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Many states are restructuring their US history state assessments to include written-response assessment items that evaluate students' literacy skills in high-stakes environments. The purpose of this study was to investigate how the addition of an extended-response item to a US history state assessment was associated with an increase in the racial achievement gap.

The theoretical framework included linguistic complexity of standardized assessment items and academic language demand and utilized a difference-in-difference research design.

The findings indicate that the achievement gap between students of color and White students increased when an extended-response assessment item was added to an exclusively multiple-choice item exam and that this increase in the achievement gap may be contributed to a literacy gap.

The continued investigation of how students of color perform on different types of extended-response standardized assessment items. And, the continued investigation of evidenced-based instructional practices that focus on developing students' literacy skills in US history as well as culturally responsive instructional practices.

The knowledge and implementation of literacy instruction and culturally responsive instruction in US history classrooms as well as in preservice teacher education programs and in-service professional development programs.

The current study is one of the first large-scale investigations into the racial achievement gap on US history written-response standardized assessment items and in identifying a literacy gap between students of color and White students on US history written-response state assessment items.

This paper aims to investigate the viability of blogging over the summer holidays as an intervention to ameliorate the Summer Learning Effect (SLE) in writing. The SLE is the impact on achievement of taking a break from school over summer, and has been documented to affect differentially those students who come from low socioeconomic status (SES) communities compared with their more affluent peers. However, previous studies within similar communities suggest that the effect is not inevitable, and is amenable to intervention.

The present study is set in a group of low SES schools where students already have individual learning blogs. The Summer Learning Journey was designed by the research team in consultation with students and teachers from the schools and trialled in January 2015. The design of the programme drew on previous research that suggested that students would be motivated by interest, rather than achievement, and that literacy activity over summer should be leisure-based.

Initial evidence suggests that students who participated made measurable improvements compared with their own progress over the previous summer and also compared with a matched control group of students, and that the observed difference continued over the 2016 school year.

The study provides initial evidence of quite substantial differences in achievement for those students who were active bloggers.

The study provides an alternative direction from current summer learning programmes and indicates the potential for designing digital opportunities for learning at times when the school is not in session.

This paper aims to report on a study investigating how young people and teachers interpreted reading proficiency and difficulty across different tracks of English language arts in the sole high school serving a culturally diverse city.

For six months, the researchers observed in three hierarchically tracked English classes. Participants were three teachers and 15 focal youths. The researchers also conducted semi-structured and open-ended interviews and collected classroom artifacts and students’ records.

Despite adoption of the Common Core State Standards and a school-designed common English curriculum, both of which were to contribute to shared literacy objectives, students and teachers built highly contextualized understandings of reading proficiency, which diverged across tracks and mediated instruction. Across tracks, however, deficit discourses about reading struggle persisted, and students and teachers attributed difficulty to students’ attitudes and behaviors. Young people never described themselves in negative terms, which suggests they resisted the deficit labels tracking systems can generate.

Findings extend research by showing how literacy-related tracking contributed to exclusionary contexts through which students were unproductively positioned at odds. Findings suggest a need for renewed rigor in the examination of tracking practices, particularly how notions of reading difficulty/proficiency position youths and mediate literacy instruction. Despite deficit conceptions of “struggling readers” across the school, youths never described themselves negatively and accepted reading difficulty as normal; how youths achieved such resourceful stances can be further investigated. These research directions will support the creation of English contexts that invite all youths into inquisitive, critical and agentive interactions with texts and each other.

Research into the literacy of Pasifika (Pacific Island) children has predominantly focused on what the children cannot do. We present a layered account as we report on the issues, strategies and learnings from a project that set out to focus on success. With the guidance of matai (chiefs) we drew on the traditional Pasifika approach of Talanoa to allow important stories to be told. Talanoa both supports and challenges traditional and alternative Palagi (a Polynesian word for European) approaches to qualitative research. Three critical issues for researchers are identified: group ownership and control of the process and outcomes, the importance of collaboratively sharing research outcomes with the researched and the wider Pasifika community, and the value of opportunities for Pasifika and Palagi to undertake Pasifika research together.

Drawn from a recent research study of the Toronto District School Board, this paper aims to examine how the District employs knowledge management to initiate and improve early literacy instruction and achievement.

This study draws on Nonaka and Takeuchi's framework to explore how focusing on tacit‐to‐tacit knowledge‐sharing strategies influence early literacy‐based knowledge sharing within and across schools. Data collection involved the collection and analysis of documents used and designed by Early Years Listeracy Project (EYLP) staff members. The second phase engaged a cross‐section of 34 EYLP teachers, administrators and senior TDSB superintendents and EYLP management team members in individual semi‐structured interviews. Participants commented on their experience vis‐à‐vis the various knowledge management strategies used to support its implementation. Data from the interviews was codified, analyzed and summarized and summaries were shared with participants for comment.

The District has employed a comprehensive strategy designed to build instructional and leadership capacity via the use of in‐school knowledge activists and informal professional networks. This paper explores the impact of these strategies on school and district‐level teacher and leader learning and organizational culture.

