Overview of the Know Your Schools~for NY Kids Study: 2017-18
Promising Practices for Critical Needs High School Students
University at Albany
School of Education
Rationale:
High quality public education for ethnically and linguistically diverse and economically-disadvantaged (i.e. “critical needs”) students has been a goal in U.S. public schools for the past several decades. Although federal legislation (e.g., the No Child Left Behind Act, 2001; Every Student Succeeds Act, 2015) and related policy changes at the state levels have provided incentives for educators to account for improving academic performance among these students, achievement gaps have persisted, and they have led to renewed efforts for change.
However, improvement initiatives designed to close achievement gaps generally target the performance of individual teachers (e.g. Race-to-the-Top’s Annual Professional Performance Reviews), individual students’ academic performance via high stakes standardized assessments, and individual schools, rather than school systems.
Recent concerns for qualities of instructional leadership and the distribution of that leadership in schools calls for more attention to parent/family and community partnerships and social and emotional well-being of youth as well as the import of culturally-responsive school cultures, climates, and pedagogies in the improvement of diverse student outcomes. Assessments and interventions for struggling students within schools and across schools are also of import. These concerns and calls have provided several foci for the current study. Therefore, this study highlights several lines of inquiry:
Promising Practices for Critical Needs High School Students
University at Albany
School of Education
Rationale:
High quality public education for ethnically and linguistically diverse and economically-disadvantaged (i.e. “critical needs”) students has been a goal in U.S. public schools for the past several decades. Although federal legislation (e.g., the No Child Left Behind Act, 2001; Every Student Succeeds Act, 2015) and related policy changes at the state levels have provided incentives for educators to account for improving academic performance among these students, achievement gaps have persisted, and they have led to renewed efforts for change.
However, improvement initiatives designed to close achievement gaps generally target the performance of individual teachers (e.g. Race-to-the-Top’s Annual Professional Performance Reviews), individual students’ academic performance via high stakes standardized assessments, and individual schools, rather than school systems.
Recent concerns for qualities of instructional leadership and the distribution of that leadership in schools calls for more attention to parent/family and community partnerships and social and emotional well-being of youth as well as the import of culturally-responsive school cultures, climates, and pedagogies in the improvement of diverse student outcomes. Assessments and interventions for struggling students within schools and across schools are also of import. These concerns and calls have provided several foci for the current study. Therefore, this study highlights several lines of inquiry:
- Instructional leadership especially inclusive-facilitative leadership
- Parent/family and community engagement
- Organizational capacity for academic, social, and emotional needs of diverse youth
- School culture and climate – particularly aspects that are culturally-responsive
- Culturally-responsive curriculum and instruction
- Assessment and interventions for struggling students
- Cradle-to-career systems for diverse youth
