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For far too many students, schools are "not" places of belonging. This is due, in part, to the cultural mismatch between schools and students that, despite even the best of intentions, too often leads to student harm and negative student outcomes. Gloria McDaniel-Hall and Nina F. Weisling provide insights for understanding "why" belonging is vital to student learning, how teachers can recognize when they fall short of building spaces where all students feel they belong, and suggestions for starting to learn, unlearn, and relearn so that all students feel safe, seen, and ready to learn.

Over the past year, debates over the prevalence, distribution, and effects of teacher vacancy and underqualification have dominated many education narratives. Authors J. Cameron Anglum, Andrew R. Diemer, Walter G. Ecton, and Tuan D. Nguyen consider these debates in the context of growing interest in career and technical education (CTE) in high school settings. Research on secondary CTE teachers, including the quantification of teacher shortages in specific CTE content areas, remains insufficient to inform effective recruitment and retention policies. This dearth of scholarship on CTE teachers undermines the improvement of CTE programs.

Despite progress in recent years, members of the LGBTQ+ community remain underrepresented and underserved in the school system. Ferial Pearson and Steven Gill draw on research literature and their own experiences as out queer educators to recommend a set of actions educators can take to reduce harm to members of these communities in school. They call for explicit safe/brave spaces and school cultures, support for LGBTQ+ educators, greater representation in school curricula, and professional development for teachers. Current research shows the benefits of these approaches, but more research is needed to learn what school-level practices and policy changes will be most beneficial to students in different regions and with different intersecting identities.

During a time when teacher turnover is high, retention is low, and some positions go unfilled for years at a time, the conditions have never been more favorable to redesign the fundamental way we staff our nation's schools. Brent W. Maddin and Randy L. Mahlerwein describe how Arizona's Mesa Public Schools and Arizona State University are working together to empower educators to design and implement innovative, team-based staffing models that make the job of being a teacher less isolating, more flexible, and, ultimately, more sustainable.

There is a need for Vietnamese language education for the Vietnamese American community in the United States, and the Vietnamese Language Program at Westminster High School (WHS) in Orange County, California, has been able to preserve the Vietnamese language. Students in the program also learn about their heritage and culture to stay connected to their families and community. Author Pauline Phi Nguyên Ð?ng, a Vietnamese language teacher at the high school, suggests that the WHS Vietnamese Language Program is a model for how heritage language programs can be sustained in schools and communities.

Recent discussions about critical race theory (CRT) have exposed, once again, the heated disagreements that prevail in the United States regarding the nature of its racial past and present. This debate is highly significant in itself, but the dispute is also noteworthy for revealing how quickly a contentious issue can become a lightning rod for considerations of what students should learn. This article addresses CRT and the role it can play in helping to explore past and current racial politics; the value of placing the current controversy within the context of a long history of curriculum conflict; and the need for critical reflection, active collaboration, and courage among educators.

The High School for Recording Arts in St. Paul, Minnesota, serves students who've had trouble in more traditional schools. Yet, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the school was able to maintain, and even exceed, its prepandemic metrics of achievement. Michael Lipset and Linda Nathan attribute this success to the school's unique staffing structure. Instead of having content teachers attempt to meet the wide array of student needs on their own, the school takes a team-based approach, with traditional certified teachers serving as content advisers who manage student learning and other team members (many of whom have similar backgrounds as the students) addressing students' personal needs. All faculty, no matter their specific role, are called facilitators of learning, but they focus on different ways of engaging students.

The education model in which a single teacher instructs a single classroom of students has been remarkably persistent, but teacher shortages, low morale, and poor teacher retention are signs that it's not working well for teachers. Ray Reutzel and Parker Fawson describe how Utah's Center for the School of the Future is seeking to redesign the teacher workforce to improve outcomes for both teachers and students without increasing costs. Their integrated workforce model brings students together in a pod led by a master teacher, classroom teachers, teacher interns, aides, and tutors. Students receive more individualized support, and prospective teachers have more opportunities to practice their skills before receiving a license and becoming a lead teacher. The model also includes pathways for paraprofessionals to complete education coursework while they continue to earn an income.

