In this response to the call for transformative models of teaching students in urban contexts, the author presents his own experiences in becoming a critical pedagogue, the path that led him there, and three models of classrooms that he sees in such contexts. He emphasizes the need to reject an apolitical stance in urban education, and provides a…

Drawing on interviews with 17 educators, 9 Black, and 8 White, as well as observations of classes and staff meetings at a segregated urban high school, this essay examines the ways teacher race impacts their professional work and suggests that racial experiences are far more complex than has been recognized in the literature on race and teaching.…

Describes the Chicago High School for the Agricultural Sciences, one of the U.S. Department of Education's 10 "New American High Schools," that graduates 93% of its students, all of whom take a rigorous college-prep curriculum tied to agricultural careers. (JOW)

Funding cutbacks affecting San Jose (California) High School have severely reduced the school personnel adequately prepared for educating in the inner city. Concentration on legally required basics has forced elimination of classes and programs appealing to student interests and needs, leading to disciplinary and attendance problems. (PGD)

Describes problems of maintaining discipline and security at Jamaica High School in Queens, New York. Argues that court decisions and school regulations have allowed minority of aggressive and disruptive students to destabilize the learning environment. (PKP)

Describes the Philadelphia High School Academies, vocational schools in the inner city that are jointly operated and funded by the public schools and local business and labor leaders. Discusses the program's growth and the reasons for its success in bringing inner city youth into the mainstream. (JOW)

Urban education is working and will continue to work if budgetary problems are resolved. Urban schools can and will succeed if less emphasis is put on negative issues, such as crime. (CJ)

Discusses a teacher's difficulties in using reader response approaches to engage her students at an urban alternative high school. Examines their resistances to discussion and personal response. Offers a few approaches the teacher has been trying, with some success, to overcome these resistances. (TB)

Describes problems associated with assessment and evaluation of problem-solving intervention in inner-city high school. Delineates factors related to assessment concerns. Offers recommendations for training including increased frequency and intensity of sessions, diversifying procedures, encouraging cultural sensitivity in trainers, and working…

Describes the integration of computers into the writing practices of a remedial English class in an urban high school. Analyzes the year-long written work of six students in the class. Concludes that the teacher's structuring of instruction had the greatest impact on both student writing and the ways computers entered into that writing. (HB)

One result of the new culture of violence in the schools, and the corresponding shift in attention and resources away from learning activities and towards new security strategies, is the strong likelihood of a notable drop in student achievement levels. Fallout from the crisis in urban high schools carries over to community colleges and…

Argues that the key to success with at-risk students is to expand the scope and the extent of actual, active student participation in planning, implementing, and evaluating courses of study. Describes how one teacher does so in her literature classes at an innercity school for high-risk students. (SR)

Shares the success stories of the students, teacher, and director of an award-winning high school newspaper in Boston. (MG)

Describes the use of theme cycles with a group of inner-city high school students with hearing impairments. Discusses the theoretical background of the thematic approach and describes the implementation process of a group learning cycle including false starts, question posing and data collection, teacher and student interaction, and final shared…

This paper focuses on the status of science teaching and learning in 20 secondary schools in an urban community which caters to an extremely diverse multicultural student population and the research needed to improve science teaching and learning in such a setting. This research was conducted to provide pre-service teachers with an insight into…