The Ford Foundation's City High School Recognition Program (conducted in l982-83), was designed to find, document, and recognize the overall progress made in recent years by inner city high schools that previously had been failing. Through a blend of $l,000 recognition awards and $20,000 project grants, the program sought to reinforce the most…

Describes the planning, leadership, and organizational strategies that formed the basis for the Houston School District's efforts to implement standards-based reform. Identifies some reform initiatives that need to be expanded, such as new uses of online instruction and new approaches to the recruitment and training of teachers. (PKP)

Describes how an English teacher in a Queens, New York, ghetto school introduced her grade nine students to Charles Dickens's "Great Expectations." Focuses on students' responses, which eventually became enthusiastic, and discusses the use of classics within the curriculum. (KH)

Examines three case studies picked from a longitudinal study of the effects of Chicago school reform and investigates school improvement under site-based management. Two elementary schools represent descriptive accounts of school reform and improvements, and one high school illustrates constraints on reform. (GLR)

To address the important issue of dropouts from their schools, the Council of Great City Schools undertook a major research effort to make sense of the disparate ways in which cities keep their dropout data, and to advise various policy makers on the development of common metrics for measuring the problem. A survey of Council member schools…

This paper examines the complex relationship between black adolescents' ethnic identity, school performance, and the effect of the larger social structure on the interaction of these phenomena by reference to the concept of racelessness. This concept captures the endemic tensions and conflicts experienced by black Americans as they seek to define…

Black adolescents have learned a well-defined fear of "acting white": a fear of excelling in academic arenas which traditionally have been defined as the prerogative of white Americans. The focus of this analysis is the resulting conflict experienced by academically successful and unsuccessful black students in one predominantly black high school…

The eleven papers presented at a 1985 conference on school-to-work transition are collected in this volume. The papers focus on school-business partnerships, school programs, and community projects. Their titles (and authors) are: (1) "Investing in Our Children: Business and the Public Schools" (Sol Hurwitz); (2) "From School to…

This paper reviews the literature on urban school dropouts and the experiences of superintendents in attempting to lower the dropout rate. The paper is divided into two major sections. Part I examines how a mixture of societal, community, family and other influences increase the chances that an at-risk student will experience little success in…

This final report for the PUSH-EXCEL project was designed to provide readers with an idea of the major actors and events that shaped the project's history and implementation, and to describe results of a 3-year evaluation of its impact (Chapter 1). Chapter 2 describes the original impetus for PUSH-EXCEL as arising from the Reverend Jesse Jackson's…

This report presents tables summarizing test results statewide for ninth-grade students who took the New Jersey High School Proficiency Test (HSPT) in April, 1987. The HSPT consists of reading, writing, and mathematics sections, and must be passed as one of the requirements for a high school diploma. Data include percent passing, mean score, and…

This report summarizes test results statewide for tenth-grade students who took the New Jersey High School Proficiency Test (HSPT) in April, 1987. The HSPT consists of reading, writing, and mathematics sections, and must be passed as one of the requirements for a high school diploma. The tenth-grade students who were tested consisted of students…

The purpose of this report is to review school practices and school environment characteristics that can be promoted in order to achieve student integration in desegregated urban high schools. A research project conducted to study alterable characteristics related to student outcomes is described. School practices that were identified as sources…

The Phoenix Union High School District Homebound Program enrolls students who are unable to attend school for at least 3 months due to illness, disease, accident, pregnancy, or emotional or physical handicapping conditions. Homebound classes are carried out through special telephone consoles and home visits. This report describes the Homebound…

This is the second volume of the report of the National Commission on Secondary Schooling for Hispanics. There are three main sections. The first contains a comparative, demographic analysis of the United States Hispanic population, the total United States population, and the White and Black populations. It documents the relative size and growth…