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The article presents a study which investigates the America Reads Challenge program of U.S. President Bill Clinton. This is a political initiative which aimed at improving the reading achievement through nonprofessional tutoring. The study showed different results. Some have positive while others have negative impact. The factors contributing in the varying results include financial support for the school to enhance the educational programs, lack of technological resources and infrastructures.

The public narrative surrounding efforts to improve low-performing K-12 schools in the United States has been notably gloomy. But what is known empirically about whether school improvement works, which policies are most effective, which contexts respond best to intervention, and how long it takes? We meta-analyze 141 estimates from 67 studies of post-No Child Left Behind Act turnaround policies. On average, policies had moderate positive effects on math and no effect on English Language Arts achievement on high-stakes exams. We find positive impacts on low-stakes exams and no evidence of harm on nontest outcomes. Extended learning time and teacher replacements predict greater effects. Contexts serving majority-Latina/o populations saw the largest improvements. We cannot rule out publication bias entirely but find no differences between peer-reviewed versus nonpeerreviewed estimates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Multi-Tiered System of Support (MTSS), as a fully integrated set of practices and interventions directed to academics and behavior, with emerging applications to social and emotional learning in the teaching/learning process, is very much in its ascendency in schools across the United States and elsewhere. As a result, there is an emerging need to prepare teacher and administrator educators to enter the rapidly expanding number of implementing schools and districts. Requisite dispositions, skills, and knowledge germane to ensuring successful applications, sustainability, and resultant student outcomes from MTSS introduction into systems praxis are increasingly required. In this position paper, we discuss the origins of MTSS, its expansion into various areas of education in the United States, and its emerging contribution to the thorny issue of inclusion. We conclude with examination of Innovation Configuration, a heuristic to assist teacher and administrator educators in the development of course syllabi and other professional learning vehicles addressed to MTSS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the United States, adult and workforce education (AE) seems to be located, simultaneously, both everywhere and nowhere in particular. Ongoing shifts in national economic demands and changes in requirements for training and education have brought learning in the adult years into the federal public policy arena. Sometimes referred to as lifelong learning, AE has proven to be a somewhat vague concept as a basis for federal policy formulation, but its existence signals an important federal locus of responsibility for learning in adulthood. This historical examination of the AE policy domain offers a review of the formulation, and more specifically how AE policy has been framed, where AE policy originated, and its progression over time. Primary U.S. legislative documents, federal agency reports, and federal white papers spanning the years 1862 to 2014 were reviewed to present a survey of the AE policy area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) and the 2004 reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEA' 04) raise the achievement expectations of all students, including students with disabilities. These requirements place new responsibilities on institutions of higher education and state educational agencies to ensure that teachers are knowledgeable about state academic content and achievement standards and expectations. This paper puts forth competencies for teachers in this new era of standards-based education that were developed by the Educational Policy Reform Research Institute (EPRRI), in collaboration with the National Center on Educational Outcomes (NCEO), and validated by participants at a national symposium on teacher quality. The paper also compares these competencies with Interstate New Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium (INTASC) model standards and the state standards for beginning teachers of one state to see whether current standards contain the proposed competencies. In conclusion, these competencies are proposed as a supplement to existing standards and are envisioned as an aid in matching existing standards to federal and state requirements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When No Child Left Behind (NCLB) became law in 2002, it was viewed as an effort to create uniform standards for students and schools across the country. More than a decade later, we know surprisingly little about how states actually implemented NCLB and the extent to which state implementation decisions managed to undo the centralizing objectives of the law. This paper introduces a state-level measure of NCLB stringency that helps shed light on these issues. The measure is available for 49 states and the District of Columbia and covers most years under NCLB (2003–2011). Importantly, the measure does not depend on population characteristics of the state. It varies only because of state-level decisions about rule exemptions, standards, and proficiency trajectories. Overall, we find that while NCLB was successful in encouraging states to adopt higher and more consistent performance standards for schools, it also provided much more flexibility and customization in state-level accountability policies than is generally realized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dual language education programs have become increasingly popular among elementary schools across the country. These programs are touted to represent a promise of a more equitable education for children whose parents are immigrants or whose first languages are not English. Nonetheless, these programs are also known to have appeal to monolingual English speaking families who would like their children to learn another language. Schools across the United States are starting dual language programs and recruiting teachers that have credentials to teach in these newly developed classes. However, less attention has been paid to how parents and teachers react when a new bilingual program is implemented in their schools and classrooms. In this article, we address the perceptions of teachers and parents in a newly established dual language program where the majority of students were of Brazilian origin and spoke Portuguese. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Just as nations take a small measure of their success in their counts of Olympic medals, academics and the media see counts of professorships and chairs as indicative of the strength of a field. For the field of entrepreneurship, Vesper and Kierulff provided an overview of endowed positions in the 1985 edition of Entrepreneurship Education (Vesper, 1985). However the field's growth since that time has been explosive. Recent guestimates of roughly 100 chairs have made media headlines and have stood without verification or rebuttal. This paper establishes a list of endowed academic positions related to the diverse interests of the field of entrepreneurship, taken broadly. The focus of this first effort has been positions in the United States; future versions will attempt to better cover positions throughout the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses policies of the U.S. Department of Education and Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). The development and implementation of any national, uniform evaluation system of a large federal entitlement program is likely to be controversial. This has certainly been the case for Title I of ESEA, a massive program designed to provide aid to school systems serving large numbers of children from low-income families. Debates over the merits and the future of the Title I Evaluation and Reporting System will undoubtedly continue and may even intensify, as federal, state, and local responsibilities for monitoring programs and program effectiveness evolve under the Education Consolidation and Improvement Act of 1981 (ECIA). Effective for the 1982-1983 school year, Title I has been replaced by Chapter I of ECIA, a statute that gives the responsibility for most aspects of program design, implementation, and evaluation to the state and local education agencies. This paper discusses US. Department of Education activities relating to one aspect of this multifaceted debate: the utility of Title I evaluations and how clarification, expansion, and revision of such policies per se do not necessarily affect their intended outcomes.

