While mathematics education research has often focused at the level of the classroom (Rousseau Anderson & Tate, 2008), there are emerging calls for attention to shift from individual classrooms to consider the process of reform at the school or district level. Investigating the role of the institution and conditions of the organization becomes…

This article presents a poem about Joe Cytrynbaum. The poem brings together all the many facets of Joe's personality into a crystal-clear image of the beautiful, smart, and magnanimous individual Joe's family, friends, students, and colleagues all knew him to be.

Rochelle Gutiérrez has spent 15 years researching effective, urban high school mathematics departments that served Black, Latin@ and low-income adolescents (see, e.g., Gutiérrez, 1996, 1999a, 1999b, 2000, 2002). These were schools where students took more mathematics than was required by their district; where English learners, recent immigrants,…

Two articles comprise this publication. In "Beyond the Story-Book Ending: Literature for Young Children About Parental Estrangement and Loss," Megan Matt analyzes over 30 books for young children on the topics of abandonment, estrangement, divorce, and foster care. She observes that this loss might appear as an event within the story or…

Urban parents, particularly those who are poor and members of a minority group, are intimidated by the schools that serve their children and, therefore, do not participate in school programs. This article suggests steps urban principals can take to establish an effective parent involvement program. (Author/WD)

Defines block grants and describes their relationship to categorical aid programs. Discusses potential pros and cons of block grants for states and for local school districts, including intense competition for funds, and specifies strategic steps that school boards might take at the local, state, and federal levels. (CJM)

This book examines the policies and practices that create educational inequality in the United States and what can be done to reduce their influence. The introduction identifies children who are disadvantaged by the U.S. educational system, and documents the results of society's failure to serve them properly. Part One, which contains four…

The new wave of youngsters in city schools will require remedial help out of proportion to the financial and political resources that cities will be able to invest in schools. (Author/JM)

Reviews educational concerns in Sri Lanka, including the dropout rate, children who have never enrolled in schools, inequalities between urban and rural schools, the elitist nature of university education, and higher education's affirmative action area quota system for the ethnic majority. (CMG)

This testimony by the co-director of the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University, Christopher Edley, examines the U.S. Department of Education's (DOE's) early implementation efforts regarding the No Child Left Behind Act of 2002 (NCLB), recommending actions that the DOE should take to ensure that states, districts, and schools understand and…

Despite Professor Wraga's positive claims (in this same "Educational Administration Quarterly" issue), there is a substantial record of failure associated with the comprehensive high school--a stratifying institution that broadens the gap between the fortunate and disadvantaged. Urban high schools have low standards and are resistant to…

In this critique of elementary and secondary education in the United States, the first section discusses the history of the U.S. educational system and how the development of the schools' curricula and assessment programs have been adapted to the white, male, Eurocentric style of learning. The second section looks at inequalities in learning and…

As educators work to pull together the various components of the Improving America's Schools Act, they must not lose sight of its central purpose, increasing children's learning. Guidance and assistance for low-achieving students must accompany a mind-set of higher expectations for achievement. (SLD)

Although small, carefully managed voucher programs might provide a helpful safety valve for some disadvantaged children, policy makers should be under no illusion that such programs will address the fundamental challenge of providing an adequate education to the large numbers of such students in many urban centers. Contrary to the claims of many…

Issues pertinent to the positive and lasting reform of innercity school systems serving disadvantaged minority youth are explored in this paper. Current and past reforms to improve school effectiveness have dealt primarily with instructional deficiencies of the school. However, three clusters of problems must be addressed: institutional…