Political dissent has played an important role in giving U.S. citizens a voice and promoting justice for all. But too often, Sarah Stitzlein argues, dissent is underappreciated, especially in schools. Stitzlein discusses the obstacles to teaching dissent, particularly political movements seeking to suppress curricula and ideas that are considered controversial. She suggests that, instead of silencing dissenting voices, teachers should seek out ways to foreground dissent, by teaching the history of political dissent, getting students to practice skills of disagreement, helping students discern which ideas and voices are worthy of consideration, and modeling respectful engagement with a variety of views.

Whom can educators look to as an exemplar of kind and compassionate teaching? Gabrielle Vogt and Ann Monroe explore the life and work of Fred Rogers as an unconventional teacher. By focusing on relationships, treating each child as unique, honoring children's emotions, and communicating a positive message, Rogers showed care for children and their development. The authors encourage teachers to follow his example to create an environment that addresses children's emotional needs and well-being.

Homelessness among U.S. K-12 students has been on the rise for decades, and it shows no signs of slowing down, especially as the COVID-19 pandemic has contributed to significant unemployment. Joseph Bishop describes findings from a study of student homelessness in California. Interviews with those experiencing homelessness and those who serve them, as well as analysis of the data, reveal the obstacles that prevent these communities from receiving the help they need. These include differing definitions of homelessness, limited funding being made available, and lack of training among the educators who could help identify and support students. Because of the multifaceted nature of the problem, groups at the local, state, and national levels must find ways to work together to arrive at solutions tailored to the need.

In the past decade, research-practice partnerships (RPPs) have grown in number and reputation. Stephanie Brown and Annie Allen describe the varied ways partnerships facilitate more sustained and productive relationships between researchers and practitioners. They share key findings from a comparative case study of three different types of RPPs focused on mathematics instructional improvement conducted by the National Center for Research in Policy and Practice (NCRPP) and make recommendations for how partnerships can build more authentic bridges between research and practice.

In a post-truth world, it is imperative for educators to help students sift through the various views of both historical and current events. Critical race theory (CRT), a controversial theoretical framework directly critiquing white supremacy and incorporating the histories of historically marginalized communities, is a useful tool for helping students develop their own understanding of history and the world. However, research shows that social studies educators of white students are unprepared to use CRT. Antony Farag shares his research into white teachers' use of CRT and describes what happened when his predominately white school attempted to launch an elective course build on critical race theory.

The literature on teaching controversial issues offers a framework to help teachers make appropriate judgments about which topics are worthy of deliberation and what information is reasonable to consider in a classroom. Wayne Journell describes four criteria for evaluating the openness of issues, explains why the behavioral criterion is neither feasible or desirable, unpacks the three criteria that the literature has identified as reasonable (the epistemic criterion, the political criterion, and the politically authentic criterion), and then discusses how teachers can make decisions when the criteria disagree.

Schools exist to educate, yet the emphasis on age-based, grade-level standards fails to account for the wide range of academic readiness that exists in every classroom. Special education programs exist to meet student needs; gifted education should be no different. The authors, all gifted education researchers, present a vision for a model of gifted education that is aligned with Response to Intervention and personalized learning. At its heart, it is concerned with addressing the real-time academic needs of every student, with the ultimate goal of maximizing the learning of every student.

Teachers have historically been at the margins of educational improvement, and they are just beginning to drive improvements in the profession. Networked improvement communities (NICs) are one approach for collective reprofessionalization of teaching, where practice is defined and managed by practitioners. Edit Khachatryan and Emma Parkerson offer insight into the social organization of a NIC and use two real and mature networks -- the Network to Transform Teaching and the National Writing Project -- to describe how NICs structure roles and relationships and foster vital norms and identities among professionals.

