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As American colleges and universities become more diverse, expanding our vision and working around what it means to be a legacy, especially at Predominately White Institutions, will be essential. This paper examines Black families' experiences at Churchill, a small liberal arts PWI in the Northeast. With the aid of Yosso's community cultural wealth and Bourdieu's notions of cultural and social capital, it examines how parents' experiences at Churchill and exposing their child to Churchill shaped and informed their child's decision to attend their parent's alma mater and the passing of social and cultural capital between the generations. Findings suggest that while navigational and familial capital passes between generations, Black cultural capital does not pass smoothly and impacts their child's experience at Churchill. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Policy classifies and shapes people/subjects in particular kinds of ways. Focusing on the context of Health and Physical Education (HPE), this paper analyses policy documents from Australia, the United States of America (USA) and Wales. We pay particular attention to how learners are represented within and across the three policy documents, and we apply Bacchi's 'What's the Problem Represented to be?' approach to guide the analysis. For us, problematization is a fruitful and positive process that enables educators to engage with a critical dialogue regarding the policies they are expected to enact. Our analysis highlighted that common across the policies were overlapping discourses of idealism, neoliberalism, healthism, and individualism, which serve to reinforce deficit language and a focus on what learners 'lack'. The problem of 'learner as lacking' is represented within the policies via at least three subject positions: 'the sedentary learner', 'the un-educated learner' and 'the naïve learner'. The findings suggest that the three policies were producing an ideal and perhaps impossible learner (subject) whilst at the same time representing the learner as a problem that the policy could 'fix'. This paper is important because it: (i) demonstrates how certain discourses and voices are amplified and silenced within curriculum policy documents and policy work more broadly; (ii) makes educational and health politics visible; and (iii) creates space for the profession to develop greater critical consciousness related to policy. In terms of future directions, we urge curriculum policy writers and other stakeholders to carefully consider how learners are categorised, represented and governed in and through policy. If curriculum policies, by their very nature, need to produce problems – in this case, the (im)possible subject - we invite educators to engage in critical conversations regarding the policies they are expected to enact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International migration is attaining new records, diversifying nations' cultural–social landscapes. The number of international migrants is estimated to be about 272 million globally, with nearly two‐thirds being labour migrants, surpassing historic projections. Concomitantly, migrant teachers are becoming more prevalent in educational markets; spaces that may serve as institutional vehicles promoting social cohesion and tolerance. Acknowledging that such spaces have an increasing share of faith‐based schools—settings that foreground particular groups' cultural and social values—this critical analysis seeks to identify how migrant teachers' aspirations are shaped and ethically negotiated in seemingly exclusive educational sites. Drawing upon migrant teacher interviews from American and Australian faith‐based schools, and utilising concepts of motility and institutional viscosity, this paper captures the schools' 'viscous' conditions and complex facilitation through which educators professionally move and ethically navigate their practice. Bourdieu's thinking tools of field, habitus, capital and symbolic violence provided a supplementary theoretical framework that draws attention to the evolving discourse of the subordinate 'invisible foreign educator' in the faith‐based educational setting. The paper portrays strategies of initial institutional welcoming; enabling migrant educators a smooth spatial mobility into the field but challenging them to work against their social mobility aspirations. It illustrates the educators' failed attempts to negotiate intra‐institutional transitions; experiencing feelings of trepidation about future professional moves and ethical conflicts between their obligation to adhere to institutional procedures and commitment to operate from an ethic of care. The paper argues for education policies that enable motility over time and empower ethical skilled migration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given the intense politicisation of education, many teacher educators are caught in the cross-hairs of government's reform agendas, university expectations and student teacher needs. This paper reports on a study of 28 literacy teacher educators in four countries (Canada, US, Australia and England). This paper reports on the broad question: How is politics affecting literacy teacher educators? Three specific aspects are considered: their pedagogies, identity and well-being. It describes how their pedagogy (goals and teaching strategies) has narrowed because of mandated curriculum and exit exams. It shows how their identity as academics is being complicated because they often do not have time for their research. And their well-being is compromised because of excessive external inspections and as their community in the university splinters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Student borrowing is a major higher education public policy issue, with students in both England and the United States increasingly relying on loans to finance postsecondary education. Our paper examines prospective higher education students' attitudes towards debt in England and the United States. It exploits a unique dataset which allows us to compare students' responses to similar surveys conducted in both countries during the same time period. Our study is the first of its kind to explore how students' borrowing attitudes differ across the two countries. It confirms widespread loan aversion among prospective higher education students in both countries. But students in the United States are more debt averse than their peers in England. These debt averse attitudes also predict lower intentions to pursue higher education, potentially exacerbating existing inequalities in access. We consider how these attitudes to borrowing are likely shaped by each country's distinctive student loan system. We conclude that the design of loans matters. England's income‐contingent loan repayments, in contrast to North America's mortgage style repayments, make borrowing less risky and reduce the impact of loan aversion on participation decisions, while borrowing is more common, and the system less complicated, in England. Thus, there are lessons for other countries considering introducing student loans or reforming their provision. We contribute to the extant literature on the determinants of, and socioeconomic differences in, higher education participation and the overlooked role of student debt aversion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Countries around the world are striving to improve their educational systems with a view to