In the last several years a good deal of public discourse was devoted to describing the effects that more than two decades of education reforms, the last iteration of which was known as the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), has had on teaching and learning. It is widely argued that coupling teacher evaluations with students' test scores, enforced…

The implementation of value-added models of teacher evaluation continue to expand in public education, but the effects of using student test scores to evaluate K-12 physical educators necessitates further discussion. Using the five National Standards for K-12 Physical Education from the Society of Health and Physical Educators America (SHAPE),…

Many communities across the United States have been undergoing recent demographic changes. Since the 1980s, low-skilled labor (e.g. meatpacking) has attracted Latino families to settle in communities that historically have been home to few, if any, Latinos (i.e. the New Latino Diaspora). In more recent years, these same job opportunities have also…

This essay critiques the ideological assertions of corporate school reform and discusses how these logics perpetuate failure in urban education. Drawing on theories of neoliberal urbanism, the right to the city, and the commons, the essay argues that educational researchers and advocates need to reframe the values of urban education in line with a…

This is a qualitative study that was conducted to gain a better understanding of the experiences of professors in Colleges of Education who were former K-12 teachers. The study presents the responses of eighty-nine professors from across the United States. Coding based on the university setting (national, large regional, small regional) in which…

For more than 100 years the public school system has been the foundation of our society. Millions of our nation's citizens have moved through the primary, middle and secondary schools which, although they vary slightly from region to region, provided a shared experience and are a part of Americana. History tells us the reasons that school systems…

The contributors to this special issue of "The Journal of Inquiry and Action" provide insight into why the Obama administration's educational policies manifest the dominance of neoliberal ideology over most elements of social life. The articles presented in this issue build on the work originally presented in "The Phenomenon of…

This article demonstrates how media coverage employs dominant neoliberal narratives and discourses to blame public education for societal ills. The authors examine how the media's use of neoliberal narrative and discourse has hegemonically become the "new normal" of public education and school reform. Utilizing data from media coverage…

This paper analyzes President Obama's education policies as they relate to charter schools. The authors first show how his policies continue previous neoconservative and neoliberal educational initiatives that marketize schooling. Arne Duncan's role in charter schools, both in his capacity as former CEO of Chicago Public Schools, and in his…