As students compete for college admission, some are tempted by invitations to join honor societies that promise learning opportunities, scholarships, and a leg up in the college admission process. Yvonne Vissing explains how these organization target millions of students each year, encouraging them to purchase "opportunities" that fail to deliver on their promises. The frauds are often difficult to spot, because many use the slick marketing tactics of lucrative businesses. Despite lawsuits and consumer complaints, they continue to proliferate, often forming partnerships with businesses that have a financial interest in marketing to or manipulating students.

Since its founding in 1979, one of the U.S. Department of Education's primary missions has been to promote civil debate about the condition of our schools and colleges. Our past secretaries of education -- 12 of them in all -- have recognized that they have important rhetorical responsibilities, not only to call attention to the urgent educational topics we face as a nation but also to model and lead an inclusive process of deliberation about those topics. However, Betsy DeVos -- our 12th secretary of education -- has chosen to reject those responsibilities. In this article, communications scholar Mark Hlavacik describes how previous secretaries have used their bully pulpit, what sets DeVos apart, and why it will be important for future secretaries to return to form.

Racial stress and trauma negatively impact the psychological and academic outcomes of Black youth. Riana Elyse Anderson, Farzana Saleem, and James Huguley encourage parents and teachers to explore racial experiences and resulting stress and trauma through racial socialization, or competent conversations and behaviors regarding race and racism, to reduce problematic outcomes. They highlight opportunities for schools, teachers, and families to: 1) create a racial climate at school that affirms discussions about race, racial identity, racism, and coping options; 2) increase teacher training to foster competent classroom practices; and 3) foster safe and supported opportunities for growth for all, including teachers, parents, and students.

As school and district leaders become more aware of how racial bias and racism affects interactions within the schools, some have sought to provide anti-bias training to faculty and staff. Drawing on the research into anti-bias and racial equity training, and their own experiences, Gislaine Ngounou and Nancy Gutierrez explain why it is beneficial to have an inter-racial team lead such training. By bringing multiple backgrounds and perspectives to the learning experience, an interracial team will give a broader array of participants someone to relate to as they have difficult conversations about identity. Such teams can also model vulnerability and productive conflict as they offer their different perspectives. The authors present principles for how such teams can work together and examples of conversations and experiences interracial facilitators have while leading training sessions.

The school shooting in Parkland, Fla., in February 2018 led many students to engage in walkouts and other protests during the school day. Some schools supported their actions, while others disciplined students who participated. Alan Singer considers these schools' responses and explains that the social studies standards in many states encourage student activism and other forms of civic participation. He provides suggestions for how schools might respond to controversies that arise when students take political action at school.

Kappan editor Rafael Heller interviews Annette Lareau about her research into different experiences of childhood and family life. In her observations of families of different social classes, she learned that upper-middle-class families approach parenting as an act of "concerted cultivation" requiring ongoing attention, making them more likely to become active participants in their children's education. Working-class and poor parents, in contrast, focus on "natural growth" and are more likely to defer to teachers' expertise. Lareau contends that both parenting strategies have advantages and disadvantages.

"Kappan"'s editor talks with the distinguished historian Vanessa Siddle Walker about the hidden -- and lost -- tradition of political advocacy by Black educational leaders in the segregated South. To promote equity and excellence for all students, she argues, today's educators will need to recover the sorts of extensive and well-organized professional networks that existed in the decades prior to Brown v. Board of Education.

Florida's College and Career Readiness Initiative (FCCRI) required schools to administer a community college placement test to 11th-grade students and enroll students who did not pass in a college readiness course. Christine Mokher, James Rosenbaum, Alexis Gable, Caitlin Ahearn, and Louis Jacobson surveyed teachers of the course and found that, from their perspective, the initiative overemphasized preparation for college degree programs and provided few options for lower-performing students. The use of the college placement test effectively conflated college and career readiness, leaving work-bound students unmotivated and discouraged. The authors recommend broadening the definition of readiness to include both college and careers and to raise the profile of certificate programs that could lead to well-paid careers without requiring a placement test.