improving their economy and society. In this global competition, national and international test results are of considerable interest. In this paper, we show that national testing in England and the USA have shown little or no improvement over the years. This finding is not isolated; it appears to be a global phenomenon. Data from large-scale international assessments such as PISA, TIMSS and PIRLS are remarkably stable over time. This paper reviews the trends from country-specific and international data and explores some of the reasons which have been offered for such stability. We argue that these explanations are insufficient and ways forward are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this special issue exploring parents' responses to neoliberal policy changes, especially shifting notions of risk and responsibility, this article provides a historical account of local and national policy initiatives in the contemporary United States that have increased risk and placed responsibility for this risk on the shoulders of parents (as well as educators). The opening section of the paper reviews major recent policy documents and initiatives in the United States, from the landmark 1983 report 'A Nation at Risk' to the current age of test-based accountability. In the following sections, the paper explores what two Chicago parents themselves had to say about risk and responsibility in public schooling. What, in their views, were the actual risks? What did they think their responsibilities were, as parents? What did they do in response to the shifting policyscape? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How did narratives about character education in the United States change between 1985 and 2016 and what does this reveal about the changing meaning of character over this time period? Policymakers and pundits have frequently invoked ideas of "good" versus "bad" character as they attempt to blame individuals for their own circumstances. It makes sense to trace these narratives in their various forms, beginning with the discourse around character and children. Character education programs are a natural object to study in order to capture these narratives. Despite this, sociologists have largely ignored character education, which leaves a significant gap in the scholarly knowledge about both character education and the social construction of designations of "good" versus "bad" character more generally. In this paper, I address this gap by examining the narratives around character education between 1985 and 2016. After analyzing 600 articles from Education Week and the New York Times mentioning character education, I find that there is a significant expansion of the ways in which advocates argue for character education in the schools. Whereas earlier narratives encouraged character education as a means to teach students how to be good, moral people starting in the early 2000s, these narratives expanded to include teaching character as a means to improve academic performance. This finding is significant as we continue to see both education reformers pushing for character education as a tactic to improve achievements and policymakers and pundits invoking character flaws as a means to blame individuals for structural inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rate of students switching from public schools to private schools because they received a scholarship and would not have switched without the subsidy ("switcher rate") is an integral factor for reliably estimating the net fiscal impact of private school choice programs. Switcher rates observed among students in control groups in random assignment studies can provide useful information for inferring switcher rates among program participants when conducting fiscal analyses. This paper identifies 27 estimates of switcher rates from eight lottery-based evaluations of six private school choice programs in the United States that report information about which types of school students enroll in after they apply to a choice program and do not win a lottery. Switcher rates for both full samples and subgroups of students range from 52 percent to 98 percent. Lower bound weighted average and median switcher rates from these studies are 84 percent. Upper bound weighted average and median switcher rates are 90 percent and 89 percent, respectively. Switcher rates are slightly higher for African American students participating in three privately funded school choice programs, where the average switcher rate for these students is 93 percent and the median is 94 percent. Switcher rates observed in these studies are remarkably stable across time and states, and they can provide useful information for inferring switcher rates in fiscal analyses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Educational paraprofessionals have had an increased presence in English state schools since the first decade of the 21st century, but research has been limited in terms of who undertakes paraprofessional roles, what they entail and how such work is perceived by others. This paper compares one such paraprofessional role, the learning mentor, with the 'community agent', found in the United States of America during the 1960 s. It identifies a number of similarities around the lived experience of this work in terms of status, career progression and policy assumptions about the efficacy of these roles. It argues that a historical analysis is invaluable in gaining a more complete understanding of how such roles have an air of impermanency, are subject to the vagaries of policy but nevertheless continue to be recycled as a limited and partial response to deepening social and educational inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Charter school legislation permits new actors to compete for public funds to provide education to K-12 students across the United States. Proponents of market-oriented policies predict that privatization cuts costs and improves service quality, by removing bureaucracy and boosting creativity. These schools were predicted to become laboratories of innovation that would use their flexibility from state and local requirements to improve public education. This study suggests that the less regulated service systems may have also propagated an environment susceptible to managerial and accountability inadequacies, if not outright integrity violations and corruption. Using systematic document review and the existing literature on corruption in education, a typology of integrity violations and corruption in the charter school sector is developed in this paper. A better understanding of the characteristics of the institutional environment that enable corrupt behavior is necessary to develop effective strategies to prevent corruption, protect children, and manage public funds effectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using Critical Race Theory, this paper explores existing narratives within state social studies content standards - specifically secondary United States history and government/civics courses. This paper analyzes how the issue of gerrymandering, racial gerrymandering, and modern voter suppression is addressed in content standards from all 50 states and the District of Columbia. This paper also seeks to understand how academic content standards address the Voting Rights Act of 1965. