Finding and developing talented youth from low-income backgrounds is an ongoing challenge for U.S. gifted education policy. These students face strong headwinds, whereas advantaged students enjoy favorable tailwinds, and these factors accumulate throughout K-12, higher education, and beyond. Jonathan Wai and Frank C. Worrell explain how talented…

Out-of-school programs can offer personalized and meaningful learning experiences that deepen students' knowledge and cater to their passions and interests, but it has been a painful reality that many such programs have been available only to students and families with privilege and resources. Karen Hammerness, Anna MacPherson, Preeti Gupta,…

Although researchers have done effective work at describing the inequities that plague schools, they have been less successful at making headway in addressing them, largely because their work remains disconnected from the schools that have to try to use the research. Through research-practice partnerships, researchers are able to stay in touch…

Education policy makers often encourage public schools to form partnerships with community organizations, businesses, and higher education institutions. In theory, such partnerships can help struggling schools gain resources that they are unable to acquire through local, state, and federal funding mechanisms. However, as Ebony Bridwell-Mitchell…

Research has shown that traditional ways of promoting family involvement in school are often ineffective, especially among families whose approach does not align with the middle-class child-rearing practices embraced in many U.S. schools. To encourage greater family involvement, a Colorado school district is piloting a program in which educators…

Although we often look to schools to solve complex social problems, many educators are not ready to address the structural racism behind many contemporary conflicts. Pedro Noguera and Julio Angel Alicia present a brief history of the socioeconomic forces that drove school closures and gentrification in Chicago, the remaking of New Orleans after…

Many school practitioners think of poverty as a kind of "culture," characterized by dysfunctional behaviors that can only be corrected by imposing harsh discipline on students. Further, beliefs about poverty are often used to justify racial disparities in disciplinary referrals, achievement, and enrollment in gifted, AP, and honors…

The shift from the No Child Left Behind Act to the recently authorized Every Student Succeeds Act could beckon a renaissance of K-12 arts education in the U.S. Over the past decade, NCLB's increased emphasis on accountability testing in core subjects has coincided with a notable decline in school-based arts exposure. Recognizing this trend and…

To fulfill educational promises such as "every student succeeds," district leaders must embrace an agenda committed to equitable opportunities for students. Doing so requires breaking from managerial norms to identify new ways forward that prioritize historically low-performing schools. Coby Meyers, Lamar Goree, and Keith Burton distill…

While the principal of a New York elementary school (P.S. 48) took on chronic absenteeism from 2011 to 2013, a research team at the Center for New York City Affairs followed her efforts. The school drove down chronic absenteeism almost 10 percentage points. School staff routinely touched base with students, outside "success mentors"…

There is growing evidence of successful strategies to help keep students from disadvantaged backgrounds motivated to persist in school and succeed in college. These strategies draw from scientifically validated theory and research and they typically involve simple, yet careful, implementation techniques and so educators can expect them to be more…

The Every Child Ready to Read program encourages parents to interact with their children using the five practices of early literacy: singing, talking, reading, writing, and playing. The program is reaching children in high-need communities who are likely to enter school less prepared their wealthier peers. Every Child Ready to Read has found that…

The United States has long struggled with the challenge of educating children experiencing extreme disadvantage, including the poor, ethnic and racial minorities, English language learners, and foster children. In this article, we argue that solutions to this problem lie not to the east or west, but to the south. Specifically, we offer the…

The author is a middle school principal who has spent a decade working on improving literacy among his largely socio-economically disadvantaged student body. Experience and research have shown, the author says, that a successful effort to bridge the literacy gap between children who live in poverty and middle-class students requires a concerted…

Can the nation's schools meet today's challenge of providing all students with the skills they will need to thrive in the rapidly changing economy and society of the 21st century? The authors point out in this article that a large percentage of children, overwhelmingly from low-income families, end their formal schooling without the…