This essay offers a framework for broader community involvement as a means of increasing the relevance and usefulness of evidence developed. This essay begins by defining key concepts related to democratizing the development of evidence. The sections that follow outline a logic model that calls for a bidirectional, iterative set of core activities…

School improvement plans (SIPs) have become a central feature of schooling. Educational leaders experience tension between balancing compliance with accountability demands and continuous improvement, and neither of these lenses is centered in the social justice necessary for closing opportunity gaps. We propose a new rubric for assessing the…

As Bae (2018) suggests, one way to fill gaps between a holistic view of student learning and accountability policy implementation is to use multiple measures that reflect diverse perspectives of learning. The purpose of this commentary is to provide a discussion of issues, which need to be considered in order to achieve the desired outcomes of…

Framed by theories and methods from critical discourse analysis and social semiotics, this comparative case study of six Missouri school systems asked: How do school districts represent and address their changing communities? Discourses of equity, language, identity, and demographic change were examined across school system websites, mission…

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, extended school shutdowns, and renewed protests about racial injustice, schools confront sharp increases in student learning, behavioral, and emotional challenges. Despite this, the matter of how best to address these pervasive concerns--many of which result from long-standing structural and systemic barriers that…

This article furthers research on the necessary components of what supports successful school turnaround, and also explores how and why two rural schools taking part in a Midwest State Turnaround School Project were successful in implementing school turnaround policy. Perceptions of building principals, district administrators, and regional…

This article probes ways in which the school-choice marketplace as it developed via chartering has not worked as well in practice as many had hoped. It includes reflection on the profoundly different operating principles and theories of action that separate the district and charter sectors in their pure forms. It also offers market-strengthening…

Top-down accountability policies have arguably had very limited impact over the past 20 years. Education stakeholders are now contemplating new forms of bottom-up accountability. In 2013, policymakers in California enacted a community-based approach that creates the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) process for school finance to increase…

California recently overhauled its K-12 public education finance system. Enacted in 2013, the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) replaced California's 40-year-old funding formula. The LCFF increases district officials' fiscal flexibility; provides more resources to districts serving larger proportions of low-income, English learner (EL), and…

The Citywide Education Progress Reports evaluate how a city is doing across three goals: (1) The education system should be continuously improving; (2) All students should have access to a high-quality education; and (3) The education strategy should be rooted in the community. Across each goal, indicators are presented of system reforms and…

The Citywide Education Progress Reports evaluate how a city is doing across three goals: (1) The education system should be continuously improving; (2) All students should have access to a high-quality education; and (3) The education strategy should be rooted in the community. Across each goal, indicators are presented of system reforms and…

The Citywide Education Progress Reports evaluate how a city is doing across three goals: (1) The education system should be continuously improving; (2) All students should have access to a high-quality education; and (3) The education strategy should be rooted in the community. Across each goal, indicators are presented of system reforms and…

The Citywide Education Progress Reports evaluate how a city is doing across three goals: (1) The education system should be continuously improving; (2) All students should have access to a high-quality education; and (3) The education strategy should be rooted in the community. Across each goal, indicators are presented of system reforms and…

The Citywide Education Progress Reports evaluate how a city is doing across three goals: (1) The education system should be continuously improving; (2) All students should have access to a high-quality education; and (3) The education strategy should be rooted in the community. Across each goal, indicators are presented of system reforms and…

The Citywide Education Progress Report looks at how a city is doing across three goals: (1) The education system is continuously improving; (2) All students have access to a high-quality education; and (3) The education strategy is rooted in the community. Across each goal it presents indicators of what the city is doing and how it is doing. The…