Understanding the development of major educational policies is essential, especially federal policies integral to Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs)—one of the fastest-growing types of postsecondary institutions in the United States, which collectively serve over two-thirds of Latina/o/x-identified college students. Accordingly, in this archive-based study, we explore the expansion of Title V, specifically the creation of the Postbaccalaureate Opportunities for Hispanic Americans Program, and how advocates framed the need for this program. Specifically, employing McBeth et al.'s policy narrative framework, we story how Congress came to enact this program, describing the setting, characters, and plot of this policy process. In doing so, we make visible via narration how federal policy unfolds and the relationship between federal and state-level policy. Additionally, we show that nationalist, capitalist, and democratic logics are often used to justify programs to support the Latina/o/x community. Considering the findings, we conclude with implications for policy and future research. Ultimately, using this innovative lens, we expand the HSI literature and complexify the understanding of Title V. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Academic probation is a nearly universal but underresearched policy practiced at most postsecondary institutions. Objectives: To evaluate the impact of probation warning letters on students’ academic performance. Research design: Employing the inferentially strong regression discontinuity design, we evaluated the impact of two versions of warning letters (U.S. mail and email), noting their impact on next semester grades. Subjects: Probation and nonprobation students at a large, Midwestern college enrolled during two, successive fall–winter semester pairs (n > 17,000, for each pair). Measures: Fall and winter grade point averages (GPAs) were identified for each individual student in the study sample. Results: Using both parametric and nonparametric analyses, we found that neither delivery method, paper or electronic, had a consistent, significant impact on subsequent GPA or odds of a GPA ≥ 2.0 during the next semester. Four of the eight measures of effect for GPA were small and positive (0.02–0.15; one significant positive outcome), and four were negative (−0.02 to −0.08; one significant negative result). A separate set of analyses that excluded students who took a single course led to further inconsistency in results. Supplementary analyses that excluded students scoring far from the cut-point yielded results consistent with a no-difference conclusion. Our findings also indicated that, after being placed on probation, only a small percentage of students were able to avoid movement to the next stage of academic sanction. Conclusions: Warning letters notifying students of probation status, lacking a staff-focused intervention, had little impact on academic performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background/Context: Minoritized youth from historically marginalized backgrounds continue to face systemic inequities in STEM. Existing strategies aimed at increasing diversity in STEM, which are guided by the STEM "pipeline" metaphor and are deficit-oriented, have yielded lackluster results. Purpose/Objective/Research Questions/Focus of Study: This paper investigates how minoritized youth attempted to build connecting pathways between STEM-related worlds, how such attempts unfolded, and the resultant outcomes pertaining to their developing STEM expertise and subsequent STEM engagement. We introduce the idea of pathhacking, where youth had to create their own pathways into STEM, often with improvised tools and in treacherous territory, because there were no pre-laid paths. Research Design/Data Collection and Analysis: Data were drawn from longitudinal critical ethnography of 48 youths across STEMengagement spaces, in both community and formal school spaces. Attention is paid to the particular resources, both relational and material, and the barriers that affect youths' efforts to hack pathways toward deeper and more connected engagement in STEM. Spaces included school classrooms, school settings, after-school STEM programs held in community clubs, other spaces in communities such as residential neighborhoods, and local universities. Findings/Results: Three broad claims are presented: (a) Pathhacking involves youth engaging in practices that challenge and expand ways of being in STEM-related spaces; (b) Pathhacking practices, when coordinated through social activity, reorganize social worlds for both individuals and collectives, expanding future pathhacking possibilities; (c) To aid in pathhacking, youth utilize tools including critical STEM-mobility artifacts and allies as brokers across scales of activity. Conclusions: The current U.S. education-policy climate focuses attention on student achievement in individual subject areas, highlighting the achievement gap. We illustrate the challenges minoritized youth face as they seek more consequential STEM engagement through hacking connecting pathways. Institutions, people, tools, and practices--all imbued with and embedded in histories--have structured these youths' opportunities to hack connecting pathways and have also provided points of access and resistance for the youth to resist marginalization during the process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Numerous national and state endeavors have advocated for approaches, funding, and programs focused on expanding the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) workforce of the nation and investing in education to cultivate a more diverse and impactful cohort of students who pursue STEM pathways. Educators, support personnel, and policymakers are in a position to engage in discussions about expanding STEM college readiness (STEM-CR) and