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From Facebook-coordinated high-school walkouts to compelling Internet-based protest art that has accompanied recent teacher strikes, grassroots education activism in the USA has gone digital. Despite the proliferation of research on the mediatisation of education policy, few studies have explored the ways in which activists for public education engage with Web 2.0 technologies. This paper makes a contribution to this under-researched area by exploring selected activist accounts including Parents Across America, United Opt Out National, and the PS 2013 campaign in New York City. I draw on critical, feminist, and cultural studies theories of education and social movement media to analyse activist media practices in a policy and political milieu dominated by corporate media and neoliberal governance structures. The analysis reveals that progressive education activists strategically deploy digital media to amplify voice, build collective identity, and disseminate alternative knowledge to enable direct action. A situated analysis also reveals significant differences in activist media practice which are shaped by particular political histories and geographies. The paper concludes with a discussion about future lines of inquiry into the role of digital media in collective struggles for public education. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Despite the body of literature around practicing teachers and policy (Knapp, Ferguson, Bamberg, & Hill, 1998; Kumar & Scuderi, 2000; Lortie, 1975/2002), little is known about the involvement of their preservice counterparts. Preservice teachers have limited exposure to policy-related coursework in their professional training (Floden & Meniketti, 2005) and scholarship is relatively silent regarding preservice teachers' experiences with educational policies and their sense-making process (Spillane, 2004; Weick, 1995; see Heineke, Ryan, & Tocci, 2015, for a notable exception). This paper examines preservice teachers negotiating and making sense of a particular policy, the Massachusetts' Rethinking Equity and Teaching for English Language Learners (RETELL). It addresses the following questions: First, what do preservice teachers know about policy in general and the RETELL language policy in particular? Second, how do preservice teachers make sense of the implementation of the RETELL policy in the various settings of their professional training? Third, in what ways do preservice teachers' experiences with the policy influence their orientations toward teaching emergent bilingual students? This analysis demonstrates that preservice teachers have limited general knowledge of educational policy process, and limited specific knowledge around the RETELL language policy. Yet, they learn important lessons about how to "do" policy from their field supervisors and play an important role in policy implementation. The impact of the RETELL policy on preservice teachers' beliefs about teaching emergent bilingual students is mediated by the lack of policy information they receive and by their experiences in the field. This paper adds to the limited literature around preservice teachers involvement in policy and offers recommendations for highlighting the importance of policy education in teacher training. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I apply Mettler's concept of the 'submerged state' to aid for children at private schools in the United States, including education vouchers, in-kind aid, and property tax exemptions. All aid policies are 'submerged' in that they help private organizations take on state functions but some are more submerged than others. Theoretically, this paper distinguishes between subcategories of submergence. Using policy data from 50 states and an original database of court challenges between 1912 and 2015, I employ probit regression with sample selection to evaluate the effect of submergence on successful court challenge. I find that more submerged policies are less likely to be successfully challenged than less submerged policies. Submerged policy design enables supporters to avoid legal as well as political challenge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the United States, adult and workforce education (AE) seems to be located, simultaneously, both everywhere and nowhere in particular. Ongoing shifts in national economic demands and changes in requirements for training and education have brought learning in the adult years into the federal public policy arena. Sometimes referred to as lifelong learning, AE has proven to be a somewhat vague concept as a basis for federal policy formulation, but its existence signals an important federal locus of responsibility for learning in adulthood. This historical examination of the AE policy domain offers a review of the formulation, and more specifically how AE policy has been framed, where AE policy originated, and its progression over time. Primary U.S. legislative documents, federal agency reports, and federal white papers spanning the years 1862 to 2014 were reviewed to present a survey of the AE policy area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background/Context: Minoritized youth from historically marginalized backgrounds continue to face systemic inequities in STEM. Existing strategies aimed at increasing diversity in STEM, which are guided by the STEM "pipeline" metaphor and are deficit-oriented, have yielded lackluster results. Purpose/Objective/Research Questions/Focus of Study: This paper investigates how minoritized youth attempted to build connecting pathways between STEM-related worlds, how such attempts unfolded, and the resultant outcomes pertaining to their developing STEM expertise and subsequent STEM engagement. We introduce the idea of pathhacking, where youth had to create their own pathways into STEM, often with improvised tools and in treacherous territory, because there were no pre-laid paths. Research Design/Data Collection and Analysis: Data were drawn from longitudinal critical ethnography of 48 youths across STEMengagement spaces, in both community and formal school spaces. Attention is paid to the particular resources, both relational and material, and the barriers that affect youths' efforts to hack pathways toward deeper and more connected engagement in STEM. Spaces included school classrooms, school settings, after-school STEM programs held in community clubs, other spaces in communities such as residential neighborhoods, and local universities. Findings/Results: Three broad claims are presented: (a) Pathhacking involves youth engaging in practices that challenge and expand ways of being in STEM-related spaces; (b) Pathhacking practices, when coordinated through social activity, reorganize social worlds for both individuals and collectives, expanding future pathhacking possibilities; (c) To aid in pathhacking, youth utilize tools including critical STEM-mobility artifacts and allies as brokers across scales of activity. Conclusions: The current U.S. education-policy climate focuses attention on student achievement in individual subject areas, highlighting the achievement gap. We illustrate the challenges minoritized youth face as they seek more consequential STEM engagement through hacking connecting pathways. Institutions, people, tools, and practices--all imbued with and embedded in histories--have structured these youths' opportunities to hack connecting pathways and have also provided points of access and resistance for the youth to resist marginalization during the process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fairness is one of the most important quality criteria