In an era where information is both abundant and increasingly complex, school library media centers (LMCs) serve as hubs for learning, creativity, and critical thought. Yet, little to no data exist describing the state of school LMCs in Minnesota. During the 2023 Minnesota legislative session, Minnesota's Multicounty Multitype Library Systems…

This paper presents a comprehensive framework for evaluating and reforming education finance systems to ensure equity, adequacy, and equal opportunity in publicly funded education. We summarize decades conceptual work, explaining our evolving understanding of the role and purpose of school finance systems, leading to our current framing that the…

Political interest in Research Infrastructures on a European scale has been a new phenomenon, marked in the early 2000s with the launch of the Lisbon Strategy and the European Research Area. European Research Infrastructure policy then developed through, first, the strategic incorporation of incumbents through new modes of coordination; second,…

This article traces the history of census undercount and its importance to civil rights. The Constitution mandates a census and calls for Congress to use the results to apportion seats in Congress and the Electoral College. A substantial undercount in the census will misallocate congressional and electoral college votes. More recently,…

Since 2022, the District of Columbia has invested in the Early Childhood Educator Pay Equity Fund to achieve pay parity between early childhood educators and their K-12 counterparts. Research to date has shown that the fund has many benefits, such as increasing retention of qualified educators and improving the quality of care. Beginning in fiscal…

For at least two decades, several California schools have embraced a community schools model that marries schools and community organizations to seamlessly provide a variety of supports to students and families in communities with the highest needs. But when the pandemic hit, those needs multiplied. Members of the California State Board of…

Education Code section 79511 requires the California Community Colleges Chancellor's Office to submit a report each year on the the Asian American Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander Student Achievement Program (AANHPI SAP). The AANHPI SAP is in its second year of implementation with 50 colleges participating. Before the full implementation in the…

In spring 2024, the Multicounty Multitype Library Systems, supported by State Library Services, conducted a census of K-12 public and charter schools in Minnesota to learn about the status of school libraries. A total of 1,528 out of 1,777 eligible schools completed the census. The findings can help legislators, school staff, librarians, and…

In this paper, we put forth a framework called Critical School Finance, articulating the framework itself and then applying it to school facilities finance. First, we go back to first principles and discuss what 'critical' denotes, revisiting critical theorist Max Horkheimer's seminal essay 'Traditional vs. Critical Theory.' Second, we offer five…

During the 2018-2019 legislative and budget cycle, the California State Legislature and Administration established the Student Equity and Achievement (SEA) Program, which was created to consolidate funding allocated for three distinct, but interconnected, categorical programs: (1) the Basic Skills Initiative; (2) the Student Equity Program and (3)…

This paper documents biases in the creation of knowledge through underrepresentation of diverse populations and population groups in the way research is conducted and published, and subsequently, in the way educational resources are developed and delivered. Research that incorporates the experience of distributed population groups will have…

In "Crisis as Catalyst," Patricia M. Virella uncovers opportunities for school leaders to act as agents of equity and inclusivity during crisis situations. Virella interviewed dozens of school principals across the United States and Puerto Rico, and in this book she shares the key lessons from their experiences with crisis events of all…