Rick Ginsberg and Yong Zhao want educators to question the status quo and clear out ineffective practices to make room for K-12 reforms that work. Their 2023 book, Duck and Cover: Confronting Dubious Practices in Education, Ginsberg and Zhao examine kindergarten readiness, college- and career-readiness, reading proficiency by 3rd grade, social and…

Background: Teachers are responsible for curriculum implementation and transformation. Therefore, they are viewed as the primary agents of change in teaching and learning. As agents of change, they are responsible for being innovative and creative in their teaching and learning in their English First Additional Language (EFAL) class. Objectives:…

More and more jobs involve STEM, yet women are still underrepresented in many STEM fields, particularly engineering and computer science (National Science Foundation, 2019). Rural students in particular have historically faced numerous obstacles to entering STEM fields, including low educational aspirations, lack of STEM role models, and lack of…

By participating in global projects, students learn to communicate, asynchronously or synchronously, through digital tools and media. The project in this article paired pre-service teachers in the United States with primary students, ages 8 to 10, in South Korea. The intent was to expose pre-service teachers to global collaboration projects, and…

Lauren Hennig is a relatively new third grade teacher in Charleston, Illinois. She knows that patiently listening to others and respectfully sharing one's own opinion is a learned skill that's essential for promoting and sustaining our democracy. This is the story of how Lauren works to help her students develop this skill through student-led…

The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine the relationship between the length of superintendent tenure, longevity, and continuity relative to student achievement as evidenced by the 2008-2009 Grade 3 New Jersey Assessment of Skills and Knowledge (NJ ASK) in Language Arts. The researcher focused on New Jersey school districts in the…

The purpose of this research was to report on a Child-Friendly School (CFS) initiative pilot project in Jordan, which aims at initiating the creation of CFS and to raise stakeholders' awareness of the importance of this project in promoting and implementing Child Rights Conviction (CRC) in Jordan. The study was conducted by a joint team selected…

The nation's K-12 schools are faced with numerous critical challenges, such as elevating academic achievement, and meeting No Child Left Behind state standards (Kowalski et al., 2008). But bullying in schools is becoming one of the most challenging issues that school personnel are encountering. In a Stanford University, study it was revealed that…

In this article, the authors discuss how to inspire young learners to become agents of change and how to engage them in participatory citizenship. They outline a unit of study in which third grade students learn about notable agents of change. Young learners discover that they can be agents of change right in their own community through a…

The purpose of this study was to discover and compare perceptions of three different groups of Indiana elementary educators concerning the importance of areas of the principal's literacy knowledge base, as well as responsibility for and use of this knowledge by principals to adequately support effective research-based literacy instruction. The…

This article examines teachers' perspectives on the challenges of using a science reform curriculum, as well as their learning in interaction with the curriculum and parallel professional development program. As case studies, I selected 4 veteran teachers of 2nd or 3rd grade, with varying science backgrounds (including 2 with essentially none).…

The Alabama Reading Initiative is the brain child of state policy makers and academic leaders designed to increase student achievement on standardized reading assessments, and to change instructional practices in schools so that achievement is consistent and sustained. This quantitative population study was conducted in two rural school systems to…

U.S. classrooms reflect the diversity of a nation in the midst of transformation. These issues of student diversity force educators and policymakers to explore and more importantly address the needs of a changing population. A key person in the school to help facilitate positive interactions between diverse students, parents, and faculty is the…