For decades, policymakers in the U.S. have leveraged accountability policy as a governing tool to lift school performance and close the achievement gap. Accountability become so widespread that it arguably became a "policy paradigm" with the passage of the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act in 2002. Yet after just 13 years of…

This research was originally presented as a chapter in the doctoral dissertation "On Becoming a People's College: An Appreciative Inquiry." Appreciative Inquiry (Ai) is a participatory approach to organizational change focused on an affirmative topic choice. The topic choice of the dissertation was equity, democracy, and justice at the…

This article is a fictionalized testimonio describing a child's crossing into the United States and her continued crossing into a political and activist high school student. The details of the story were told to me many times in conversations, writing assignments, and in discussions with her parents. Using some of her words and phrases, and with…

Pursuant to California Education Code Section 84362, each community college district is required to allocate at least 50% of its annual education expenses, as defined by law, to the salaries and benefits of classroom instructors. This requirement ensures a significant portion of educational expenditures directly supports classroom instruction. The…

The Bay Area Third World Strikes, 1968-1969: Coalitional Activism and Chicanx Campus Politics. This essay looks at the 1968-1969 Third World Strikes at San Francisco State and UC Berkeley through the lens of coalitional politics and activism. While the paper looks closely at Chicanx campus politics, the goal is to move away from a nationalist or…

Prior studies have documented the pattern of decreased state funding for higher education in periods of economic contraction (i.e., the balance wheel phenomenon). This qualitative case study examines how policymakers in California and Texas made decisions about funding higher education at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, when policymakers faced…

This study examines the influence of Christian nationalism in private Christian schools, with ABC Christian School in Southern California as a case study. It also explores its broader impact on American public education through parental rights groups pushing for book bans and curriculum changes. Survey data from former students and staff reveal…

The mythology of liberal anti/racism endures in U.S. mainstream educational discourse as the rational approach to address white supremacy, with college-going positioned as "the" pathway to a better life. Liberal logics suppose that once racialized peoples enter positions of power, society will improve. Drawing upon pláticas and…

In many parts of the country, enrollment in traditional public schools has fallen to its lowest point in decades. However, states, cities, and school districts have been slow to respond to the reality of empty desks. This report examines trends in school enrollment, focusing on several of America's most populous cities, as well as the budgetary…

The past few years have seen a rise in interest in local elected offices, specifically in school board seats. These seats hold unequivocal power over what school districts can do in terms of advancing equity and excellence in education. We explore one facet of what became a playbook of anti-equity efforts in school districts during the COVID-19…

Prior research has established that undocumented immigration status disrupts students' transition into life after college, but limited research has examined their preparatory experiences in college. Drawing on interviews with 154 undocumented college students and 32 alumni, we examine how immigration status impacts undocumented students' career…

In this article, the authors review the antecedents, analyze the evolution, and draw recommendations for educational policies in the regions of California and Catalonia over the last 50 years, especially regarding bilingual education. This analysis is necessary due to the size, representativity, precociousness, and success of bilingual policies…

The size and cost of US public higher education, funded largely by government, grew continuously for nearly twenty-five years after World War II. In the late 1960s, as the nation's economic growth slowed, the question of who should pay for higher education came under fresh political scrutiny. Decades-old no-tuition policies at the University of…

California approved a massive overhaul of its byzantine and unequal school finance system when the state Legislature passed and Governor Jerry Brown signed the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) in 2013. LCFF featured a new state finance model, but it was much more than a change in finance distribution formulas. It also provided districts with…

With the pervasiveness of racism, some scholars have interrogated the role of discourse in perpetuating the racial status quo. While research has denoted how prominent leaders and policies advance deficit-laden characterizations of minoritized groups that reify racial hierarchies, how racial discourse is mobilized in day-to-day politics remains…