High stakes test-based accountability systems primarily rely on aggregates and derivatives of scores from tests that were originally developed to measure individual student proficiency in subject areas such as math, reading/language arts, and now English language proficiency. Current validity models do not explicitly address this use of aggregate…

Few juvenile justice group experimental and quasi-experimental literacy-focused studies document fidelity of implementation (FOI). Even fewer of those studies consider the psychometric properties of the FOI instrumentation used. The aim of this study was to examine the psychometric properties of a brief FOI instrument used with English language…

Tiered instructional supports are on a steep growth trajectory in the US and getting underway internationally as a means to providing equitable education to all student groups. In the US, the Department of Education funded the expansion of multi-tiered system of support (MTSS) through school and personnel improvement grants to states. This…

The Smarter Balanced Assessment System consists of three components: (1) interim assessments designed to support teaching and learning throughout the year; (2) a suite of tools and resources in Tools for Teachers that support classroom-based formative assessment practices; and (3) end-of-year summative assessments designed for accountability…

Along with a global mobility of NNESTs around the world (Canagarajah, 1999), there has been an expanding population of NNEST trainees in the U.S. higher education institutions (Park, 2012). This brought an assumption that there will be an increasing number of international college composition teachers in the U.S. college contexts (Ruecker et al.,…

This quantitative study is primarily intended to examine whether district level performance results from Grade 8 ELA state assessments can help to predict future passing rates on AP exams. The participants for the study are all 218 K-12 school districts in New Jersey, all of which generated results across score levels and passing rates for PARCC…

The role of educators in mitigating the negative experiences faced by marginalised students has garnered increasing attention. This study highlights the key attributes of teachers who create a supportive environment for these learners, particularly in English Language Arts classrooms. Through an integration of Positioning Theory, Critical…

English language students often struggle to acquire and retain academic vocabulary due to limited exposure and insufficient opportunities for meaningful engagement with new words. Explicit, structured vocabulary instruction is essential to acquire word ownership, defined as understanding a word's meaning and using it in various contexts. This…

This article discusses the current Missouri (U.S.) socio-political landscape of literacies and language education pedagogies across PreK-12 settings. Specifically, our research focus explores the binaries that educators in schools experience which a/effects material-discursive relations of literacy teaching and learning. We understand how literacy…

A sense of homeplace has always carried a "radical political dimension," as "one's homeplace was the one site where one could freely confront the issue of humanization, where one could resist" the greater society's efforts to Other and alienate. Such homeplaces, however tenuous and fragile, have often been created and kept by…

The Partnership Model of School and District Turnaround is Michigan's policy for improving student outcomes in its lowest performing schools. In compliance with the federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), the Michigan Department of Education (MDE) identifies as Partnership schools those in the bottom 5% of the Michigan School Index System and…

A critical content analysis is employed to scrutinize the second-grade materials within EL education's English language arts curriculum. Applying critical race theory, this study confronts the pervasive anti-Black narrative embedded in standardized curriculum used in the United States. The study unveils the presence of this narrative in the…

This paper extends research that looks at the intersection of multimodal composing and maker education. We present findings from a fourth iteration of a multidisciplinary classroom design study in which high school youth made digital comics based on literary novels in an 11th grade language arts classroom in a predominantly Hispanic, low-SES,…

Within gifted education, discourse-based instructional methods, such as Socratic Seminars, are identified as strategies to support the development of gifted and advanced readers' critical thinking skills. While research on dialogic discourse has centered on key components such as discourse patterns and the types of questions teachers ask, the…

The 2017 TEKS revision, the 2023 STAAR redesign, and the 2024 TCTELA conference theme call on literacy professionals to "forge the future of literacy" in Texas. Specifically, the future demands that we more fully integrate reading and writing instruction and that we help students develop a deeper understanding of author's purpose and…