School finance drives policy and practice in public education, yet most citizens and some practitioners know very little about how their schools are funded. The purpose of this article is to address the financial issues related to urban schools and the challenge of balancing expectations of higher levels of education with the values of equity,…

United States teachers must be excellent, and they should resemble the U.S. student body in their diversity. Two approaches taken by the U.S. Department of Education, the "Recruiting New Teachers for Underserved Areas" program and the "Lighthouse Partnership Program," are aimed at increasing teacher diversity. (SLD)

Critiques a collection of articles on accountability, testing, and academics in schools with minority group and low-income students, examining their polar positions and explaining that polar positions are often equally biased. Expresses concerns about the TAAS, discussing what changes are needed in the educational system and the TAAS in order for…

Examines the advantage to urban education of school-to-work transition programs. A vision is presented for a work-centered education that takes full advantage of the best characteristics of cities and clarifies how this approach addresses some of the serious problems facing urban schools. The author indicates how these programs can invigorate…

Introduces an issue on family literacy in urban education, describing three approaches to family literacy. Articles highlight the sense of place, community, and identity; Hispanic parents' use of literacy-rich environments; discourse between teachers and Latino parents during conferences; identifying teaching practices that connect home and…

Research indicates that a disproportionate number of minority students are assigned to special education programs in urban school districts. Oftentimes, these programs are inadequate and they deny minority students with special needs a free appropriate public education. These concerns are not only applicable to urban public schools; research also…

Reviews the seven papers presented at a symposium entitled "Perennial Issues in Qualitative Research," part of the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association (San Francisco, California, 1986), and included in this issue. Discusses the demonstrated usefulness of qualitative methods in educational research, and also…

Controlled choice is a student assignment plan that divides a city into zones within which students may select a school to attend as long as balanced racial ratios are maintained. It is seen as an equitable way of deploying common community educational resources to guarantee student diversity and school improvement. (AF)

Describes the Pathways program at Armstrong Atlantic State University, which attempts to answer Georgia's need for minority teachers by offering noncertified school district employees, most of whom are paraprofessionals, tuition and support so that they can earn degrees leading to teacher certification. Factors leading to program success are…

Discusses the effect of deficit thinking on the academic achievement of minority and low income students. Highlights five ways that high-stakes accountability helped displace deficit thinking of school superintendents in Texas school districts. Data come from a multiyear study that demonstrated sustained, substantially improved academic…

Suggests that the most useful discussion of accountability, testing, and educational equity should occur at the conceptual level rather than the level of conflicting individual studies. Argues that statistical debates avoid larger foundational questions about the goals of schooling in our society and emphasizes the need for research on effective…

It is time to free urban education from the standards of rural, agrarian America. Urban education must reflect modern family structures, utilize school buildings to a fuller extent, reflect more autonomy for schools in individual communities, and expand bilingual programs. In short, schools should become the new "settlement houses" for urban…

Examines Chicano parents' expectations for the socialization of their children and notes their dissatisfaction with some aspects of how they themselves were raised. Also provides examples of how minority parents undergo transitions between past, present, and future cultural expectations and how they, along with their children, are involved in…

Uses critical race theory to critique three articles on accountability, testing, and academics in schools with minority group and low-income students, raising questions about the viability of interest convergence theory in arguing that accountability promotes equity and pointing out that gender issues remain unanswered in debates focused on race…