participation. However, few are cognizant that STEM-CR is a progression that students strive for in developing skills, behaviors, and attitudes that spans over time. The current study established and validated a measurement model of student STEM-CR in mathematics and science utilizing the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009. The model was created based on a multidimensional and theoretical perspective of college readiness using a confirmatory factor analysis and modeling approach that accounted for measurement invariance. The sample (N = 16,044) comes from a racialized/ethnoracial and socioeconomically diverse high school population in the United States. The findings confirmed that STEM-CR involves four related yet distinct dimensions of Think, Know, Act, and Go. Results also demonstrated soundness of these STEM-CR dimensions by race and gender (key learning skills and techniques/Act). Academic self-efficacy was the strongest dimension of our STEM-CR model and strongly predicted academic achievement and college enrollment. Research and practice implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Researchers have noted with concern the often weak link between research evidence and policymaking, particularly in some areas such as education. In this introductory essay—dedicated to the late Carol Weiss—we consider this issue first by reflecting on how changing historical conditions can shape institutional demands on and for research production, promotion, and use. This leads to the questions: How can institutions use evidence on different policy options? How do policymakers and other information consumers sort through competing claims? Are new processes and institutions emerging to shape research use? In view of the current calls from public policymakers in the government and private policymakers in philanthropies for rigorous research on the effectiveness of policy interventions, we compare the relative role of research use in education policy to other issues, such as climate science, and highlight the growing role of intermediate actors as they shape research use. And we consider some common characteristics of these policy issues that may contribute to misuse or disuse, as well as to greater consideration of research. We offer an overview of the understanding of research use in education and point to the need to explore new theoretical frameworks and methodologies. The essay ends with an overview of the papers in the issue. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Background/Context: This opening article, like the other articles in this special issue, is situated in scholarship that attempts to understand the racialized nature of mathematics education in the United States and to examine the racial identities of students and teachers in the context of school mathematics. It is designed to respond to the current (mathematics) education policy context that largely ignores teachers' experiential and cultural knowledge while stressing the importance of teachers" content knowledge and academic achievement. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study: This article presents theoretical perspectives and research questions concerning the knowledge and other resources that African American teachers bring to teaching mathematics, perspectives and questions that are taken up in the five subsequent articles in this special issue. Setting: The cases developed in this special issue were developed from observations of the introductory algebra classes of and interviews with, two well-respected African American teachers in one neighborhood high school in a large urban school district that serves a predominantly African American student population. Research Design: This opening article frames two case study papers and two analysis papers that report on findings from a large-scale qualitative study of the racialized identity and instructional approaches of two of the six African American mathematics teachers studied in the Mid-Atlantic Center for Mathematics Teaching and Learning Algebra 1 Case Studies Project. Conclusions/Recommendations: Together with the other articles in this special issue, this work contributes to the development of more sophisticated attempts to integrate understandings of race into the work of the mathematics education community. It challenges taken-for-granted notions of the knowledge base and resources needed to be an effective mathematics teacher of African American students in underresourced large urban schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides a critical race analysis of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to declare voluntary public school integration unconstitutional in Parents v. Seattle School District No.1. The author contends that the high Court used a perpetrator perspective of racial discrimination to privilege the self-interests of white families over students of color opportunity to attend the Seattle metropolitan area’s top public high school. This paper not only explains how the decision locks-in racial inequity in education, but also, how education policies created to improve the learning opportunities for students of color are resisted, and ultimately thwarted by Whites. The article concludes with a discussion for the continuance of race as a proportional instrument to achieve equity in education. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This section offers news briefs on gifted education and academic achievement in the U.S. as of July 2012. A Brookings Institution report titled "How Well Are American Students Learning?" addresses the National Assessment of Educational Progress' relationship to the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). A white paper that responds to frequently asked questions about the CCSS and gifted education was released by the National Association for Gifted Children.

