The author contends that a voucher system including private schools would allow greater access to quality education and broaden curricular options while reducing the costs of central school administration and ultimately of welfare and crime. (DM)

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)

Reviews the history and use of educational vouchers in urban schools. Discusses their economic and social impact on the following areas: (1) public schools; (2) educational choice; (3) equal education; and (4) educational quality. Proposes alternatives. (FMW)

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…

Examines research about home and school relations to analyze the author's experiences as a parent activist in an urban public school, using the activity of nitpicking as both a literal explanation and metaphoric representation of the ways that women's responsibilities for maintaining children's emotional and physical wellbeing interfere with the…

Assessed the assignment of students in an urban system to ninth-grade mathematics courses against a meritocratic definition of fairness to determine whether the process denied access to students from particular segments of society. Results with 1611 students show that entrance to the gatekeeper mathematics courses was unfairly denied for low…

Examined relationships between families and staff from community agencies in a poor urban neighborhood, investigating how they affected urban educational restructuring efforts that encouraged family-school-community collaboration. Findings indicated that these relationships often rested on inherent inequalities stemming from conditions that placed…

Examines the low level of teacher morale at inner city schools and finds "ethical" stressors such as racial tension among faculty, falsifying of school records, and sexual harassment by school officials emerging as factors contributing to teacher exit and absenteeism. (AOS)

Examines the use of a specific form of short-term grouping of students based on an information-referenced criterion for selection. This technology-based system is proposed as an alternative to grouping, which in many inner-city schools becomes de facto tracking. Summarizes advantages of information- over norm-referenced testing. (AF)

Explores African American cultural performance as it exists in education. It focuses on the trickster performance and reveals this community tradition in action through research, designed to increase the recognition and use of cultural performance in schools and create an enhanced learning environment, and conducted with African American educators…

Use of computers for instruction in public schools in New York City is compared with that in public schools in suburban Westchester County. Survey responses from 90 city and 46 suburban schools emphasize hardware availability, the nature of instructional software, and perceived problems/progress in integrating computers into the curriculum. (SLD)

Examined how elementary students in a diverse, urban fourth grade classroom exercised white male privilege, noting the teacher's approach to mediating privilege, equality, and equity. Observation and interview data indicated that white males exercised privilege through outcries, evaluative use of knowledge, and body movements. They perceived more…

Analyzes public opinion on school choice using telephone survey data from 1,508 Detroit (Michigan) metropolitan area residents. Examines within-district, cross-district, statewide, and tax credit options. Substantial support for school choice is demonstrated, and residents overall are receptive to choice, in spite of the area's history of extreme…

Examines the effects of school organization and climate on mainstreaming in an urban middle school. Discusses how certain behaviors, beliefs, and mechanisms result in the exclusion of some special education students from regular classes, programs, and facilities. (FMW)

Three Chicago (Illinois) vocational high schools illustrate contrasting histories in African-American education and economic opportunity: Washburne Trade School reinforced trade union exclusion of African Americans; Dunbar Vocational High School directed African Americans into lower-paying trades, and Chicago Vocational School prepared the white…