of assessments and a necessary condition for valid test score interpretations. In this paper, we describe findings related to an assessment of N = 7664 beginning business and economics students at 46 universities across Germany using a domain-specific higher education entry test. From the perspective of test fairness as defined by the internationally established validation standards outlined by AERA et al. (Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing, AERA, Washington, DC, 2014), we identify which students had particular difficulty completing the test, taking into account gender- and language-related influence factors in the assessment of their test performance. Our results highlight the particular challenges in admissions testing in higher education. One of these challenges is finding a suitable way to address the disadvantages experienced by various groups of students to guarantee fairness and ethical integrity when developing and administering tests. Current migration developments and the overall internationalization of higher education have led to an increasing heterogeneity of student bodies. These challenges are therefore of particular relevance for education policy and practice when it comes to ensuring fairness when assessing learning outcomes for all student groups. This also applies in the context of commonly used standardized assessments and established examination practices in higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the process of assessment in social work education programs throughout the United States. Following the guidelines of the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) 2008 Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards (EPAS), social work education has switched from student learning outcomes to competency-based measures. Included in this study is a literature review on current assessment practices and results of a research project on assessment practices in social work education programs nationwide. The findings may be useful to social work educators in addressing programmatic changes and revisions based on the 2015 EPAS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The principal goal of this paper is to examine the transformation of the university policies in Azerbaijan as they are affected by UK and USA university discourses. I develop a framework that delineates modal verbs of very strong versus neutral stance and classify them according to (a) American and British Englishes, and according to (b) traditional and student-centred educational approaches. The above-mentioned categories of modal verbs are studied through various university documentations with a preliminary aim to analyse the frequency of modal verbs' occurrence and the cultural and ideological values they denote regarding power relationships. Based on the findings, the research provides a tentative theory of the effectiveness of modalities in interpreting educational policies, in particular with regards to the empowerment or manipulation discourses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between education policy and workforce policy has long been uneasy. It is widely believed in many quarters of American society that the U.S. education system is in decline and, what's more, that it bears significant responsibility for a wide range of social ills, including stagnant wages, increasing inequality, high unemployment, and overall economic lethargy. However, as analyzed in this paper, the preponderance of evidence suggests that the U.S. education system has produced ample supplies of students to respond to STEM labor market demand. The "pipeline" of STEM-potential students is similarly strong and expanding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comparisons of US student achievement to other countries, conducted since the 1960s, have received extensive media coverage in the USA. Policy studies have cited these comparisons as evidence that the quality of US educational performance in mathematics and science requires federal intervention. Policy makers have been particularly concerned that the US economy would be impacted by inadequate student achievement levels especially in technology-related industries. This paper explores evidence about whether policy makers react to the citations of international student achievement rankings by changing funding levels for educational research and whether the studies have motivated the nation's educators to support a trend toward common educational standards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After the Civil War (1861–1865), the United States faced a problem of “reconstruction” similar to that confronted by other nations at the time and familiar to the US since at least the Mexican–American War (1846–1848). The problem was one of territorial and political (re)integration: how to take territories that had only recently been operating under “foreign” governance and integrate them into an expanded nation-state on common structural terms. This paper considers the significance of education in that process of state (re)formation after the Civil War, with particular attention to its role in federal territories of the US West. Specifically, this paper analyses the role that education-based restrictions on citizenship, voting rights and office-holding played in constructing formal state power in the cases of five western territories: Hawaii, Indian Territory, Oklahoma, Arizona and New Mexico. A focus on the significance of education in these cases both advances and challenges literature on the “hidden” and decentralised structure of national policy-making in the US. It adds to that literature by illuminating how education served as an indirect tool of national policy in the West, effectively shaping the structure of power in other policy domains. At the same time, by focusing on the US West, the present analysis challenges the idea that national governance in the US was particularly “decentralised” or “hidden”. It highlights instead: (1) the role of colonial racialism in shaping national responsibility and authority for education in the US; and (2) the significance of education as both an alternative and a corollary to war in establishing US colonial power. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper provides a comparative analysis of national curriculum reforms in Australia and the USA, set against the backdrop of global trends since the 1980s. The analysis is driven by an interest in the reconstitution of national policy spaces in global times, and draws particularly upon Stephen Carney’s notion ofglobal policy-scapesas a way of understanding the complex and disjunctive flows of transnational policy ideas and practices. The paper begins by arguing that reforms since the early 1980s have been driven by global panics about globalisation, equity and market competitiveness. These global influences have underpinned parallel reform attempts in each country, including the development of national goals in the late 1980s, failed attempts at national standards in the early 1990s and rejuvenated attempts towards national consistency in the 2000s. Building on this, we argue that despite shared global drivers and broad historical similarities, reforms in each country remain distinct in scope and form, due to several unique features that inform the national policy space of each country. These distinctive national policy spaces provide differentconditions of possibilityfor reform, reminding us that despite global commonalities, policy reforms are relational and locally negotiated. