For decades, policymakers in the U.S. have leveraged accountability policy as a governing tool to lift school performance and close the achievement gap. Accountability become so widespread that it arguably became a "policy paradigm" with the passage of the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act in 2002. Yet after just 13 years of…

This paper centers the voices of students who successfully struggled alongside justice-minded school board members and other concerned citizens to create anti-racist policy changes in Alexandria City Public Schools, Virginia. Specifically, we examine the history behind, and political processes involved with, changing the names of two local schools…

Growing interest in the potential of education research-practice partnerships (RPPs) as a promising strategy for increasing the relevance and use of research has led the field to create an expanding body of literature documenting both the promise and the potential perils of RPPs. Insightful frameworks abound, outlining the structural and…

Conflicts over education and education policy continue, and now new, diversified actors push for change while technologies expand the terrain where conflicts unfold. Conflict theories would seem best suited to address these conflicts. However, despite conflict theories' substantive contributions, they are infrequently used in the US context and…

Education policy has long been analyzed as a cycle where various actors influence different stages. However, few such studies have focused on identifying and interrogating the specific moments that shape an education policy's overall equity trajectory. This article uses Bowe, Ball, and Gold's policy cycle as an exploratory theoretical framework,…

The success and failure of education reform policies often depend on the strategies of reformers. This article suggests a framework to understand the "positionality" of reformers, as they vary in their strategy (i.e., technical vs. relational) and focus for change (i.e., process- vs. outcomes-focused). Using the case of individuals who…

This case study examined how research has been used in the federal higher education rulemaking process, through which the U.S. Department of Education implements programs under the Higher Education Act. Findings indicate that in this high-conflict policymaking process, politics infuses various forms of research use to create several overlapping…

The U.S. education system has been a critical site in the nation's ongoing fight for racial equity. Yet, despite many attempts to promote equity within and across schools, efforts fall short in a system designed to uphold norms rooted in whiteness and white supremacy. We need anti-racist educational leaders who can identify and push back at the…

In an era where many states' postsecondary education governance dynamics are evolving, we set out to understand whether state-level governing boards with centralized governance functions affected institutions' decisions to engage in in-person instruction during the fall of 2020, the first fall of the COVID-19 pandemic. We examined sociopolitical…

"Divisive Concepts" laws have sprung up around the nation as a backlash to the widespread commitments to anti-racist education that emerged in summer 2020. This critical policy analysis examines the concepts central to Florida's "Individual Freedom Act" [HB7] of 2022, to determine its intent and impact in ameliorating or…

In spring 2020, nearly every U.S. public school closed at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Existing evidence suggests that local political partisanship was a better predictor of in-person instruction than COVID case and death rates in fall 2020. We replicate and extend these analyses using data collected over the entirety of the 2020-21…

Over the past several decades large philanthropies have adopted aggressive approaches to education reform that scholars have labeled "venture philanthropy." These efforts focused on broad changes to schooling and education policy, borrowing techniques from the venture capital world. But many foundations have recently become convinced…

While recent research provides insights into how district and school leaders responded to the extraordinary disruptions created by the COVID-19 pandemic, less is known about the role of influential state-level education leaders during the crisis. In this paper, we draw on interviews with state leaders to examine their efforts to support students'…

States diverge widely when it comes to education funding choices, leading to substantial differences in how much states spend on schooling, the role of local versus state revenue sources, and relative differences among districts in funding levels. Prior studies have documented that Democratic party control of state governments appears to be…

Research has shown the value of including youth, especially minoritized students, in school- and district-level educational decision-making. However, power dynamics, as related to adultism, along with other inequities, are barriers to youth's political influence. We elucidate these barriers by exploring the possible relationship between…