(full issue available soon)

Consider all the Evidence on Pre-K Programs for Low-Income Children: Why Randomized Controlled Trial Results Must Not Dictate Public Policy

Jamie Heng-Chieh Wu and Hope Akaeze

The recently published randomized controlled trial (RCT) study of the Tennessee Voluntary Pre-Kindergarten (VPK) program by Durkin et al. (2022) found that sixth graders who participated in VPK in school years 2009–10 and 2010–11 performed more poorly on their academic and behavioral outcomes than children who did not participate. This study has been used to argue against public investment in pre-K programming. We join other education researchers and advocates in urging caution in interpreting the results and particularly in generalizing them to apply to today’s pre-K programs in Tennessee or to programs in other states or cities.

Overcoming obstacles to provide a brave, LGBTQ-affirming learning environment: The Magic City Acceptance Academy

Matthew Fifolt, D. Keith Gurley, and Dwayne White

Incidents of bullying and harassment due to identity, identity expression, or otherness are well-documented in the literature. Students who identify as LGBTQ, LGBTQ-allied, or disenfranchised experience such intimidation in public schools in the United States at a much higher rate than do students who identify as heteronormative or neurotypical. In this qualitative case study, we describe the process of one group of highly committed individuals to develop, propose, and eventually establish one of the first LGBTQ-affirming charter schools in the United States.

Full PDF of Volume 51, Issue 1/2

Improvement Science and the Every Student Succeeds Act: An Analysis of State Guidance Documents

David Osworth & Kathleen Cunningham
The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) provides guidance and expectations to state education agencies. We examined the intersection of improvement science and ESSA through a qualitative analysis of the state guidance documents. This study contributes to the growing dialogue regarding improvement science’s place in education policy.

Mitigating Learning Loss for Students with Disabilities Due to COVID-19: An Analysis of Florida Education Plans and Assurances with an Eye on Leadership

Krista M. Bixler, Noelle Balsamo, & Jennifer A. Sughrue
The purpose of this study was to investigate how Florida’s 67 school districts planned to mitigate the anticipated learning losses among students with disabilities, to determine if the districts’ plans were sufficiently comprehensive to ensure Free Appropriate Education (FAPE), and to determine if there was evidence of leadership actions that would support students with disabilities and their service providers.

Meeting the Evidentiary Needs of School-University Co-Researchers Implementing the Next Generation Science Standards

Dianne Gardner Renn, Rachel Shefner, Kelly Holmes, Stacy A. Wenzel, & Eric Osthoff
The paper highlights the development of a collaborative formative assessment scoring process in a partnership between an urban university and one of the nation’s largest districts. We explore collaborative research through the lens of a single formative assessment rubric derived from the Claims, Evidence, and Reasoning Framework (CER, McNeill & Krajcik, 2011) to guide teachers to meet the instructional demands of enhanced learning standards through a consensus scoring process.

The Role of a Principal in Bridging the Gap Between Educational Policy and Theory

Ethan Davis
The principal can create dynamic changes across a school and district if they are willing to partner with other educators and policy makers to build trust along a common understanding of the purposes of education. In crafting this shared definition or vision, the instructional leader would be wise to turn to the educational philosopher, John Dewey. Dimitriadis and Kamberelis (2006) state that, “For Dewey, the purpose of education is the intellectual, social, emotional, and moral development of the individual within a democratic society” (p. 9). This definition focuses on the development of the individual freed from what that individual stands to gain, and, even more importantly, what others stand to gain. It pulls away from the anthropocentric version of society specifically in capitalistic societies, and allows the individual to become the author of their own experience. As authors or creators, students can choose to use their abilities to create something new or solve societal problems.

Full PDF of Volume 50, Issue 3/4

The COVID-19 Pandemic and the Impact on Educational Institutions

Linsay DeMartino
An introduction to the Planning & Changing COVID-19 Special Issue.

Disengaged and Nearing Departure: Students at Risk for Dropping Out in the Age of COVID-19

Jennifer Antoni
Examining the turbulence of the current educational context in light of COVID-19 and the associated school closures, for disengaged high school students, often over-aged, who are nearing the end of their academic journeys.

The (im)possibilities of Equitable Education of Multilingual Emergent Bilinguals in Remote Teaching: A Survey of English Language Teachers in the Great Lakes Region

Jenna Cushing-Leubner, Trish Morita-Mullaney, Michelle C. S. Greene, Amy Stolpestad, & Michelle Benegas
Identifying how teachers of Emergent Bilinguals labeled “English Language Learners” (EL teachers) responded to the sudden shift to emergency remote teaching and learning (ERTL) due to COVID-19 in March 2020.