In a recent qualitative coaching study of a single district, Evthokia Stephanie Saclarides and Sarah Theule Lubienski observed tensions within a coaching structure in which teachers had to be the ones to initiate professional development with a coach. Specifically, the Teacher's Choice structure heightened coaches' difficulties gaining access to teachers' classrooms, which led the coaches to position themselves as trustworthy peers and avoid difficult conversations. The authors recommend that districts adopt a blended approach where teachers set their own learning agendas but coaches can also initiate professional development with teachers.

As the Every Student Succeeds Act is returning authority over teacher evaluation policies back to the states, policy makers at the state level have the opportunity to revise their policies. But who will they listen to when it comes to potential reforms? The author surveyed education policy makers to determine to what degree teachers, education leaders, and the general public are likely to influence their decisions. Their responses revealed that policy makers value voices of constituents over those of the general public, that Democrats and Republicans respond differently to teacher preferences, that responses to individual teacher voices are different from responses to union voices, and that school leaders' voices are valued by almost all policy makers.

People often think that power only flows downhill in school. The author draws on his own research observations, as well as the philosophy of Michel Foucault, to offer more nuanced insights. He explains that power is not a "thing" people can possess and that it flows in multiple directions, forming a web of influence. These insights suggest that people's perceptions and actions can affect schools in subtle, yet important ways.

Teacher activist groups (TAGs), which are formed both locally and through online communities, appear to be a growing force in response to the more corporate-driven reform movement of recent decades. The author explains how TAGs seek to influence education policy and practice through organized collective actions, such as protests, letter-writing campaigns, and alliances with like-minded groups. In addition, TAGs promote professional learning through workshops, book clubs, and inquiry groups.

Today's youth increasingly are being expected to engage in civil deliberation in classrooms while simultaneously living in a society with a high level of political incivility. However, teaching students to argue--particularly in oral form--is enormously complex and challenging work. In this article, the authors report on a study of four high school social studies classrooms in which teachers facilitated argumentation via deliberations on immigration policy. Based on their research, they provide recommendations related to argumentation, deliberation, and the promotion of civility in classrooms.

Avoiding the discussion of controversial topics in U.S. classrooms deprives students of an important part of their learning. Jonathan Zimmerman and Emily Robertson, authors of "The Case for Contention: Teaching Controversial Issues in American Schools" (University of Chicago Press, 2017) say Americans are terrible at having informed, reasonable debates in part because schools do not prepare students for such exchanges. Although our policies encourage or even require instruction about controversy, we do a poor job of preparing and supporting teachers to ensure that they can provide such instruction. Teachers need both the prestige to lead the discussion of controversial issues and the protection to do so consistently. In addition, Americans need more education about exactly what constitutes a controversy, which is itself a controversial issue.

The sum of a K-12 education derives from the combined efforts of about 66 teachers and thousands of lessons during about 15,000 hours of class time. How schools orchestrate to connect all of those pieces to ensure some consistency will determine whether each student grows into a well-educated, decent human being.

Teachers may be confused or put off by buzzwords like "design thinking," but the concept is a useful one: To solve stubborn, everyday problems of practice in schools, they should approach those problems strategically and systematically. Specifically, explain the authors, teachers gain new insights into challenges they face when they take steps to empathize with students, come to terms with the uncertainties of school change, and learn to think of themselves as designers.

Whether they work in a rural, urban, or suburban district, all teachers should expect to confront children who have had adverse childhood experiences involving trauma. All teachers should understand how trauma affects students' social, emotional, and academic growth. The more that teachers understand how traumatic experiences affect student competencies, the more proactive they can be in creating trauma-sensitive learning environments. Trauma-sensitive schools provide a safe and respectful environment that enables students to build caring relationships with adults and peers, self-regulate their emotions and behaviors, and succeed academically, while supporting their physical health and well-being.

