Elementary students from a Chicago housing project rise to the occasion and fight for an equal opportunity after being faced with shamefully, inadequate conditions at their neighborhood school. Challenged with the prospect of co-creating a curriculum based on their priority concerns, the young people developed an integrated effort to solve this…

Power Teaching weaves four factors into a seamless whole: standards, teaching thinking, research based strategies, and critical inquiry. As a prototype in its first year of development with an urban fifth grade class, the power teaching model connects selected district standards, thinking routines from Harvard University Project Zero Research…

A critical question in school choice programs is whether relatively low-income urban parents have the ability to gather the information they need to make good choices for their children. Choice is expanding, particularly in American cities. Without good information, the benefits generated from expanding public school choice (via No Child Left…

This paper describes the use of research to shift a traditional teacher preparation program, that teaches all courses on the university campus, toward having a focus on "becoming a member of an urban education community," including teaching university courses at an urban elementary school and including community involvement in the…

The purpose of this applied dissertation was to examine the effects of a preschool emergent literacy program on young African American children from a low socioeconomic background. The preschool is located in an urban setting in North Carolina. All students participating in this study were identified as at-risk for school failure. The behavior and…

Findings are presented from our case study evaluating the implementation of the IBHE's federally funded grant, "A Common Vision: Teacher Quality Enhancement in the Middle Grades in Illinois." Four sites were examined in terms of how they organized to attain the grant goals, and what aspects of organizational culture and leadership…

The participants in a special education doctoral seminar for Urban SEALS (Special Education Academic Leaders) interacted with 4 national experts in urban education to identify and resolve several issues. The participants examined issues in four general areas: factors that impact students with disabilities in urban settings; factors related to…