For over a century, since Aboriginal children were permitted to access mainstream Australian schools, there has been a significant gap in academic achievement between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal students. Community engagement by schools is recognised as a key factor in Aboriginal student success, but school approaches to community engagement…

Family-school-community engagement is a tool that can help schools and communities mutually elevate one another by forming a whole stronger than its parts. Family-school-community engagement occurs when families, schools, and community entities work together in mutually supportive relationships to support positive outcomes for all stakeholders.…

Mexican American educational history has become a vibrant field of study since the late 1980s. In the last seven years, however, it is notable that this research has inspired community-based efforts to preserve and publicly commemorate challenges to unequal education. In this commentary, we discuss the archival recovery of the "Francisco…

America has a rich history of commitment to democratic values and ensuring that our public has a voice in how our communities provide public education. Ensuring public participation is especially true in the rural parts of our nation as they have a strong connection to the schools and their children. The purpose of this interpretative…

In 2016, California residents widely supported the passage of Proposition 58, which allowed non-English languages to be used in public education. This proposition was intended to benefit all students, especially the state's large Latinx K-12 student population, who tend to speak Spanish and English at home and in school. Yet educational resources…

This study examines whether community-level social disorganization and community engagement initiatives are associated with public high school performance. Analyzing data from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) School Attendance Boundary Survey (SABS), a latent variable measuring community-level social disorganization is examined…

School communities have been shut out of many of the more critical decision-making processes impacting local public schools. Decisions are mostly made as top-down actions from federal mandates, general assemblies, state departments, districts, and school level administration teams, isolating the school communities they are tasked to serve.…

The Capital Commitment Strategic Plan, first launched in 2012 and refined in 2017, declared DC Public Schools' (DCPS) earnest efforts to become a school system centered around educational equity and student achievement. In August 2022, DCPS started a year-long journey of reflection and refinement to produce the next iteration of the strategic…

Departing from mainstream accounts of the post-Katrina New Orleans state takeover and the more recent "unification" of schools under local governance, this case study utilizes the plantation (Hartman, 1997; Woods, 1998, McKittrick, 2011) as a theoretical device and the silenced archive (Trouillot, 2015) as a method of inquiry to better…

While US and Dominican officials have traditionally received credit for the expansion of the public school system during the US military occupation of the Dominican Republic from 1916 to 1924, this article offers an alternative account by focusing on the role of guardians, or caretakers, in supporting and creating schools in this period. Drawing…

The importance placed on passing Senior Secondary School Certificate Examinations (SSCE) in Nigeria has led to the emergence of 'Miracle Examination Centres' (MECs). MECs are schools where candidates get undeserving excellent SSCE results through institutionally enabled malpractice. This undermines the Nigerian education sector and its leadership.…

For decades, Pittsburgh Public Schools (PPS) has blatantly disregarded and ostracized Black caregivers and community members who have attempted to address concerns about the educational experience of Black students. The only moderately successful strategy was political activism led by Dr. Barbara Sizemore in the 1970s to secure a board majority,…

On Friday, March 1, 2019, a mass picket line of striking Oakland teachers, other district workers, students, and community members chanted loudly as they surrounded La Escuelita Elementary School in Oakland, California, to block school board members from meeting to impose cuts to classified workers (e.g., office workers and custodians) and vital…

A growing number of school districts are engaging in systems-level, equity-based reform to redress persistent disparities, and many are hiring Equity Directors to lead the way. This qualitative study explores the role of Equity Directors, asking, "What are the leadership practices of Equity Directors?" and "What are the purposes…

In 2018, the BYU ARTS Partnership Native American Curriculum Initiative (NACI) was developed in response to teacher questions regarding the teaching of Native topics. Despite increased movements towards reconciliation, Native groups continue to be marginalized in Westernized educational settings. Additionally, teachers lack clear guidelines…