This study examined the Academic Performance Index (API) and Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) achievement trends between 2004 and 2006 of 58 California public elementary schools after exiting state monitoring and investigated practices for sustaining consistent achievement growth. Statistical methods were used to analyze statewide achievement trends…

If a grade is to be trusted as an authentic representation of a student's level of academic achievement, one of the requirements is that all the elements that contribute to that grade must qualify as achievement, and not be something else. The implications of taking this proposition literally turn out to be far reaching. Many elements that are…

There are constant calls for reform in the criminal justice system, but observers have often reported that criminal justice reform is an exceptionally challenging task. As with any organizational change, resistance to new policies, procedures, and practices comes from a variety of sources. The relatively broad discretionary authority vested in…

While Michel Foucault's "technologies of the self" are useful in explaining the convergence of liberalism and bio-politics, they fail to account for the appeal of juridical mechanisms that administer the conventions of bio-political control. A productive site from which to explore this convergence is provided by the "mall curfew," a bio-political…

This study examines the ways in which privacy rules are developed and boundaries are coordinated within the student-teacher relationship using Petronio's Communication Privacy Management theory as a framework. Forty-one college instructors described the specific criteria they use to develop privacy rules and the conditions under which boundaries…

Public schools are currently operating in a pressure-cooker of accountability systems in which they must teach students to high standards and meet ever increasing targets for student proficiency, or face increasingly severe sanctions. Into this mix is thrown educational technology and the funding for that technology. The literature espouses the…

Wisconsin's influential Learnfare initiative is a conditional cash penalty program that sanctions a family's welfare grant when covered teens fail to meet school attendance targets. In the presence of reference-dependent preferences, Learnfare provides uniquely powerful financial incentives for student performance. However, a 10-county…

The Assessment-Intervention of Student Problems (AISP) model is a useful tool for preparing student affairs professionals to assess the problems of disturbed, disturbing, or disturbed/disturbing students and to make appropriate referrals. It is particularly useful because it emphasizes the necessity of developing an integrated system for this…

When people gathered last May for the commencement ceremony at the University of California at Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law, they were greeted by chanting activists from the National Lawyers Guild and other left-wing groups. The university, protesters shouted, should fire John C. Yoo, a tenured professor who has taught at the law school…

For the past number of years, experienced teachers have sometimes come to visit my office with a sense that they are working outside the official educational system. In many ways these teachers see themselves as subversives, acting on behalf of their students to deliver a better educational experience, but in many cases they feel that they are…

Across the United States, student achievement is a concern. The local district under study is not meeting adequate yearly progress (AYP), a standard initiated by the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), which schools are expected to attain to avoid sanctions. The district's students are performing lower than state average on the state's standardized…

This article examines principal leadership and teacher motivation in schools under accountability sanctions. The conceptual framework is grounded in research on expectancy theory and transformational leadership. The study involves a survey of Chicago teachers and indicates that principal instructional leadership and support for change are…

The high-stakes testing climate and the growing immigrant and English language-learning population have changed the face of teaching and learning in today's high schools. In this chapter, the authors emphasize the impact of a new paradigm of schooling based on high-stakes testing on Asian and Latin American students, as they represent the largest…

The use of corporal punishment may be as old as society itself. However, the development of compulsory attendance laws has raised questions about its legality. Under compulsory attendance laws and subject to exceptions for home schooling and nonpublic schools, parents must send their children to public schools or be subject to sanctions. Conflicts…

The Federal education policy No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) has initiated high-stakes testing among U.S. public schools. The premise of the NCLB initiative is that all students reach proficiency in reading and math by 2014. Under NCLB, individual state education departments were required to implement annual assessments in grades two through eight…