Since the early 1980s, American educational reformers tried to improve schools through standards, high-stakes tests, and punishments for those schools that failed to meet the mark. In North Carolina, many schools with diverse populations and low socioeconomic status struggled to succeed, receiving the state performance grade of D or F and the…

School bullying is a serious problem. It is associated with negative effects for bullies, targets, and bystanders. Bullying is related to school shootings, student suicides, and poor academic outcomes. Yet, this issue cannot be solved by way of simple, one-size-fits-all solutions. Instead, school bullying is a complex, systemic issue that requires…

Educational policies are tools that the state prepares to generate conditions that allow access to and retention in schools, with the consequent reduction in school failure, increasing the external yield and fulfilling the expectations of the internal agents (teachers, students, school managers), external users (families, society, employers,…

Gypsy children low school engagement, high rates of school dropout, and pervasive school failure are relevant societal challenges that may be explained by Gypsy people cultural mores, but also by the discriminatory behaviors of school peers. The latter may be a consequence of insufficient accurate knowledge of Gypsy culture. The present study…

Homelessness is a devastating circumstance for any child or youth; but for youth on their own, the stresses of homelessness are multiplied. The myriad of challenges faced by youth experiencing homelessness on their own puts these students at risk of dropping out or school failure. Subtitle VII-B of the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act,…

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, distance education became the only official form of instruction in all schools in Croatia for a period commencing 16 March 2020. This situation changed the expectations, roles and responsibilities of parents with regard to the teaching and learning process of their children. Understanding parents' experiences during…

In this scholarly commentary, the author examines the major reasons U.S. charter schools have closed since 1992. The commentary provides examples of charter school failures in high-frequency areas, such as financial and organizational mismanagement, and academic underperformance; it further identifies two subcategories of academic risk:…

Former NFL football star Deion Sanders set off controversy when he announced he was leaving his post as head football coach at Mississippi's Jackson State University, a historically Black college or university (HBCU), to go to University of Colorado. Jonathan E. Collins discusses how the concept of HBCUs could be taken up by public schools that…

Original narratives from six high-achieving African American junior high school students discussing their goal-setting and goal-pursuit processes in light of being Black youth in America are presented. The study purpose was to begin the work of identifying the substance of productive behaviors among the most frequently noted population of…

Schooling can often function as a structure contributing to the reproduction of an American Dream of material and social success, but it can also reproduce an American nightmare of marginalization. Research studies have noted young men of color populate negative outcomes of academic achievement with trends of low test scores, overrepresentation in…

Some elementary school students have experienced school failure and exhibited severe emotional, social, and problematic behaviors that have affected their academic progress. Some behaviors stem from emotional and behavioral disorders, abuse, bullying, and sociocultural and socioeconomic problems. Other behaviors develop because of teachers'…

Three generations of developmental epidemiologically based randomized field trials of the Good Behavior Game (GBG) have been delivered to Baltimore elementary schools. With the collaboration of family and community partners, all three trials were directed at decreasing proximal targets of aggressive behavior and improving learning in first-grade…

Guided reading is a popular approach to teaching reading in today's schools. With the increase of schools and districts implementing response-to-intervention programs, guided reading can be easily enhanced to provide additional supports for students at risk for school failure who exhibit learning and behavioral challenges. This column offers…

Students who demonstrate the most challenging behaviors are at risk of school failure and are often placed in alternative schools, in which a primary goal is remediating behavioral and academic concerns to facilitate students' return to their community school. Consistently implemented evidence-based classroom management is necessary toward this…

Early intervention for children with reading impairments is crucial in order to achieve reading improvements and avoid school failure. One line of reading intervention research focuses on the experimental manipulation of reading rate through a text-fading training approach. Considering relevant reading-related predictors (i.e., orthographic…