A phenomenological study explored how five U.S. school counselors-in-training experienced cultural immersion in family life, schools, agencies, and community in the Netherlands. The central phenomenon emerging from reflection papers was that insights about cultural values led to making sense of how school counseling and special education were conceptualized. Students' growth in cultural competence evolved from an initial preoccupation with concrete differences to a nuanced understanding of, and preference for, Dutch institutions and policies, and finally to a balanced view of U.S. and Dutch cultures. Findings attest that deep learning can occur in 2 weeks if thoughtful preparation, mutual benefit, collaboration, homestays, and community experiences are elements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Online learning in K-12 education has grown rapidly in the past decade. Cyber charter schools (CCSs) have been a particularly controversial form of online school, but there is very little scholarly examination of these new organizations. As CCSs expand, policymakers and stakeholders have a critical need to understand how to evolve the charter school policies that govern these new school forms. Focus of Study: Through a three-site case study, this paper (1) explores what current charter policies govern CCSs and (2) outlines the practices in these schools that might illuminate future policy needs. Specifically, the findings highlight how cyber charters problematize existing charter school policies in the areas of authorizers and governance, teacher policy, and student achievement. Research Design: The study presents an exploratory, comparative case study. The exploratory analyses illuminate implications for how policymakers understand governance, teacher policy, and the evaluation of student achievement in cyber charters. The comparative case design also highlights how different state policy contexts might influence the practices of CCSs. Conclusions: Cyber charter schools introduce new ways of delivering public schooling. The study shows how state leadership is vital to coordinate student enrollment across geographic boundaries, funding mechanisms, and conflicts between CCSs and established stakeholders. This paper also illuminates how teaching and learning practices differ in an online environment and introduces questions of teacher preparation and professional practices. Finally, CCSs in this study serve unique, niche student populations that opt out of the traditional school system. These considerations are vital for evaluating student achievement in cyber charters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers the relationship between ethnicity within the elderly population and education spending. Extensive literature analyzes the relationship between demographics and education spending. This article contributes to this literature by examining the dynamics between the elderly population and ethnicity and its impact on education finance. Using a national panel public school district data set, it is found that increased ethnic fragmentation within the elderly population is negatively related to perpupil spending and to per-pupil local revenues, but this effect depends on whether the state has a court-ordered reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is the second in a 2-part synthesis of an international comparative seminar on the classification of children with disabilities. In this article, the authors discuss classification frameworks used in identifying children for the purpose of providing special education and related services. The authors summarize 7 papers that addressed aspects of disability classification in educational systems in the United States and the United Kingdom. They discuss current policies for determining which children receive special education services, the origins and evolution of these policies, and current dilemmas and challenges associated with classification schemes and the provision of special education. The authors also describe emerging data and possible models and practices that might be used in educational systems. They conclude with the recognition that both formal and informal educational classification systems will continue to be required within a system that must address the competing priorities of individual needs and the broader social and community goals of education. However, as was argued in the previous article, by understanding the mix of intentions that underpin these policies, as well as periodically reviewing the norms that underlie them, it may be possible to move classification to descriptors that can be used to efficiently and effectively define educational needs and distribute resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effects of class size on academic achievement have been studied for decades. Although the results of small scale randomized experiments and large-scale econometric studies point to positive effects of small classes, some scholars have seen the evidence as ambiguous. This paper reports analyses of a 4-year, large-scale randomized experiment on the effects of class size, project STAR in Tennessee. Although implementation was not perfect, these analyses suggest that shortcomings in implementation probably led to underestimates of the effects of class size. The analyses reported here suggest class size effects that are large enough to be important for educational policy and that are quite consistent across schools. Thus, small classes appear to benefit all kinds of students in all kinds of schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Educational policy research on teacher unionization in the United States has been dominated by two theoretical perspectives: rent-seeking and teacher voice. While bringing valuable insights to bear, these views have mutated into rigid and often ideologically charged alternatives with strong normative claims about teacher collective bargaining. Drawing from a political economy framework, this article advances a distinct theoretical perspective focusing on the progressive coalition building activities of teachers' unions (i.e., organizing and mobilizing to promote the interests of working people in policymaking). This perspective resolves previous theoretical anomalies of union behavior; provides many new avenues for research; and highlights distinct considerations for the practice of teacher organizing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

College administrators and teacher education faculties currently are confronted with the task of determining how best to respond to the demand for more rigorous academic standards, while at the same time attempting to modify program requirements to provide an equal opportunity for the learning disabled and other handicapped students. The purpose of this paper is to identify the characteristics of the learning disabled, to examine the underlying legal issues presently affecting teacher education, and to propose equitable guidelines and procedures for ensuring quality preservice training for the learning disabled. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As part of more general efforts at school improvement, a number of states have instituted public preschool education programs for disadvantaged children. These new programs have been criticized from several perspectives and their potential effectiveness called into question. This paper presents the initial findings of a longitudinal study of new public preschool programs in South Carolina. Two separate research designs were used to maximize both internal and external validity. Classroom observation was used to measure program quality. The preschool program was found to increase children `s school readiness, if a minimum (and readily achievable) level of quality was maintained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Success in the current reform movement is critical because support for American public schools is endangered by fundamental demographic and value shifts. However, reformers have been handicapped by an inadequate understanding of the politics and organizational character of schools. Consequently, their reform strategies often are incongruent with the realities of changing schools. This paper examines these propositions and outlines an approach for achieving more realistic and promising strategies for reinvigorating public schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the measurement of the observed relationship between revenues and wealth in education in the U.S., what has been referred to as simple, ex post wealth neutrality. Among school finance researchers and policy analysts, the search for meaning of the term "wealth neutrality" has led to the ex ante-ex post and the simple-conditional dichotomies. Wealth neutrality takes on very different meanings depending on how choices about these dichotomies are made. Even having chosen one definition, simple ex post wealth neutrality, there are significant measurement issues that have not previously received adequate attention in the literature available to the researcher and policy analyst. The conclusions from the analyses presented in the paper are straightforward, although ways to take the conclusions into account in studies are not always easy and obvious. The primary conclusion is that the alternative simple ex post wealth neutrality measures capture different aspects of the wealth neutrality concept and the use of one measure alone or several measures independently can lead to serious problems of interpretation.