Over the past two decades, researchers have gathered a wealth of evidence showing the critical roles that emotional intelligence plays in education, work, and life. But what does it look like to translate that research into practice? In this interview, Yale University's Marc Brackett takes stock of recent efforts to help K-12 educators address the emotional side of teaching and learning.

A series of focus groups with black teachers across the United States shows that black teachers bring to their work many skills that often go far beyond their roles as content experts and instructors. They build relationships with students of color that help those students feel connected to their schools, they tend to be "warm demanders," holding all students to high expectations and as colleagues, they tend to enhance cultural understanding among teachers and administrators of differing races and backgrounds. What they need from school and district leaders is more support for developing the mature, respectful, and diverse working environment in which black teachers and all of their colleagues can thrive.

Colorblindness is socially acceptable bias that lives in our personal and institutional beliefs. Its existence inhibits our ability to recognize and respond to the realities of the lives of students of color. The author outlines several activities that educators can use to surface beliefs about race during staff meetings and the like.

Black students may have little choice in what social burdens they must bear, but educators have a choice in alleviating them. Schools with a genuine commitment for disrupting inequities find ways to lighten the unenviable burdens black students bear. The author recommends that schools disaggregate data by race, provide ongoing professional development on implicit bias, create a peer observation tool to gain feedback on equitable practices and beliefs, and remind black children frequently about who they can become.

Teaching Residents at Teachers College (TR@TC) is an 18-month program that prepares teachers for high-needs schools in New York City in two areas: teaching English to speakers of other languages (TESOL) and teaching students with disabilities. Student teachers, called residents, spend a year working with a mentor teacher. Mentors play three roles: teacher, field-based teacher educator, and learner. With the program entering its sixth year, there are several lessons learned. Mentors need guidance on how to teach adults, general education teachers have an important role to play, it's crucial to identify partnership schools, and positioning mentors as experts enriches the program as a whole.

Scholastic sport is a double-edged sword that can have positive or negative effects. Whether those effects are positive or negative depends on those who wield that sword--chiefly, the school's sports coach. While it is clear that coaches make a difference in ensuring that educational athletics lead to beneficial outcomes for student-athletes, a key question is what does good coaching involve? Luckily, researchers have been studying coaching effectiveness for some time and have discovered a number of important principles. Effective coaches have well thought-out coaching philosophies that align with educational athletic and school goals; share decision making with their athletes and provide rationale for their coaching actions; build strong coach-athlete relationships; create caring and supportive emotional climates; and are knowledgeable and good teachers.

Past educational reforms have failed because they didn't meet teachers where they were. They expected major changes in practices that may have been unrealistic for many teachers even under ideal professional learning conditions. Instead of promoting broad scale changes, improvement may be more likely if they are composed of small yet powerful changes that teachers can implement relatively easily in their instruction. A focus on incremental change begins with the elements of instruction that teachers recognize, support, and/or perceive themselves to be using already and then leverages these instructional practices for future change.

Becoming a better teacher by learning and implementing new ways of teaching requires time, effort, persistence, and a belief that new strategies will enhance student learning. But when educational leaders try to improve teachers and teaching from the outside, by bringing in reformers to transform how teachers engage in the core business of teaching, reforms rarely stick because the first transformation that must occur is in the perspective of initially resistant teachers. This transformation in perspective comes, in part, from teachers working to improve the quality of teachers and teaching in their own schools by developing a common vision, trust in teacher leadership, and openness to learning. Teachers who promote change can make a lasting impact.

