Asserts that the urban-high-school film genre (in which a classroom of socially troubled, low-achieving students is transformed by the singular efforts of an outside middle class teacher or principal) reinforces the "culture of poverty" thesis, representing the fantasies that suburban middle class America has about life in urban high…

Examines qualitative case study data of a partnership between corporate Cincinnati and an urban public secondary school, evaluating the partnership based on democratic criteria established by Deweyan pragmatism. The 10-year relationship did not always merit the label partnership, as business interests were at times the central focus. However, over…

Describes the urban decay and deconcentration process in the St. Louis metropolitan area and its relationship to changes in local public schools. Offers evidence suggesting that schools are as much victims of urban decay as causes of it. (CMG)

Examines school security in relation to consumerism, pointing out that security is big business. Draws from studies in education, geography, and communication to demonstrate how security has developed into a consumer activity involving suburbanization, technology, self-segregation, and the partitioning of neighborhoods in schools in homogeneous…

Studied perspectives of 192 principals and 148 teachers in urban schools with regard to the challenges of urban teaching. Findings suggest that many of the challenge areas suggested in the literature on urban teachers were not ranked as very important by these educators, making the point that not all urban schools face the same challenges. (SLD)

Examined how 11 developmentally disabled students made sense of their experiences in inclusive and segregated classrooms in urban elementary and junior high schools over 6 years. Information from observations and teacher and student interviews supported inclusive schooling, indicating that as students moved into and out of traditionalist and…

Studies changes in the motivation of senior student teachers to teach in an urban setting during their student teaching internship in an urban public school. Findings with 38 teacher candidates indicate that motivation to teach in an urban setting was strengthened during student teaching. (SLD)

Investigated relationships between urban parents' reasons for choosing magnet schools and their levels of satisfaction, involvement, and influence at school. Parents chose schools for many reasons and were highly satisfied with their choices. Parents reasons for choice are important predictors of their level of satisfaction, influence, and…

Applied McCaskey's model of directional planning (as opposed to planning from goals and objectives) to data from large urban school districts. Initial impressions suggested that the model is viable: explicit, publicly stated goals and objectives were found to be grounded in a set of beliefs and desires for the districts. (CMG)

Examination of resource distribution in Detroit's decentralized school district found that the relationship of socioeconomic variables to spending levels and class size varied in the system's eight administrative regions, indicating that regional administrators used different rules in distributing funds to individual schools. (CMG)

Examines a grassroots African American movement to reestablish a historically black high school closed during desegregation. Analysis of written documents and interviews with former students and community members indicates that establishment of the school was contentious. Highlights the paradox of desegregation for African American communities,…

Suggests that critical events rather than performance trends affect collective evaluation of public education. Data from public opinion surveys in Nashville, Tennessee, demonstrate episodic diminutions of public esteem for public schools attached to critical events. Results show that political interventions by social movements or political elites…

Investigates how prospective teachers respond to social differences they encounter in educational discourse and public schools, identifying three signposts indicative of prospective multicultural educators (desiring change because of identifying with educational inequality, valuing critical pedagogy and multicultural social reconstructivist…

This study examines how standardized testing for teacher certification affects teacher supply and demand in inner-city schools. Results indicate that most of the teachers who fail the California Basic Educational Skills Test are minority teachers. Minimum cutoff scores must be set within the framework of balancing teacher quality with teacher…

Examined the role of castelike patterns in British schooling and the participation of teacher mentalities in maintaining images of working class students and their families within urban communities, using qualitative research and demographic data. The common American assumption that race is the most salient designator of resistance to schooling…