Voices for Educational Equity —
Future Issue Themes and Call for Submissions
1. Educator Wellness – Submission deadline, June 15, 2023
2. Global Education – Submission deadline, October 15, 2023
3. Literacy – Submission deadline, January 30, 2024
Voices for Educational Equity is the online scholarly journal of the Center for Success in High-Need Schools posted on the Center website http://www.center4success.com/. Voices articles, opinion columns, and book and media reviews reflect contemporary educational priorities, including growing societal concerns about impacts of inequity. Voices highlights scholarly research and innovative educator ideas and practices regarding emerging as well as persistent longtime issues and invites the perspectives of all stakeholders to promote a productive dialogue. Unsolicited scholarly articles will be reviewed by scholar referees in the article subject field.
Articles, columns, and reviews for publication in Voices for Educational Equity should be submitted as a Microsoft Word document in Times New Roman 12 point font, 1.15 line spacing, 1 inch margins, and with footnotes and references in APA format. Email documents as Word attachments to Jerry Berberet, Ph.D., editor-in-chief (wgberberet@aol.com). Case studies addressing equity concerns are especially welcomed. Articles and case studies should be approximately 2,500-5,000 words and include a short author bio, an abstract of 100-200 words, a brief review of relevant research literature bearing on the article subject, a discussion of findings and results, a conclusion, and a reference bibliography. Columns are opinion pieces, ordinarily of 500-1,000 words, reflecting the views of the author. Book and media reviews should be 500-750 words in length. Authors are invited to email Jerry Berberet or call him (850-766-2656) to discuss a potential submission, request referee protocols, or to ask questions. Past issues of the journal can be viewed on the Center’s website; http://www.center4success.com
The ISSN Number of Voices for Educational Equity is 2771-8328. Voices is posted as an online “open access” journal twice annually. Voices is published by the Center for Success in High-Need Schools http://www.center4success.com. The publisher is Jan Fitzsimmons, Ph.D.(jan@center4success.com) president of the Center for Success. The Center mailing address is: 28182 W. Savannah Trail, Barrington, IL 60010.
Voices Future IssueCall: Volume 19, Number 2, “Educator Wellness” (Submission Deadline, June 15, 2023)
Educator wellness has emerged as a significant issue as schools have assumed, willingly and unwillingly, an expanding list of responsibilities in our fast-paced digital society. In part the need to pay attention to wellness reflects a larger concern for employee well-being that corporations, nonprofits, and governments have been forced to respond to in a pandemic environment in which all employers are scrambling to recruit and retain skilled employees. But, as well, the need to address educator wellness reflects inattention to the needs of teachers and other school employees at a time when educators are leaving the profession in record numbers. As a result schools and school districts find themselves in dire straits made more difficult because adequate investments have not been made to enable the new educator pipeline to respond adequately to demand. The lack of sufficient educator numbers to fill teacher vacancies has become, perhaps, the leading issue jeopardizing the future of American preK-12 education, as teacher shortages extend beyond urban and rural schools to also affect affluent suburban areas.
Various factors have contributed to the need for attention to educator wellness. Not only do nearly all parents work, but the growing number of single-parent families has strained the ability of many parents to work closely with schools in the education of their children. A steady increase in the past several decades in the percentage of students with learning disabilities, due to a variety of causes, along with society’s ever-growing academic and social expectations and frustrations with public schools—reflected in the rise of charter schools and increases in home schooling— have added pressures on educators, as attested to in federal and state measures of school accountability. School safety concerns have increased, witness the explosion of gun violence in schools, and the impacts of the Covid 19 pandemic on learning have made this accumulation of pressures almost unbearable. Through it all, educator salaries remain low on the whole and the educator profession continues to suffer from a lack of public respect commensurate with educators’ critical role in society.
