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As elementary teachers in U.S. public schools strive to adapt their instruction to support growing numbers of students learning English as an additional language, they must also navigate institutional constraints and affordances beyond their classroom-level interactions. Even as teachers plan and implement instruction within their own classrooms, their work is strongly influenced by the functional systems at the school and district levels. Despite this growing awareness, few studies have examined how these functional systems impact elementary teachers’ efforts to redesign and refine their instruction for multilingual students, often labeled as English language learners (ELLs). Through the use of qualitative methods, this article illuminates elementary teachers’ perspectives on the functional systems that afford and constrain their abilities to improve their instruction to support ELLs. As teacher educators of a graduate-level ELL endorsement program for in-service elementary teachers, we sought to investigate what impacts teachers’ instruction on a daily basis. This article centers on this research question: How do elementary teachers perceive and navigate functional systems within schools as they endeavor to support multilingual students? [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Millions of young people receive part of their education in the U.S. and part in Mexico. However, neither the U.S. nor Mexican schools are prepared to educate students from "the other side." This commonly results in loss of school credit, poor academic preparation and dropping out, which leads to very limited job opportunities and wasted human talent. This article suggests several ways in which this problem can be addressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Functional behavior assessment and function-based support have increasingly been used in school settings in the past decade. This increased use has come under scrutiny from some experts who have argued in the past that function-based support has not yet been proven to be effective in typical school settings with students without severe disabilities. But recent research has demonstrated its effectiveness in general education settings, and current research is providing insight into procedures that can enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of functional behavior assessment and function-based support in typical school settings. In this article the authors provide six guidelines for effective functional behavior assessment and support in school settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how community organizations can use research to identify community education interests and influence school systems to serve those interests. A case study of the Southeast Education Task Force in Baltimore, Maryland, analyzes the organization's efforts to develop a school facility plan and persuade the school system to adopt and implement it. The organization combined formal research on school facilities, political research on allies and decision-makers, and informal collection of local knowledge. It used this research to develop short-term and long-range facility and capital improvement plans. With the research, the organization persuaded the school system to repair school facilities and assisted the system in persuading State decision-makers to approve a new neighborhood school. The article identifies conditions under which community organizations are likely to conduct and use research, as well as conditions under which they may use research influentially with a school system. The case illustrates ways community organizations can use research to hold school systems accountable for responding to community agendas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]