Located in Phoenix, Arizona, the Phoenix Union High School District (PXU) was the only high school district profiled as part of this project. The high school district is made up of 13 elementary districts that feed into it and has 11 comprehensive high schools, four small specialty schools, three micro-schools, three support schools and a digital…

As downtown Phoenix experiences a wave of new residential and commercial construction, Phoenix Elementary School District #1 (Phoenix #1) is at the center of the largest local demographic change in decades. Phoenix #1 educates more than 6,000 students at 14 schools, from preschool through eighth grade, with many families living in older, historic…

In 2011, the directors of the Phoenix Symphony came up with a bold plan to improve and expand their community outreach programs. Inspired by the growing movement to integrate the arts with the other subjects in the K-12 curriculum, they created a thriving program called Mind Over Music, which pairs professional musicians with local elementary…

Schools often fail to offer minoritized student groups access to quality STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) education experiences. While policymakers should systemically address this curriculum gap problem, out-of-school educational programs offer an important way to provide quality STEM instruction while integrating students'…

The purpose of this qualitative, descriptive study was to explore how teachers described their experiences using ICT to help students build upon previous knowledge and stay active when constructing knowledge in reading in Title I schools. Constructivism was the learning theory used for this study. The research questions for the present study were:…

Formative assessment is a set of practices that enable teachers and students to examine how learning is progressing, so that teaching and learning activities can be adjusted as needed. If students notice a discrepancy between where they are in understanding a lesson and where they need to be, formative assessment encourages them to take corrective…

Gender inequalities in schools have implications for life chances, emotional well-being and educational policies and practices, but are apparently resistant to change. This paper employs Judith Butler's conceptualisation of performativity in a study of young people and consumption to provide insights into gendered inequities. It argues that how…

School safety is a wicked problem due to shifting needs and available information, the diverse actors affected and involved, fluctuating budgetary demands and ramifications, and relations to broader social and political issues. School safety challenges encompass a range of factors, including threats of violence and fears related to school…

Rehabilitation services in education settings are evolving from pull-out interventions focused on remediation for children and youth with special education needs to inclusive whole-school tiered approaches focused on participation. A limited number of discipline-specific practice models for tiered services currently exist. However, there is a…

Teacher education for sustainability is a central part of integrating sustainability into classrooms and schools. However, educating for sustainability is not limited to increased content knowledge; rather it encompasses different forms of knowledge that embrace the normative, dynamic and action-oriented nature of sustainability. Curriculum for a…

This commentary is based on two of the lessons the author learned as the professor in residence at ASU Preparatory Academy-Phoenix (ASU Prep), a Title I school operated in partnership with the Phoenix Elementary School District. Her role as a university professor on special assignment as a literacy coach, staff developer, and co-researcher. The…

This case study describes the peer evaluation system the Maricopa County Educational Services Agency (MCESA) is using in the districts participating in its Teacher Incentive Fund (TIF) 3 and 4 grants. Maricopa County's TIF districts cover much of the Phoenix, Arizona, metropolitan area. Including both TIF 3 and 4 cohorts, 12 districts with a total…

Two schools in Michigan received ARRA SIG (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act School Improvement Grants) funds to enable them to implement their improvement efforts. This paper describes the outcomes of these two ARRA SIG recipient schools: (1) Phoenix Elementary-Middle School; and (2) Arthur Hill High School. The experiences of these…

Many sets of state and national mathematics standards have come and gone in the past two decades. The Common Core State Mathematics Standards (CCSMS), which were released in June of 2010, have been adopted by almost all states and will be phased in across the nation in 2014. The main difference between these standards and most of the others is…

Joachim Dattke describes a holistic approach to supporting the needs of the family when a child has a disability. The parent and child benefit from a two-pronged approach: working with doctors, psychologists, and therapists in clinic-based settings, and working with educators in schools and parent-child groups. He defines the importance of…