The article reports on the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) Policy Statements approved by the Delegate Assembly in the U.S. The Organization and Administration for Special Education policy statement is prepared by the CEC Policies Commission and is originally derived from a paper by Ernest Willenberg. Such statements suggest some of the major principles on which a special education administrative organization should be based. Special education shares with regular education the basic responsibility of public educational systems to fulfill their right to education for every child.

The article focuses on the proposed policy statements by the Council for Exceptional Children on the organization and administration of special education in the U.S. It informs that the statements were developed from a paper by Ernest Willenberg, in collaboration with Evelyn Deno, Paul Voelker, Paul Mckinnon and Willard Abraham. The statements were first published in the February 1971 issue of "Exceptional Children." The article outlines the major policies on which a special education administrative organization should be based.

This paper reviews several programs for children with special needs, from historical perspectives, current involvements, and one particular orientation, called the ‘child development model.’ With respect to programs based on the child development model, it is recommended that each state consider planning toward the eventual organization of a child development agency, responsible for all children with special needs, irrespective of their characteristics, educational attainments, and prognoses. Further, it is recommended that, to the degree programs encourage and support the maintenance of children in community environments, they should be rewarded in both specific and general ways; and for purposes of better guaranteeing human rights and due process, citizen advisory and other advocacy groups should be organized throughout a state and given such support as would be needed to make these groups active and responsive grass roots partners in policy and decision making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The passage of legislation concerning the development of adequate educational programs for the gifted and handicapped children has been supported by The Council for Exceptional Children acting in unison with various organizations. This paper presents (a) a brief review of CEC's past efforts to improve federal legislative provisions; (b) organizational policy statements that were adopted in order to increase CEC's effectiveness as an instrument for the encouragement of legislation for handicapped children; and (c) a look into the future of special education based on current trends. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research has found that teachers of color contribute to better academic, behavioral, and socioemotional outcomes for diverse students. Despite these benefits, the diversity of the teacher workforce in the United States has not kept pace with increases in student diversity. States have adopted aspirational legislation aimed at increasing teaching diversity, but have fallen short of diversity targets. This qualitative study examines barriers to increasing teacher diversity by presenting the efforts to do so at 28 diverse-by-design charter schools across five locales. Despite a range of approaches, these schools struggled to meet teacher diversity targets, suggesting a need for states to adopt alternate policy instruments rather than relying on legislative mandates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Decades after the Brown v. Board of Education ruling banned mandatory race-based separation of students to different schools, school segregation, and inequality in the United States are rapidly increasing. In this research synthesis, I propose a model for explaining how segregation and inequality are formed in urban and suburban school systems and exacerbated even in the absence of formal segregation policy. The model describes segregation as a component in a triangle of discriminatory education policy processes: segregation, discrimination, and signaling. Connecting these three seemingly distinct policy practices could provide a better explanation for the growing inequality in the U.S. school system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article features two reports on exceptional minority students released by the Council for Exceptional Children in the United States in 1981. The reports include "Black and Gifted," by Patsy Blackshear and others and "Bridging the Gap Between Bilingual and Special Education," by Patricia Landurand and others. The reports study a wide range of issues and subject matter such as the identification and education of African American gifted students, exceptional bilingual children and federally-funded bilingual and bicultural special education programs.