Mother School Leaders Negotiate ‘Blurred Lines’ Between Work and Home During COVID-19

Lisa Crosslin & Lucy E. Bailey
The COVID-19 pandemic that began in late 2019 but grew into a national crisis during the first three months of 2020 provides a unique context for researching how educational leaders respond to precarity. For leaders who are also mothers, a group that scholars commonly call mother/leaders (Grzelakowski, 2005), the intersections of personal and professional identities create specific constraints relative to their positioning.

“Building the Plane While Trying to Fly:” Exploring Special Education Teacher Narratives During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Donna Sayman & Heidi Cornell
This study employed a qualitative narrative inquiry research design to explore special education teacher narratives related to their experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic.

First-Year Students’ Experience in Higher Education in Chile in Times of COVID-19

Rosa Bahamondes Rivera & Erika Abarca Millán
As the pandemic turned instruction entirely remote in several countries, students are presented with the issues of having to re(construct) what these different institutions (university, family) look like, their boundaries, and physical spaces.

Found in Oz, the Ruby Slippers to Embracing Digital Classrooms through Appreciative Inquiry

Susan Zoll, Natasha Feinberg, Beth Pinheiro, Leslie Sevey
Within the context of a global pandemic and challenges of adapting pedagogical practice to virtual instruction, four higher education professors came together to share observations and review student feedback regarding their online learning experiences. Using an Appreciative In-quiry (Cooperrider & Srivastva, 1987) theoretical framework, researchers mapped the journey of transforming their instruction and delivery by collectively re-envisioning the upcoming semester’s online teaching approach.

Taking a Pause to Consider a Radical New: Or All (Re)envisioning is Science-Fiction Work

Gavin Weiser
A conclusion to the Planning & Changing COVID-19 Special Issue.

Volume 50, Issue 1/2

Urban High School Administrators Second Order Change

Eugene Pringle
Investigating the possibility of a relationship between second-order change leadership behaviors of high school administrators and changes in student achievement on the Florida Standards Assessment English Language Arts/Reading component and the Algebra 1 End of Course examination in two large urban school districts.

A Cost-Benefit Analysis of a Teen Pregnancy Program Employed as a High School Dropout Intervention

Susan E. Macchia, David J. Therriault, & R. Craig Wood
Evaluating a state-wide teen pregnancy dropout prevention program using cost-benefit analysis.

Improving Math and Science Instructional Quality: Evidence from a Rural Consortium-Based Reform Initiative

Christine G. Mokher, Juliana Pearson, & Thomas Geraghty
Examining progress made by the Northeast Tennessee College and Career Ready Consortium relative to a group of matched comparison schools in improving instructional quality between 2011 and 2014 during the implementation of a federal Investing in Innovation Fund (i3) grant.

Principal Practices that Build and Sustain Trust: Recommendations from Teachers in a High-Trust School

Debra Bukko, Kimy Liu, & Anthony H. Johnson
Understanding teachers’ perceptions of principals’ trust-building actions and dispositions.

Roll Call in Data Team Meetings: Are Principals Present?

Vanessa Garry
Examining the practice of data use in seven schools in one urban school district.

The Principal and the School Nurse: Conditions and Conceptual Model for Building a Successful and Vital Professional Relationship

Charles R. Davis, Erik J. Lynch, & Patti A. Davis
Examining a critical and underrecognized contributor to educational achievement and success is the school nurse.

Volume 49, Issue 3/4

Suffering in New Jim Crow Schools: Under the Cover of Diversity in Post-Brown Education

Matthew D. Davis
The Brown v. Board of Education ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court brought hopes of long-denied freedom to Black communities and their inhabitants. However, implementation of Brown ushered in more misery than a mandate for equality.

Teaching Research Evidence Use Through the Education Doctorate

William Firestone, Jill Alexa Perry, & Andrew Leland
The education doctorate provides advanced leadership preparation to educators in several English-speaking countries. We explore how four American education doctorate programs teach evidence use.

NGO Involvement in Educational Policy: The Perceptions of NGO Executives

Yarden Gali & Chen Schechter
This study focuses on the perceptions of NGO senior executives regarding their involvement in the design and implementation of education policy in Israel. We applied a qualitative research method, conducting in-depth interviews with NGO senior executives who provided rich and comprehensive descriptions of their perceptions

How do Principal Supervisors Interact with Leadership Teams in High Needs Schools?

Rebecca A. Thessin, Matthew Shirrell, & Tamilah Richardson
Instructional leadership teams (ILTs) advance school improvement by building the capacity of school-based leaders to lead improvement work. The role of central office administrators, and particularly of principal supervisors, supporting the learning and development of ILTs, however, is relatively unknown.

Computing Student Yields at the School District Attendance Area by Length of Ownership

Richard Grip
As part of school district planning and projecting future enrollments, demographers need to factor the impact of new housing developments by using student yields. In this case study of a large, suburban school district in central New Jersey, Geographic Information System (GIS) software was used to project student yields by joining student address records to parcel-level property records.