The purpose of this research was to understand ways exemplary award winning secondary school leaders have transformed their schools for twenty-first-century education and student achievement. This article presents three diverse case studies and identifies ways that each school's leader and leadership team reconfigured its culture and expectations,…

The overall results from the 2011-12 student survey were positive. The most positive results pertained to overall satisfaction with the participants' school, with the most unfavorable results centered on the consistency of challenging work being assigned to students and bullying. In general, 4th grade students responded more favorably than 7th and…

In this essay, we explore how the same theories and metaphors' used historically to describe the frontier, are useful ways of thinking about both team teaching and English studies as an interdisciplinary field. Defining the frontier as both imprecise and liminal encourages the students, as well as the instructors, to work within an open space of…

This report presents the findings from a rigorous national survey of charter school authorizers conducted in 2011 by the National Association of Charter School Authorizers (NACSA). This is the fourth time NACSA has conducted this type of national survey. As in years past, the vast majority of authorizers (90 percent) are school districts and they…

Early colleges are one alternative to the traditional comprehensive high school. This article describes the establishment of an early college in partnership with a university, including the experiences for students, the challenges for teachers, and the difficulties in bridging higher and kindergarten through Grade-12 educations. The article…

The purpose of this single, intrinsic, evaluative case study was to examine the problem of nontraditional transfer student completion at a private, religious-based, doctoral degree-granting, moderate research university in North Carolina. The following research questions guided the study: (a) How do institutional policies, procedures, and…

During the spring of 2012, over 100,000 educators across the state took the North Carolina Teacher Working Conditions (TWC) survey. Wake County Public School System (WCPSS) teachers responded more positively to 46 of the 85 survey items in 2012 than did teachers statewide. On 14 items, WCPSS teachers' responses were less favorable than those of…

Using richly detailed data on fourth- and fifth-grade students in the North Carolina public school system, I find evidence that students are assigned to classrooms in a non-random manner based on observable characteristics for a substantial portion of classrooms. Moreover, I find that this non-random assignment is statistically related to class…

Consistently and unmistakably, data show a persistent gap separating Latinos and Black males from other student groups on measures of academic progress and college completion. These gaps exist across higher education. They are undeniable and unacceptable. Men of color have high aspirations when they begin higher education. Why are these…

To address the persistent failure of schooling to support underserved students, youth participatory action research (YPAR) has emerged as an alternative and critical paradigm for educational practice. YPAR re-centers authority on marginalized voices and understands research as a tool for social change. Grounded in critical pedagogy, such projects…

In one of the first large-scale analyses of urban trends on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), the Council of the Great City Schools and the American Institutes for Research identified urban school systems that demonstrated high achievement or significant achievement gains on the NAEP, and examined possible factors behind…

The case study takes place in a North Carolina School district diverse in student population and land use, which by some records is experiencing some success with the students it serves. Standardized test data reveals the existence of academic achievement gaps within schools throughout the district. The school district's superintendent declared…

The Recognition & Response (R&R) model was developed and is being validated by a research team at the FPG Child Development Institute at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. R&R has generated widespread attention in the early childhood field as a promising RTI model for pre-k (see entire issue of NHSA Dialog, Volume 12[3],…

This research clarifies the public support of comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) in terms of acceptance, content, timing, and effectiveness as it may inform practice in the United States. The historical context of public opinion, as well as a summary of the efficacy of abstinence only education (AOE) versus CSE in the scientific literature,…

Producing students that are prepared for the world of work or higher education is the goal of every public school. Having highly effective school leaders in each building is vital for accomplishing this goal. The state of North Carolina outlined one method of building school leadership through the use of school transformation coaches. The purpose…