Business-inspired school reform policies in the United States date back to the late 19th century. In the last four decades, however, while school reformers have continued to borrow policies and practices from the business world, the dominant business model itself has changed dramatically as part of the financialization of the economy. Once a bureaucratically governed social institution, focused on long-term stability and committed to multiple stakeholders, the corporation has become a destabilized network of temporary contracting relationships, singularly focused on maximizing shareholder value. This conceptual article explores what it means for schools, as public and democratic institutions, to emulate business in the era of financialization. Through analysis of several recent trends in business-inspired school reform policy, I demonstrate the diffusion of financialization logic and practices into public schools. I argue that while business may have historically been a problematic model for educational policy, business is now a uniquely unqualified model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Context: In the past two years, states have implemented sweeping reforms to their teacher evaluation systems in response to Race to the Top legislation and, more recently, NCLB waivers. With these new systems, policymakers hope to make teacher evaluation both more rigorous and more grounded in specific job performance domains such as teaching quality and contributions to student outcomes. Attaching high stakes to teacher scores has prompted an increased focus on the reliability and validity of these scores. Teachers unions have expressed strong concerns about the reliability and validity of using student achievement data to evaluate teachers and the potential for subjective ratings by classroom observers to be biased. The legislation enacted by many states also requires scores derived from teacher observations and the overall systems of teacher evaluation to be valid and reliable. Focus of the Study: In this paper, we explore how state education officials and their district and local partners plan to implement and evaluate their teacher evaluation systems, focusing in particular on states' efforts to investigate the reliability and validity of scores emerging from the observational component of these systems. Research Design: Through document analysis and interviews with state education officials, we explore several issues that arise in observational systems, including the overall generalizability of teacher scores; the training, certification, and reliability of observers; and specifications regarding the sampling and number of lessons observed per teacher. Findings: Respondents' reports suggest that states are attending to the reliability and validity of scores, but inconsistently; in only a few states does there appear to be a coherent strategy regarding reliability and validity in place. Conclusions: There remain a variety of system design and implementation decisions that states can optimize to increase the reliability and validity of their teacher evaluation scores. While a state may engage in auditing scores, for instance, it may miss the gains to reliability and validity that would accrue from periodic rater retraining and recertification, a stiff program of rater monitoring, and the use of multiple raters per teacher. Most troublesome are decisions about which and how many lessons to sample, which are either mandated legislatively, result from practical concerns or negotiations between stakeholders, or, at best case, rest on broad research not directly related to the state context. This suggests that states should more actively investigate the number of lessons and lesson sampling designs required to yield high-quality scores. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper points out that the most popular current school reforms offered have failed to accomplish their goal because they fail to understand the fundamental problem of American schools, namely, income inequality and the poverty that accompanies such inequality. Prescriptions to fix our schools cannot work if the diagnosis about what is wrong with them is in error. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background/Context: Testing accommodations have been widely utilized as a way of increasing the validity of content assessments for English language learner (ELL) students. However, concerns have also arisen regarding the appropriateness of accommodation use, including the accessibility and fairness of accommodations. While many states have developed ELL-specific accommodation policies and guidelines, little research has been available on how the accommodation policies are carried out in practice. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study: The present study investigated two states' accommodation policies, specifically for the states' respective large-scale Grade 8 math assessments, and conducted a case study to examine teachers' understanding of the policies and uses. The study aimed to identify issues to consider for an appropriate use of accommodations and provide useful information for policymakers to improve their accommodation policies. Research Design: The study utilized a qualitative method employing teacher surveys and interviews. The survey and interview instruments were developed based on previous literature and experts' feedback. The interview transcripts were coded by two researchers using a systematic coding scheme. Descriptive statistics of the responses were computed to observe trends across and within districts and schools. The results were also compared between states or between ELL and math teachers when applicable. Conclusions/Recommendations: Despite the limitation of the small sample in this study, the findings of the study offer practical implications for policymakers and educators in the use of accommodations for ELL students. The study found considerable variation reported by teachers with regard to the perception of accommodation decision makers, selection criteria, and the types of accommodations allowed in each state's math assessment. This variation raised serious concerns regarding the adequacy of the accommodation uses and the comparability of accommodated test results across schools. In this paper, we discussed a number of possible reasons for teachers' reported difficulty in keeping up with state policies: (a) lack of clear guidelines in making accommodation decisions and implementing accommodations in a standardized way, (b) lack of or limited opportunities in receiving information and communicating about accommodations among decision makers and teachers, and (c) limited resources and logistical difficulties. To support an appropriate use of accommodations for teachers, we recommend that states make efforts to provide comprehensive, operationalized guidelines for ELL accommodations, monitor the use of the guidelines, and hold regular professional meetings for ELL and content teachers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background/Context: The academic success and failure of low-income youth, and Black and Latina/o youth in particular, has received significant attention in the educational literature, particularly in relation to school dropout. Over the last decade, several studies have demonstrated that student-teacher relationships, committed teachers, and notions of caring are critical to the success of Latina/o youth. However, high-poverty urban schools are graduating fewer than half of their students, in comparison with about 70% at the national level. There remains a scant body of research, policy, and conceptual frameworks to help address the crisis, popularly deemed the "dropout crisis, "particularly among Latinas/os, the youngest, fastest growing, and lowest educated group in the United States. