During her term on the California State Board of Education, Naomi Porter realized that student and adult board members alike struggle to effectively engage their primary constituents--students. Student state board members face the added challenges of making an impact during relatively short terms of service and of identifying mentors who can help…

By combining creative thinking and proven methodologies, historic homes can change the traditional visitor experience of their spaces, challenge conventional interpretive practices in non-invasive ways, and reap the rewards of visitor interaction. Through the lens of the Pearl S. Buck House, the authors examine a two-year process which transformed…

The United States needs strong collaboration among adult educators and all social service agencies that support the linguistic, economic and civic integration of refugees and immigrants. Such collaboration can make possible holistic support required to create linkages between English language education and other non-educational support services.…

For this 15th article in the series reviewing recent court decisions concerning appropriate school psychology practice from both professional and legal perspectives, the topic is employment security. More specifically, the focus here is the sufficiency of the grounds for termination of a school psychologist in the wake of what the school…

This chapter explores how youth organizers have injected themselves into education policy conversations in Philadelphia, asserting their agency and using their voices to shape how policymakers view them as well as the problems that confront them.

In 2012, Keith Curry Lance and his associates completed a second school library impact study in Pennsylvania. The research conducted in Pennsylvania was the result of an Institute of Museums and Library Services (IMLS) National Leadership grant that examined students' reading and writing scores with sub-groups of students (Hispanic, Black,…

Women aspiring to be principals and superintendents in the U.S. public school system have little information concerning optimum career paths to leadership. This article considers recent research and theory regarding career planning in the context of K-12 schools, and the different approaches adopted by male and female aspirants. The choice of…

What is the landscape of the racial politics of public education in the age of Obama? To what factors can we attribute the seeming educational policy consensus from Washington, DC, to the states and from philanthropies and policy entrepreneurs in urban school districts? How should we understand opposition to the policy menu? This article examines…

Over the past two decades, community organizing has emerged as an effective force for school improvement. In the context of shrinking education funding, stubborn opportunity and achievement gaps between low-income and wealthy children and between children of color and White children, and polarizing debate on school reform, community organizing…

We introduce the need for scholars interested in literacy, geography, and cultural studies to examine the role of English language literacy in shaping assimilation experiences of recent immigrant groups. We consider a case study of English language self-efficacy among ethnic Chinese immigrants in the Philadelphia metropolitan area to suggest how…