Based on a diachronic case study of history textbooks used in Slovak primary and secondary schools since 1918, this article discusses the roles biographies of historical heroes can play in school education. The case study analyses history textbook narratives about the medieval ruler Svätopluk published during three different political regimes,…

Purpose: In December 2015, President Obama signed the Every Student Succeeds Act, which was a long overdue reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. What is remarkable about this new federal legislation is that it explicitly reverses the decades-long federal effort to more tightly couple the U.S. educational system. While not…

Beginning in 2010, more than 40 states adopted the Common Core State Standards. In the years immediately following their adoption, educators, parents, and policymakers familiar with the standards strongly supported them. Both Republicans and Democrats heralded the Common Core as one of the most promising school reforms in decades. Fast forward to…

This issue brief explores effective educational models for serving English Language Learners (ELLs) in ways that build upon these students' assets and prepare them for college and careers. The brief derives from an AYPF field trip to Texas's Rio Grande Valley region. On May 6-8, 2009 AYPF led a group of national policy leaders on a fact-finding…

Given the overt political nature of this topic, an additional theoretical postulate, the Triadic Theory of Power was also presented as another framework to conceptualize the external and internal forces which shape the formation of contemporary education policy. Predicated upon the scholarship of Nobel laureate James Q. Wilson, Andrew McFarland…

States are the primary policymakers in several important areas of K-12 education. Given their dominant role in educational funding and regulation, states not surprisingly have been the primary initiators of the latest wave of educational reform starting in the mid-1980s. In this paper, the authors sought to test indirectly for the effects of…