Educators and students in schools across the United States have faced sweeping, unprecedented changes to teaching and learning as a result of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, which shuttered school buildings in spring 2020. This Data Note offers teachers' and principals' perspectives on some of those changes and presents their…

Discusses the QUASAR Project, which has worked with middle school teachers in disadvantaged communities in order to help increase the relevance of mathematics by making connections between the mathematics taught in school and the lives of students. (16 references) (MKR)

McGinnis draws on the idea of engaged learning as critical and illustrates how school literacy practices do not provide urban Khmer youth (and by extension, other groups whose backgrounds are linguistically or socioculturally distinct) with deep levels of engagement in literacy activities. By looking at the types of writing experiences these youth…

The Urban Mathematics Collaborative (UMC) Project was a 5-year effort to reform mathematics instruction in urban schools by empowering mathematics teachers. Targeting over 3,000 high school mathematics teachers in collaboratives in 11 urban areas, including San Francisco (California), Philadelphia (Pennsylvania), and New Orleans (Louisiana), the…

This anthology examines exemplary practices of teachers' unions at the local and national level, presenting visions for the 21st century that involve teachers' unions in the fight to improve public schools and conditions of social justice throughout U.S. communities. Six sections feature 25 articles: (1) "Overview," including…

Argues that we must stop our crisis-oriented approach to urban education, sets forth three major goals for urban schools, and lists six policy guidelines for the future. (Author/WD)

Two overlapping nationwide studies, one funded by the Ford Foundation and the other by the U.S. Department of Education, provide information covering policies, procedures, and practices that enhance or impede the academic success of minority students in universities and community colleges. Topics include understanding the problem of minority…

This report summarizes a working conference held at the Educational Technology Center in the Harvard University Graduate School of Education to explore the uses of educational technology in urban schools and offer recommendations for developing policies and programs. Participants included urban practitioners, researchers, professors, policy…

Examines the use of a specific form of short-term grouping of students based on an information-referenced criterion for selection. This technology-based system is proposed as an alternative to grouping, which in many inner-city schools becomes de facto tracking. Summarizes advantages of information- over norm-referenced testing. (AF)

The theme of this inaugural serial issue is "Building a Community of Learners." The serial has been designed to address school restructuring and reform and the roles of teachers, administrators, and parents. The first essay, "Constructing Communities of Cooperation" by Anne Turnbaugh Lockwood examines structural change in…

This publication is intended to help foundation program officers, educators, and organizers use the Education Organizing Indicators Framework to understand the contribution that community organizing makes to school reform. The Framework is the product of a study that examined five community groups to document how organized groups of parents and…

This bibliography, the fifth in the Urban Schools Bibliography series, provides urban school personnel, researchers, and policymakers with information on important issues, programs, and practices in urban education. Topics covered in the bibliography include equal education, school policy, school administration, curriculum, testing and evaluation,…

An analysis of student achievement and the ethnicity of students and instructional staff in the Syracuse (New York) City School District found a need to develop a multicultural curriculum that would ensure equal educational opportunity. A comparison of the scores of White, Black, and Hispanic elementary and middle school students on the IOWA…

The central purpose of this book is to help leaders and professionals in government, education, business, philanthropies, and the media think about what needs to be done to ensure that minorities reach educational parity with the majority population as soon as possible. Chapter 1 discusses society's interest in the educational advancement of…

This book presents affirmative strategies to rid schools of discrimination. Many of these strategies were developed as a result of research in four public high schools with large percentages of ethnic and language minority students in the deep south. The study, which consisted of 48 30-90 minute interviews, suggested that there is wide student…