Search results for: Public schools

In this article, the authors focus on the coexisting discourses of academic achievement circulating within in the participants’ teaching credential preparation experience. Analysis and interpretation of the participants’ transcripts revealed the presence of two separate, distinct discourses, both of which shared the name academic achievement. The first notion, called “academic progress”, reflects a developmental viewpoint. In this perspective, students are understood to have experienced academic achievement when they demonstrate levels of skill and knowledge more advanced than they held previously. The second notion, called “academic success”, reflects a mastery orientation. In this perspective, students are understood to be achieving academically when they master the knowledge and skills designated for their grade level at an appropriate pace.

This study examines the ways in which middle- and upper-middle-class parent group investments in urban public schooling may mitigate and/or exacerbate existing patterns of inequality in public education. An ethnographic case study research design was utilized. The data reveal that neighborhood parent group members catalyzed community support for their local public school, attracting other middle- and upper-middle-class parents. The research findings suggest that middle- and upper-middle-class parents are in many instances key actors in processes of school and neighborhood change.

This article examines how linguistic differentiation is described, explained, and excluded within schools in terms of implicit or explicit deliberation about English language learners (ELLs) and English as a second language (ESL) programs. The author argues that the participants' experiences resulted in the marginalization of ELTs and their students. The author maintains though that this marginalized status can be improved through collaborative relationships between general education teachers and English language teachers.

This article discusses the challenge of retaining teachers in hard-to-staff schools. Hence, the paper examines how it is addressed in three context specific teacher education programs, which prepare teachers to teach in urban public, urban Catholic, and Jewish Day Schools in U.S.A. The findings of this study suggest that counter to teaching force trends teachers from the three programs that the authors studied expressed high motivation to serve as teachers or leaders in their particular schools and communities.