COVID-19 shocked the education system, disrupting the policies and practices of special education over multiple school years. This essay brings together the institutional logics perspective and racialized organization theory to first examine aspects of special education and then describe how leaders and teachers can improve special education to target inequities. We illustrate features of three logics of special education: compliance, intervention, and equity. We explain how these logics are racialized structures in the special education field. Applying an agentic stance, we portray how leaders and teachers draw on multiple, competing logics of special education. Next, we highlight how infrastructure enables leaders and teachers to enact the equity model of special education. In sum, this essay encourages improving infrastructural elements and confronting racism and ableism to re-envision special education in the face of COVID-disruptions.

In education systems around the globe influenced by neoliberalism, teachers commonly experience reforms which emphasise local responsibility and accountability. Teachers additionally work within what has been described as an era of social acceleration and associated "fast policy", with a perceived increase in the pace of reform. In this article, we present data drawn from a large (N = 18,234) survey of Australian public-school teachers' work. Analysis of both quantitative and qualitative reports indicates a widespread teacher perception of workload increase from 2013 to 2017, and the attribution of such increase to the introduction of policy initiatives including, but not limited to, school autonomy reform. Our findings have implications for education policy in Australia and beyond, with an erosion of teacher trust suggesting the need for more sustainable and consultative forms of "slow democracy" in education policy.

In current contexts of education, educators are tasked with using data, most often without any critical preparation to do so. In this way, data are presented as objective measures of student progress and participation in school without consideration of the systemic and structural influences on that progress and participation. This article reports on a proposed framework for preparing educators to engage in critical data-driven decision making as an engine of disrupting classroom and school-based systemic inequity through data use. We argue that if educators are to use data in ways that acknowledge the inequities of schooling and act in ways to trigger change, we must prepare them to engage with data differently. The framework we describe, , integrates data and equity literacies in this service. We use case study to report on the outcomes of a professional development project guided by this conceptual framework of data use for equity. Participants engaged in professional development that utilized a School and Classroom Equity Audit as a triggering data event and explicitly attended to the relationship of culture and education. Findings demonstrated that professional development in data use for equity enhanced participants' sense of agency, perceptions of equity and data, and perceived multicultural capacities. Findings also demonstrated that while participants made progress in strengthening their data and equity literacies on almost all indicators through the yearlong professional development, developing data use for equity must be an ongoing effort.

Catholic schooling in the United States is suffering from a persistent enrollment crisis that has triggered the need for system-wide organizational reforms. However, most of the changes that the sector has experienced has taken place in individual schools making decisions about how to operationally sustain their individual school community. In this article, we present findings from a qualitative analysis of 26 superintendents of (arch)diocesan Catholic school systems in order to better understand why there has been an absence of system-level change in the Catholic sector in the U.S. at a time when systems thinking has started to spread throughout other sectors domestically and internationally. We show through the findings presented in this paper that many Catholic school systems in the United States do not sustain system-level change because they rely on a decentralized "system of schools" organizational form that superintendents believe limits the possibility for sector-wide organizational reform. We highlight in this paper the ways superintendents are forced to navigate these organizational and political limitations and suggest what the implications of this limited possibility for system-level change are for the Catholic sector and other similarly organized sectors.

Achieving changes to education practices and structures is a significant issue facing reformers internationally, and researchers have confronted how such changes, and the conditions for these, might be conceptualized. These issues resonate particularly as researchers grapple with imagining a post-COVID-19 landscape where social and educational norms may change. Tyack and Tobin, in their 1994 article 'The "Grammar" of Schooling: Why has it been so hard to change?' argued that several features of the American education system are so persistent as to warrant being understood as the 'grammar' of schooling. In this article, we reconceptualize this 'grammar' by taking seriously Tyack and Tobin's insistence that 'grammar' organises meaning. Starting here, we argue that what they took to be grammatical features are the products and not the producers of meaning. We draw on the cases of the United States and England to argue that four international discourses have performed this meaning-making work: industrialization; welfarism; neoliberalism and neoconservatism. These are the 'grammars' of schooling-and of society. Their discursive products, including age grading and sorting into subjects are, we suggest, 'lexical' features that express the grammar. We use lexical features to explain the multi-directional interplay between discourse and educational feature: the lexical may endure longer than the grammatical, changes to which may be effected and/or legitimated through appealing to a lexical feature. We conclude by outlining key implications for realizing and conceptualizing educational change, including for a post-COVID-19 landscape.

