There have been countless efforts to improve academic achievement in public schools across the United States, especially in urban school districts. Few efforts, however, use rigorous analytic modeling tools to anticipate and prevent the potential side effects of change. This chapter proposes the application of system dynamics on educational reform…

Policies that expand school choice aim to empower parents by giving them the opportunity to choose the school that best fits their child. Publicly funded school choice has increased considerably in recent years, helped by a variety of initiatives, including public charter schools, transfer options for students under the No Child Left Behind Act…

Although education is in many ways a responsibility of states and localities, the U.S. federal government also has an important role to play. National laws, court rulings, and policy guidance help ensure that English Learner (EL) and immigrant-background students have equitable access to a meaningful education. It is then up to states and school…

This guide was developed by the Louisiana Department of Education to help parents navigate the complex system that oversees special education in Louisiana's public schools. Each school year, local education agencies (LEAs) are required to provide parents a copy of the procedural safeguards. These safeguards are used to inform parents of the…

Policy statements of the last two decades have directed schools to enter into partnerships with parents to enhance the social, emotional, and academic growth of their children. However, in practice and scholarship, parental involvement has been constructed as attendance to school-based activities and needs. This article draws on data from an…

Throughout much of the past quarter century, standards, testing, and accountability have composed the North Star of education reform. But over that time, the string of reform initiatives that failed to live up to their initial promise has effectively extinguished that guiding light. Now focus has turned to social and emotional learning (SEL). In a…

A wide body of literature documents the important role that parents play in supporting children's academic success in school (Houtenville & Conway, 2008; Barnard, 2004; Fan & Chen, 2001). Drawing on this literature, national taskforces and federal legislation consistently identify increased parental involvement as a central goal of…

We explore how the opt-out movement has responded to the combination of a stringent federal policy with weak and often variable implementation among the states. Gaps between federal expectations and states' understandings of just how to make NCLB's demands a reality have created policy ambiguity. Parents who oppose standardized testing have…

Wouldn't it be great if a school's administrators and teachers could sit down with parents and exchange ideas about what part each might play in supporting students' learning--especially in schools with at-risk students? Henderson, Carson, Avallone, and Whipple describe how they helped three elementary schools in Connecticut do just that, through…

Parents of Cherokee children with disabilities encounter educational agencies from their child's birth to adulthood. Living rurally within the Cherokee Nation's jurisdictional boundaries, these indigenous families engage with a myriad of special education agencies and subsequent policies. This qualitative study explores parental involvement with…

Historically Hispanic students have lagged behind African American, White, and other ethnic groups in academics. The Hispanic population is the fastest growing minority group in the United States. The increase of Hispanic students in our schools has created significant concerns among educators. The schools are not prepared to meet the needs of…

While No Child Left Behind assessment policies require student performance on alternate assessments to be reported to parents, there have been no research studies and limited guidance on how this information is best reported. There are two issues resulting from the lack of research and guidance. First, there is no established standard for what…

This report highlights the perceptions of parents, whose opinions are rarely sought and whose voices tend to be lost in decisions about how assessments are developed, administered and used. Parents are key consumers of assessment information--and, as taxpayers, they pay for assessments. Classroom teachers and district administrators have the most…

Although a decade has passed since passage, few have noticed that section 9528 in No Child Left Behind (NCLB) mandates schools to assist military recruiting. This article focuses on administrators' responsibility to inform parents of their privacy rights and the struggle to manage recruiting in schools. I highlight two conclusions with policy…

The authors used data from the National Household Education Surveys (NHES) Program 2007 Parent and Family Involvement in Education Survey (National Center for Education Statistics, 2007) (N=10,681) to examine household income, gender, and race of parents, and their importance in shaping parental involvement in children's education. The study finds…