Recent resistance to teaching students about the history of racial power and privilege dynamics in the United States has been accompanied by a parallel resistance to LGBTQ+ studies and resources in K-12 classrooms, libraries, and extracurricular spaces. There is a very practical benefit to trusting teachers to craft lessons that integrate LGBTQ+…

Current federal aid allocation policies do an admirable job of targeting aid to school districts serving the neediest students. But these policies have one significant, underlying weakness: they fail to consider states' effort levels (and their capacities to raise revenue). In this article, the authors propose a new federal aid framework that…

Writing can improve children's speaking, boost their reading comprehension, build their knowledge, and elevate their thinking. However a reason it may be hard to learn is that without explicit writing instruction, children often write the way they speak. From elementary through high school, many children answer questions with little elaboration.…

The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) launched a national Back to School for All (B2S) campaign in the summer of 2021. The B2S campaign was a concerted effort by teachers and staff across the United States to tackle barriers to safe, in-person learning and to ensure that all students feel welcome. The campaign served as a catalyst for bringing…

High-leverage practices (HLPs) are instructional approaches educators in K-12 can use to teach different types of learners and content. They are deemed "high leverage" because they are foundational to effective instruction, they help with managing and intervening in students' behavior, and they support successful implementation of the…

The McKinney-Vento Act Homeless Assistance Act, including revisions made during the reauthorization in Title IX, Part A, of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA, 2015) and its implications are not as widely known as they should be among educators and administrators. The McKinney-Vento Act defines homelessness as any student without "a fixed,…

Teacher leadership is vital to student success, with research finding positive connections between student achievement and teacher leadership and collaboration. While teacher leadership is certainly not a new idea, it is increasingly important in the nation's current climate to ensure students are taught in environments that are focused on their…

This article chronicles the history of community schools and identifies common features, or "pillars," that are associated with high-quality community schools. It is drawn from "Community Schools as an Effective School Improvement Strategy: A Review of the Evidence," a report that examined 143 research studies on community…

Educators and schools have a responsibility to ensure that young people become engaged and knowledgeable citizens. A recent report on high school civics education nationwide, "The State of Civics Education," finds a wide variation in state requirements and levels of youth engagement. Only nine states and the District of Columbia require…

In "The Testing Charade: Pretending to Make Schools Better", the author's new book from which this article is drawn, the failures of test-based accountability are documented and some of the most egregious misuses and outright abuses of testing are described, along with some of the most serious negative effects. Neither good intentions…

An education scholar reflects on a 30-year career spent studying the role of policy, parental responsibility, and the partnership between teachers and reformers.

The Aspen Institute's National Commission on Social, Emotional, and Academic Development united a broad alliance of leaders to speak with a unified voice about the urgency of integrating social and emotional development into the fabric of K-12 education. The commission convened a group of scientists, researchers, and academics across disparate…

For many people, the word "summer" evokes easier days, a time when life slows down. So does the term "summer break," a time parents, teachers, and students alike value as a well-deserved respite from the labor of the school year. Unfortunately, a growing body of evidence shows that summer is far from a time to recharge for many…

With the very existence of our system of free, universal education hanging in the balance, there has not been much of a frame of reference for discussing the need to make our schools more democratic. However, in the authors' recent book, "These Schools Belong to You and Me: Why We Can't Afford to Abandon Our Public Schools," they argue…

There are now powerful standards that make visible the connections among language, analytical practices, and content-area knowledge. Yet not all educators have access to adequate training, resources, or models to help them reconfigure the role of language in content-area learning, appropriately change instructional practices, and ensure all…