Purpose: In New Zealand, legislation was introduced to regulate the types of food sold and promoted in schools but 15 months later, part of the legislation was repealed. The purpose of this paper is to determine the extent to which a sample of schools implemented positive changes when the legislation was introduced and the extent to which they…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to discuss a curriculum change in the provision of health promotion in pre-service teacher education in a one-year postgraduate certificate in education (PGCE) secondary course in one Higher Education Institution (HEI) in England. Design/methodology/approach: The paper describes the iterative development…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to introduce the HEPS project ("H"ealthy "E"ating and "P"hysical Activity in "S"chools) and discuss initial steps of the project implementation within EU countries. On the basis of the Health Promoting School approach as a conceptual foundation for the project, HEPS aimed at developing and implementing an…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to report the outcome of a city-wide survey of teenagers' views on their health, and compare this with the outcomes of a science-oriented health intervention called LifeLab, a hospital-based classroom aimed at developing teenagers' attitudes towards their health and that of their future children.…

This article interrogates the workings of the Broad Superintendents Academy, as a specific illustration of the influence of venture philanthropy in American public education. It introduces the Broad Foundation's agenda for educational leadership training, foregrounding how it frames the problem of leadership and the implications of such training…

The current era of standards and accountability in U.S. public schooling narrows recognition and assessment to an almost exclusive focus on the production of test scores as legitimate markers of student achievement. This climate prevents rather than encourages democratic forms of exchange within and across social worlds. Via a case study of one…

In her 1938 epistolary novel and educational treatise, "Three Guineas," Virginia Woolf discusses "freedom from unreal loyalties" as key to educating for peace rather than for war, as was the concern in Woolf's time and remarkably remains of serious concern seventy-odd years later. This essay analyzes how modern-day, post-9/11 U.S. public education…

Citizen science is fundamentally about participation within and for communities. Attempts to merge citizen science with schooling must call not only for a democratization of schooling and science but also for the democratization of the ways in which science is taken up by, with, and for citizen participants. Using this stance, along with critical…

Mueller, Tippins, and Bryan (2012) presented a new conceptualization of citizen science that is meant to facilitate emerging trends in the democratization of science and science education to produce civically engaged students. I review some relevant trends in the field of citizen science, for clarity here referred to as public participation in…

Mueller, Tippins, and Bryan's contrast of the current limitations of science education with the potential virtues of citizen science provides an important theoretical perspective about the future of democratized science and K-12 education. However, the authors fail to adequately address the existing barriers and constraints to moving…

The article "There Is No Culturally Responsive Teaching Spoken Here: A Critical Race Perspective" by Cleveland Hayes and Brenda C. Juarez suggests that the current focus on meeting standards incorporates limited thoughtful discussions related to complex notions of diversity. Our response suggests a strong link between standardization and White…

A handful of prominent charter school networks that have won praise for their academic performance and unorthodox models are expanding to new parts of the country, in some cases after receiving recruiting pitches from state and local officials determined to bring proven operators into their communities. Until now, organizations such as Aspire…

The mythology surrounding the substitute teacher is not a pretty one: Paper airplanes, lost learning, bullying. But as schools collect more information about teacher absenteeism and its consequences, districts and schools are exploring ways to professionalize substitute teaching--or experiment with alternative ways of coping with teacher absences.…

Students today may have less time for free play, but new research suggests their imaginations have actually sharpened compared with those of children two decades ago. In an analysis published in May 2011 in the "Creativity Research Journal" and posted online in May, researchers from Case Western University in Cleveland found elementary school…

Faced with arguably the biggest crisis of its 155-year history--the loss of at least 100,000 full-time members--the nation's largest union plans to respond by organizing thousands of new members and transforming itself into an even more politically potent force. Whether the National Education Association (NEA) can accomplish those goals while…