Many school-age children in the United States with social, emotional, and behavioral problems do not receive mental health services. These problems negatively affect their social and behavioral functioning and academic achievement. This is particularly a problem for Latino youths, who represent the largest ethnic minority group in the United…

Improving low-achieving schools is a critical challenge facing urban education. Recent national policy shifts have pressed states to take an expanded role in school improvement efforts. In 2009, a federal grant competition called Race to the Top (RttT) compelled states to improve their capacity to implement ambitious education reform agendas.…

Substantial teacher turnover poses a challenge to staffing public schools with effective teachers. The scope of the teacher retention challenge across school districts, however, remains poorly defined. Applying consistent data practices and analytical techniques to administrative data sets from 16 urban districts, we document substantial…

The majority of existing research on mobility indicates that students do worse in the year of a school move. This research, however, has been unsuccessful in isolating the causal effects of mobility and often fails to distinguish the heterogeneous impacts of moves, conflating structural moves (mandated by a school's terminal grade) and…

On the first day of November, after an unplanned three days off from school, a group of young children excitedly returned to the classroom and re-acquainted themselves with one another and with the materials in their classroom. Hurricane Sandy had devastated the city, with unprecedented damage to schools and homes. For many of the preschoolers,…

Districts across the country, including some of the nation's largest, are facing a spate of superintendent vacancies. Schools chiefs or interim superintendents will be leaving this year or next in at least 17 well-known districts, including Baltimore, Maryland; Boston, Massachusetts; Clark County, Nevada; Indianapolis, Indiana; and Wake County,…

School districts across the country are shifting away from their traditional management paradigm--a central office that directs its schools through uniform mandates and policies--toward a new vision where district leaders support autonomous schools while holding them accountable for student performance. The advent of new governance mechanisms…

School and neighborhood segregation are recognized as pernicious and persistent problems across the United States, originally developed through intentional government policies, and perpetuated today by both public policy and private markets that have adapted to segregated systems of housing, education, and transportation. Housing and school…

In recent years, public education in the United States has become increasingly receptive to entrepreneurial activity. Charter schools, in particular, have received significant attention in the literature with research suggesting that growing numbers of educational entrepreneurs are increasingly involved with charter schools, particularly in New…

Purpose: This article examines the experiences of urban, public school principals noted for their instructional leadership and highlights a leadership approach grounded in a learning imperative. Framework: This article explores the concept of instructional leadership, defined as attending to instructional matters, as embedded in an urban public…

Urban college students on academic probation seldom utilize the academic support services offered in most colleges and universities. This study assessed a successful academic support program that emphasized the unique psychological, sociocultural and communal aspects of at-risk urban college students and how those aspects contributed to the…

This study explores accountability testing in the elementary schools of New York City with particular emphasis on the impact of a statewide social studies test on the value given to social studies instruction in comparison to other subjects. The attitudes of a group of elementary teachers are examined. Some of the teachers taught all subjects in…

This study compares life stressors and school outcomes among newcomer immigrant adolescents from Latin America, Asia, and the Caribbean. Participants attended a predominantly low-income, urban international public high school in the northeast. The Latina/o students were exposed to more life stressors and had lower attendance and achievement than…

Despite a long-standing concern within the sociology of education for ameliorating educational inequality, the challenge of improving educational opportunities for disadvantaged students remains deeply entrenched. While 'macro' issues such as segregation and systemic inequalities in school funding and access to qualified teachers must be addressed…

This case study seeks to explore three research questions: (1) What science teaching and learning processes, perspectives, and cultures exist within the science classroom of an urban portfolio community high school? (2) In what ways does the portfolio-based approach prepare high school students of color for college level science coursework,…