School reform requires specific leadership skills. The journey to take an underperforming school to a school making adequate yearly progress is not an easy one. In this phenomenological study, the researcher focuses on the journey of one principal and his school as they work toward developing a restructuring plan. Interviews with staff members and…

College has never been so necessary or so expensive for Americans. Rising costs, state disinvestment, declining household incomes, and grant aid that has not kept pace lead more students to borrow, and borrow more, to go to school. While federal student loans are the safest option for students who need to borrow, rising student loan debt has…

English language education policy is deployed strategically as an instrument to address wider national policy objectives in most emerging nations. In universities, policy enactment at institutional and classroom levels hinges on the development of a qualified and skilled English teaching workforce. The continued dominance of linear discourses of…

This article examines the re-professionalization of teaching across a transformative decade of market-based and standards-based reforms in the U.S.A. The first section works with the sociological concept of the 'new professionalism' to situate the No Child Left Behind act, Race to the Top, and CAEP accreditation within a broader movement to align…

In this study, we aim to deepen understanding of what it would take to develop the relationships, common understandings, and collective expertise that might support district-wide improvement efforts by examining the implementation of the Common Core and a teacher evaluation policy. Drawing on three years of social network data in three districts,…

Schools in rural communities face many challenges in retaining effective teachers, many of which are beyond school leaders' control: need for educators to serve multiple roles, lower teacher salaries, and large percentages of students from low-income backgrounds. However, cultivating a school culture where teachers are supported to be effective…

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is the nation's most important anti-hunger program, providing food assistance to people with low incomes, including postsecondary students, workers, children, people with disabilities, seniors, and many more. The needs of college students have changed drastically over time, requiring more…

Rapid adoption of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), the Race to the Top (RTTT) competition, and backlash around these policies created widespread uncertainty among state educational agencies (SEAs). SEAs may have not had a clear direction about how to support standards implementation in a new context, and therefore, may have looked to their…

New technologies offer exciting opportunities for improving home-school communication, family engagement, and children's learning in early childhood. This paper presents the results of an exploratory study focused on understanding how texting might enhance family-school engagement in early childhood settings. Using focus groups and surveys of…

America faces the most devastating economic crisis since the Great Depression, and National Skills Coalition (NSC) stands with the working people and local businesses who have been most impacted by the pandemic's economic fallout. Equitable opportunities for working people and local businesses to participate in and benefit from a rebound and…

Learners from underserved backgrounds tend to show lower levels of college readiness (ACT, 2016a; ACT, 2018). In part to address these disparities, the authors investigated growth in social and emotional (SE) skills in a cohort of largely Hispanic, high-poverty students who participated in GEAR UP. GEAR UP is a discretionary federal grant program…

In December 2018, the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) Committee on STEM Education (CoSTEM) released "Charting a Course for Success: America's Strategy for STEM Education" (ED590474), a five-year STEM education strategic plan. The intent of this progress report is to provide Congress and the wider STEM education stakeholder…

This study examined the latent developmental patterns for classroom learning behaviors among children from underresourced families. Based on standardized teacher observations, a large sample (N = 2,152) of children was assessed for manifestations of Competence Motivation and Attentional Persistence twice annually through Head Start, kindergarten,…

High-stakes teacher evaluations (HSTEs) in public education influence millions of students and teachers across the U.S. Currently, there is a dearth of published quantitative research that shows the relation of HSTEs to teacher job satisfaction. The purpose of this quasiexperimental quantitative study was to determine if implementation of HSTEs in…

Families may choose to save for college or elementary and secondary education expenses using tax-advantaged qualified tuition programs (QTPs), also known as 529 plans. 529 plans, named for the section of the tax code which dictates their tax treatment, are tax-advantaged investment trusts used to pay for education expenses. The specific tax…