Discover how one public higher education institution was able to succeed despite the many obstacles and challenges that it faced. This is the story of how and why Baruch College of The City University of New York became a "positive outlier," overcoming serious financial constraints, physical space limitations, and other difficulties to…

In response to public pressure, urban districts in the USA have initiated reforms that aim at redrawing the boundaries between the school system and other major local institutions. More specifically, this article focuses on two emerging reform strategies. We will examine an emerging model of governance that enables big-city mayors to establish…

The Nation's Report Card[TM] informs the public about the academic achievement of elementary and secondary students in the United States. Report cards communicate the findings of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), a continuing and nationally representative measure of achievement in various subjects over time. Results from the…

At least four large urban school districts plan to spend a significant amount of their federal economic-stimulus money to support or improve programs for English-language learners, a fast-growing group in U.S. schools. The districts--Boston, New York City, St. Paul, Minnesota, and Seattle--have had varying degrees of success serving such students.…

In the United States, an increasing number of new teachers are being prepared through alternative, or early entry, routes into teaching. These new forms of teacher preparation raise important questions about how and in what ways candidates are being prepared, particularly in key areas such as classroom management. To shed light upon these…

The nation's major city public school districts have substantial construction, renovation, modernization, and deferred maintenance needs because of the age and size of their school buildings, shifting populations, and the need to devote substantial resources to instructional personnel to meet their core academic mission. For instance, the average…

Why did the New York City school district once have the lowest ratio of minority teachers to minority students of any large urban school system in the country? Using an array of historical sources, this provocative book explores the barriers that African American and Latino candidates faced in attempting to become public school teachers in New…

The child population in the United States is rapidly changing and diversifying--in large part because of immigration. Today, nearly one in four US children under the age of 18 is the child of an immigrant. While research has focused on the largest of these groups (Latinos and Asians), far less academic attention has been paid to the changing Black…

In this article, the author described the Poplar Street-Naledi pen pal project. The goals of this project were to provide elementary school students with a broader view of the world, to increase their social and cultural awareness, to develop content knowledge of where their pen pals live, and to determine the impact of this project on student…

This case study examines the perspectives of a teacher and a set of students in a U.S. history classroom in a "last chance" public New York City high school--with "last chance" being a common term used to describe schools designed for struggling students, those who have a history of truancy, or those who have dropped out. The…

The tendency to view immigrant students as a monolithic group has masked the needs of specific groups of students. This study gives visibility to Sierra Leonean refugee students and indicates to policy makers, administrators, and teachers provisions that would facilitate the students' integration into the school system in the United States. The…

The ways in which refugees are assumed to adapt to United States society have serious consequences on their enjoyment and fulfillment in their schooling experiences. This is further compounded by the incorporation of refugees under a more general umbrella of "immigrant" studies. Here, excerpts are shared from an experiential study of…

The U.S. Department of Education's office for civil rights has proposed amending the regulations governing Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972--which prohibits sex discrimination in programs that receive federal money--to allow more flexibility in offering single-sex schools or classes. This article discusses the rapid growth of…

New facilities at schools and universities are being designed that embrace the latest learning techniques and philosophies. The article describes two facilities that exemplify this trend: Thomas Jefferson Hall at the United States Military Academy at West Point, and Cass Technical High School library in Detroit, Michigan. Libraries, once thought…

The paper initially describes the sources of uncertainty in National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) data and standard errors. As NAEP sample sizes have increased, greater precision has been attained by the program. For this reason, exclusion effects are increasingly important. Two scenarios of revised NAEP results are presented (for New…