ABSTRACT
A student obligingly opens the text to the designated page and waits for a lesson to begin. Shortly thereafter, the teacher approaches the front of the room to start her instruction, intending to promote the student’s understanding of today’s text selection. This simple act, repeated daily across most grade levels in classrooms across the country, belies the complexity of factors that ultimately infl uence the nature of a teacher’s instruction and a student’s comprehension. Each factor has an infl uence, shaped across time by numerous members in the educational community-students, parents, teachers, administrators, district and state offi cials, researchers, and national politicians and policymakers. Judgments regarding a lesson’s success and a student’s comprehension are jointly determined by an interaction of these factors and their histories.
