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Claudia Gallindo and Mavis Sanders describe what they've learned from their research about how full-service community schools connect with families and communities. These schools acknowledge that students have needs that go beyond that need and attempt to address those needs and serve as a hub for the community. The current movement goes beyond providing services to include community members in their decision making. They discuss examples of what specific schools are doing and some of the challenges they face.

Amaya Garcia of New America talks with Kappan about grow-your-own programs, in which school districts partner with teacher preparation programs to recruit and prepare community members, often current students or school staff, to teach in local schools. A recent 50-state scan shows that there is a great deal of variety in how these programs are designed and implemented, and data on the effectiveness of these programs to address teacher shortages is still emerging. Garcia discusses some specific programs that appear especially promising.

Shantel Meek of the Children's Equity Project talks with Kappan about the challenges facing early childhood education. These include the splintered nature of the system, a lack of funding, and the low status and pay afforded to the early childhood workforce. Although early care programs, such as Head Start, have helped children in poverty, disparities in access and program quality in early childcare persist for young children of color, children with disabilities, and young dual-language learners.

Renee Hobbs argues that schools must teach students how propaganda works so that they can better understand the messages they see around them. In an interview with Kappan editor Rafael Heller, she describes how propaganda -- and instruction about it -- has evolved over time. Although there have been periods where it was discussed extensively in schools, but the Common Core moved it to the back burner, Hobbs explains, but now teachers and young people alike are taking an interest in these subjects once again.

Kappan's editor talks with education historian Larry Cuban about the various ways Americans have judged the quality of schools and the success of various efforts to improve schools. For much of the 20th century, efficiency was the watchword, as schools adopted scientific management techniques from the business sector. By the mid-1960s, that goal was subsumed by a focus on effectiveness, which required that schools find ways to measure the outcomes of their efforts. At the same time, alternative models have emerged, challenging the idea that there's only one "best" way of doing school.

Kappan's editor talks with Queensland University researcher Anna Hogan about the rapid growth of commercial activity in Australia's schools and in school systems around the world. Private businesses have always sold textbooks, classroom tools, and other goods and services to public schools, and many teachers are happy to purchase and use them, notes Hogan. However, the biggest corporations in the education market -- such as Pearson and Google -- have grown so large, and are so eager to promote online schools and automated instruction, that teachers have reason to be concerned about the future of their profession, and the public has reason to worry that the quality of their schools will decline.

In this interview, Sonia Nieto shares what she has learned from her long career in teaching, teacher education, and research about what motivates teachers to continue coming to the classroom each day. She shares the story of her early years as a teacher and how professional relationships helped her to thrive. And she describes the varied ways that other teachers she's met have found purpose and joy in their work.

Some Americans have always wanted their schools to provide a liberal education, giving students opportunities to read great books, study the academic disciplines, and expand their minds. But many others, perhaps most of us, have looked for ways to avoid the slow, hard work of academic learning. As the historian Robert Hampel explains, we tend to prefer educational shortcuts, from taking correspondence courses, to buying CliffsNotes, to trying to become well-read in just 15 minutes a day.

Kappan's editor-in-chief talks with renowned scholar Susan Moore Johnson about her extensive research into the professional lives of public school teachers. For decades, studies have shown that teaching tends to be isolating work, with few opportunities for teachers to collaborate with and learn from each other or to play meaningful roles in school decision making. In her most recent book, however, Johnson describes the much more supportive professional culture she observed in a group of successful schools in a high-poverty urban district.

In this month's interview, Kappan's editor talks with Paul Kuttner and Kevin Coe about their recent research into how network television news programs have covered preK-12 education. They found that, over the last 35 years, coverage of education has been rare, well under 1% of total coverage. Stories tend to focus on individual teachers and schools, with less discussion of the big picture behind those stories. The tone of coverage has varied over time, with about 54% overall being negative and 43% positive. Overt criticism of teachers was rare, and teacher voices were included in a slim majority of stories.

In this month's interview, Kappan's editor talks with developmental psychologist and Northwestern University professor Emma K. Adam about her recent research into stress, stress hormones (particularly cortisol), sleep, and learning. High school students' self-reported stress levels during the day are closely aligned with their measured levels of cortisol, she explains, and cortisol plays important roles in the regulation of sleep, attention, and focus. For example, she has found that the stress associated with high-stakes testing has significant negative effects on students' scores. And evidence suggests that everyday discrimination causes many students of color, especially Black students, to experience chronic stress, which can take a serious toll on academic performance.

