Background: The Pennsylvania Youth Survey (PAYS) is administered biennially to adolescents; it covers knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors about risk and protective factors. Purpose: This study explored 8th, 10th, and 12th grade students' attitudes and beliefs about current trends regarding drugs, alcohol, and mental health. Methods: We asked…

This study explores the association between school-level poverty rates and young peoples' perceptions of student empowerment, drawing on survey and administrative data from a large urban district. Participants included 29,318 diverse youth in grades 6-12 from 211 schools. We used multilevel linear regression models to estimate the relationships…

Globally, policy implementation in the education system has been found to be a challenging area of development. The South African education system is no exception to the ineffective implementation of policies. For example, in South Africa, the progression policy was introduced by the Department of Education in 2013 for the purpose of minimising…

Schools and districts across the country are being subjected to some of the fiercest budget cuts in recent history, even as principals are held increasingly accountable for significantly improving student achievement, particularly in schools labeled "persistently low-achieving." For the 5,000 lowest-performing schools, there is the…

In this article, the author emphasizes that student's opinions are seldom heard regarding the issue on school improvement. School boards, politicians, government officials, newspaper columnists, and others give strong opinions on what schools and teachers need to do better, but seldom the students are being heard. Here she discusses some of the…

Because the national education agenda is focused on standards, testing, and accountability, schools are at risk of narrowly defining their mission as improving test scores. In this environment, it is easy to forget that public education serves a larger civic mission. Preserving and promoting a democratic society was the founding precept of the…