The cumulative effects of stressors on educator health are increasingly alarming. A Learning Policy Institute national survey prior to the pandemic found that one in six teachers had left their jobs each year in recent years. A Rand Corporation survey prior to the 2020-21 school year found that one in four teachers said they were likely to leave. Among African American teachers the proportion was almost half leaving their jobs each year. Indeed, the definition of the audience for social and emotional learning, once reserved as a feature of learning focused on students, must be enlarged to include the health and wellness needs of teachers, as well, to avoid catastrophic consequences for the nation’s schools. Moreover, teacher education programs are largely unable to prepare new teachers in adequate numbers to fill the void. In many parts of the country teacher salaries have failed to keep up. A variety of old and new approaches are being considered, e.g., alternative certification, school district certification programs bypassing college teacher preparation altogether, and career-changer incentives, to refresh the educator pipeline.
Contributors to this issue of Voices for Educational Equity are invited to consider questions such as the following in preparing submissions.
- How might educator wellness be identified and addressed as an important factor contributing to educator well-being and school effectiveness?
- What diagnostic methods, treatments, and supports show promise of alleviating stress and other conditions that adversely affect educator wellness?
- Do programs exist that show promise of serving as best practices in supporting educator wellness? Are teacher education programs preparing candidates adequately for the rigors and challenges teachers are facing at the present time?
- What steps are being taken in other sectors of society, such as in the corporate and nonprofit worlds, that might help improve educator wellness. What innovations internationally might also be helpful in the American educational setting?
Voices Future Issue Call: “Global Education,” Volume 20, Number 1 (Submission Deadline, October 15, 2023)
The increasing tensions and conflicts in our contemporary world—whether due to a rise in authoritarianism, global food shortages, mass migrations of peoples seeking safer and more prosperous lives, or the Russian invasion of Ukraine that threatens to destabilize a post World War II international order—collectively press schools to expand the social studies curriculum to improve student international awareness and cross-cultural understanding. In addition to these critical issues, social media worldwide bombards parents and children alike with international propaganda and disinformation often more harmful to global stability than helpful for gaining understanding and developing empathy for cultural differences internationally and the circumstances and needs of people around the globe.
If anything, the school curriculum has reduced its emphasis on civics and social studies in favor of vocationalism and other subjects. Yet, it seems imperative that the school curriculum do its part in providing a solid educational grounding that both informs and counters the rash of disinformation and conspiracy theories adding to alarming divisions and disarray around the world. Clearly, emphasis also needs to be placed on pedagogies that enliven these fields for students, as well as efforts to communicate the purposes and content of global education to parents. As global threats such as climate change, nuclear proliferation, environmental devastation, and deprivations related to food insecurity and violence contributing to mass migrations of peoples illustrate, the very survival and sustainability of our planet is at stake.
- Are model curricula and promising pedagogies being developed that are energizing social studies and increasing their appeal to students and parents?
- How might international language programs optimally contribute to international understanding?
- What role do youth international travel and international service projects play in contributing to global understanding?
- How might teacher education programs better prepare teachers to play more effective roles in global education?
Voices Future Issue Call: Volume 20, Number 2, “Literacy” (Submission Deadline, January 30, 2024)
Perhaps no subject is a more fundamental educational building block than literacy. Learning to read is the sine qua non to other learning, whether in literature and social studies, or in science and mathematics. Yet, American student scores on reading achievement tests and other literacy measures show that the needle has either hardly moved or actually declined in recent decades. Major attention has been given over several decades to lagging scores of African American and Latinx students whose numbers are rising in the student population. Adult illiteracy continues to be a significant issue, as well, especially among recent immigrants, people of color, and in low income communities. Major attention, fairly successfully, has been given to bilingual education in recent years, an effort whose importance remains high in the wake of continuing levels of American immigration. The importance of efforts to improve literacy will not go away as a literate population is essential for the effective functioning of the increasingly complex economic and technological organization of American and global society.
- What do recent studies show to be leading causes of illiteracy and how it is affecting student achievement and societal functioning? Are teacher education programs doing their part in preparing teachers for literacy education?
- To what extent have advances in early childhood education contributed to improving literacy rates in recent years? What are examples of best practices in early childhood education related to literacy? What examples exist of outstanding adult literacy programs?
- Is teaching and learning in disciplines other than language and literature contributing to the literacy problem? What pedagogical best practices is these areas are contributing to literacy education?