A growing number of states and local schools across the country have adopted educator evaluation and accountability programs based on the use of student test scores and value-added models (VAM). A wide array of potential legal issues could arise from the implementation of these programs. This article uses legal analysis and social science evidence…

Research shows that one-quarter to one-third of teachers who leave the profession return, the majority after only a short absence. Though returning teachers can constitute a substantial share of newly hired teachers in schools each year, little is known about them, the factors associated with their decisions to return, or the schools to which…

Since the beginning of the federal Race To The Top grant competition, Value-Added Measurement (VAM) has captured the attention of the American public through high-profile media representations of the tool and the controversy that surrounds it. In this paper, we build upon investigations of constructions of VAM in the media and present a discourse…

In this manuscript, the guest editors of the EPAA Special Issue on "Democracy's College: The American Community College in the 21st Century": a) introduce the background, history, and context of community colleges in the larger higher education landscape; b) summarize the three research papers and two video commentaries that were…

A growing body of research points to the important role played by "institutional agents" in facilitating college access and success for students from non-dominant racial-ethnic and low socioeconomic status groups. Applying attachment theory, this study adds to that literature by demonstrating how institutional agents can provide a secure…

In this paper we focus on California high school students' transition to community colleges. Our unique dataset tracks five cohorts of California high school juniors into their freshmen year at in-state community colleges. We evaluate the extent to which high school achievement tests (currently not utilized by community colleges in course…

Drawing on a case study of 60 low-income single mothers in California, I present a grounded account of the barriers and supports single mothers encounter in their pursuit of postsecondary education (PSE) and detail what the women themselves attributed to their success. I highlight the role both significant others (peers, family, friends) and…

In this qualitative study, we examined teachers' language policy appropriation in the English-only state of Arizona. Specifically, we investigated teachers who received their professional placement and preparation through the Teach For America organization. We conducted the research in 2010 and 2011, a period when Arizona state language…

With over 150 years of history, social pedagogy is both an interdisciplinary scholarly field of inquiry and a field of practice that is situated in the intersection of three areas of human activity: education, social work and community development. Although social pedagogy has different emphases and approaches depending on particular historical…

The paper presents the author's reflection on research and teaching over a period of 45 years in a social pedagogy program in the Leuven University (Belgium). While the case is interesting in its own right, it holds broader significance for its contribution to understanding developments in education, adult and community education and social…

This article explores the social("ist") pedagogies of the Brazilian Landless Workers Movement (MST), a large agrarian social movement that fights for socialism in the Brazilian countryside, meaning that workers own their own means of production and collectively produce the food and other products necessary for their communities'…

Both the German and the international discourses on social pedagogy are shaped by a diachronic perspective on its history, which takes differing national developments as its starting point, and thus sees socio-pedagogical thinking as having its roots in particular nation states. In our article, however, we take a synchronic perspective to show,…

This article discusses the mobilizing work of a disability organization, at the local chapter level. I have spent about a year following the work of a chapter, mainly through contacts, conversations and interviews with the persons who are active on its board. The analysis of the chapter's work takes as its starting point two traditions that…

Early college high schools are a promising but expensive pathway to college readiness. Most such schools are supported with state funds and/or grants. This descriptive case study presents an early college program, now in its fourth year in a traditional high school, in which the families, high school and local community college shared the entire…

As Argentina presents problems of malnutrition, the federal in-school feeding program has become a key policy because it provides an important nutritional intervention during a relevant growth period. This paper estimates the effect of the program on academic performance--measured by standardized test scores--with a difference in difference model,…