While civics learning was marginalized in an era of standardized testing and fiscal constraints, more states are incentivizing students, schools, and districts to foster civics learning and engagement opportunities through civic diploma seals and school recognition programs. With an eye toward equitable implementation, these early adopters…

Arising from a research-based, comprehensive school transformation strategy, community schools organize in- and out-of-school resources and supports such as mental health services, meals, health care, tutoring, internships, and other learning and career opportunities to fit specific community needs. Through this strategy, students, families,…

This narrative case study focuses on one state's (Georgia) interaction with and eventual rejection of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), which led to the development of the Georgia Standards of Excellence for Science (GSES). We believe that the evolution of policy development, such as standards, should be a concern for all science…

The rising popularity of dual language education programs resembles gentrification in policy spaces where the influx of privileged newcomers coincides with some form of pushing out of the former beneficiaries or their interests, which can include the promotion or exclusion of certain program models. Using critical discourse analysis, we examined…

Since the early 2000s, accountability and evaluation have been regarded by policymakers as key mechanisms for "fixing" teacher education and by many teacher education leaders as vehicles for elevating the status of the profession and uniting a fragmented field. Although educational inequity has been an enduring and endemic problem during…

With the start of the three-year grant cycle beginning in 2017-2018, the Georgia Office of Adult Education (GOAE) implemented a state policy to require all adult education providers, not just Integrated English Literacy and Civics Education (IELCE) grantees, to develop and implement at least one integrated education and training (IET) program for…

Since the 2016 U.S. presidential election, increasing attention has been paid to rural communities. For our study, we used a multicase study approach that included five states to study the difference between the rhetoric about the need to focus more attention on rural communities soon after the 2016 election and the practiced reality of state…

State higher education governing agencies in the United States are uniquely positioned between the state government and public postsecondary sector. However, few studies have considered how this organizational characteristic influences these agencies' role in the policy process. The current study seeks to contribute to this gap in the literature…

This research investigates whether teachers' unions influence student academic achievement in Southern states that prohibit collective bargaining. Our data are from the School and Staffing Survey and the Stanford Education Data Archive. We measure the strength of teachers' unions by union membership rate and meet-and-confer status of a district…

Early childhood educator preparation program curricula contain limited course work and accompanying field experiences on chronic illness management and supporting young children with these conditions. The current study examines data from 319 kindergarten to third grade teachers from the southeastern United States and their perceptions of statewide…

Through an exploratory comparative case study of two U.S. states (Georgia and Nevada), this study investigates how the selection mechanism to state higher education governing agency boards influences the responsiveness of board members to stakeholders and their role in the policy-making process. Framed around the recent national policy agenda to…

State policymakers in the United States have in recent years experimented with new initiatives to change the procedures used by public institutions to assess and assign academically underprepared students to non-credit developmental education (or remedial) courses. This study explores whether the most recent developmental education reform in…

Fueled by immigration and globalization, the United States has evolved into a nation of linguistically diverse residents; however, English remains the dominant language in schools. A recent language policy initiative emergent in states across the nation, the Seal of Biliteracy challenges English monolingualism by promoting the development of…

Given the evidence of positive effects on students of having at least one teacher who shares their race or ethnicity, state boards of education, other state policymakers, and school leaders need to recognize teachers' race and ethnicity as markers of teacher quality. Whether purposefully or not, education systems have long defined teacher quality…

As American teacher educators and teachers are being roiled by restrictive legislation around critical race theory and divisive concepts in some states, our investigation explored the impact of critical communities of practice (CoP) on redesigning and teaching introduction to education courses with a transformative lens. This manuscript details…