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Literature examining the context of reception reveals how various structural and cultural factors shape newcomers' experiences, and thus their opportunities for integration. Fewer studies explore how school districts are situated in this broader context of reception, or how district policies and practices for newcomers are enabled or constrained by the local context. This study draws on a zones of mediation framework to examine how external forces mediated districts' approaches to serving growing numbers of immigrant and refugee newcomers. Analysis of interviews with 57 stakeholders from across three districts revealed that the presence or absence of community-based support networks, as well as the extent to which local policies and perceptions emphasized inclusion, mediated districts' programmatic approaches. Implications for district and community leaders are discussed.

As spaces for researchers and practitioners to engage in long-term, mutual collaborations aimed at addressing problems of practice in education, research-practice partnerships (RPPs) offer rich contexts for research use. Our study examines how interactions between researchers and practitioners shape opportunities for research use in a professional association engaged in RPP activities focused on fostering change in statewide K-12 science education. Drawing on a conceptualization of RPPs as joint work at boundaries, we show how both researchers and practitioners facilitated research use. Furthermore, research use was facilitated by brokers' engagement in RPP activities and with shared pieces of research. Findings affirm the role that brokers play in connecting research and practice and identify specific activities that may be useful in facilitating research use in RPPs.

Local control has been a bedrock principle of public schooling in America since its inception. In 2013, the California Legislature codified a new local accountability approach for school finance. An important component of the new California Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) approach is a focus on English learners (ELs). The law mandates that every school district produce a Local Control Accountability Plan (LCAP) to engage the local community in defining outcomes and determining funding for ELs. Based on an exploratory analysis of a representative sample of LCAPs, we show that, although California's new approach offered an opportunity to support locally-defined priorities and alternatives to top-down accountability, few if any districts had yet taken full advantage of the opportunity. That is, the school districts in our sample had not yet engaged with the local community to facilitate significant changes to accountability or redistribution of funding and resources to support educational equity for ELs.

This paper describes a Networked Improvement Community comprised of a network of 13 states focused on improving coherence and equity in state systems of science education. Grounded in principles of improvement science adapted from healthcare, we are developing and testing resources for formative assessment in science, with the aim of developing systems where actors at every level of the education system are oriented toward a common vision for science, and where there is a common commitment to equity. The paper describes these strategies and implications of this work for district-level change efforts.

The aim of this research was to explore whether and how various components of cross-border sociocultural competence were attended to in bilingual schools serving Polish minorities in the Zaolzie border region. Zaolzie is on the Czech side of the Polish-Czech border region, where the Polish minority play an important role in cross-border relations. Based on a review of the extant literature on the development of sociocultural competence among students enrolled in bilingual programs, researchers developed a 19-item survey capturing three distinct components of cross-border sociocultural competence: cognitive, social, and political. The survey was sent to teachers in the 14 Zaolzie region schools, with 123 teachers (44%) participating and asked participants to indicate the extent to which different facets of cross-border sociocultural competence were part of their school's instructional program. Most participants were female-identifying and had over 10 years of teaching experience, and most were born on the Czech side of the border but identified as Polish nationals. Results from an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) revealed two unique factors representing different components of sociocultural competence included in bilingual programs in the Zaolzie region: (1) the development of students' intrapersonal skills, motivation, and cross-linguistic understanding, and (2) the development of students' capacity to engage interpersonally with and to understand others in the region. These findings suggest that schools in the Zaolzie region attend to cross-border sociocultural competence through both an intra- and interpersonal lens, emphasizing individual students' linguistic and cultural development as well as their ability to interact in their highly politicized cross-border context. Educators in the region can thus consider assessing students' progress in these two areas over time as measures of program effectiveness. Given that the researchers found that cognitive, social, and political aspects of sociocultural competence were integrated across intra- and interpersonal dimensions, more research is needed to understand if this integration is unique to the teaching of cross-border sociocultural competence in the Zaolzie region or is taught similarly in other contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Designing infrastructures to support instruction remains a challenge in educational reform. This article reports on a study of one school system's efforts to redesign its infrastructure for mathematics instruction by promoting teacher leadership. Using social network and interview data from 12 elementary schools, we explore how the district's infrastructure redesign efforts were internally coherent with and built upon existing infrastructure components. We then explore relations between infrastructure and school practice as captured in the instructional advice- and information-seeking interactions among school staff, finding that teacher leaders emerged as central actors and brokers of advice and information about mathematics within and between schools. Further, changes in school advice and information networks were associated with shifts in teachers' beliefs about and practices in mathematics toward inquiry-oriented approaches consistent with district curriculum. We argue that the district's redesign efforts to support teacher leadership coupled district curriculum and school and classroom practice in mathematics. (Contains 4 tables and 3 figures.)