In this essay, we discuss how the COVID-19 pandemic drove key changes in schooling and what forces can sustain these changes. Responding to the argument that COVID-19-driven changes may not be sustainable, this essay offers a counter narrative from the Korean context, in which educators re-visited existing school systems and re-constructed policies and teaching practices to fill the educational vacuum caused by the pandemic. This essay specifically builds on interviews conducted with Korean educators throughout the 2020 school year during COVID-19. First, we discuss as reflected in educators' narratives. We then explore three driving forces behind the transformation of the "grammar of Korean schooling": policy discourse about "future education," professional teaching culture, and administration for creativity. Based on our analysis, we offer several suggestions for policymakers, district leaders, and educators around the world for how to leverage and sustain the educational changes catalyzed by COVID-19. We conclude by arguing that educators' desires to achieve change must be actualized in schools and policies through collaborative foresight and system-level support.

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced teachers to incorporate many changes to support student learning. In this paper, we present current research focusing on the impact of the changes brought by the pandemic on teachers. Specifically, we discuss the current state of teachers after working the frontline of the pandemic and changes that school leaders and policymakers should consider moving forward. These changes include virtual instruction options for specific groups of students, professional development and support for teachers implementing changes, and being cognizant of the workloads put on teachers. We believe these changes are critical to support student learning, but to also limit teacher attrition.

This article introduces a special, 20th anniversary issue of the . The special issue edictoras have organized significant international contributions to theory-building into three areas. These concern diverse modalities of educators' professionalism, debates around "getting to scale" with successful innovations, and conflicting views of social justice in schools and societies. Each of these areas comprises an independent vector of disagreement and debate, with differing meaning and interpretations based upon the cultures and histories of the given systems under review. The article asks what kinds of new research, and what kinds of affiliated theories in these topic areas, can best help to move the field of educational change forward in the coming years.

The focus of this article is on the impacts of COVID-19 related manifestations of post-truth in educational settings in Australia. Within this context, there has been a reorientation of how wellbeing and academic achievement within schools reflect on broader trends within the general public, at local, state and national scales. Individual and communal experiences of adversity have been significantly impacted by phenomena associated with post-truth, particularly misinformation, a climate of anti-intellectualism, as well as fragmented socio-cultural cohesion. In the first section I explore these trends by providing an overview of how post-truth has been construed in Australian contexts, before moving to consider how engagements with post-truth have been shaped by the pandemic. Second, I analyse the close link between educational concerns that emerged from the pandemic era, and the circumstances that have supported the emergence of post-truth. Particular attention will be paid to debates over 'learning loss' and the place of teachers within Australian communities as a fulcrum for generating cultural capital and social cohesion. In the final section I consider what lessons these experiences have for education, as a way of cultivating learning communities that are oriented towards generating critical and digital literacy skills.

Research is growing on the ways K-12 schools can address immigration policy and assist in mediating its impact on students and families. Community schools are poised to address these issues through integrated student supports by taking an asset-based perspective that views community members and organizations as powerful constituents in the struggle for educational equity. We report the findings of a qualitative case study of the implementation of a school-based legal clinic for immigrant families in a high-poverty urban neighborhood. We applied an equity-minded school change framework to examin the range of services offered by the clinic, the process of integrating the clinic's work into the life of the school, and the perspectives of teachers regarding the intersection between immigration and education.

Routines play a major role in educational change in schools. But what happens if the routines performed by school staff fail to deal successfully with current challenges? What strategies aid adaptation of the routines in a specific situation? Up to now, there exists no comprehensive concept for understanding why and at what points the adapting of routines in schools in a specific situation takes a favorable or unfavorable direction. To address this gap, we propose extending theories on routines by considering theories on self-regulated and collectively regulated learning. We consider these theories to be a beneficial complement because of their broad theoretical, methodological, and empirical research base. We argue that these theories enhance the understanding of adapting routines to specific challenging situations in schools. We present a newly developed theoretical framework for dealing with specific challenging situations in schools as an interplay between routines and regulation processes. Finally, important research questions regarding the suggested approach are discussed.

