Three teacher-researchers engage in self-study of a college writing program delivered on an urban high school campus. Through examination of their practices, from their particular standpoints bridging secondary and post-secondary education, the teachers find that the writing program repairs opportunity gaps related to the accountability regime,…

School district-university research collaborations represent one strategy to increase educators' ability to use current, research-based information in program decision-making and efforts to improve student achievement. However, differences in organizational structures, goals, values, and prior collaborative experiences, have made successful…

Although equity-oriented discourse is working to move the mathematics education community from achievement-gap rhetoric toward a focus on opportunity gaps, it does not currently recognize the role of space and the politics of space in creating and maintaining opportunity gaps as it relates to mathematics education in urban settings. The purpose of…

This study examined the intersections of race, class, gender, and exclusionary discipline in the lives of urban, middle school, Black girls. The lived experience of being Black, female, in an urban environment can not be understood from a lens of mutual exclusivity; Therefore, one must also include the interactions with institutions that…

In the field of education, critical theorists, critical pedagogues, and critical race theorists call for academics to engage in activist academic work to promote the social transformation of the material conditions created by racism and other forms of oppression. This article is a response to this call for academics, particularly those in the…

As a starting point in exploring issues of how texts and discourses are affiliated with differing kinds and levels of cultural capital and social power in institutional contexts, this paper considers the experiences of the Hartford (Connecticut) school district to provide definitions of literacy, discourse, and textuality, and their application to…

The positions expressed reflect several perspectives on the university-urban district cooperative leadership program carried out by Pennsylvania State University and the Philadelphia school district. The statements are made by students now holding positions as high school assistant principal, elementary principal, elementary assistant principal,…

This paper is part of a larger project comparing civic capacity and urban education in 11 American cities. The paper is divided into four sections. The first section attempts to explain why civic capacity and public education in Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania), Boston (Massachusetts), and St. Louis (Missouri), evolved from different paths, although they…

Based principally on data collected for a broader 11-city study of civic capacity in urban education, this report provides an account of the durability of judicially supervised consent decrees in the school reform arena and explains why judicial intervention may be sought and sustained in the 1990s, often in the absence of evidence that schools…

The ways in which a Hispanic female superintendent led her school district toward stability and excellence are described in this report, with a focus on four elements that differentiate the work of urban school superintendents from that of others. Four years of data were collected through interviews with the superintendent, observations of group…

In this study, parents' reasons for school choice were explored at four inner-city school sites by means of a questionnaire distributed to parents by their children. The sample for this study consisted of the parents of over 2,300 students who attend the four schools studied. All are inner-city Catholic high schools located in four different…

One of a series on critical issues in vocational-technical education, this paper applies the National Advisory Council on Vocational Education recommendations concerning urban vocational education to a specific inner city school system, the Durham, North Carolina, Public School System, which is seen as a microcosm of our large urban systems. Issue…

Urban community colleges can be distinguished from other community colleges in terms of their settings, clientele, richness and diversity of staff resources, and importance to the segments of the population who cluster in major national centers of commerce and government. In light of their unique characteristics, these institutions require study…

This study analyzed the effectiveness of a mentoring program in which 18 experienced teachers were released from teaching duties to act as full-time mentors for 10 new teachers each in an urban school district. Analysis of data gathered via surveys of and interviews with beginning teachers, principals, and mentors indicated that: (1) teaching in a…

An urban independent middle school grouped its 63 sixth and seventh graders into single-sex mathematics classes (SSMC) to improve girls' achievement in mathematics (AIM) and attitudes toward mathematics (ATM) with no negative impact on boys. Researchers analyzed AIM, ATM, and interactions/instruction. AIM measures included Metropolitan Achievement…