In this article, Jonathan Cohen argues that the goals of education need to be reframed to prioritize not only academic learning, but also social, emotional, and ethical competencies. Surveying the current state of research in the fields of social-emotional education, character education, and school-based mental health in the United States, Cohen…

In this article, John Holst presents findings of his historical research on Paulo Freire's educational work in Chile from 1964 to 1969. Freire's "Education as the Practice of Freedom", which was written in 1965 from notes he brought from Brazil, was informed by a liberal developmentalist outlook. In contrast, his "Pedagogy of the Oppressed",…

Community participation is a term frequently used and often cited in international educational development. In this article, Jennifer Swift-Morgan investigates the definition and impact of community participation in schooling in rural Ethiopia. Although national governments, development agencies, and nongovernmental organizations across the…

In this article, Luis O. Reyes provides a retrospective of the historic 1974 Aspira Consent Decree between the New York City Board of Education and Aspira of New York, which established bilingual instruction as a legally enforceable federal entitlement for New York City's non-English-speaking Puerto Rican and Latino students. Reyes analyzes the…

In this article, Jacqueline Ancess and David Allen use New York City as a case study to examine the promises and the perils of the small high school reform movement that is sweeping the nation. They analyze the varying extent to which New York City's small high schools have implemented curricular themes in order to promote academic quality and…

Nearly twenty years after the publication of Michelle Fine's essay "Sexuality, Schooling, and Adolescent Females: The Missing Discourse of Desire," the question of how sexuality education influences the development and health of adolescents remains just as relevant as it was in 1988. In this article, Michelle Fine and Sara McClelland examine the…

In this article, Harvey Kantor and Robert Lowe explore the progression of American social policy and its relation to educational reform from President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal to President George W. Bush's No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). The authors assert that this progression has been marked by the federal government's gradual…

In this essay, former secretary of education Rod Paige depicts the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) as the culmination of more than half a century of urgent but largely unheeded calls for reform of the nation's public education system. He explains the rationale for the design of NCLB and responds to several criticisms of the legislation, including…

Drawing on their legal expertise and their experience working with public school districts, John W. Borkowski and Maree Sneed discuss the controversies surrounding the implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). They acknowledge that its principal benefits lie in its recognition of the right of each child to learn and be assessed by…

In this article, Frederick Hess discusses public opinion trends related to educational issues from the enactment of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) in 2002 through 2006. Using data from three separate public opinion polls, Hess analyzes the general public's and parents' opinions on several issues, including the proper use of large-scale…

In recognition of the increased demands facing state education departments in this accountability-focused era, Gail L. Sunderman and Gary Orfield present results from a study on the response of these agencies to the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). In this article, Sunderman and Orfield analyze issues of state capacity, compiling data from…

In this essay, Betty J. Sternberg argues that the increased money and time spent on meeting the summative testing requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) adds little to the existing "gold standard" testing conducted by the State of Connecticut. Sternberg highlights the challenges faced by one state in meeting the requirements of NCLB:…

In April 2005, Connecticut attorney general Richard Blumenthal filed the first lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Education over the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). In this essay, Attorney General Blumenthal presents Connecticut's reasons for legally challenging NCLB. He argues that prior to ratification of the act, Connecticut had been…

Although No Child Left Behind (NCLB) aims to close the achievement gap that parallels race and class, some of its key provisions are at odds with reforms that are successfully overhauling the large, comprehensive high schools that traditionally have failed students of color and low-income students in urban areas. While small, restructured schools…

In this article, four urban high school students and their student leadership and social justice class advisor address the question, "What are high school students' perspectives on the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act's (NCLB) definition of a highly qualified teacher?" As the advisor to the course, Garcia challenged her students to examine their high…