The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in school closures around the world, leaving lasting negative impacts on many children. Given that such closures are justified public health measures, this raises the question of compensating children for school closures. In this article I address the question of compensation from the perspective of a popular theory…

Educational lore casts grit as a panacea for solving long-standing achievement disparities. Fifteen years of empirical research has not supported this claim, yet many schools still uphold grit. Why? This article examines when (and if) K-12 educators should emphasize grit in classrooms. We first define the construct and offer evidence-based…

While the ongoing academic impacts of the COVID pandemic in grades 3-8 has been well documented, far less is known about its effects on students who were in pre-K or kindergarten when the pandemic started in March 2020. In this brief, we focus on students who were in first and second grade in the 2021-22 school year, and for whom the majority of…

In Spring 2022, Pioneer Institute published "The Boston Publics Schools' Road to Receivership," which detailed the findings of the 2019 state-commissioned, third-party report evaluating outcomes and operations in the Boston Public Schools (BPS). The report was scathing, citing years of declining enrollment, low test scores, financial…

The assumption that students are differently talented often underlies the public and philosophical debate about the justice of school systems. It is striking that despite the centrality of the notion of 'talent' in these debates, the concept is hardly ever explicated. I will suggest two explications: First, philosophers who point to different…

Colleges and universities have become increasingly concerned that requiring standardized test scores for admission is an impediment to campus diversity, and these objections have grown with the recent focus on societal inequities. In addition, the pandemic led to the cancellation of test administrations, which, in turn, caused many institutions to…

Opportunity is not evenly spread across the country. A young person's socio-economic background -- including the income level of their family, their parents' educational qualifications, and their family's wealth -- all play a critical role in shaping their future. But as well as variations between families and across socio-economic groups, Britain…

We explore the role of neoliberalism within portrayals of internationalisation in higher education (HE). Through an analysis of four features of internationalisation, we suggest that they embody a complex entanglement of neoliberal categories and assumptions with other, primarily progressive humanitarian ideals. This framing of…

What does it mean to achieve socioeconomic and racial justice in the United States, and what role can the postsecondary education system play in achieving these aims? Unfortunately, justice is often an elusive concept as it relates to educational achievement. In this paper, the author argues that, to understand the meaning of racial and…

Educational transitions experienced within a context of wide and growing inequalities such as England result in very different transition experiences to those experienced by young people growing up in relatively equitable societies with strong communal links. Transitions of working class young people in England are beset with competition,…

This paper offers a critical examination of the nature of inequalities in relation to education and the pursuit of social justice. It argues that assessment of educational resources and measures such as school enrolment and educational achievement are limited in what they tell us about the injustices learners may experience. It is proposed that,…

Education is known as the great equalizer to many--it creates a supposed leveled field where students of all backgrounds have the opportunity to gain financial assets thus influencing their social status (Cafferty, 1985). Social constructions and inequalities such as poverty, race, assimilation, and housing segregation play a role in Latinx…

Empirical studies focused on cultural capital only emerged since the 2000s in South Korea. This article is the first to conduct a systematic review aiming to shed light on how the theory of cultural capital has been applied in South Korea. Our main goal is to understand: how the cultural capital-students' achievement association in South Korea…

In many countries of sub-Saharan Africa, the release of each year's results for the end of high school examinations heralds an annual ritual of public commentary on the poor state of national education systems. However, the exoglossic/monolingual language regime for these examinations is infrequently acknowledged as contributing to the dismal…

Late in 2018, the California Department of Education rolled out an updated version of the California School Dashboard. This revision altered the look and feel of the Dashboard and added new indicators based on newly available data. This brief updates a 2018 analysis of the Dashboard. First, I examine whether the state's revisions are in line with…