The Common Core has brought a sharp shift in what it means to be mathematically literate. Becoming mathematically literate is now as much a matter of acquiring mathematical practices as of acquiring any defined set of content standards. This more ambitious definition of literacy presents a challenge not only for students, but also for teachers who are supposed to provide students with opportunities to persevere in challenging tasks. To achieve this, teachers need to relinquish just the right amount of control to the students; relinquishing too little constrains students' opportunities to persevere; relinquishing too much runs the risk of students engaging in unsystematic exploration. The secret ingredient to making it just right is what we call Goldilocks Discourse.

School districts shape the conditions in which schools operate and as such can support or undermine school success and thus student success. All of which is to say that school districts matter. This article looks at the success of two districts whose low-income and minority students beat the odds in academic achievement. Lessons from these districts can apply broadly to districts across the nation.

Teachers in rural, black schools understood their communities and their students and provided lessons that are still relevant today. The three main lessons are to learn and use culturally appropriate teaching, initiate and maintain mutually respectful community connections, and expect great things from every student.

Classroom management is the greatest challenge for beginning teachers and continues to develop over their careers. Much can be learned from beginning teachers through reflection and the perspective that experience brings. Seven strategies can help improve classroom management: Maintain a growth mindset; try new ideas, reflect, then accept, reject, or modify; do not dismiss extrinsic motivation; give students a reason to pay attention; be demanding; build important relationships; and fill the classroom.

Technology alone won't be enough to improve teaching and learning to where it needs to be for 21st century skills. Where it is being done successfully, teachers collectively share a vision of promoting deeper learning in all their students, and have collaboratively redesigned the role of the teacher to that of facilitator who uses technology as a tool in their educational aims. As facilitators, teachers become learning strategists as they constantly plan ways to enable students to master complex content knowledge and develop their critical thinking, problem solving, communication, and collaboration skills.

For more than a generation, education leaders have advocated for policies at federal, state, and district levels to support the spread of teacher leadership. And yet, teacher leadership has not taken hold in either a strategic or systemic way. Why? Perhaps, as Atul Gawande said of the medical industry, while good ideas abound, not all of them spread (2013). Ideas that do spread share two important qualities: They solve a clearly defined problem, and they benefit the general public as well as practitioners. The failure of teacher leadership to take hold has been a failure to define its purpose beyond the generic, albeit laudable, ideal of increased professionalism for teachers. Policy making is fundamentally about resource allocation. Policies favor interventions that can answer the key questions: Who benefits, how, and to what degree? Those who work in the teacher leadership space must ask: How do we make teacher leadership indispensable? How do we ensure that policy makers believe it is a priority and not the first item that gets slashed when budgets are tight? For teacher leadership to have staying power, it must prove itself to be genuinely influential--to matter more than other strategies for improving schools. Teach Plus has identified five measurable goals for teacher leadership: (1) Improve student outcomes; (2) Improve the access of high-need students to effective teachers; (3) Extend the careers of teachers looking for growth opportunities; (4) Expand the influence of effective teachers on their peers; and (5) Ensure a role for teachers as leaders in policy decisions affecting their practice.

Two significant metaphors in the education discourse describing student and teacher roles in academic achievement are Student-as-Product, and Student-as-Consumer. These fail to take into account the importance of students' active engagement in their own learning. Current policy initiatives around education reform reflect these deficits as well. The authors propose a third metaphor--Student-as-Client--that more accurately captures the value and responsibilities of teachers and students in education.

While subdued forms of everyday prejudice may seem harmless, appearances can be deceiving. Such commonplace prejudices form the foundation upon which more extreme acts of prejudice build. And they also leave us vulnerable to costly errors of judgment that can have tragic consequences. That is why addressing prejudice in the classroom is as crucial to our youth's education as learning to read.

The original vision of a charter school called for heavy doses of professional teacher contribution throughout all aspects of curriculum and administration. Unfortunately, that is not how charter schools have evolved. Until now. The Minnesota Guild of Public Charter Schools is the first union-sponsored entity created for the sole purpose of authorizing and overseeing charter schools. It carries with it the hope and belief that schools that involve professional teachers in all aspects of schooling will deliver high quality education to students