Pushing Excellence in Pupils (PEP) was established in Dallas to provide instructional services for intermediate level (grades 4-6) black students identified as talented and gifted. This report discusses the descriptive analysis and results of a needs assessment to be used as decision making data for PEP curriculum development. A questionnaire was…

Examines the impact of a violence prevention program among African American students in two inner-city schools in Chicago. Students in 5th through 8th grade participated in Second Step: A Violence Prevention Program, and completed surveys at pretest and posttest. Findings reveal significant increases in self-reported knowledge and skills,…

Howard Gardner and Jerome Bruner have given much to teachers who want to know how the minds of children grow. This story of a girl's construction of higher order, verbal linguistic intelligence is also theirs. Ideas they created have been cloned to fit a big city, public school classroom of African American 4th graders, each with a set of multiple…

This study investigated African-American student response to images of African-Americans in picture books. Study participants included 20 fifth-grade students, 9 girls and 11 boys. The study used five picture books featuring African-Americans as main characters and ranked the books on a continuum from "most positive" to "most…

Three field experiments were conducted to evaluate Individual Learning Expectations (ILE), an alternative grading structure that awards points by comparing students' quiz scores with individual pretest "base scores." Findings of the studies are promising; however, results regarding the effectiveness of ILE in motivating students'…

The Children and Adolescent Pregnancy Project is a Chicago (Illinois) school-based intervention that serves pregnant teens (most either African American or Hispanic) who are either very young or have mild to moderate mental retardation. Outcome data indicate that serving these two groups together is an effective and developmentally appropriate…

The Memphis Apple Classroom of Tomorrow (ACOT), one of seven ACOT locations, was a joint project of the city schools and Apple Computer. The ACOT consisted of a class of 30 fifth grade students in an inner city school, who were selected on the basis of the willingness of the students and their parents to participate and to use computers in the…

This research digest reports on the efforts of Socratic Seminar methodology at Lookout Valley Middle School, a small middle school in Chattanooga (Tennessee). An integral part of the Paideia Schools Movement among public schools in Chattanooga, Socratic Seminars are well-planned opportunities for middle school students to engage in intelligent…

The focus of this book is a study of voice through writing among poor, urban preadolescent fifth-grade girls. Voice became a central focus when the researcher, engaged in observations of peer writing conferences for students who were not native speakers, noted that the girls appeared to lose their voices as the year went on. The loss of voice was…

Central East Middle School in Philadelphia (Pennsylvania), an urban school with about 45% Hispanic enrollment, and the Center for Research on the Education of Children Placed at Risk are working together to implement a Talent Development Middle School model of schooling. Part of this effort includes use of the Student Team Reading (STR) Program,…

This book addresses experientially and theoretically the nature of contemporary urban education, in terms of teaching and in the contexts of U.S. culture and teacher education. Much of it is derived from classroom experience as an inner-city classroom teacher. Chapter 1, "Connecting Inner Cities and Urban Schools: Racism's 'Slippery…

The New York Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) is a grass-roots community organization representing 20,000 mostly low-income residents of New York City. This report presents information about students relegated to the low achievement track that ACORN suggested, in a previous report, was inevitable when parents of color…

The Talent Development approach to helping greater numbers of students succeed in middle school is based on a belief that all students can learn challenging material if the right types of support are given. This report presents the essential components of the Talent Development framework and describes their initial implementation in Evans Junior…

This report describes how a longitudinal study was conducted, which examined 1,235 at-risk sixth-grade students (95 percent Black and 5 percent Hispanic) in the Chicago (Illinois) Public Schools and their schools and families. The longitudinal study traced the children's patterns of school adjustment since their enrollment in government-funded…

Findings in this report provide information about the strengths and weaknesses of Texas fifth and eleventh graders in economics education. The purpose of statewide assessment in Texas is reflected in the commitment of the State Board of Education to improve instruction. The measurement instrument (criterion-referenced tests emphasizing consumer…