"Rules of the game" are the social expectations one must enact for success in a specific environment. From veteran public high school educators in Washington, D.C., this study found: (1) "Rules of the game" for high school success are most consistently communicated through interventions after students have not met academic,…

Immigrant parents' involvement in schools is often situated in literature within a framework of barriers and challenges that presumes deficit. "What if we describe (immigrant) parents through a framework of agency and knowledge? What would support from school and teachers look like, if they see parents in an agentic role? What would it mean…

To better understand how parent choice and program leadership foster socioeconomic diversity within community early learning programs, this in-depth case study examines two high-quality, socioeconomically diverse community early education program sites operating in Baltimore City. Key findings of this study include: (1) Despite their shared belief…

Black children can no longer afford for school and district leaders to overlook and excuse the ignorance and/or blatant racism of its teachers and administrative colleagues. To meet the challenge of racial inequities in the classroom and beyond, White educators must be prophetic in their practice, and that requires that they be political.

This paper presents a set of testimonies from three LGBTQ families about the advocacy work they took up in their schools. The stories they share are part of an interview study undertaken from 2014-2020. Each family responded to the cisheteronormative cultures of their schools by challenging ideas teachers and principals held about gender,…

This transcript presents a portion of a conversation that occurred on May 8, 2020 between Sia Elle Brown, a doctoral student in Educational Leadership at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education and Ikal Fireseed (pseudonym), a leader at a school for Indigenous students in the American Southwest.

Since March of 2020, two pandemics have hit the United States of America like a bag of bricks. The health pandemic as a result of COVID-19 that has killed over 180,000 Americans and the racially-charged genocides that continues to murder our Black brothers and sisters. As a result of constant disregard for Black lives, in part 1, we analyze the…

In this twin pandemic moment, educational leaders face increasing pressure to assume a transformative leadership stance committed to racial justice, wherein curriculum, pedagogy, policies, norms, and mindsets are critically appraised and transformed into a new normative state of anti-racism. Flux leadership is a framework for equitable,…

This feature piece explores what can happen when educators allow for collective reflection to transpire. Written as a dialogue, this piece presents two doctoral candidates working through what it means to identify as critical educators in this moment. These two educators met during the height of the education reform movement as a part of Teach For…

This article is a reflective piece that draws from local experience, historical, and educational literature. I argue the ways in which intersectionality can support analyses in the local uprisings for the Black Lives Matter movement in Philadelphia. Some uprisings, focused on anti-Black state violence linkages to schools and approaches to…

This article highlights the power of storytelling as a tool for professional learning for educators and educational leaders, particularly during this time of intense social isolation. Storytelling not only offers opportunities for healing, growth and community building, but also guides and supports educators in creating more equitable spaces for…

We live in a country with a long history of settler colonialism and we understand that our educational institutions, structures, and ideologies are part of that history. Our perceptions as educators of how students learn and how we should lead can be grounded in implicit biases that may dehumanize learners and perpetuate systems of oppression.…

This piece considers the role of the physical body in learning, as we navigate the intricacies of social distancing and virtual schooling. It asks what happens when we consider the body as text? What might we discover about how different bodies experience our current reality? How might these questions help educators learn from and support…

This piece follows the recent and prolonged struggles of Asian American youth in the United States highlighting key points surrounding recent events in 2020. The purpose of this piece is to highlight the voices, experiences, and opinions of Asian American youth during this time. This piece is based on Asian American youth primarily in the…

The COVID-19 pandemic has once again revealed the urgent need to address ongoing injustices at every level of U.S. society. In this article, we combine visual art, research, and storytelling to discuss the need for such systemic change within schools, specifically focusing on the effects of discrimination against students who speak languages other…