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Dramatic increases have occurred in the number of children who speak languages other than English at home in the United States and English language learners (ELLs) need support both for becoming proficient in English and for maintaining their first language. In this paper, five types of bilingual education implemented in the United States are reviewed: submersion, English as a second language instruction; transitional bilingual education; maintenance bilingual education; two-way immersion (TWI), with TWI programs being the focus for most of the paper. A brief history of the policy evolution of bilingual education in the United States is provided. Research reviewed suggests that compared to students exposed to other programs, students in TWI programs are better off in terms of achievement and in L1 and L2 development. Although benefits of TWI programs are demonstrated, limitations of the current research also exist, and are discussed. Challenges implementing TWI programs are discussed and policy recommendation are included. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is designed to specify a set of new opportunities for educators, school administrators, and scholars to realize the practical aims and strategic advantages envisioned in magnet schools. The paper is divided into three distinct sections. In Section I, we examine the extensive research literature on parents’ choice patterns and school preferences in magnet schools and other school-choice programs. In Section II, we compare the reasons parents choose particular schools with the criteria school districts use to select magnet school locations (and themes). This section highlights desegregation goals and district-level magnet school policies pegged to the following questions: What is the policy context for siting decisions in districts with magnet schools? Are siting policies strategically aligned with what is known from the research literature about parents’ school preferences? Do neighborhood characteristics play a part in magnet school siting policies and specific decision-making? In Section III, we use geographic information system (GIS) tools to add both clarity and complexity to the convergence of parent choice patterns and sociodemographic diversity in our four selected school districts. The maps depict the racial and socioeconomic characteristics of the magnet schools in each district, as well as the demographic characteristics of surrounding census tracts (extended school neighborhoods). We conclude that GIS can be a viable option for improving the citing decisions for magnet schools, and that this can allow for the merging of parent choice priorities with educational equity and diversity goals of the district. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

For decades, educational scholars have claimed that public schools are loosely coupled organizations, but research does not fully address how schools create the coupling structure. Recent federal policies have centralized the public education system, but state laws, districts, and principals still play a prominent role in shaping the organization of schools. In this paper, I investigate how the multiple tiers of the public education system influence the coupling structures of schools. Utilizing all seven waves of the Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS), I rely on OLS regression to analyze how couplings emerge within schools. Findings suggest three major influences on coupling within schools. First, federal policies have had a non-linear effect on school-level coupling. Second, the relationship between the district and the school affects school-level coupling. Finally, principals play a key role in shaping the coupling within the school, and coupling is a gendered process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the current paper, we employ the most recent Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) data to calculate a lessbiased estimate of poverty on US achievement. The PISA was specifically chosen as it is an assessment removed from a specific curriculum and instead focuses on concepts that students should know in order to participate in a global economy. Using a propensity score matching approach, our findings suggest that US students in poverty have notable educational attainment deficiencies compared to a matched group of students who are not in poverty. In other words, when we select two students who have a great deal in common but for the fact that one comes from a poverty background, the student in poverty is expected to perform nearly 28 points, or about a quarter of a standard deviation lower, on the PISA assessment. In real terms, this puts math achievement for children not in poverty on-par with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) average, while children in poverty are well below the OECD average. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The International Baccalaureate (IB) is noted in school reform policy circles as the gold standard of academic excellence. While the presence of IB as a sought-after education vendor has grown in the past decade, the organization has attempted to shake off its image as an elite agency serving only private international schools with its longstanding liberal arts curriculum. As such its turn toward the public sector in the United States with a credential for vocational students appears perplexing and out of step with its product brand, but the newer Career Programme (CP) is marketed as meeting the needs of applied learners in secondary schools. This paper offers a case study of two schools in one US state that adopted the CP, generating IB school enrollments from among talented vocational students while elevating its ranking on the college and career readiness (CCR) score, an annual assessment of postsecondary success. The CCR policy reformers advocate curricular improvements so that all students receive the academic foundations and employability skills needed to thrive in the new economy. Yet the egalitarian discourse of CCR could not be attended to using the CP. In this case study only high-achieving students were advised to participate and enroll in the program. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper discusses three separate educational projects which involved students working side-by-side with homicide investigators in an effort to conduct cold case investigations. Each project resulted in two different products, one for agency use and the other for public consumption. The cold case investigative reports produced for each case became part of the investigative file and are confidential documents. The video PSAs were for public consumption and were designed to provide additional exposure to the cases with the hope of generating productive tips. Each project was carried in collaboration with local Crime Stoppers programs, law enforcement agencies, and coroner’s offices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent growth in the number of school choice programs across the country has ignited debate on the stratifying effects of these programs. In the context of interdistrict open enrollment, this paper analyzes-both theoretically and empirically-how choice programs affect stratification levels through the mechanisms of (i) the relative characteristics of program participants and nonparticipants and (ii) the schooling choices of different groups of program participants. The