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study: In what ways can and should researchers, practitioners, and policy makers recognize the existence of Latina/o youth? The purpose of the article, contextualized in the theoretical and empirical literature, is to problematize the concept of recognition, particularly for Latina/o youth, and introduce a conceptual framework to understand, examine, and help rectify the crisis facing this population. Research Design: In this conceptual paper, I argue that key stakeholders must recognize the existence of the Latina/o youth by acknowledging their human existence through legitimizing the unequal conditions and struggles they face in school. Educators much engage youth in curricular and pedagogical experiences that seek to raise students' consciousness through critical thinking and dialogue. This article is focused on the human and interpersonal actions and processes that are necessary to facilitate agency and change among students. Theoretical origins informing recognition are discussed, followed by a contextualized analysis of recognition within the present-day conditions of U.S. schools, particularly for Latina/o youth. I then propose five pedagogies of recognition: relational recognition, curricular recognition, pedagogical recognition, contextualizing recognition, and transformative recognition. Each form of recognition is situated in the relevant literature. Conclusions/Recommendations: This article argues that the proposed pedagogies of recognition need to be enacted to foster the intellectual, academic, and political development of youth, particularly Latina/o youth. Recognition can help educators and scholars understand how the social, political, and economic conditions impact Latina/o youth and helps educators reframe the conceptual bases of their work by challenging them to interrogate the (in)effectiveness of institutional and classroom-level practices. The ultimate goal is to help educators and researchers reconstruct and redefine the purpose of education for Latina/o youth in U.S. schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports the results of a national research project begun in 2003 and continuing in 2011 by a Special Interest Group (SIG) in the American Educational Research Association (AERA), specifically the SIG Middle Level Education Research (MLER). The membership and interest suffered from a lack of leadership and low membership. Developing the National Research Project on a critical element of successful middle schools, Common Planning Time (CPT), effectively revitalized the MLER's leadership, helped stabilize membership numbers, and contributed significantly to middle school research by developing the National Database on Common Planning Time.

Current school reform debates often connect schools' autonomy, such as that of charter schools, to opportunities for pedagogical innovation. Scholars like Lubienski (2003, 2004) have argued that, at least in charter schools, this theory does not always hold. While charter schools offer choices for parents, the array of possibilities is narrower than market advocates envision is possible (Hess, 2008). Using the organizational lens of isomorphism, this paper builds on these findings through an historical examination of the progressive Eight-Year Study and the isomorphic obstacles participating schools faced with colleges, and professional peers, and parents. It closes with a discussion of the implications for schools and policy makers who seek to promote innovative practices in schools, including the need for people-centered reform and the promise for charter innovation in areas like structure, governance, and culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Never in the course of the last century, has so little attention been paid to the development of talents and gifts in schools. Programs for talented children are being eliminated at an increasing and alarming rate, with minimal or no funds expended on this population in both our state and most other states in the country. Governments continue to appropriate the lion's share of their nation's education budget towards remedial education for children who currently achieve at the lowest levels, leaving little for children who achieve at the opposite end of the spectrum. In fact, the current federal education budget designates less than $10 million to talent development and gifted programs. In 2006, the U.S. Department of Education spent approximately $84 billion, and the only program addressing the education of talented and gifted youth received $9.6 million, one-hundredth of 1% of expenditures. In schools that do provide some level of support, existing programs are often part-time, providing children with limited opportunities to develop their talents. The vast majority of these programs focus on academics alone, with minimal (if any) attention paid to talented children who demonstrate musical or artistic abilities, or to those with strong potential that has not yet been honed. Simply put, most schools are not places where talents and gifts are developed. Most teachers do not consider the development of talents as part of their responsibility, while many parents do not know how or do not have the interest or the time to cultivate the gifts of their children. Parents who do find ways to develop the talents and gifts of their children often find that, in school, these gifts go unnoticed and unidentified. What does society lose from failing to encourage and develop musical gifts and talents? Whose responsibility is it anyway? How do we measure the loss to our society when children with the talent to compose or play at the highest levels are denied lessons or other opportunities to develop their potentials? How does our society make up for the loss of remarkably high potential and how many undiscovered performers and composers are unengaged and unmotivated in music classes today? In this paper, the process of the acquisition of musical talent development is discussed. Definitions of musical talent and genius are reviewed, as is the information we have regarding the development of musical talent at its highest level. The ways in which parents, educators, and the community in general can contribute to the acquisition and development of differing levels of musical excellence is also summarized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background/Context: In the last several decades, a college education, in particular the bachelor's degree, has become the key to higher earnings, and overall, to a middle-class lifestyle in the United States. In an increasingly globalized economy, privileging information and communication technologies, it is more than likely that this emphasis on higher education in the American labor market will continue in the future. While we know much about the increasing