Early Head Start policies describe parents as partners in decision-making and require families and home visitors to co-develop child and family goals. Home visitors face a range of challenges when facilitating decisions about goals and other issues, which requires interactional skills to apply institutional resources and policies to individual…

Education is considered one of the great equalizers of economic opportunity. However, pre-existing differences in educational access may generate differences in educational investment, which may perpetuate the economic inequalities that education is supposed to mitigate. In this paper, we examine the role of reduced educational investment as a…

Reforms to GCSEs were introduced in 2015. The major changes were a move from modules to a focus on final exams, and a change in the grading system from letters (A*, A…G etc), to numbers (9, 8…1 etc). The aims of the reforms were to improve standards overall by making courses harder and increase differentiation at the top of the grade range. This…

School of choice has been touted as a solution to the alleged decay of the American educational system. Every year more and more "choice schools" (charter, magnet, expeditionary, and others) open across the United States. Although these schools are subject to the same federal legal requirements as traditional public schools to provide a…

Using hierarchical linear models, this study probes into student, family, teacher, and schools' variables that can explain the variation in Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) 2016 results. Students' confidence in reading, early literacy tasks, and parents' expectations are the strongest explanatory variables of reading…

Privatization, marketization, investment, and competition of education have become a global phenomenon with significant implications. While research on demand and patterns of shadow education are increasingly available across the world, very little is known about the scope of parents' investments, family burden, and students' workload. This paper…

Federal policy recognizes the importance of effective educators, particularly in high-needs schools. Research has shown that the most critical school-related factor that influences student learning and achievement is teacher quality (Hanushek, 2011). The Texas Center for Educator Excellence (TxCEE) aims to address the research-based and…

Closing the achievement gap is critical to the future of the nation, but more importantly it provides economically disadvantaged students a learning experience equivalent to their peers. Many districts attempt to battle low performance in Title I schools through special programs or addressing issues such as class size instead of taking into…

Despite music education being endorsed by researchers as an effective tool to improve the social-emotional competence of students who live in poverty, African American students, who are overrepresented among the population of students who live in poverty, often fail to take advantage of music education programs (Elpus & Abril, 2011; Hoffman…

State summative assessments play an important role in measuring student learning and guiding educational improvement efforts, despite their limitations. But there is growing momentum in individual states and nationally to rethink these assessments with an eye toward reducing time spent on testing and increasing the tests' instructional relevance.…

A provision of India's Right to Education Act requires private schools to enrol 25% of children from 'disadvantaged' and 'economically weaker' backgrounds. Described as a unique public-private partnership, this policy has been widely debated for its promotion of private actors in ensuring equity and access to education. Within this controversial…

Educators' use of exclusionary discipline practices (e.g., our-of-school suspension) has been systematically applied to Black and brown youth, impacting opportunities for academic achievement. Federal policy calls for educators to refine their practice when racial discipline disparities are detected, yet there is little guidance in the law about…

Students enrolled in public education schools in the State of Texas are required to participate in and secure passage of a norm-referenced state assessment in different grade levels and subject areas. The State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness (STAAR) is the norm-referenced assessment used for students in grades third through eighth, and…

This practice report describes how escape rooms have been used by one Australian university to successfully engage with high-school students who reside in areas of relative socio-educational disadvantage. We discuss how the escape room approach aligns with Lizzio's "Five Senses of Success" and offer recommendations for further use and…

This study of homeless students' existential experiences was focused on urban community colleges and postsecondary vocational schools and universities. Homeless students encounter unique existential challenges, yet homeless students have proven abilities to access resources essential for their academic pursuits. The study results showed homeless…