This study examines 11 interdisciplinary teams involving 30 teachers and 542 students in New York and California. The teams represented an array of approaches to interdisciplinary curricula, ranging from simple correlation to major reconstrual of the contributing disciplines. Teams that engaged in the most reconstrual of traditional content also…

This article discusses the formation of the Youth Visits the United Nations (YVUN) program. The program began in 2003 with funds provided by the Ursula Thrush Peace Seed Grant. Its purpose is to bring middle school students to New York to attend sessions of the United Nations, allowing these adolescents the opportunity to learn about global issues…

This study examined the feelings of competency of 30 regular and special middle school teachers in one Suffolk County (New York) school district about educating children with special needs in a fully inclusive setting. A two-part questionnaire provided: (1) demographic and training background information for the teachers; and (2) the teachers'…

In this article, the author describes a collaboration between The Actors' Fund of America and 12 schools in the South Bronx. The true purpose of the STARRR (Substitute Teachers for the Arts and 3Rs) program was to establish relationships between artists and schools. Three years later, the author sees the results of those relationships: so many…

Although the No Child Left Behind Act was intended to help "all students meet high academic standards," it is focused on subgroups of low-achieving students. The authors analyze the possible impact of the legislation's requirement for performance reporting by racial subgroup in light of the considerable racial segregation in U.S.…

Immigration and migration to New York City (NYC) collectively create a dynamic population of students. In this brief the authors use a decade of detailed, longitudinal data on NYC's 1st-8th graders to explore both the "stock" of students enrolled and the "flow" of new entrants in each academic year. Together, these paint a…

This is an abridged, summary report of selected findings from "Pieces of the Puzzle: Factors in the Improvement of Urban School Districts on the National Assessment of Educational Progress"--a comprehensive study prepared by the Council of the Great City Schools in collaboration with the American Institutes for Research (AIR) and with…

In this article, the author argues that administrators should not overlook their nurturing, supportive, even ministerial role. He also argues that those who would create learning communities would do well to embrace it. It was Mohandas Gandhi who said, "I can say without the slightest hesitation and yet in all humility, that those who say…

The Associated Colleges of the St. Lawrence Valley is an educational consortium with four members: Clarkson University, State University of New York at Potsdam, State University of New York at Canton, and St. Lawrence University. Access to higher education at the Associated Colleges has been a special ongoing interest and mirrors a national…

This paper uses ethnographic data from research in three middle schools in Queens, New York and analyzes school choice publications created and distributed by the New York City Department of Education (NYCDOE) to answer questions about how the district and school-level communication strategies and materials facilitate and/or complicate Latin…

This report presents information from the 1996-97 seminar, Men Helping Boys with Difficult Choices II. The primary purpose of the seminar was to extend the opportunity to provide a support program to other schools in Albany's Capital region. The seminar involved groups of educators gathered to discuss the issue at hand. The report includes…

A sixth grade class is asked: "When should you start thinking about and planning for college?" Most students answer with "tenth or eleventh grade," but invariably some brave soul raises a hand and tentatively responds with more of a question than an answer: "Now?" Yes, now. In 1992, Sallie Mae, the nation's largest…

Studies have found substantial sorting of teachers across schools, with the schools with the highest proportions of poor, non-white, and low-scoring students having the least qualified teachers as measured by certification, exam performance, and inexperience (Lankford, Loeb and Wyckoff, 2002). Yet, there have been substantial changes in the…

This report summarizes preliminary and exploratory research conducted by the Council of the Great City Schools and the American Institutes for Research on urban school systems participating in the Trial Urban District Assessment (TUDA) of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). The study is one of the first large-scale analyses…

This article presents the results of a three-year study of "Gamestar Mechanic" (www.gamestarmechanic.com), a flash-based multiplayer online role-playing game developed for the MacArthur Foundation's digital media learning initiative by the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Gamelab in New York. The game's objective is to help children…