Reviews the history and use of educational vouchers in urban schools. Discusses their economic and social impact on the following areas: (1) public schools; (2) educational choice; (3) equal education; and (4) educational quality. Proposes alternatives. (FMW)

The creation of a separate and unequal system of education for blacks and whites in Chicago in the 1920s and 1930s, and black responses to the situation are described and analyzed in this book. Drawing upon material from black newspapers and journals, Chicago Board of Education documents, census data, private manuscript collections, and personal…

Discusses the history of the Washington public school system from pre-1945 to the present to show how its problems have evolved. Discusses why the system's bad image developed and why it has been so slow to change. Student achievement and segregation are discussed extensively. (JS)

About two years into her first urban superintendency, Gerry House knows she cannot solve every problem on-on-one but has created a responsive system to handle parents' complaints. The Memphis school superintendent hopes to boost minority achievement, ensure that all children learn at high levels, bolster community confidence in the schooling…

The landmark legal decision, Brown v. Board of Education, was rendered on May 17, 1954. Fifty years later, campuses and communities are commemorating the decision and its impact on contemporary life. The Harvard legal scholar, Charles Ogletree, has published a riveting book of his reflections, a government commission is staging a variety of…

Provides a historical survey of black school politics in Atlanta between 1872 and 1973. Identifies four major periods in the struggle to improve educational opportunities for black children. Changes in strategies and goals from one period to the next were determined by changes in the political resources available to the black community. (PS)

The 60-year effort to desegregate Philadelphia (Pennsylvania) public schools has not succeeded. Despite a 1977 State court order to desegregate and the implementation of the Modified School Desegregation Plan, Black and minority group students still encounter discrimination, unfairness, and abuse in Philadelphia schools, and the Plan's promises…

Postwar transformation of U.S. cities gave new form to longstanding racial and economic educational inequities, intensifying barriers to achievement facing disadvantaged students. By concentrating disadvantaged students in inferior innercity schools, educational problems are intensified. Bureaucratic school systems do little to address new…

Inner-city schools are currently as separate and unequal as they have ever been. School reform has failed to address the dual system, and it will remain ineffective as long as an unequal and racially divided system operates. Suggestions are given for turning rhetoric to action. (SLD)

Analyzes and explains the change of a crowd into a mob. Uses as a case study the behavior of crowds involved in the integration of two previously all-White elementary schools in New Orleans (Louisiana). Emphasizes the role of the White students who continued to attend the schools. (FMW)

For more than three decades, the courts have attempted to resolve the effects of desegregation on educational quality and educational access. This report reviews a recent court ruling on the 26-year-old desegregation case, Mapp versus Board of Education, in relation to emerging demographic patterns in the Chattanooga (Tennessee) Public Schools…

Provides a brief history of the desegregation of two elementary schools in New Orleans (Louisiana) in 1960. Presents the recollections and observations of the mother of two of the White students who continued to attend school despite a boycott. (FMW)