This article presents a set of recommendations that promote a more nuanced, meaningful accountability policy for English learners in the next authorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. The authors argue that the ESEA reauthorization must strengthen the law's capacity-building purpose so that federal, state, and local leaders support continued attention, direction, and innovation in effectively educating ELs. The recommendations put forth in this article focus on monitoring both current and former ELs, establishing time frames for the attainment of English language proficiency, and setting expectations for academic achievement that are reflective of English language proficiency level and time in the state's school system. (Contains 3 figures and 4 notes.)

The quality of the teacher in the classroom is the most important factor in raising student achievement, as Linda Darling-Hammond noted, and educators should offer their students nothing less than well-trained and well-supported teachers. Providing high-quality teachers is of particular importance in low-income communities of color, where the most underprepared teachers are consistently placed and where students continually underperform in comparison to their middle-class white counterparts. Ms. Darling-Hammond describes the detrimental outcomes of the present system, one that continues to fail its students. In this article, the author argues that with its current approach, Teach for America (TFA) is not patching the "hole in the bucket" of America's teaching supply. When almost one-third of new entrants to the teaching profession leave within three years and nearly half leave within five years, TFA's two-year approach may do little more than offer a temporary plug. The author believes that in order to maintain a teaching force, particularly in the nation's most underserved communities, and to ensure this force is of the highest quality, a "systemic solution'' must be put forward. Such a systemic solution includes recruiting, preparing, and retaining excellent teachers for all students. (Contains 14 endnotes.)

Soon after the author began her first year as a Teach for America (TFA) corps member, she realized how underprepared she felt teaching first grade. Although she grew as an educator over time and still committed to working in education, it was an uphill battle. And, like most other TFA corps members, she left teaching within the first three years. In the light of her experience, the author recommends the following alterations in the preparation of corps members: (1) Extending the TFA commitment to three years; (2) Converting the first year of teaching to a residency training year, offering classroom training with expert veteran teachers while corps members also complete coursework toward certification; and (3) Offering incentives for corps members to teach longer than three years. The author recommends these changes with the goal of improving the effectiveness of corps members and motivating TFA teachers to remain in their assignments for longer than two or three years. (Contains 9 footnotes.)

This paper describes a Networked Improvement Community comprised of a network of 13 states focused on improving coherence and equity in state systems of science education. Grounded in principles of improvement science adapted from healthcare, we are developing and testing resources for formative assessment in science, with the aim of developing systems where actors at every level of the education system are oriented toward a common vision for science, and where there is a common commitment to equity. The paper describes these strategies and implications of this work for district-level change efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Teach For America (TFA) places novice teachers, referred to as corps members, in several regions across the United States that have among the highest English language learner (ELL) populations in the nation. In this paper, we present a policy and program analysis of TFA's training related to ELLs, arguing that the organization inadequately prepares teachers to work with this student population even though it places corps members in regions with high ELL populations. First, we describe the current Elementary and Secondary Education Act amendment that allows TFA corps members to be considered highly qualified without ELL-related training. Next, we analyze TFA's curriculum and teacher preparation approach specific to ELLs. We then describe alternative approaches, including an emerging residency model and a community-based program, which prepare teachers for specific local contexts and student populations. Drawing on these exemplars, we conclude with recommendations for TFA to modify its model in ways that would sufficiently prepare its corps to teach ELLs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]