opportunities in life set on either side of an old-fashioned scale. The teeter-totter of each child's scale can be influenced by parents, schools, communities and, in many ways, public policies. Positive experiences and influences--a loving and nurturing caregiver, a safe and stable place to…

The paper provides the results of a preliminary investigation into the information sharing behavior of social media users after a natural disaster. The results indicate that users shared information that they thought victims would find useful. On the other hand, they reported that they usually do not or never share information considered useful to…

In the current educational climate, a great deal of emphasis is placed on measuring both teacher and school effectiveness. We employed a residual based approach to examine school effectiveness using school mean achievement data from one state. Rather than evaluating schools based on their mean achievement, we chose to predict achievement based on…

This qualitative study explores the perspectives of 52 high school students on the meaning of caring in the school setting. Seven focus groups were utilized to collect data. Five groups were racially homogeneous and mixed-gender; one group comprised males of various races; and one group comprised females of various races. In the focus groups,…

Career education programs in California's community colleges are a critical component of public higher education in the state. Also known as career technical or vocational programs, career education trains individuals for middle-skill jobs that require more than a high school diploma but less than a four-year degree. These jobs make up a third of…

As the economy rapidly shifts toward automation, there is growing consensus that while new jobs will be created, change is the new normal. Youth need training in soft skills alongside preparation for lifetime learning. Systemic change, not minor improvements, will be necessary. States, districts, and schools are adjusting to the aspirations of…

As schools of choice, charter schools typically have the flexibility to enroll students from across an area, rather than being bound to a neighborhood attendance zone. And as schools usually created from scratch, charters can build diversity into their design, choosing educational models designed to appeal to a wide range of families. In practice,…

Instructor-generated videos have become a popular way to engage students with material before a class, yet this is a relatively unexplored area of research. There is support for the use of videos in which instructors tutor students, but few studies have been conducted within the context of a classroom. In this study, conducted in a…

The impact of distance education via interactive videoconferencing on pharmacy students' performance in a course was assessed after implementation of a distance campus. Students filled out a "Student Demographic Survey" and a "Precourse Knowledge Assessment" at the start of the course and a "Postcourse Knowledge…

This study investigates the responses that education stakeholders give to regular teacher and teacher candidate professional needs because of the increasing number of English learners. Two major research questions related to the increase of English learners in US schools and to the responses that stakeholders have provided guided the inquiry.…

In this study, it was aimed to determine to what extent coaches' organizational justice levels were explained by a leader-member exchange. This study was conducted by using correlational survey model and its sub-purposes were to determine the coaches' organizational justice levels and to examine the differences in organizational justice levels…

This article presents the results of a sociological study of the factors that inform values as well as educational and professional choices of modern youth. The survey was based on a multi-stage sample where the key selection criteria included socio-demographic characteristics (gender, age, and nationality), region, and academic major. [This…

Policy making can be viewed as a large-scale attempt at social justice leadership intended to address vast inequities that persist and are perpetuated in the U.S. K-12 education system. The study examines the text of the Minnesota Desegregation Rule to discern its underlying discourses as they relate to race, racism, and social justice. The…