The Educational Forum

Building Out of Scarcity: Hope and Innovation in Classrooms, Schools, and Districts

The Educational Forum invites submissions for its 2027 themed issue: Building Out of Scarcity: Hope and Innovation in Districts, Schools, and Classrooms. In this special issue we seek out examples and research that illustrate how teachers, schools, and districts continue to innovate despite a growing crisis, financially, intellectually, and ethically, in the field of education. Recently we attended a global conference in our field and we were struck by how much of the educational research being presented felt “stale.” We were reminded of the work of David Tyack and Larry Cuban about the difficulty of making change in schools and teaching, as schools are “amazing, robust institutions” that are remarkably resistant to change (“Tinkering Towards Utopia,” 2004). And yet over the course of our careers we have seen some truly exciting innovations in teaching and teacher education, from our own work in residency models (Taylor & Klein, 2015), to the school designs like Big Picture Learning and EL Schools attempting to radically re-think how teaching and learning happens in schools through their curriculum, instruction, and professional learning. We witnessed classrooms where teachers broke with their apprenticeships of observation (Lortie, 1975) to create student-centered, anti-racist and justice-oriented practices (Klein et al, 2019; Riordan et al., 2016).

However, recent reports of nationwide declining enrollment in public schools due to a variety of reasons—from the pandemic, growing competition amongst private schools and charters, to immigration crackdowns, to the affordable housing crisis—indicate public schools are increasingly under threat financially (Mervosh et al., 2026). Additionally, the current Department of Education has made clear that their agenda is to abolish itself (Schalop, 2026). Funding for diverse, equitable, and inclusive education, the arts, professional development, and a variety of other programs necessary to the vitality of the field are being drained. How then, we ask, are educators and scholars managing to find ways to innovate in this time? How do we continue to resist the pull of traditional instruction that sees students as empty vessels meant to passively absorb information, a model that efficiently prepares larger numbers of workers for labor, but rarely prepares human beings to become critical citizens in the world? In a world of increasing attacks on movements to recognize the full humanity of our students of color, LGBTQIA students, students identifying as female or non-binary, undocumented students, as well as neurodivergent students, how do we create spaces of hope and change where curricula reflects who students are and who they hope to be? How do we as Greene (1997) wrote, teach “as possibility in dark and constraining times” (p. 23) so that our students can find glimmers of light.

●      Research describing innovative practices within classroom instruction, professional development practices, and district-wide reforms.

●      Research examining innovative policy responses to the current challenges facing schools and districts.

●      Research dedicated to anti-ableist, anti-racist, feminist, and queer pedagogies in classrooms that highlight resistance.

●      Examples of research highlighting student-led knowledge making, activism, and critical thinking.

●      Research on curriculum that bridges schools to communities and families.

 

 

References

Greene, M. (1997). Teaching as possibility: A light in dark times. Journal of Pedagogy,

Pluralism, and Practice, 1(1), 14–24.

Klein, E. J., Riordan, M., & Gaynor, C. (2019). Teaching for equity and deeper learning: How does professional learning transfer to teachers’ practice and influence students’ experiences? Equity in Excellence in Education 52(2–3), 327–345. https://doi.org/10.1080/10665684.2019.1647808

Lortie, D. (1975). Schoolteacher: A sociological study. University of Chicago Press.

Mervosh, S., Paris, F., & Cain Miller, C. (2026, May, 8). U.S. Schools Face a Crisis as the Number of Children Drops. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/08/upshot/public-schools-enrollment-crisis.html

Riordan, M., Klein, E. J., & Jaffe-Walter, R. (2016). Taking teacher learning to scale: Sharing knowledge and spreading ideas across geographies. Teachers College Record (Yearbook) 118(13), 1–26.

Schalop, A. (2026, March 20). The plan to abolish the education department—one year later. neaToday. https://www.nea.org/nea-today/all-news-articles/plan-abolish-education-department-one-year-later

Taylor, M. & Klein, E.J. (2015). A year in the Life of a third space urban teacher

residency: Using inquiry to reinvent teacher education. Sense Publishers.

Tinkering toward utopia: A century of public school reform (2004, March 1). Ed. Magazine.

https://www.gse.harvard.edu/ideas/ed-magazine/04/03/tinkering-toward-utopia-century-   public-school-reform.