Kappan's editor talks with political scientist Sara Dahill-Brown about the new realities of educational decision making under the Every Student Succeeds Act, which follows nearly two decades of strong federal influence over K-12 policies at the state and district levels. Rather than promoting one-size-fits-all approaches to school improvement, argues Dahill-Brown, advocates for education change must now pay close attention to local contexts, needs, and governance models.

Kappan editor Rafael Heller interviews Annette Lareau about her research into different experiences of childhood and family life. In her observations of families of different social classes, she learned that upper-middle-class families approach parenting as an act of "concerted cultivation" requiring ongoing attention, making them more likely to become active participants in their children's education. Working-class and poor parents, in contrast, focus on "natural growth" and are more likely to defer to teachers' expertise. Lareau contends that both parenting strategies have advantages and disadvantages.

In this month's interview, Kappan's editor talks with high school English teacher and researcher Lisa Scherff about the ongoing struggle over who gets to define the English language arts curriculum. Dating back to the creation of the subject area, more than a century ago, classroom teachers have advocated for a varied course of study that helps students use language more effectively across a range of contexts. However, explains Scherff, they have always had to contend with college professors, textbook publishers, school boards, and others who've sought to constrain the curriculum.

"Kappan"'s editor talks with the distinguished historian Vanessa Siddle Walker about the hidden -- and lost -- tradition of political advocacy by Black educational leaders in the segregated South. To promote equity and excellence for all students, she argues, today's educators will need to recover the sorts of extensive and well-organized professional networks that existed in the decades prior to Brown v. Board of Education.

Kappan's editor talks with Tracey Tokuhama-Espinosa, a leader in the international movement to translate findings from neuroscience into usable knowledge for educators. Topics include neuromyths (common, but erroneous, beliefs about how the brain works), the current scientific consensus about how people learn, and the contributions that the science can make to teacher education and professional development.

"Kappan" editor Rafael Heller talks with the Guttmacher Institute's Laura Lindberg, one of the nation's leading researchers in the field of adolescent sexual and reproductive health, about recent data and trends related to teens' sexual behavior, contraceptive use, pregnancy rates, and more, including their experiences with school-based sex education.

"Kappan"'s editor talks with Michigan State University's Sarah Reckhow about her research into the ways wealthy private philanthropies have influenced K-12 education in recent years. As Reckhow explains, not only have Gates, Broad, Walton, and other big foundations spent unprecedented amounts of money to support their favored reform strategies--such as expanding the charter school sector, raising academic standards, and evaluating teachers' effectiveness--but they've maximized their influence by coordinating their messages, funneling their money to specific states and districts, pushing for changes in state and federal policy, and (most recently) contributing to local school board candidates.

While they're often overlooked in education policy debates, district central office staff can play critical role in improving schools. In this interview, Meredith Honig, professor of Education Policy, Organizations, and Leadership at the University of Washington and founder of the District Leadership Lab, explains what her research and experience working with district has revealed about the value of their work and how they can be more effective.

Since 2003, nonprofit organization Common Sense Media has studied the ways in which kids are growing up in the digital age. In this interview, research director Michael Robb shares recent findings about the media habits of young children, tweens, and teens. While the news coverage of these issues tends to be hyperbolic and alarming, Robb explains, the evidence gives a more balanced picture of kids' lives today.

Supporters of K-12 arts education often make the case that when students study music, dance, theatrical performance, and the visual arts, they tend to improve in the academic subjects as well. But, as Lois Hetland explains, that's not the best way to advocate for greater investments in arts instruction. In fact, a careful analysis of a vast amount of empirical research found no conclusive evidence to support the claim that studying the arts leads to better performance in math, reading, or other subjects. To make a stronger case for arts education, she argues, advocates should point to the specific kinds of knowledge and skill that students can learn only through the arts and which can empower them to think and communicate in ways that are essential to their lives and to the health of the wider community.

Over the past two decades, researchers have gathered a wealth of evidence showing the critical roles that emotional intelligence plays in education, work, and life. But what does it look like to translate that research into practice? In this interview, Yale University's Marc Brackett takes stock of recent efforts to help K-12 educators address the emotional side of teaching and learning.

Lindsay Unified School District (California) exemplifies the promise of competency education (or performance-based education, as it is called locally). Since beginning its transition to the model in 2009, discipline problems have sharply dropped, the school climate has dramatically improved (as measured by the California Healthy Kids Survey), and academic achievement has slowly, but steadily, climbed. But, even boosters of competency education worry that, if poorly implemented, competency education could turn into yet another boon for the most advantaged students, leaving everyone else further behind.