Barriers to summer enrichment and learning experiences reinforce gaps in resources and opportunities in public education that face students from lower-income households. In a growing number of cities, new support structures are emerging to help parents overcome barriers to summer enrichment and learning for their children. These supports provide…

Community college students face many barriers to success. College Promise programs, which now number more than 200, provide financial support to pay local students' tuition and fees. These programs have received bipartisan support from state and municipal policymakers to improve students' "access" to college, putting college financially…

Most experienced educators recognize that many students will not complete optional assignments, and often those students who need additional help do not seek assistance. Current research demonstrates that students in underrepresented populations (see definition below) are less likely to seek support than others because they see needing help as a…

Postsecondary education is widely seen as a necessity in the modern economy. Yet students at community colleges often face steep odds when it comes to completing a degree. Community colleges serve many low-income and first-generation students as well as students of color, all of whom must contend with many obstacles to success. At the same time,…

What does it take to transform a large, bureaucratic institution with a fractured culture and a compliance orientation into a nurturing, collaborative, vision-directed organization? In 2017, the California Department of Education's Expanded Learning Division (after-school and summer programs) took a radically different approach by cultivating the…

This article describes an alternative venue clinical experience that provides advanced literacy specialist candidates and preservice teacher candidates at a small liberal arts university context for advancing their roles and understanding of effective teaching. The article situates our conceptual and pedagogical understandings of teaching and…

Establishing school-based professional learning appears so simple and straightforward during inspiring presentations at summer workshops, but keeping collaborative work focused on teaching and learning in such a way that it produces consistent results is a highly underestimated task. Investigations and experience from a group of researchers at the…