This Policy Brief looks at how to improve equity in education in three key policy domains: the design of education systems, practices both in and out of school, and resourcing. It proposes ten steps which would help reduce school failure and dropout rates, make society fairer and help avoid the large social costs of marginalised adults with few basic skills.
Despite remarkable progress along many indicators of equitable access, participation, and outcomes of schooling, there are still persistent, pervasive issues that must be addresses, including continued disparities in access to athletics and academic programs, sexual harassment, hate crimes, and discriminatory treatment of girls and women. This What Matters brief includes strategies for:
* Achieving gender equity in access and opportunities to learn
* Achieving a gender-balanced curriculum
* Achieving gender-equity in interpersonal relations with/between students
* Achieving gender-equity in discipline patterns
This publication of the James R. Squire Office of Policy Research offers updates on research with implications for policy decisions that affect teaching and learning. Each issue addresses a different topic. This issue addresses English Language Learners.
The purpose of this article is to present an overview of the overrepresentation of students of color in special education programs. For this purpose, we outline background history on the problem and discuss its magnitude. We also identify several forces that shape this problem such as poverty, structural factors, instructional and assessment issues, and the cultural discontinuity between teachers and students. We conclude with a brief discussion about ways to address overrepresentation.