As students return to full in-person learning in 2021-22, California public schools face considerable challenges brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. Record-high funding distributed through the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) will provide some of the resources that will be key to an equitable recovery. In order to examine how school districts…

Using state-representative surveys of teachers and 94 interviews with state leaders and educators from 2016 to 2019, the authors examine perceptions of the policy environments for instructional content standards in Texas and Ohio and their association with teachers' practice. They find that Texas teacher perceive their policy environments for…

This data book profiles noteworthy academic events, trends and outcomes at the state and complex-area level. It includes tables, figures and narrative sections related to demographic, financial and educational performance. A list of resources is provided. [For "Hawaii Department of Education Data Book, 2019. 30th Annual Report," see…

In this article, the author describes teaching a Spanish lesson to non-Spanish undergraduate students. This lesson contained instructional strategies identified as effective practices: physical involvement with language, multiple media to present language, and opportunities to demonstrate language comprehension through physical expression.…

This article exemplifies how assessment design might be grounded in theory, thereby helping to strengthen validity claims. Spanning work across multiple related projects, the article first briefly summarizes an assessment system model for the elementary and secondary levels. Next the article describes how cognitive-domain theory and principles are…

This article explores six effective principles for teachers to use to understand and apply "Minecraft" in today's classrooms. Video games have become one of the fastest growing forms of media for youth and adult consumers. "Minecraft," a multiplayer online game (MOG), is one of the most popular video games to date. By allowing…

Interim tests are a central component of district-wide assessment systems, yet their technical quality to guide decisions (e.g., instructional) has been repeatedly questioned. In response, the study purpose was to investigate the validity of a series of English Language Arts (ELA) interim assessments in terms of dimensionality and prediction of…

As a dance teacher in public elementary schools for the last 25 years, Janet Adams has always recognized the creative link between dance and writing, and offered her students structured opportunities to combine the two. She has also honed her management skills and kept a pretty tight ship. Creative expression, though, be it through dancing or…

In this article, Dover draws from a multistate, qualitative study of 24 justice-oriented secondary English language arts teachers to illustrate how justice-oriented curriculum can be used to address the emphases of the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts and Literacy. In addition to referencing a comprehensive array of social…

Recent research on multiple measures of teaching effectiveness has redefined the role of in-classroom observations in teacher evaluation systems. In particular, most states now mandate that teachers are observed on multiple occasions during the school year, and it is increasingly common that multiple raters are utilized across the different rating…

Social media are becoming a critical part of communication in everyday lives and are a common form of communication for many students in and outside of school. Accordingly, English learner (EL) students are using social media-based communication to gather information, maintain friendships, and express multiple identities. Considering that social…

This comparative case study, framed by Cultural Historical Activity Theory and sociocultural understandings of literacy, investigated students' online literate activity in two eighth grade English Language Arts classes taught by the same teacher--one with a scripted literacy curriculum and the other without. During a year-long research project, we…

The purpose of this qualitative case study was to understand how an English Language Arts (ELA) teacher of 7th and 8th grade students with language-based learning disabilities attempted to learn about and integrate into her instructional practice the teaching of argumentative writing using multimodal technologies. The ELA teacher's attempt at…

The Student Transitions Project is British Columbia's collaborative research project that measures student success from the K-12 to post -secondary systems. This system-wide partnership, involving B.C.'s education and advanced education ministries and public postsecondary institutions, is tracking student success by reporting on student transition…

This randomized controlled trial in 55 low-performing schools across Florida compared 2 early literacy interventions--1 using stand-alone materials and 1 using materials embedded in the existing core reading/language arts program. A total of 3,447 students who were below the 30th percentile in vocabulary and reading-related skills participated in…