Abstract In this manuscript and in commemoration of the 1975 Children’s Defense Fund Report, we critique the use of “controlling for poverty” on racial disparities in school discipline in educational research, contending that this method problematically minimizes the role of systemic racism and historical inequities. To ground this argument, we utilize the backdrop of the economic disadvantages deeply intertwined with race due to centuries of racial oppression. To provide a more accurate and nuanced understanding of educational inequities, we advocate for re-evaluating poverty as a proxy for historical racism through including both current systemic factors and historical racism in analyses.

Nearly half of Black parents have access to public school choice, but choice may not provide equitable and supportive school environments. Qualitative research documents Black parents worries that majority-White schools with more resources and higher test scores may over-discipline, underestimate, and exclude their children. Yet large-scale studies rarely examine what Black families desire in potential schools, including how they navigate potential tradeoffs between high school quality and denigrating school racial climates. This survey experiment examines the extent to which test score gaps and suspension gaps between Black students and their non-Black peers deter Black parents from choosing schools with higher overall test scores and lower overall suspension rates. We randomly assign a large, national sample of Black parents (N = 1,677) to examine a school profile vignette where the school has overall high academic achievement and low suspensions rates but includes either one, both, or neither academic and discipline gaps to assess how test score and suspension disparities affect Black parents’ school preferences and perceptions. We find that racial disparities in student discipline and academic outcomes, on average, diminish Black families’ desires to enroll in high-achievement schools and their perceptions of student belonging. These findings align with qualitative research showing that well-resourced, high-achieving schools are less appealing to Black families when they marginalize Black students and that schools’ unequal punishment of Black students shapes Black parents’ evaluations of potential educational spaces.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11256-025-00797-x.

Abstract Neoliberalism influences education systems by promoting individualism, competition, and standardized outcomes, which often clash with the needs of multilingual and immigrant student populations. This tension is particularly palpable in these “new times”, which Stuart Hall characterizes as an era of globalization and cultural hybridity. In these contexts, language ideologies often devalue heritage languages and regulate who belongs and whose knowledge counts. In this scoping review, I explore how language ideologies influence literacy practices in community spaces, particularly among culturally and linguistically diverse populations. I explore three questions: How do these ideologies inform our ideas of literacy? What theories of literacies are guiding current research? What epistemological ‘turns’ are influencing community literacy research? After analyzing studies conducted across diverse community sites, such as homes, schools, mosques, libraries, after-school programs, and digital spaces, this review finds that literacy remains to be undertheorized across much of the literature, calling for a greater attention to epistemological assumptions. There were also several emerging turns in the literature, including the multilingual, translanguaging, spatial, dialogic, and decolonial turns, which point to new directions for conceptualizing literacy beyond school-centric models. In highlighting how community literacies resist neoliberal logics, this review advocates for approaches that value the diverse linguistic and cultural repertoires of immigrant and multilingual communities.

Abstract With a laser focus on bringing lower-achieving students up to mere proficiency, low-performing schools, which often serve students of color from disadvantaged backgrounds, are incentivized to deprioritize the development of academic talent in high-ability students. High-ability students at low-performing schools are therefore often bored, underperforming, and not challenged enough to rise to their true potential. Relying on the framework of teacher discretion posited by David Boote (2006), this article argues that in these highly standardized environments, teachers often lack the professional discretion necessary to make decisions and changes to the mandated curriculum and pedagogy that could benefit high-ability students. Through two cycles of action research, including analysis of focus groups, interviews, fieldnotes, and survey responses, this study sought to understand how to increase teachers’ sense of autonomy to benefit their high-ability students. This study demonstrated that collaborative workshops bolstered teachers’ sense of autonomy and knowledge base, enabling them to feel empowered to make decisions involved in implementing differentiated instruction for high ability students. Implications for teacher educators, school administrators, and teachers are discussed.

Abstract In this article, we present an ongoing researcher practitioner partnership (RPP) that, among other goals, is aimed at better navigating top-down oversight from the ground up by leveraging critical connections between teachers. The Teacher Leadership Institute for Equity (TLI) works to support the development and sustained efforts of teacher leaders to ameliorate inequities within their local school communities. By centering teachers as leaders, TLI allows for sustained and scalable change to occur through the creation of equity impact communities (EICs) within individual schools. Over time, the goal is for the development of EICs within multiple schools to create a ripples of change throughout our district—designing upwardly to scale that results in site specific equity-based solutions across a multitude of school communities.

Abstract This qualitative case study focuses on the impact of neoliberal education reform on an urban charter school serving students of Color. This study has two main objectives: to examine how neoliberal reform influences the goal-oriented actions of data meetings (DMs) in an urban elementary school and engages in a formative intervention methodology to collaborate with educators in addressing(mediating) our assumptions around the ways of measuring what students know and learn, paying particular attention to how teachers’ language and decisions reflect neoliberal ideologies. Cultural historical activity theory methodology and an expansive learning cycle provide a framework to collect and analyze data of teachers’ goal-oriented actions in the context of neoliberal reform and standardized testing to aide in understanding and interpreting joint activity systems in educational institutions. The study’s significance lies in the potential for intentional teacher learning activities that challenge and transform the marginalizing effects of neoliberal education reform, particularly in relation to standardized testing at the intersections of race and ability. Key findings of the study are the complex challenges educators face in balancing accountability policy requirements with the unique needs of their students. It emphasizes the importance of professional learning that moves away from individual performance toward collective agency.