Persistent school segregation means not only that children of different racial and ethnic backgrounds attend different schools but also that their schools are unequal in performance. This study documents the extent of disparities nationally in school performance between schools attended by whites and Asians compared with those attended by blacks,…

The term "critical literacy" refers to use of the technologies of print and other media of communication to analyze, critique, and transform the norms, rule systems, and practices governing the social fields of everyday life (A. Luke, 2004). Since Freire's (1970) educational projects in Brazil, approaches to critical literacy have been…

There is no doubt that the increasing politicisation of education in an economically rationalist climate is contributing to less equity, access, participation and, therefore, social justice for many Australian primary children. This article initially explores how the development of the impending national Australian curriculum replete with a high…

This article offers an analysis of the origins, evolution, and impact of the Obama administration's Race to the Top (RTTT) competitive grant program and places it in the broader context of the debate over the No Child Left Behind Act and the shifting intergovernmental relations around education. RTTT is fundamentally about two things: creating…

This article examines the history of Head Start, a federally funded program, whose conceptualization emerged in earlier phases of the Civil Rights Movement in order to provide education, nourishing meals, medical services, and a positive social environment for children about to enter the first grade. While Head Start was implemented in states…

In this article we provide a critique of the interpretation and utilization of Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) results by the National Education Authorities in Turkey. First, we define and explain what OECD's PISA is. Second, we make an overview of the media coverage in Turkey of the PISA 2003 and 2006 results. Third, we…

There has been a universal movement towards government-regulated standardisation and high-stakes assessment. In the United States, this has resulted in the No Child Left Behind Act (2001). Because of the predominant focus on high-stakes reading and writing assessments required by NCLB, teachers in the subject area of English/Language Arts (ELA)…

For the first time in the history of collective action, the offline world has experienced a virtually organized and enacted union strike. While this was the first publicly noticed political action in a virtual world, others have been going on for several years now. As virtual worlds continue to grow in popularity, this type of protest of action…

For over a century, history teachers throughout the United States have selected textbooks as the primary instructional material for their classrooms, while textbook authors and publishers have continuously produced a unified nation-state narrative that presents United States history as a series of objective historical facts for student…

In a world plagued by enormous, complex problems requiring long-range vision and interdisciplinary insights, the need to attend to the influence of dogmatic thinking on the development of high ability and creative intelligence is pressing. This volume introduces the problem of dogmatism broadly, explores the nature and nuances of dogmatic thinking…

This volume bridges the gap between contemporary theoretical debates and educational policies and practices. It applies postcolonial theory as a framework of analysis that attempts to engage with and go beyond essentialism, ethno- and euro-centrisms through a critical examination of contemporary case studies and conceptual issues. From a…

This book provides an illuminating account of teachers' own reflections on their experiences of teaching in urban schools. It was conceived as a direct response to policy-related and media-generated concerns about male teacher shortage and offers a critique of the call for more male role models in elementary schools to address important issues…

The 2011 Governors Education Symposium, co-hosted by the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and the Hunt Institute, focused on advancing education reform with limited resources, improving postsecondary completion and productivity, preparing career- and college-ready students and measuring and evaluating effective teaching.…

The May primary election added seven school district referenda to the total number occurring in Indiana since 2008, three of which passed and four of which were rejected by voters. In the 2011 primary election, there were five General Fund referenda and two construction referenda. Of General Fund referenda, two passed (Crown Point Community School…

In 2010, the pension plans of state and local governments came under increased scrutiny in response to their generally weak financial positions and mounting costs to taxpayers. By some measures, these funds are as much as $3 trillion short of the assets they would need to cover the promises they have made to government workers and retirees.…