theoretical analysis uses Monte Carlo simulation techniques to analyze a hypothetical world where interdistrict choice is available to students in three school districts that are allowed to vary in student composition, the type of students who take advantage of the interdistrict choice program, and schooling choices of students who open enroll. The results of these simulations provide an understanding of the conditions under which an interdistrict open enrollment program leads to increases, decreases, or no changes in stratification levels. The empirical analysis uses data from the universe of students attending Colorado public schools in 2009-10 to examine how the state's interdistrict choice program affects stratification levels. It also analyzes the factors responsible for any increases or decreases in stratification and finds both participation patterns and differences in schooling decisions across groups to play important roles. The paper concludes with a discussion of its implications for research and policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Heated debate over the necessity, efficacy, and legality of public single-sex schooling continues in communities across the U.S. In this introduction to the second part of a special issue on the topic, we provide illustrative descriptions of issues that are common in U.S. school board deliberations on the topic, including issues of ideology, money, race, and science, and legal battles over the outcomes of such decisions. We then summarize the nine papers that appear in the issue. Four papers provide reviews of the laws, neuroscience, and critical race theorizing relevant to single-sex schooling. In addition, two papers present sophisticated re-analyses of important data sets on the topic, and three papers present new empirical data on non-academic outcomes (gender attitudes, peer relations, and body image) associated with single-sex schooling. Finally, we offer conclusions for educational practice and policy based on the current state of scientific evidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background/Context: This opening article, like the other articles in this special issue, is situated in scholarship that attempts to understand the racialized nature of mathematics education in the United States and to examine the racial identities of students and teachers in the context of school mathematics. It is designed to respond to the current (mathematics) education policy context that largely ignores teachers' experiential and cultural knowledge while stressing the importance of teachers" content knowledge and academic achievement. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study: This article presents theoretical perspectives and research questions concerning the knowledge and other resources that African American teachers bring to teaching mathematics, perspectives and questions that are taken up in the five subsequent articles in this special issue. Setting: The cases developed in this special issue were developed from observations of the introductory algebra classes of and interviews with, two well-respected African American teachers in one neighborhood high school in a large urban school district that serves a predominantly African American student population. Research Design: This opening article frames two case study papers and two analysis papers that report on findings from a large-scale qualitative study of the racialized identity and instructional approaches of two of the six African American mathematics teachers studied in the Mid-Atlantic Center for Mathematics Teaching and Learning Algebra 1 Case Studies Project. Conclusions/Recommendations: Together with the other articles in this special issue, this work contributes to the development of more sophisticated attempts to integrate understandings of race into the work of the mathematics education community. It challenges taken-for-granted notions of the knowledge base and resources needed to be an effective mathematics teacher of African American students in underresourced large urban schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using critical race theory as an analytical framework to examine White privilege and institutional racism, two teacher educators, in a rural predominantly White university tell counterstories about teaching for social justice in literacy and mathematics education courses. In sharing our counterstories in this paper, we, women faculty of color, challenge Whiteness and institutional racism with the hopes of: (1) promoting social justice teaching in order to globally prepare (pre-and-in-service) teachers and educational leaders to motivate and empower ALL students to learn; (2) dismantling racism to promote better wellbeing for women faculty of color; and (3) moving educational communities at large closer toward equitable education, which is a fundamental civil right. After analyzing the counterstories, we suggest that university leaders establish policies and practices to support (recruit, retain, and promote) faculty/leaders of color, not just mainstream academics. Working toward equity and justice, we strive to form alliances between Whites and Others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many of the principles and practices that have influenced outdoor education in Aotearoa New Zealand find their genesis in the United Kingdom and North America. In recent times, many of these foundational assumptions have been called into question. This paper highlights how emerging ‘local’ voices are questioning and reframing how outdoor education is conceptualised and practiced. In large part this is due to a sense of distinctiveness borne from the bicultural foundations that underpin governance and policy-making. This paper explores how outdoor educators are developing pedagogies that acknowledge the particularities of our context, particularly the bicultural foundation of Aotearoa New Zealand. The paper highlights how social and cultural influences shape educational policy and how outdoor educators are responding, both theoretically and practically, to meet the needs of learners in an increasingly diverse society. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper utilizes the work of Elise Boulding as a theoretical framework for analyzing the potentials and shortcomings of the US educational policy, No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB)1. The interrelated concepts of respect, solitude, imagination, and partnerships from Boulding’s scholarship are detailed. NCLB is summarized along with its historical context, based in the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, its assumptions, goals, and the arguments of supporters and critics of the policy. Examples of how Boulding’s concepts are and can be employed in the US classrooms, even despite NCLB, are discussed. Concluding the paper, the contradictions between the assumptions and results of NCLB and Boulding’s framework are exposed to ultimately argue that No Child Left Behind must be largely dismantled in order to honor Boulding’s legacy and challenge of enabling peace. