Our nation's 16,800 school districts spend billions of dollars a year on professional development. The best professional development is a critical need. Many educators enter teaching underprepared, especially in our communities of concentrated poverty. However, in reality, professional development often reflects our most anachronistic practices,…

Latinx/a/os have significantly increased in number in the US population. The advancement of mid-level Latinx/a/o professionals in higher education is not occurring at the same rate as the increase of the Latinx/a/o population in the country. This study aimed to examine the perceptions of mid-level Latinx/a/os administrators in their workplace…

More than a decade ago, the K-12 Framework for Education and the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) shifted states' notions of what constitutes the core of science skills and knowledge that students need to thrive in school and beyond. The majority of states adopted standards based on the framework as well as the NGSS. Yet because of the…

This article argues that current approaches to civic learning tend to normalize Whiteness. It describes how a team in Massachusetts developed a framework for civic learning through a lens of racial equity and provided professional development opportunities based on this framework. Civic learning for a multiracial democracy cannot be done in a…

As higher education tries to reimagine its value in the post-pandemic world, professional live-in staff members are fleeing from their positions at a higher rate than new professionals are entering the field. These professionals are expected to work through challenging issues, with minimal training, experiencing secondary trauma, while working in…

This study examines implementation of college-and-career-ready (CCR) education standards across five school districts in Ohio, Texas, California, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts. Drawing on the policy attributes theory, we found that the specificity of districts' approaches to two long-recognized policy levers, curriculum and professional…

In the Lexington Public Schools, outside of Boston, Massachusetts, they pride themselves on being innovative. Two years ago, they demonstrated that spirit by creating a director of equity role. Positions like this hadn't previously existed in many districts like theirs -- small, suburban, well-resourced, high-performing, historically white, and…

The Massachusetts Early Childhood Support Organization (ECSO) initiative seeks to improve the quality of early education programs (EEPs) by supporting leaders to strengthen their organizational climate, provide job-embedded professional learning opportunities for educators, support the use of instructional curriculum and child assessments in their…

Easily accessible, asynchronous professional learning can support new career technical educators' instructional skill development from their 1st day of employment. This two-cycle action research inquiry aimed to improve special education student engagement in the licensed trades curriculum by exploring the connection between teacher induction…

Problem and Purpose: Without time for preparation, COVID-19 caused a wave of operational and structural changes that encumbered much of the time and energy educational leaders previously spent on moving the district forward. The ripple effect of the pandemic exposed new challenges in teaching and learning, requiring superintendents and principals…

Background: Suspensions can have negative effects on students' immediate academic and long-run outcomes, including increasing their likelihood of being arrested and incarcerated as an adult (Bacher-Hicks, Billings, Deming, 2019). School discipline practices have become a concern of families and policymakers and there have been increasing local,…

This individual case study is part of a larger group study examining how principals benefit from and shape professional capital to improve schools. Specifically, this study sought to understand what organizational and individual factors contributed to principals' decision-making about implementing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies in…

In 2017, the National 4-H professional research, knowledge, and competencies (PRKC) taxonomy was updated reflecting the current needs of 4-H youth development professionals. Knowledge and skill gaps of 4-H professionals need to be identified to optimize resource allocation for professional development on the state and regional level. We developed…

Barriers to professional development can negatively impact educators' ability to participate. The purpose of this action research study was to investigate the role of an early childhood education (ECE) book club in ameliorating challenges to participation in professional development in a childcare center in Ontario, Canada. Data collected in Cycle…

The purpose of this study was to explore the strategies districts use to retain principals in their complex roles through the framework of culturally responsive district leadership. This qualitative case study explored how district leaders in one Massachusetts school district focused on principal retention and whether their actions influenced a…