The overall impact of these strategies for professional and organizational learning and the challenges associated with employing knowledge management within education and the broader public sector are presented.

The purpose of the study was to provide an example of instructional coaching for inservice teachers within the context of community-engaged scholarship (CEP), involving professional learning communities (PLCs). This study seeks to encourage policymakers to allocate budgets for instructional coaches, as well as resources for schools.

An exploratory case study design was used to examine the factors that contributed to the partnership and how the PLC sessions impacted the inservice teachers' practices. Data sources included interviews, focus groups, written reflections, observations of grade-level teachers' meetings and administrative meetings.

The study uncovered important factors that impacted the community-engaged partnership (CEP) positively, such as partners having a unified agenda, a common focus on the school's needs and an understanding of the culture of the school. Principals are the gatekeepers in such partnerships.

This study yielded the description of a model of instructional coaching within a CEP that other universities around the world could replicate. The limitations of this study include the length of the study and the time frame in which the PLC content was planned. The study was conducted over 1 year to limited funding. The instructional coach developed the PLC content during the ongoing academic year and that impacted the teachers' initial perceptions and their commitment to the PLCs.

This study offers a new coaching model for CEPs that focuses on closing the gap between theory and practice by integrating PLCs, content knowledge, pedagogical knowledge and face-to-face visual support.

The purpose of this paper is to summarise the results of a review of the literature linking parental involvement in their child’s education to attainment at or before primary school.

The search involved nine electronic databases supplemented by other sources, and yielded 4,898 apparently relevant reports. Of these, 127 were reports of attempted evaluations to see whether enhancing parental involvement led to higher attainment outcomes for children.

None of these studies was a large, robust evaluation. The overwhelming majority (121/127) reported research with serious limitations, and they were almost equally divided between those claiming success and those saying that the intervention had been ineffective or harmful. Of the remaining six, three offered positive outcomes, and these were generally complex interventions in which parental involvement was only part of a package of measures taken to improve results.

Therefore, the paper has three main messages for an area where practice and policy interventions abound. Research has to improve greatly.

The purpose of this paper is to explore teachers’ noncompliance with secondary-level standardised literacy testing in Tasmania, Australia, particularly their motivations, behaviours and justifications. This paper challenges pervasive views regarding test noncompliance, suggesting a reframing as “advocacy cheating”: noncompliance for purposes of advocating for and supporting students.

The research used a single case study design, with a simple thematic analysis of the qualitative data. The design enabled data to be collected during one iteration of the examined test regime, with depth of exploration into participants’ experiences and perspectives.

Findings indicate that small number of participants were engaged in test rule noncompliance at all stages of the testing regime: before, during and following the tests. This paper presents the concept of “advocacy cheating”, illustrated in these data through the motivations presented by participants for their noncompliant actions and the forms of noncompliance used.

The small sample size and single site problematise drawing much broader comparisons. The age of the data means that current test processes and requirements have developed. Larger-scale studies might enable identification of ways in which this current regime has and might be improved.

This study’s findings and its focus on the classroom and teacher experience of testing provide insights into a widely debated and publicly important phenomenon.

The concept of “advocacy cheating” provides a newer way of considering and interpreting the range of ways in which teachers implement standardised tests.

Middle level teachers, at times, link historical content with relevant English literature in interdisciplinary units. Elementary teachers periodically employ history-themed literature during reading time. Interconnections between language arts and history are formed with developmentally appropriate literature for students. Historical misrepresentations, however, proliferate in children’s literature and are concealed behind engaging narratives. Since literacy and historical thinking are essential skills, children’s literature should be balanced within, not banished from, the classroom. Using America’s peculiar institution of slavery as a reference point, this article examines children’s literature, identifies almost a dozen areas of historical misrepresentation, and proffers rich primary source material to balance the various misrepresentations. We provide teachers with reason for caution when including such literature; but also model how to locate, use, and, at times, abridge primary source material within an elementary or middle level classroom. Such curricular supplements provide balance to engaging but historically-blemished children’s literature and enable educators to attain the rigorous prescriptions of Common Core.

Although high-quality comparative data from international assessments are now more widely available, to what extent is that data being used to trigger, inform, and direct educational change in non-Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) countries? The purpose of this paper is to develop a theoretical framework to guide a case analysis of Trinidad and Tobago's system response to international assessment data.

This is a single-nation explanatory case study using data from policy documents and elite interviews. Findings are generated through inductive thematic analysis.

The four emerging themes were: first, weaknesses in the national evaluation system; second, policy-making practices not attuned to data; third, lack of collaboration and stakeholder involvement; and fourth, challenges in accessing and using data. Findings suggested that data rarely acted alone to trigger system change. Critical to initiating and sustaining effective data use for system reform were policy-making contexts and mental maps of system leaders, which in this context acted as barriers. Respondents believed that greater strategic leadership from politicians and technocrats could ensure data-informed systemic change.

The study focuses upon data use and data-driven decision making for whole system reform within a single country context. However, it advances theory that might be applied to other non-OECD cases.

The findings contribute to the refinement of a conceptual model explaining data-driven system reform applicable to non-OECD contexts. The role of system leaders when using international assessment data is clarified.