This article theorizes the wait list as an underexamined vehicle of administrative burden. Wait lists are now common within the U.S. social safety net, yet little research has considered their administration. Drawing on a surprising case of Massachusetts' declining wait list for subsidized childcare, I find that administrative burdens were…

Teacher professional standards provide a fundamental framework for guiding, assessing, and supporting teachers' professional growth and practices with the aim of ensuring that each student has access to rigorous and equitable teaching and learning. The California Standards for the Teaching Profession (CSTP) has been widely influential in…

All children -- regardless of race, class, gender, or national origin -- deserve to fulfill their potential and have the opportunity to thrive. Over the last several years, Texas children and youth have faced serious challenges and disruptions to their lives due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Children of color, in particular, were disproportionately…

This study examines two longstanding but thinly evidenced claims regarding credentialing requirements for teachers in the early grades (pre-K, K, 1, 2, and 3): 1) that elementary education (ELED) educator standards, under which many U.S. early grade teachers are prepared, address early instructional practices less adequately than early childhood…

Over the past two decades, U.S. states have widely adopted early literacy policies. These policies have shown short-term success in enhancing K-3 literacy skills. However, the reasons behind their widespread adoption and the factors driving their success are poorly understood. This three-paper dissertation focuses on Michigan's Read by Grade Three…

Although multilingual learner (ML) students are present in nearly all K-12 settings, they tend to be served by schools and educators who are inadequately prepared to support them. While state education agency leaders may be well-positioned to address inequities in ML education, given their roles as policy intermediaries, their work is politically…

In the United States, schools are expected to navigate the political climate of anti-critical race theory and anti-LGBTQ + discrimination, where white identity politics herald white knowledge as the invisible standard against which racial, gender, and sexuality differences are constructed. State policies that facilitate the removal of diverse…

High-quality career and technical education (CTE) and work-based learning opportunities can support students along a pathway to credential attainment, employment and upward economic mobility through intentional skill development and experiential learning. CTE concentration in high school can increase graduation rates while helping students build…

Since 2017, hostile anti-LGBTQ+ educational bills rapidly expanded. Using traditional and critical policy analysis across three Midwestern states, we examine (1) whether state and local policymakers (n = 60) adopted trans-inclusive protections aligned with the 2017 federal "Whitaker" ruling, (2) the spread and scope of state and local…

This qualitative case study examines how board members make sense of federal accountability policies and how their sensemaking shapes their use of assessment data as a policy instrument. Deviating from previous work on practitioner sensemaking, the participants' interpretations of assessments did not align with their ensuing use of the data.…

In March 2016 when North Carolina's House Bill 2 (HB2)--the "bathroom bill"--was introduced and passed, I was teaching at a state university in North Carolina (N.C. Gen. Assem., 2016). In the Spring semester of that year, on March 23, HB2 was passed in a 12-hour special session meeting by the North Carolina legislature. The following…

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act has deep roots in the civil rights movement; however, the legislation, as currently applied, has done little to address racial inequities in services students with disabilities receive. Too often, schools, districts, and states focus on complying with the regulations, while failing to make necessary…

The State Higher Education Finance (SHEF) report is produced annually by the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association (SHEEO) to broaden understanding of the context and consequences of public policy decisions in each state that contribute to public higher education funding levels and funding distributions across states and…

Since 2003, the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association (SHEEO) has produced the annual State Higher Education Finance (SHEF) report to broaden understanding and enable analysis of state-level and national funding and enrollment trends over time. The final section in each SHEF report has focused on the effort and capacity of states…

States and broad-access colleges are rapidly scaling corequisite coursework--a model where students concurrently enroll in college-level and developmental coursework--in response to dismal completion rates in traditional "developmental" sequences. At community colleges, evidence suggests that corequisite reforms can dramatically improve…