This action-oriented guide details how school leaders can take an active role in transforming school systems so that they are truly inclusive--promoting belonging and academic success for exceptional learners and across all student subgroups. Centered around the key idea that learner variability is the norm rather than the exception, and that…

The "IDRA Newsletter" serves as a vehicle for communication with educators, school board members, decision-makers, parents, and the general public concerning the educational needs of all children across the United States. This issue is the "50th Anniversary Edition." Contents include: (1) IDRA Milestones Across Five Decades to…

In K-12 education, your job title or place of work should not prevent you from offering unique insights and pathways for creating change. You have a voice. Working in education today is to continually be on the precipice of change. However, far too many educators don't recognize the power they have to control and shape that change into what's best…

This piece highlights the everyday challenges within the classroom and without. Further, it explores the recourse teachers can take to mitigate those challenges. It is an anecdotal piece from the perspective of a teacher, leader, and advocate in education. It serves as a reminder to fellow educators of the reasons we need to be active in our own…

This important volume examines how and why increasing numbers of students, disproportionately youth of color, are being taken from our schools and put into our prisons. Williamson and Appleman, along with a collection of scholars, teacher educators, K-12 teachers, an administrator, and an incarcerated student, offer their perspectives on how…

"Critical Transformative Educational Leadership and Policy Studies - A Reader" is a comprehensive collection of critical contributions from most of the leading voices in the fields of educational leadership and educational policy studies, pushing back against the current neoliberal authoritarian environment. The volume offers alternative…

Policies often directly impact teachers' lives and practice, requiring them to engage in spite of extremely busy schedules. This article offers encouragement to music educators wanting to be active--and become activists--in education policy. Before becoming active, one must understand how music education policies come to be. I argue that arts…

This book is for educators who believe that schools need to be improved and are hopeful that real change can be achieved. The authors argue that if educators want to create more equitable, socially just, and learner-focused schools, then they need a more robust, transformational theory of school change--an UnCommon Theory. After describing the…

Teachers have a lot of frustrating things to deal with in school--obdurate administrators, inane work rules, and ham-fisted policies, to name a few. Instead of speaking up for change, many teachers have just come to accept all the dysfunction and take refuge in their classrooms. But teachers have it in their power to bust out of that classroom…

With contributions from leading experts across disciplinary fields, this book explores best practices from the field's most notable researchers, as well as important historically based and politically focused challenges to a field whose impact has reached an important crossroads. The comprehensive and powerfully critical analysis considers the…

This theme issue presents art advocacy as a necessary means of bringing art and art education to an elevated status in the elementary secondary curriculum and educational system. Articles include: (1) "Editor's View" (Margaret Scarr); (2) "Art Education: Why Is It Important" (Arts Education Partnership Working Group); (3)…

Historical accounts of advocacy for equality in educational facilities and resources for Blacks during de jure segregation in the South have generally minimized, or ignored, the role of Black educators. This article challenges the omission of Black educators in the historical portrait by providing a historical analysis of four periods of teacher…

Asserts that U.S. education has entered a new era of advocacy for arts education. Describes publications and other efforts of the National Coalition for Music Education. Compares effective and ineffective advocacy methods and includes a table of contents of an "Action Kit for Music Education." (CFR)

Describes the development of the National History Education Network (NHEN). Suggests that the network will serve as a clearinghouse for information and an advocacy center. Discusses network goals for collaborative efforts involving primary and secondary schools, colleges and universities, and museums and other cultural institutions. Includes…

Noting the importance of middle school teachers paying attention to the changes in their students' development, in understanding the challenges that lay ahead of these adolescents, and in listening to what adolescents say, this book describes what middle school teachers should know when teaching early adolescents. The book presents background…