This article reveals the Foucauldian docile body manufactured within the Department for Education's special educational needs and disability code of practice 2014 through employment of a theoretical lens of embodiment and an analytical focus on only three words. In problematizing the concepts of support, employment and independence, we seek to…

School accountability systems in the United States have been criticized on a number of fronts, mainly on grounds of completeness and fairness. This study examines an alternative school quality framework--one that seemingly responds to several core critiques of present accountability systems. Examining results from a pilot study in a diverse urban…

Comprehensive measures of the quality of occupational therapy services are critical as the profession as a whole and school-based occupational therapy (SBOT) practitioners in particular examine and strengthen the depth and breadth of the body of knowledge and improve, measure, and advocate for the value of their service to students, families, and…

Since the passing of what we now call the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA, students who were previously educated in separate facilities or campuses are now educated in their neighborhood schools. Even though students with severe disabilities are now in their neighborhood schools, many spend the majority of their day in…

In this article, I consider the limitations of school integration research that overlooks Black research perspectives, White policy interests, and the paradox of race in the New Jim Crow--America's system of racial caste in the post-Civil Rights Era. Applying critical race theory as critical policy analysis, I discuss the importance of theorizing…

Tribal nations have entered an era of nation building or the process by which a native nation enhances its foundational capacity for effective self-governance and self-determination. While many tribal nations have become more economically secure in recent years, legitimacy has remained elusive for some. Successful tribal nations, alongside…

Professional development is a term researched, defined, and developed for decades. The term professional development is a critical component to the effectiveness of teacher practice and implementation of teacher resources that can ultimately affect student achievement. As professional development evolves, research on this topic centers on changes…

The Title I, Part A program (Title I) is legislation included in the Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015 (ESSA), the latest reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA). Title I, Part A was designed to ensure that all children have a fair, equal, and significant opportunity to obtain a high-quality education and…

Under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), every state must develop a plan to provide a quality education to all students, hold schools accountable for how all students achieve, and identify and help schools that are struggling. It matters greatly how California designs its accountability system and supports school improvement. Getting this…

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act requires local education agencies to include parents as equal team members in the cultivation of their child's individual education plan (IEP). Despite law, studies have shown that parents experience barriers to being included in the process. Barriers such as a lack of information, lack of…

Through the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEA) 2004, Congress calls for all states to identify students who are at risk for reading difficulties and then to use research-based instruction techniques appropriate for the child's needs, delivered by highly qualified teachers to educate all children. Response to…

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) gives states more power than they had under previous federal law to determine which schools are low-performing and gives school districts greater latitude to decide on strategies to improve these schools. This report describes findings from the first phase of a project by the Center on Education Policy (CEP)…

The federal "Every Student Succeeds Act" (ESSA) has stimulated states to revisit school improvement. Previously, the Center analyzed ESSA and the related consolidated state plans using the lens of how the federal legislation and state plans address barriers to learning and teaching and re-engage disconnected students. Such analyses…

This action research study focused on a problem of practice observed in a Title 1 middle school in rural South Carolina, where seventh-grade students show low academic achievement levels in social studies, evidenced by low scores on teacher-made tests, district benchmarks, and the state standardized test. To address this problem of practice,…

Students today face a grim reality: they pay exorbitant tuition costs--often for little gain. In recent decades, policymakers and educational institutions have focused on increasing access and funding for first-generation, low-income, and minority students. But these efforts have failed to close the achievement gap because they do nothing to…