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused both unprecendented disruptions and massive changes to education. However, as schools return, these changes may disappear. Moreover, not all of the changes are necessarily the changes we want in education. In this paper, we argue that the pandemic has created a unique opportunity for educational changes that have been proposed before COVID-19 but were never fully realized. We identify three big changes that education should make post COVID: curriculum that is developmental, personalized, and evolving; pedagogy that is student-centered, inquiry-based, authentic, and purposeful; and delivery of instruction that capitalizes on the strengths of both synchronous and asynchronous learning.

The pandemic has made deeper problems more transparent and has stimulated many to realize that there may be an opportunity over the next period to pursue much needed innovations in learning. In this essay we describe the ways in which the pandemic has provided the conditions for new human development that joins two powerful forces: the pulsar model which elevates human potential with respect to student learning, and new, deeper forms of collaboration that have long eluded those interested in system change. In this article we show how 'spirit work' and collaboration can combine to develop schools systems that are essential for coping with the new post-pandemic conditions facing humanity. We also identify spinoff opportunities arising from the pandemic, and a corresponding pressure that could generate more widespread system improvement designed to improve learning for all, including advances in both equity and excellence.

Wales' education system is part-way through an extensive journey of reform. This contextual paper explores the evolution of that journey, from the establishment of the Welsh Parliament in 1999 to late 2020, as Wales readies itself for the launch of a radical, new national curriculum. Drawing from a range of international literature and experience, it provides an overview of key policy developments and insight into the rationale for decisions taken by the Welsh Government to effect change. To do this, it separates reform into three core phases, each with its own characteristics borne out of landmark events that helped shape contemporary political and public discourse. In particular, the paper examines the impact of Wales' shifting approach to policy development on the teaching workforce and considers implications for those at the site of practice. Ahead of forthcoming parliamentary elections, the paper resolves that a new, long-term approach to policy reform and teacher development is needed if Wales is to realise its ambitious vision for education.

This paper analyzes the nature and perceived effects of mid-stakes testing (known as the EQAO) in Ontario, Canada. Ontario's mid-stakes tests were meant to ensure accountability and transparency, and assure system-wide improvement, while avoiding the negative effects and perverse incentives of their high-stakes counterparts. The paper provides new evidence from two projects covering almost a 10-year time-span in 10 of Ontario's 72 school districts. It shows that even though mid-stakes testing is milder in its manifestations and effects than high-stakes testing, concerns remain about the need for and side effects of such testing. The findings concern two periods of Ontario educational reform. In the first period, with a specific focus on improving performance in literacy and mathematics, administrators and special education support staff felt that the assessments raised teachers' expectations and sense of urgency leading to steady improvements in measured achievement, but that there was also evidence of negative effects, especially on paying undue attention to "bubble" students just below the threshold for minimum proficiency. In the second reform period focused on broad excellence, well-being and equity as inclusion, mid-stakes tests were perceived as having more widespread negative effects. These included teaching to the test, cultural bias, avoidance of innovation, dilemmas of whether to include highly vulnerable students in the testing process or not, and emotional ill-being among students and teachers. The paper concludes that Ontario's twentieth century system of large scale, mid-stakes assessment has not kept pace with its twenty first century commitments to deeper learning and stronger well-being.

Bridging gaps between educational stakeholders at the classroom, school, and system levels is essential to achieve sustainable change in primary and secondary education. However, transferring knowledge or building capacity within this network of loosely coupled stakeholders is demanding. The concept holds promise for studying these complex patterns of interaction, as it refers to how specific actors () link loosely coupled or disconnected individuals (). However, different research traditions, in terms of theoretical frameworks and methodological approaches, and various stakeholders examined in their role as bridge builders make understanding the role of brokers, brokering, and brokerage in changing educational practice challenging. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to provide an overview of the current literature on these concepts in educational change research. In a systematic literature review based on 42 studies, we analyzed each study's theoretical assumptions, methodological approach, scope in terms of stakeholders involved, and empirical findings. First, the literature review revealed that research on educational change refers to four different theoretical frameworks when focusing on brokers, brokering, or brokerage. Second, our results indicate that predominantly qualitative approaches have been applied. Third, using content network graphs, we identified teachers and principals as among the most frequently analyzed brokers. Fourth, four relevant aspects of the empirical findings are presented: brokers' personal characteristics, conditions that enable brokering, successful brokering strategies, and outcomes of brokerage. Finally, we outline a future research agenda based on the empirical evidence base and shortcomings.