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, I critically examine the discourse surrounding response to intervention (RTI), a US-based education reform that has garnered a considerable amount of attention (as well as controversy) in a very short amount of time. A multi-pronged reform effort, RTI is a tiered approach to delivering instructional intervention to students at risk, an on-going and systematic model of monitoring student performance, as well as an alternative to the ability/achievement discrepancy model for identifying learning disabilities. In this paper, I argue, however, that RTI is not so much a reform but a tactic, aimed at returning to the status quo of segregated special education and reinvigorating many of the foundational assumptions of traditional special education practice. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The increasing use of online or cloud collaboration tools in organizations creates a need for students to develop skills in the use of these tools. Instructors have an opportunity to prepare students by incorporating these collaboration tools into their courses. The use of these online collaboration tools has the potential to expose instructors and educational institutions to potential violations of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). In this paper we will explore the benefits of collaboration, a variety of online collaboration tools, FERPA considerations when using such tools, and strategies for staying in compliance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inclusive education is an aim for all nations. To achieve that goal, countries such as Kuwait need to focus on educational policies and strategies designed to ensure that all students benefit from an appropriate educational environment. Factors needed to create inclusive schools are leadership, vision, commitment, professional development and effective instructional practices centered on individualized and differentiated curricula. First, the authors of the paper describe the United States (U.S.) experience with inclusion and how Kuwait can reshape, import, and adopt the U.S. special education model. Second, the authors present recommendations for implementing inclusive education. It is hoped that the recommendations made in this paper move Kuwait forward in a speedy manner as they design and implement inclusive education policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inclusive education is an aim for all nations. To achieve that goal, countries such as Kuwait need to focus on educational policies and strategies designed to ensure that all students benefit from an appropriate educational environment. Factors needed to create inclusive schools are leadership, vision, commitment, professional development and effective instructional practices centered on individualized and differentiated curricula. First, the authors of the paper describe the United States (U.S.) experience with inclusion and how Kuwait can reshape, import, and adopt the U.S. special education model. Second, the authors present recommendations for implementing inclusive education. It is hoped that the recommendations made in this paper move Kuwait forward in a speedy manner as they design and implement inclusive education policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since Breneman and Haarlow (1998) first estimated the national cost of developmental education to be approximately $1 billion dollars, the developmental education landscape has shifted in numerous ways. This paper provides an update to their estimate in light of both these changes and improved data that disaggregates the cost to community colleges and four-year public institutions. An updated national cost estimate of developmental education to public institutions in the academic year 2004-2005 is estimated to be $1.13 billion, a 13% increase over the estimate of Breneman and Haarlow. This paper calls for states to make data on developmental education both transparent and publicly available in order to accurately derive a precise cost of developmental education both at the local and national levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that citizens are capable of developing and promoting complex policy symbols, and that these symbols include supporting frames that explain and justify them. Based on a long-term study of education policies in Los Angeles, California, the paper uses interpretive methods to reconstruct and analyze these frames. Citizens developed two specific policy symbols while the district was engulfed in a desegregation debate; citizens identified schools as places where students gained academic knowledge and as institutions that affected broader race relations. However, education policy in Los Angeles could not support these two symbols over a long period of time, and a political movement to end mandatory busing eventually caused the academic symbol (originally the weaker of the two symbols) to become dominant. This trend reflects broader national discussions, in which education is now discussed in terms of standards and accountability and is evidence of continuing racism in US policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Online learning in K-12 education has grown rapidly in the past decade. Cyber charter schools (CCSs) have been a particularly controversial form of online school, but there is very little scholarly examination of these new organizations. As CCSs expand, policymakers and stakeholders have a critical need to understand how to evolve the charter school policies that govern these new school forms. Focus of Study: Through a three-site case study, this paper (1) explores what current charter policies govern CCSs and (2) outlines the practices in these schools that might illuminate future policy needs. Specifically, the findings highlight how cyber charters problematize existing charter school policies in the areas of authorizers and governance, teacher policy, and student achievement. Research Design: The study presents an exploratory, comparative case study. The exploratory analyses illuminate implications for how policymakers understand governance, teacher policy, and the evaluation of student achievement in cyber charters. The comparative case design also highlights how different state policy contexts might influence the practices of CCSs. Conclusions: Cyber charter schools introduce new ways of delivering public schooling. The study shows how state leadership is vital to coordinate student enrollment across geographic boundaries, funding mechanisms, and conflicts between CCSs and established stakeholders. This paper also illuminates how teaching and learning practices differ in an online environment and introduces questions of teacher preparation and professional practices. Finally, CCSs in this study serve unique, niche student populations that opt out of the traditional school system. These considerations are vital for evaluating student achievement in cyber charters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws on findings from a research project funded by the Scottish Executive which analysed the gender balance in teaching and explored the underlying reasons for the decline in the number and proportion of men, particularly in secondary schools. As in other developed countries, such as Australia, the USA and Canada, the proportion of men entering teaching has declined fairly rapidly over a ten-year period. At a time when women are participating in paid work in greater numbers than ever before, their concentration in certain areas of work, particularly in the service sector and the 'caring' professions, is increasingly apparent. Despite the clarity of this trend, it is evident that responses from academics and policy-makers have been very different, with some policy-makers linking the declining proportion of men in teaching with the problem of boys' underachievement and a perceived 