Thomas Hanson

An activity for eliciting student involvement in collaborative decision-making and problem-solving with adults--the student listening circle workshop--is examined for the first time through an experimental study of its effects on participating students. A student listening circle is a facilitated focus group in which students articulate to adults their experiences, perspectives, and ideas on an important school topic and then collaborate with those adults to plan and implement related actions...

A growing number of educators concur that, in order to improve student academic performance, schools need to focus not only on students' academic needs but also on their social, emotional, and material needs (Piscatelli & Lee, 2011). As a result, school climate--the social, emotional, and physical characteristics of a school community (Cohen, McCabe, Michelli, & Pickeral, 2009)--is gaining more attention as a lever to improve student academic performance. Most studies on the relationship betw...

A growing number of states and school districts use school climate assessments in progress reporting systems and are interested in incorporating these assessments into accountability systems. This analysis of response data from middle school students and teachers on the California School Climate, Health, and Learning Survey examines the appropriateness of the survey for identifying needs and monitoring changes in school climate. It analyzes survey response data for 730,160 grade 7 students fr...

For decades, economists, prominent educators, Nobel laureates, and business and government leaders have advocated for economic literacy as an essential component in school curricula. Their arguments have ranged from the need to improve people’s ability to manage personal finances to the value of economic education for critical thinking and an informed citizenry.