In this essay, Gloria Ladson-Billings describes her reaction to Barack Obama's election and her desire to share these historic moments with folks she considers "everyday people." She then looks to the future of education in the United States and highlights obstacles to the Obama administration's meaningful engagement with education…

In the following pages, Robert Moses tells the history of the early civil rights movement in Mississippi, focusing on the individuals, alliances, and strategies that brought about fundamental change in the United States and ultimately made possible the election of Barack Obama to the presidency. Moses describes how the efforts of Justice…

In this essay, William Ayers calls for a more vital and effective public education system, one guided by the basic democratic principle that all human beings are of incalculable and irreducible value. Ayers argues that to achieve such a system we must reclaim schools from the industrial model of the twentieth century and build classrooms that…

In this essay, Nel Noddings calls upon U.S. public schools to equip students with a more nuanced understanding of religious vocabulary, history, and ideas. Examining recent books by outspoken atheists including Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens, Noddings argues that schools should help students "communicate…

In this article, Jim Carl uses archival sources and interviews to chronicle the effort to bring school vouchers to New Hampshire. In 1973, the New Hampshire Department of Education initiated a plan, funded by the U.S. Office of Economic Opportunity, to institute vouchers in a handful of school districts. Though the initiative had the support of…

Early in her life, Nancy King discovered that stories are rich sources of wisdom, imagination, creativity, and comfort. In this essay, King describes her personal experiences developing and using the collaborative storymaking process with young people and adults in various school settings. The author states that collaborative storymaking…

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, 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, 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…

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…

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…