'crisis in masculinity', whilst some feminist writers have questioned these views, drawing on recent gender theory which questions the utility of the binary categories of 'man' and 'woman', instead suggesting that gender is performed and may have little to do with the body of the person who is involved in the particular performance. Sex and gender thus become decoupled, with the focus on individual actors freely choosing the version of gender they wish to practice. This line of argument suggests that the sex of the teacher is irrelevant; what really matters is the way in which they perform gender in the classroom. Work on the gender balance in teaching therefore provides an opportunity to reflect on underlying tensions in gender theorising and policy-making. The paper begins by considering tensions between modernist and post-structuralist accounts of sex and gender. Having outlined the underlying theoretical tensions, it then goes on to consider the accounts given by teachers and students of the reasons for their own choice of teaching as a career, their experiences in teaching and their views of the reasons underlying the declining proportion of men in teaching. The aim is to consider whether students and teachers believe that sex is an important variable structuring their lives, including their decision to become a teacher and their experiences of working as a teacher, or whether they regard gender as something which is chosen from a wide repertoire of options and is relatively free from the constraints of embodiment. In relation to research on the gender balance in teaching, the paper concludes by suggesting that there is a need to make use of the idea of gender as performance, whilst at the same time holding on to the foundational concepts of 'woman' and 'man'. This is necessary to monitor and understand the career paths and underlying power relations of women and men in teaching and to transform these over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A good part of the recent public debate in US educational policy circles has focused on the myriad challenges we face as a nation on literacy achievement particularly in urban communities and among African Americans. In this paper, we examine the problem of framing in literacy that confronts advocates and policy makers who seek to address this deeply entrenched social issue but are challenged by numerous structural constraints on the part of the government, the community and the individual. The paper presents arguments embedded in critical race theories that raise questions surrounding why and how long the illiteracy issue can be framed as an 'African American dilemma or problem' and whether Eurocentric approaches in the classroom should be replaced by Afrocentric ones to improve scholastic achievement among African Americans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The role of for-profit educational organizations in the predominantly public and not-for-profit K-12 US schooling system is being fiercely debated across our nation. Little empirical research is available to help policy-makers develop informed decisions regarding the educational value that for-profit schools provide to our students. This paper fills in part, for the first time in detail, this void. This paper uses a four-year panel of charter schools from the state of Michigan to estimate a school-level education production function and employ a random effects model that controls for student and district characteristics. The results find no evidence of a change in efficiency when a charter school is run by a for-profit company (versus a not-for-profit company). The analysis developed in this paper takes the debate one step further as well, and examines the role that the size of for-profit firms plays in the associated outcomes. There is some evidence that small for-profit companies are either less efficient or enroll a different type of cohort of students than not-for-profit schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to broadly describe and provide insight into the national dialogue in the USA concerning accountability for educational results in academic institutions. Design/methodology/approach - The approach takes the form of a thorough survey of the key questions, current issues, and organizational players in this national dialogue. Findings - Policy makers and educators should use the present opportunity to work together, focusing not on narrow one-size-fits-all measures but on the improvement of a new generation of complementary approaches. Originality/value - The paper presents a clear articulation and discussion of the key questions that are driving the national dialogue on this topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes two questions: where does United States public administration is going and which would be the best way to build its path toward the future. The author begins discussing through a historical point of view, where it is clear that there are important intellectual confusions. These are not only due to the relatively short existence of the discipline in United States, but also in deeper cultural traditions of such country. Next, the author tries to draw the conceptual boundaries of the discipline and discusses which are its special fields, scientific techniques, methodology, and emergent categories. Last but not least, the paper proposes a particular perspective regarding the direction that the United States administrative science might take given the lack of a concept of the State (beginning with its constitutional design) which might be taken as a fact for this country, continuing to affecting the United States perspective on public administration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The thrust of this paper is to critically analyze the societal impact of the No Child Left Behind Act. The paper traces the history and evolution of Federal governmental involvement in education, particularly curriculum, culminating in the passage and implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. It further analyzes the societal impact of the act in the areas of funding, equity, social stratification, and overall success in achieving the act's stated goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the progress of educational programme evaluation over three decades through the lens of a group of evaluators primarily from the UK and the US who met periodically from 1972 to 2004 to review the state of the art of educational programme evaluation- what it could and could not do- in relation to the complexity of programme initiatives and the policy and political contexts of the times. These meetings came to be known as the Cambridge conferences as they were always held at a university college in Cambridge. They were sponsored in the main by the Nuffield Foundation and, in 2004, by the ESRC. The nucleus of original group membership was retained over the years for continuity with additional members joining as the specific focus of the conference changed and new ideas were sought. There have been six conferences. This paper first locates the contextual origin of and reason for the first conference and the manifesto that was written from it. Secondly it documents the revisiting of that manifesto at the sixth conference leading to the construction of a 'new' manifesto that reflects changes required in evaluation methodology in the socio/political context of the first decade of the twenty-first century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]