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Community schools extend traditional school responsibilities by providing additional resources to support students, families, and communities, and ultimately attempt to change the school institution. Integral to the institutionalization of community schools are community school managers (CSMs) and their institutional work. Drawing from institutional theory, this study uses interview data to explore the deliberate actions taken by CSMs to create institutions, focusing on their efforts to develop their institutional identities and change normative associations. Institutional identities of CSMs were defined by their implementational responsibilities and organizational positioning. While CSMs skillfully identified, provided, and allocated resources within their implementational identity, the organizational identity remained ambiguous, lacking clarity on their organizational position or consistency in the teams on which they served. CSMs struggled to create normative associations that linked the resources they provided to the community school strategy. Moreover, the local leadership structure and principal support significantly and differentially impacted CSMs' institutional work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The new standards for K-12 science education suggest that student learning should be more integrated and should focus on crosscutting concepts and core ideas from the areas of physical science, life science, Earth/space science, and engineering/technology. This paper describes large-scale, urban elementary-focused science, technology, engineering, and mathematics ( STEM) collaboration between a large urban school district, various STEM-focused community stakeholders, and a research-focused private university. The collaboration includes the development of an integrated STEM curriculum for grade K-5 with accompanying teacher professional development. This mixed-methodology study describes findings from focus group interviews and a survey of teachers from Title I elementary schools. Findings suggest the importance of the following critical features of professional development: (a) coherence, (b) content focus, (c) active learning, (d) collective participation, and (e) duration to the success of large-scale STEM urban elementary school reform [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article addresses the need for novice teachers to receive exposure and experiences related to family engagement as part of their academic preparation to better facilitate their actual parent involvement practices. In a graduate-level parent involvement in education course, early childhood educators had an opportunity to engage in a variety of family engagement practices and reflect on the effectiveness and outcomes for the students and their families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research investigated African American fathers' involvement in the school-based lives of their elementary-aged children using the Hoover-Dempsey and Sandler model of parent involvement and Epstein's framework of involvement. Questionnaires were administered to 101 African American males in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States. Multiple regression analyses found predictive relationships between attitudes and behaviors that influence African American fathers' decisions to be involved and the types of involvement related to the child's schooling. Results revealed significant findings for (a) Invitations from Others and home-school communication, (b) Fathers' Life Context and school-based parent involvement, and (c) Fathers' Life Context and Invitations from Others and the overall parent involvement score. Implications for the field of family involvement are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses various reports published within the issue including articles about the social and environmental determinants of academic success among African American students, articles about the facilitators of academic success, and articles about family influences on academic success.

The article discusses the struggle of African Americans to receive equal rights in the United States. The author divides the Civil Rights Movement into two phases: the Reconstruction period from 1865 to 1877 and the U.S. Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education period from 1954. Topics include the Plessy v. Ferguson case from 1896, which allowed state segregation, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Mobile games can foster the early mathematics skills of children in poverty at home. This randomized controlled trial examines the efficacy of Escribo Play, an evidence-based, game-enhanced early mathematics program with an initial pool of 2980 first-grade students from 267 classrooms in 132 schools located in Brazil. The intervention reached 47% of the children who installed and used the application. Students from 56 classrooms (20%) did not use the application. The intervention retained 51% of those who installed the application. Children of the experimental group who played Escribo Play advanced 2.27 times more than the increase of the control group for number identification, 2.78 times more in count-sequence, 1.73 times more in geometric shape, and 1.41 times more in spatial sense. The overall reduction in disparities between participants from pretest to posttest of the experimental group was 9.1 times higher than the control group, indicating that the intervention reduced learning inequality for those that played the games. The higher gains observed among those children who used Escribo Play may be attributed to its interactive nature, employing evidence-based instructional strategies with engaging and interactive content (i.e., animation and games). The cost per pupil is much lower than reported in 90% of other educational interventions. The application is easy to scale and provides learning gains for first-grade students. • The intervention retained 51% of the children. • Students who played advanced 2.27 times more in number identification. • They advanced 2.78x more in count-sequence and 1.73x more in geometric shape. • On average the children that played advanced twice more than the others. • Learning disparities were reduced 9.1 times more among the children that played. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a lesson plan for secondary education which teaches the history of the U.S. Civil Rights Movement as well as secession attempts in some states following Barack Obama's win in the 2012 U.S. presidential elections.

BACKGROUND: School‐based health centers (SBHCs) fill critical pediatric health care access gaps but typically require parental consent for enrollment. Families' responses to SBHC consent form outreach efforts may reflect broader school engagement. This study investigated whether SBHC consent form return predicted subsequent chronic absenteeism and school transition, indicators of student and family school engagement. METHODS: Multivariable logistic regression was used to compare the odds of being chronically absent or transitioning out of a US elementary/middle school (n = 1917) during 2015‐2016 and 2016‐2017 for those who declined SBHC enrollment or did not return a consent form, compared to those who enrolled. RESULTS: Compared to enrolled students, those who declined had 78% lower odds of chronic absenteeism [95% CI: 0.09, 0.54]. Families who did not respond had 2.8 times greater odds of their student transitioning out of school [95% CI: 2.15, 3.58] but were no more likely to be chronically absent. Conclusions: Consent form return may predict aspects of broader students and family school engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Can mobile games foster the early literacy skills of children in poverty? This pioneering study examines the barriers faced to implement an evidence-based, game-enhanced educational phonological and phonemic awareness program in 12 public schools serving students in poverty in a developing country. The deployment team adequately mitigated barriers such as the lack of proper information and communication technologies and school staff shortages. School interruptions due to sports events, three strikes, and rain that flooded the streets where children in poverty lived challenged the implementation of the intervention. In addition to discussing barriers we faced in the implementation, we also examined the mobile-based intervention's efficacy on 351 kindergarten students' word reading and writing skills. The experimental group children grew 3.63 times more than the control group in reading (d = 0.67) and 2.78 times more in writing (d = 0.36). Compared to 495 high-quality interventions, the Escribo Play effect size ranked above 90% of them. Its per-pupil cost is equivalent to one percent of the average educational intervention cost. Compared with 104 reading interventions conducted in kindergarten, the Escribo Play effect size was 3.35 times stronger than the reading intervention benchmark. • ICT and staffing issues of schools serving children in poverty were mitigated. • School closures due to strikes, floods and sports events harmed the delivery. • Children advanced 3.63 times more in reading and 2.78 times more in writing. • The effect of the games was 3.35 times stronger than 104 reading interventions. • Mobile-based reading instruction was 2.79 times more effective than computer-based. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study was to examine whether a networked mentoring program aligned with the racial/cultural identity development model could mitigate social isolation and promote a sense of belonging among first-year racial and ethnic minority Doctor of Physical Therapy students. Mentoring teams consisted of a first-year minority student, a faculty mentor, and a second-year minority peer mentor. First-year mentees described feeling more connected to the institution through interactions with peer and faculty mentors in mentoring sessions and networking events. Faculty mentors demonstrated a significant increase in cross-cultural psychological capital throughout the six-month intervention period. Peer mentors articulated their professional growth through participating in the networked mentoring model, highlighting the reciprocal benefits associated with mentoring. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]