No abstract

As an intermediary between U.S. state and federal policy and the school, the school district, many scholars maintain, remains a key player in meeting the needs of school-level leadership. Moreover, the job of the principal is difficult and has become increasingly complex as a result of increased pressure, accountability, and oversight under the No Child Left Behind Act (now the Every Student Succeeds Act) in the United States. These two propositions raise important questions about what we know (and do not yet know) about how to support school leaders’ learning and development in their quest to effectively lead a school. In this review, we use extant social-cognitive theories of motivation to organize the research on district effectiveness in pursuit of the following question: How does the district as a key player in school/instructional improvement facilitate conditions under which school principals’ learning, development, and success are enhanced? In pursuing this question, we hoped to strengthen two particular weaknesses in this strand of scholarship: (1) the concern that research in this particular area is relatively atheoretical and (2) concerns about the applicability of this research to practice.

Students benefit from culturally responsive teaching (CRT). CRT is central to dual language (DL) education-an additive approach that is effective for educating emergent bilinguals and closing the achievement gap. Students' achievements in DL education models are higher than in any other type of language learning pedagogy-ESL, Bilingual and Monolingual. The purpose of this research was to identify the CRT practices that are employed in DL classrooms; so that teachers in other educational settings (i.e. mainstream, ESL, bilingual) might implement similar practices and improve their effectiveness with diverse students. Using survey responses from Dual Language teachers (N = 151), this study examined the intersection of CRT practices and DL teachers self-reported practice. This empirical study reveals that three out of the eight features of Gay's CRT framework were present in DL teachers' practices: validating, multidimensional, and empowering. DL teachers validate students' experience through speaking affirmations, offering texts that represent and reflect students' culture, differentiating instruction, and providing cooperative learning experiences for students. The CRT practices that are multidimensional involve establishing a welcoming and safe climate and including performance assessment to authentically evaluate students' learning. Finally, DL teachers empower their students by offering instruction that facilitates independence in learning. These study findings provide a unique window into DL teacher practice, which can be leveraged by administrators and mainstream teachers to improve the achievement of diverse learners in every classroom.

The rise of authoritarianism and exclusionary nationalism has shown a critical need to teach students how to build, maintain and participate in democratic communities. This requires students to understand how authoritarianism and nationalism exclude people and perspectives in communities. While inclusionary nationalism can create an identity that unites people, we focus upon the divisive form of nationalism that is exclusionary. This article first describes the context for critical education for democracy in the face of authoritarianism and nationalism. We follow with a conceptual analysis of critical education for democracy. This involves the ways that students can identify antidemocratic discourses in order to promote democratic discourses. The model that we present relies upon student discourse analysis and elements of greeting, rhetoric and narrative for increasing inclusion in democratic communities. We conclude with illustrations of classroom inquiries, discussions and deliberations that can build student understanding of authoritarianism, nationalism and democracy.