In the ongoing effort to improve standards-based instruction in the nation's urban public schools, the Council of the Great City Schools published a second edition of "Supporting Excellence: A Framework for Developing, Implementing, and Sustaining a High-Quality District Curriculum." This document is designed to help districts: (1)…

Purpose: To equitably transform urban schools of color and the neighborhoods where they are nested requires approaches that promote community equity and foster solidarity among a range of stakeholders. However, most school-community approaches solely focus on improving school-based outcomes and leave educational leaders with little guidance for…

"Place: it's where we're from; it's where we're going. . . . It asks for our attention and care. If we pay attention, place has much to teach us." With this belief as a foundation, "The Power of Place" offers a comprehensive and compelling case for making communities the locus of learning for students of all ages and…

"Legalised Leadership" explores the links between educational law and law-based reform that have a profound influence on the work and professional life of school headteachers. The book offers lawmakers and policymakers in England some pathways for strengthening the role of leadership in English law-based reform and empowering…

This parent guide gives a general overview of student voucher programs. It explains the difference between vouchers and other school choice plans, such as charter schools and inter-district choice. It provides a summary of the research on the impact of vouchers on student academic outcomes and on public school performance. It describes how several…

School Communities that Work: A National Task Force on the Future of Urban Districts has been working since 2000 to develop a new conception for a high-performing community of schools that ensures both results and equity for all children. The vision for what such a community might look like uses the terms "local education support system" and…

Declining financial resources necessitate the reevaluation of educational priorities. Those who see the urban problem as financial urge the maintenance of a balanced school budget and suggest new sources of revenue. This view's shortcomings include a lack of social compassion and failure to recognize the problem of racial discrimination.

Argues that we must stop our crisis-oriented approach to urban education, sets forth three major goals for urban schools, and lists six policy guidelines for the future. (Author/WD)

The purpose of this guide is to serve as an informational resource for educators and other interested professionals in planning and developing bicycle safety education programs. The guide examines 15 existing bicycle safety education programs in the United States and one from Canada. (Author)

This book describes problems faced by urban public schools and offers solutions that can be applied by urban school communities. The text is divided into six chapters. Chapter one discusses the attitudes and behaviors of the people who form the urban community and how they relate to and affect inequity in educational resources, curriculum,…

Despite the hopes of social scientists and civil rights activists that school desegregation would close the educational gap between blacks and whites, a full generation of effort has not resulted in parity between the achievement levels of black and white students. School desegregation alone is not the answer to ending achievement differences.…

This publication is intended to help foundation program officers, educators, and organizers use the Education Organizing Indicators Framework to understand the contribution that community organizing makes to school reform. The Framework is the product of a study that examined five community groups to document how organized groups of parents and…

Although American society may never have adequately educated the majority of its immigrants and their children, many who lacked a good education in an earlier era could support families through factory, agricultural, or construction work. Today's jobs require more education. Those with limited English proficiency and literacy skills will be only…

This book presents affirmative strategies to rid schools of discrimination. Many of these strategies were developed as a result of research in four public high schools with large percentages of ethnic and language minority students in the deep south. The study, which consisted of 48 30-90 minute interviews, suggested that there is wide student…

Except for school construction, there is no legislation to guide implementation of the programs and reforms ordered by the New Jersey Supreme Court in the landmark "Abbott v. Burke" case. Instead, in its 1998 "Abbott V decision," the Supreme Court directed the Commissioner of Education to provide standards and procedures to…