In this multilevel exploratory case study, we examined the intersection of adolescent social media use and administrators’ and teachers’ work in one Florida high school. We found that students and adults engaged in active and intentional community building and informal learning across social media sites, however, these activities were separate from the formal activities in schools.

This study examines the implementation of an academic and social-emotional learning innovation called Personalization for Academic and Social Emotional Learning.

This introduction frames this yearbook on high school reform, implementation, and scale, and outlines why it is important to understand these perspectives. The four main sections of the issue are introduced and situated within the existing research literature.

This article describes the continuous improvement model used by the National Center on Scaling Up Effective Schools to boost performance among urban high schools.

This study compares research on the theoretical models and predictors of teacher effectiveness with those of other occupations. We start by defining models of worker effectiveness as theory-driven relationships between organizational objectives and worker characteristics (predictors) and then review evidence on four specific predictors. We find that in research on other workers, experience is a strong predictor, but that cognitive ability appears to be the best predictor, particularly in complex jobs. In research on teaching, we find that teacher experience is the best predictor of effectiveness and that cognitive ability is rarely considered. However, because teaching is complex, the evidence on other workers implies that cognitive ability probably is a strong predictor of teacher effectiveness. Worker personality and education do not appear to be strong predictors in either occupational category. More broadly, we find that empirical research on other workers is more tightly linked to theories of effectiveness than in teacher studies. Theoretical models from other occupations, such as person-job fit, hold promise for understanding teaching, given the role of the school as an organization. While we advocate no particular theoretical model of teacher effectiveness, these findings inform the various conceptions of teaching and suggest a need to more clearly define models of teacher effectiveness and test these models with empirical evidence.

This chapter shows how a state and national focus around standards and accountability has led to a new kind of localism, wherein school improvement efforts have been refocused around traditional instructional arrangements, instructional resources have been redirected, and family and community partnerships have been redefined.

This article examines the implementation of a school sanctioning policy in two urban high schools. Drawing on a cultural sociological perspective, the authors trace the explanations and remedies of school and course failure that faculty in both schools enacted in response to the sanctioning policy. The authors conclude that although the policy prompted faculty efforts to improve schoolwide tests scores, it had little impact on how principals and teachers understood and responded to the difficulties that students encountered in their academic courses. Although principals viewed course failure as largely intractable, teachers attributed a moral causality to it, locating its cause and responsibility in their students’ moral deficiencies. The study thus raises questions about for what and to whom sanctioning policies ultimately hold schools accountable.