This article uses a multiyear case example to illustrate principles of comprehensive program consultation to low-performing urban school districts. The Plainfield (NJ) school district concluded that leaving no urban child behind required school personnel to attend to students' academic, social, and emotional development in an integrated, ongoing…

This dissertation captures the 10-year contemporary history of implementing the facilities element of New Jersey's historic Abbott v. Burke decision. New Jersey's Legislature and Governor took this Supreme Court decision and created legislation responding to multiple constituencies and lobbyists while shaping a school construction program to be…

It's easy for professional learning communities to become stalled at the stage of collegial discussions about improving teaching practice. The authors explore what spurs communities to progress beyond talk to collective action that brings change. Smith, Wilson, and Corbett participated in the creation of teacher learning communities in urban…

While sparse literature exists investigating the impact of the Great Recession on various sectors of the economy, there is virtually no research that studies the effect of the Great Recession, or past recessions, on schools. This paper starts to fill the void. Studying school funding during the recession is of paramount importance because schools…

Watching the rise to fame of Michelle Rhee, the former Washington, D.C., schools chancellor who is one of the heroes of director Davis Guggenheim's "Waiting for 'Superman'," the author was struck by how the targets had changed. Clark's baseball bat was aimed at the young black males who were demonized as a criminal element in the…

Adequate funding for the nation's schools to meet the call for higher student achievement has been a litigious issue. Spending on schools is a political choice. The choices made by state legislatures, in some cases, have failed to fund schools adequately and have incited school finance lawsuits in almost all states. These proceedings are generally…

This paper describes an urban teacher residency program, the Newark Montclair Urban Teacher Residency, a collaborative endeavor between the Newark, New Jersey Public Schools and Montclair State University, built on a decades-long partnership. The authors see the conceptual work of developing this program as creating a "third space" in…

Mid-Atlantic Community College (MACC) is a large, urban, 2-year public community college located in Paterson, New Jersey. There are considerable challenges with respect to academic progress and retention because of student characteristics associated with an urban student population. Very little research has been done on the timing of when a…

A team of authors, including a fourth-grade teacher and his professor from a local graduate school, describe culminating elementary lessons with an index card recap and peer review. In an urban district that traditionally struggles with standardized testing, this activity prompts students to summarize and communicate the day's lesson and key ideas…

This study examined the strength and the direction of the relationships between student (i.e., socioeconomic status, attendance, and gender) and school variables (i.e., formative assessment usage and ASI classification) found in the extant literature to influence student achievement in language arts and mathematics. Analyses were conducted using…

The role of family in children's education is unquestionable. While a number of factors influence the type and level of educational support that parents provide for children, researchers have found that the greatest influence on parent involvement is the classroom teacher. Despite the important role teachers play in parent involvement, little is…

What began as a swashbuckling move by the mayor of Newark, New Jersey, the state's governor, and a newly minted billionaire to reshape the beleaguered Newark school system has turned into a tangle of blowback and counterpunches as skeptics contend the plan would violate state law. At issue is the power-sharing arrangement proposed by the three…

This study examined the impact of student variables (student socioeconomic status, race, attendance, and gender) and the school variable of placement in an inclusion setting on the academic achievement of general education students in grades 6, 7, and 8 in an urban school district. Academic achievement was defined as a general education student's…

A major focus of charter school research has been the potential impact of increased school choice on student sorting by race/ethnicity and socio-economic status. Researchers have argued that charter schools may increase segregation by allowing families to separate into more homogeneous school communities. Yet surprisingly, little attention has…

New Jersey's urban students traditionally don't do well on the high stakes NJ High School Proficiency Assessment. Most current remedial mathematics curricula provide students with a plethora of problems like those traditionally found on the state test. This approach is not working. Finding better ways to teach our urban students may help close…