The author was startled by the carelessness and selectivity of Robert Slavin's comments, which give his words the ring of a promotional release rather than of intellectual reflection. He agrees that Slavin is accurate in saying that the scores on reading tests at P.S. 65 in the South Bronx improved during a period in which, among a number of other…

A review of various education reform proposals and suggestions concerning their feasibility and implication. (RA)

Describes an inner city New York City school that has achieved some success in improving urban education. (JF)

A survey of 14 urban and 28 suburban junior high school students revealed little difference between them on their views of urban schools. Those views were often more favorable than expected. (IRT)

In collaboration with the U.S. Department of Education, federal legislators, the North Central Regional Educational Laboratory, the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), and local businesses and community members, a consortium of 20 suburban Chicago school districts formed learning networks to master Goal 5 of the Goals 2000…

When homeless students attend school, the school must establish a climate of sharing, caring, and learning. One Dallas elementary school helps by referring parents to appropriate agencies, carefully orienting students, keeping a clothes closet, offering before- and after-school tutoring, mainstreaming homeless students, and adhering to effective…

Milwaukee (Wisconsin) Public Schools' two new coeducational African-American immersion schools are not segregationist. Key programmatic changes are based on an African social education concept and include staffing based on teaching experience (not race or gender), teacher class assignments lasting two or more years, teacher home visits, staff…

Veteran principals are among the victims of "community control," Chicago style. Presents a chapter from the "Krug Report" published by the Chicago Tribune, with observations, inpressions, and educated insights based on many interviews, visits, and long-time contacts with schools. Attempts to help the public better understand…

Inner-city schools are plagued with problems, including huge central bureaucracies; dumbed-down, irrelevant curricula; scant resources to provide well-compensated teachers, supplies, smaller classes, and social workers; and de facto segregation. Transformative choice, operating on free market principles, is breaking up bureaucracies, demanding the…

A 1992 Council of Urban Boards of Education report affirms that board members and superintendents are aware of their mutual problems. Both parties agreed that open communication, trust, and understanding of role differences are the factors most important to effective board/superintendent relationships. The major destabilizing factors were board…

Evidence from the Boston Renaissance Charter School suggests that the Edison Project is struggling fitfully to learn school management. Reliance on suspension and physical restraints demonstrates Edison Project's lack of experience with inner-city children. Test scores are up, but faculty are warring over school mission, teachers are struggling to…