When Principal Natasha Moore saw the application for Community School funding from Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) during her first year as principal at REACH Academy, she jumped on the opportunity to apply. East Oakland's REACH Academy serves a student body of just under 400, and is co-located with Cox Academy, a charter school.…

The public narrative surrounding efforts to improve low-performing K-12 schools in the U.S. has been notably gloomy. Observers argue that either nothing works or we don't know what works. At the same time, the federal government is asking localities to implement evidence-based interventions. But what is known empirically about whether school…

High-level comprehension instruction is the focus of the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts. However, it has been a challenge for states to provide the professional development (PD) needed to support teachers' implementation of the CCSS. Professional learning communities (PLC) are a means of providing school-embedded PD to…

Calls to integrate media literacy into K-12 language classrooms appear to have gone largely unheeded. However, media literacy skills are seen as crucial for 21st-century learners. This article answers the calls for a focus on media literacy in the language classroom by addressing both why and how systematic attention might be brought to this issue…

The ability to identify the main idea through close reading of informational text is a higher-level skill students develop in elementary grades as a foundation for the acquisition of other critical skills in later grades. This article provides instructional strategies for this important skill as well as for improving reading comprehension.

As teachers, it is important that we grapple with the reality that schools, teachers, and the larger social institutions that impact us are never neutral. Scholars explain that the starting place for teachers who want to enact practices for social justice and to disrupt harmful "single stories" is to read LGBTQ titles and consider how…

Historically, the government has sought to improve the quality of the teacher workforce by requiring certification. Teachers are among the most licensed public personnel employees in the United States. Traditionally, an education degree with a student teaching experience and passage of licensure exams were necessary for licensure. In the 1980s,…

Discourses of achievement often overlook the interdependence of classroom contexts, students' identities, and academic performance. This narrative analysis explores how high-achieving students of color construct identities-in-practice in a diverse urban middle school. By documenting explicit moments in which students construct…

The present study examined the predictive validity of a classroom observation measure, the "Classroom Strategies Assessment System" (CSAS)-Observer Form, as a predictor of student performance on statewide tests of mathematics and English language arts. The CSAS is a teacher practice assessment that measures evidence-based instructional…

Purpose: The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to identify and describe effective instructional strategies for English language arts and mathematics perceived by expert fourth and fifth grade elementary teachers in southern California to reduce the achievement gap in high poverty and high English language learner (ELL)…

English Learners (ELs) represent one of the fastest-growing groups among the school-age population in the United States. However, there have been significant achievement gaps between ELs and native English-speaking students in all grades and content areas. The gap only widens when EL students with a disability are considered. This study built on…

Over the last three decades, cities across the United States have adopted strategies known as "proactive" or "broken windows" policing, with a focus on strict law enforcement for low-level crimes and extensive pedestrian stops. The initiatives have occurred disproportionately in poor communities of color, and an increasing…

The purpose of this study was to identify an indicator that the School District of Philadelphia (SDP) could use to measure the percentage of entering kindergarteners who are on-track to read on grade level by the end of grade 3. To develop the indicator, this study examined relationships between student scores on SDP's different assessments that…

This updated third edition of "Curriculum Planning and Instructional Design for Gifted Learners": (1) Is a guide to designing curriculum for the gifted at any level of learning and in any subject area; (2) Addresses the need to differentiate at all levels in the design process; (3) Shows how to customize curriculum for advanced learners;…

The purpose of this report is to help improve the academic achievement of English learners (ELs) in Providence Public Schools (PPSD) and to help the district meet the detailed requirements laid out in the Settlement Agreement that PPSD entered with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). Knowing that the Council of the Great City Schools had…