While adolescent foundational skills interventions can be critical levers for reading improvement, district leaders, teachers, and researchers must make complex decisions about how to evaluate their effectiveness in context. In this discussion article, we explore three issues and tensions we experienced during a 2-year research-practice…

The COVID-19 pandemic has created a plethora of problems globally for school boards, administrators, and teachers of science, technology, engineering, the arts, and mathematics (STEAM). From the beginning of 2020, marginalized students--those who live in low-socioeconomic environments or come from traditionally underrepresented communities or…

During the COVID-19 pandemic, an adult noncredit program in the California Community College system partnered with Ease Learning to help convert face-to-face courses to an online modality. Subsequent data revealed a misalignment in the courses' Student Learning Outcomes and Instructional Objectives which became a barrier to student success. Wile's…

This qualitative research study sought to understand the affordances and limitations of a systemic functional linguistics (SFL) approach to teaching composition at the community college level. The study took place over the course of a semester in two developmental college composition classes using the language of SFL to teach writing through…

The fact that all children must attend school has characterised South Africa over the past two decades. While many schools are struggling to address this challenge, others have made strides and progress in closing the gap between groups. This article recounts how these secondary schools have been able to narrow the achievement gap and sustain…

With approximately 40 million foreign-born people in the United States, US classrooms are witnessing an intense concentration of newcomer students and a persistent achievement gap between immigrant students and their English-speaking, US-born peers. Yet, some teachers are consistently successful with "those" children typically…

Many countries are in the process of adopting radical changes to the purpose, nature and organisation of the school curriculum as the principles of lifelong learning are transferred to schooling. One of the most fundamental changes lies in the emphasis on learning how to learn as a transferable skill set that underpins the whole curriculum. On…

Consensus is growing that high-quality early education is a critical support to all subsequent learning. In early childhood education quality is generally considered holistically in terms of the physical environment, programmatic structure (e.g., length of the school day), curriculum and instruction, and the nature of interactions between teachers…

The report provides a social and historical perspective on how Finland's education system was built and emerged as a high performer in Europe by 2000. In highlighting Finland's strengths, the authors focus on: (1) Finland's long-standing commitment to supporting all of its students as the driver of strong outcomes; (2 the systems's emphasis on…

English learners (ELs) represent one of the fastest growing groups among the school-aged population in the United States, yet the level of literacy achievement for ELs has lagged significantly behind that of their native English-speaking peers. Existing practices in schools tend to favor an asocial and decontextualized language learning approach…

In the past several decades, Boston has been a proving ground for new strategies such as mayoral control, charter schools, and expanded access to early childhood education. Located in a state known for rigorous standards and accountability, Boston Public Schools (BPS) has consistently ranked among the top-performing large public school districts…

Development of module has great impact on literacy today. This paper highlights the challenges and experiences of the researchers in an academic institution where the research project which initially began as part of an academic research initiative expanded to helping a marginalized community in need. Literacy pedagogy has to be relevant to the…

In the United States education system a large achievement gap between African American and Latino students compared to White American students exists. Various studies have documented the gap, but there has not been much success in closing it. Recognizing that the educational system is growing more, not less, diverse, including due to the rise in…

School districts continually face problems associated with student achievement. The 2001-2002 federal mandate contained in the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act held schools accountable for success of all students in reading and mathematics. Standardized tests were employed to measure the success. The purpose of this study was to investigate efforts…

In the United States, populations identified as linguistically and culturally diverse (LCD) are increasing at the fastest rate in public schools (Samway & McKeon, 2007). LCD students have not performed as well as their monolingual and/or affluent peers on state mandated assessments. No Child Left Behind Act (2001) stressed this disparity as "the…