In many urban areas, educators rely on magnet schools to strike a delicate balance between the need to create opportunities for equity in education and the need for parents to have greater choice among schools. But, are magnet schools successful? This document considers whether they fulfill the promises of high achievement and desegregation in…

This report to the Illinois Senate Committee on Higher Education assesses the extent to which students in metropolitan Chicago have real access to higher education and choice among postsecondary institutions. The chapters in part I address issues related to inequality in higher education in Chicago, providing analyses of the causes of inequality,…

This three-part study of the history of urban education considers the contemporary relationship between school and society, the politics of education, and urban educational reform in Atlanta, Georgia, and Chicago, Illinois. Part I suggests that the contemporary educational system contributes more to social mobility and social change than…