As part of the U.S. Department of Education's process for peer review of state assessment systems, states are required to submit documentation outlining the processes that they use to develop and administer state assessments in English language arts (ELA), mathematics, and science. States must demonstrate that the assessments are aligned with the…

This report offers an analysis of the English language arts (ELA)/literacy and mathematics standards of the 24 states that have reviewed and revised these standards after initially adopting the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). The report found most states kept their standards rigorous and maintained college- and career-ready expectations for…

The author details how new literacies create spaces for student voices to be heard and how, by valuing video as a medium for expression, students are able to critically engage with their world and the world outside of the classroom.

Context: In 2005-06, Denver became one of the first U.S. districts to implement a pay-for-performance (PFP) compensation system, and Denver's ProComp is now the longest-running PFP policy in the country. The national proliferation of PFP systems in education has been controversial, with mixed evidence and competing narratives about its impacts.…

As part of an ethnographic study of a secondary English Language Arts classroom, one teacher took a critical translingual approach to curriculum and instruction, encouraging students to engage in translanguaging and to explore the intersections of language with power and identity. The larger study's central question was, what does participation in…

In this study, we examine the extent to which the discrepancy between teacher-reported and student-reported self-regulatory behaviours during writing were associated with students' end-of-year writing grades after controlling for student writing ability and other demographic characteristics. Results of our study, conducted with a sample of 201…

We investigate the effect of attending selective secondary schools belonging to the "Bicentenario" schools program in Chile, a free education option that is intended to give vulnerable students everywhere in Chile a unique educational opportunity, in the period from 2011 to 2014. By using propensity score methods, we find that attending…

Federal law requires all students, including those with significant intellectual disability, to make progress toward grade-level general education standards. The alignment between standards, curriculum, and instruction is vital for ensuring equitable opportunities to learn. Commercially available curricula attempt to support teachers and students…

We use a novel database of the preservice apprenticeships ("student teaching placements") of teachers in Washington State to investigate the relationship between mentor effectiveness (as measured by value added) and the future effectiveness of their mentees. We find a strong, positive relationship between the effectiveness of a teacher's…

In March 2020, most schools in the U.S. transitioned to distance learning. During the transition a significant number of students did not fully engage in learning opportunities. This brief uses administrative panel data from the CORE Districts in California to approximate the impact of the pandemic by analyzing how absenteeism has affected student…

Coherence among components of an instructional system is key to changing teachers' instructional practices in standards-based reforms. Coherence involves working across traditional silos--or system components (e.g., curriculum, professional learning, assessment)--to integrate components to avoid fragmentation of experiences for educators and…

The Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE), like other state education agencies, recognizes that a key lever to turning around low-performing schools is the quality of instruction and thus embeds a schoolwide instructional quality measure into its monitoring process. Massachusetts' schoolwide quality instruction…

In this article, the authors explore multimodal literacies and how they use literacy contracts and quadrants to help students to examine their identities via writing and the creative arts. A notable outcome of their joint efforts is that when teachers and students transacted with multimodal literacies, they showed value for their personal and…

Today, pedagogical stakes are high for students who experience incidents connected to their safety and privacy. Unfortunately, students live in an age when Code Red drills, or the more current Active Shooter drills, are a fact of life. In this article, the author argues that dystopian texts are not only positioned to enhance the complexity of…

In this article, the author discusses how teachers can develop empathy in students through reading and writing about literature, which contributes to their development as citizens in a global community. By choosing texts that trigger empathic reactions, English teachers can help students better understand others' experiences with oppression and…