Education—social justice |

Authored by Karen England

Providence Hall High School, located in Herriman, UT, is a public charter school located in Salt Lake County, Utah. Photograph taken by England, Karen. 2021. Providence Hall High School. Photograph.

Since their conception in 1988, charter schools are public schools that commit to obtaining specific educational objectives in return for a charter or contract to operate a school. The contract excuses the school from many state and local regulations related to operation and management, but otherwise, they adhere to the regulations of all public schools in that it must be free to attend, and enrollment is open to everyone. Charter schools are publicly accountable. They must have a written performance contract with the authorized public agency and meet agreed-upon educational requirements outlined by the school’s charter (Meador 2018). This is the school’s attempt to meet a need that the traditional public school system is not fulfilling.

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Authored by Paula Leahy Welch

Research indicates that student interventions that focus on growth mindset can help improve grade point averages, especially in schools with strong peer support. The article pictured is being added as an educator resource to the Growth Mindset Resource List in the collection of the Springfield Public Schools Libraries (Massachusetts).

Since Carol Dweck first published her research around the concept of growth mindset more than 20 years ago, social scientists, corporations, and educators have been searching for ways to apply the theory to obtain practical benefits. “Numerous studies have found that students fare better if they believe that their intellectual abilities can be developed—a belief called growth mindset—than if they believe that their intellectual abilities are immutable—a belief called fixed mindset” (Claro, Paunesku, and Dweck 2016, 8664).

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