link between a college education and social mobility, writ large, we know considerably less about who actually makes the transition to college, how this occurs, and why. Despite the strides made, large numbers of individuals are not making the transition to college. Among those who are, there are important differences in the kinds of postsecondary institutions they are attending, and in completion rates, with attendant implications for social mobility. Purpose: This article has two purposes: (1) to synthesize the key facets of our knowledge base of how to expand the college pipeline and relatedly, to outline particular areas that have been under-examined across the disciplines; (2) to provide future directions that will allow us to better address this important inquiry along substantive and methodological lines. Research Design: This article draws on disciplinary papers commissioned by the Social Science Research Council's Transitions to College Committee. The discussion of preparation is framed around the contributions from the fields of anthropology, and political science; access vis-à-vis history, sociology, and demography; paying for college vis-à-vis economics; and completion vis-à-vis the field of higher education. Conclusions/Recommendations: The article calls for an overall integrative model, e.g., K-16 and interdisciplinary, improved coverage in large-scale datasets, and a more refined mixed methods approach to attend to notable gaps in our understandings of the transition to college. Across disciplines, a key substantive gap is variation along the lines of race, ethnicity, immigrant status, gender, and age across domains, which needs to be illuminated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With fixed, uniform learning materials, teachers are left with the burden of individualizing instruction by providing supplementary adaptations or accommodations for students with special learning needs. Unfortunately, few teachers have either the time or expertise to adequately adapt the curriculum materials to meet the diverse needs of their students. The new view of curriculum and instruction that is a key feature of Universal Design has the potential to improve outcomes for all learners. For the first time in the history of federal special education legislation, the appropriateness of core instructional textbooks to meet the needs of students with disabilities is being addressed. This initiative creates the foundation for expanding learning alternatives to every student with a disability, and even to those students who might simply prefer to work with more flexible and supportive materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ongoing or recently completed across the United States are a series of lawsuits via which teacher plaintiffs are contesting how they are being evaluated using value-added models (VAMs) as part of states'/districts' teacher accountability systems. To investigate the empirical and pragmatic matters addressed in court, researchers conducted a case study analysis of the documents submitted for five such cases. Researchers framed analyses using measurement concepts resident within the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing, given issues with (a) reliability, (b) validity, (c) bias, (d) transparency, and (e) fairness, with emphases also on (f) whether VAMs are being used to make consequential decisions using concrete (e.g., not arbitrary) evidence, and (g) whether VAMs' unintended consequences are also of legal pertinence and concern. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article calls into question the view that educational expansion has a causal effect on class-based inequalities of educational opportunity. This view, the impetus for many studies, is flawed because the empirical literature is hampered by poor measures of expansion and because it rests on simplistic understandings of the causal structure that relates supply, demand, and inequality of educational opportunity (IEO). The literature arose as it did because the institutions that are actually expanding and allocating—schools, colleges and universities—are treated as black boxes in conventional macro-level theories of expansion. If the black box is opened, we see that educational institutions at once make decisions about expansion and allocation, thus undermining a simplistic model that has expansion affecting allocation. Drawing upon examples from college education in the United States, I argue that the field must develop new measures of educational expansion and supply in order to identify the true relationship between educational expansion and IEO. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Concerns over the supply of skills in the U.S. labor force, especially education-related skills, have exploded in recent years with a series of reports not only from employer-associated organizations but also from independent and even government sources making similar claims. These complaints about skills are driving much of the debate around labor force and education policy, yet they have not been examined carefully. In this article, the author assesses the range of these charges as well as other evidence about skills in the labor force. Very little evidence is consistent with the complaints about a skills shortage, and a wide range of evidence suggests the complaints are not warranted. Indeed, a reasonable conclusion is that overeducation remains the persistent and even growing condition of the U.S. labor force with respect to skills. The author considers three possible explanations for the employer complaints and the associated policy implications. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article reports that the National Education Association in the United States has published the report, "Education for All Handicapped Children: Consensus, Conflict, and Challenge," which indicates the reactions of educators, citizen groups and legislators to the criteria of Public Law 94-142. The most frequent criticism was on the huge demands on teacher time caused by individualized education program conferences, staff planning, paper work and in-service training. Suggestions include flexible scheduling, reduction of teacher-student contact, and weighted enrollments based on the severity of the handicap.

The article discusses various issues related to absolute control on school-sponsored student publications by public school administrators, entrusted by the Supreme Court in the United States. Six states have some form of statutory protection for student expression in school-sponsored publications. Prior to 1988, only California had included such protection in its Education Code. Long before a student publications act is proposed to state representatives and Senators, the synthesis model suggests that much work must be done. First, it is necessary to construct a proposal that can gain backing from groups and organizations closely associated with journalism and education in the state. These would include organizations serving student journalists and their advisers, organizations serving professional media in the state, organizations serving teachers, and organizations serving school administrators. The proposed act should be discussed with the legislative committees of these groups, and the possibility of compromise should not be ignored.