Recent research on teacher professional development (PD) underscores the importance of the coherence of PD with standards, curriculum, and assessment. Teachers' judgments of the coherence of PD with larger system goals influence their decisions about what ideas and resources they appropriate from PD. Little research, however, has examined how teachers formulate these judgments and why teachers' judgments vary within the same system and for the same reform. In this article, we use organizational theory's concept of sensemaking to examine teachers' responses to PD related to the Next Generation Science Standards within two schools in the United States. Our study shows that teachers' perceptions of coherence emerge from interactions within PD, associated curriculum materials, and with colleagues and leaders in their schools. Some teachers, we found, were able to manage ambiguity, uncertainty, and perceived incoherence productively, while others foreclosed deep and sustained sensemaking. Our findings suggest the need for PD to engage teachers in sustained sensemaking activity around issues of perceived incoherence to bolster teachers' emergent understandings of standards and improve the likelihood of implementing instructional practices aligned to standards.

Previously, we have shown that the vimentin 3' untranslated region (3'UTR) contains a highly conserved region, which is sufficient for the perinuclear localization of a reporter mRNA. This region was shown to specifically bind protein(s) by band shift analyses. UV-cross-linking studies suggest these proteins are 46- and 35-kDa in mass. Here, we have used this sequence as 'bait' to isolate RNA binding proteins using the yeast three-hybrid method. This technique relies on a functional assay detecting bona fide RNA-protein interaction in vivo. Three cDNA isolates, HAX-1, eEF-1gamma and hRIP, code for proteins of a size consistent with in vitro cross- linking studies. In all cases, recombinant proteins were capable of binding RNA in vitro. Although hRIP is thought to be a general mRNA binding protein, this represents an unreported activity for eEF-1gamma and HAX-1. Moreover, HAX-1 binding appears to be specific to vimentin's 3'UTR. Both in vivo synthesized eEF-1gamma and HAX-1 proteins were 'pulled out' of HeLa whole cell extracts by binding to a RNA affinity column comprised of vimentin's 3'UTR. Moreover, size-fractionation of extracts results in the separation of large complexes containing either eEF-1gamma or HAX-1. Thus, in addition to their known functions, both eEF-1gamma and HAX-1 are RNA binding proteins, which suggests new roles in mRNA translation and/or perinuclear localization.

In response to numerous calls for more rigorous STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education to improve US competitiveness and the job prospects of next-generation workers, especially those from low-income and minority groups, a growing number of schools emphasizing STEM have been established in the US over the past decade. However, existing STEM schools vary substantially in the way they are organized, the students they attract, and the outcomes they advertise, and there have been few empirical studies of their effectiveness. This comparative case study examines the opportunity structures for STEM at eight public high schools, four in Denver, Colorado, and four in Buffalo, New York. All of the schools were "inclusive" (no admission requirements) and served predominantly lowincome and majority minority students. All but one school had been designated "low-performing" for failure to meet federal accountability requirements. In each city, two of the study schools had recently been reorganized to be "STEM-focused" in some way, and two were traditional, comprehensive high schools. We found that the STEM-focused schools were launched with much enthusiasm and high expectations. In both cities, STEM-focused schools achieved some modest success initially but were unable to maintain their gains. Overall among the schools in this study, the STEM-focused high schools did little to improve STEM opportunities compared to the comprehensive high schools. We do not mean to suggest that STEM schools are a bad idea, but that claims and expectations for them must be examined in the context of their implementation, and STEM schools for low-income and minority students are unlikely to be successful without more attention to systemic issues in urban education. # 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach, XXX-XXX, 2015.

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Inclusive STEM high schools (ISHSs) (where STEM is science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) admit students on the basis of interest rather than competitive examination. This study examines the central assumption behind these schools—that they provide students from subgroups underrepresented in STEM with experiences that equip them academically and attitudinally to enter and stay in the STEM pipeline. Hierarchical modeling was applied to data from student surveys and state longitudinal data records for 5113 students graduating from 39 ISHSs and 22 comprehensive high schools in North Carolina and Texas. Compared to peers from the same demographic group with similar Grade 8 achievement levels, underrepresented minority and female ISHS students in both states were more likely to undertake advanced STEM coursework. Hispanics in Texas and females in both states expressed more STEM career interest in Grade 12 if they attended an ISHS. Positive relationships between ISHS attendance and grade point average were found in the total sample and each subgroup in North Carolina. Positive ISHS advantages in terms of test scores for the total student sample were found for science in both states and for mathematics in Texas. For the various student subgroups, test score differences favored the ISHS samples but attained statistical significance only for African Americans’ science achievement scores in the Texas study.