The teacher preparation programs at University of Central Florida graduates approximately 1,000 prospective teachers annually. They are well prepared for teaching positions in the schools that look like the suburban, middle class ones which most of the teacher candidates attended. They have not been as well prepared for the Title I schools that…

Ghettos are a social evil. They are social atrocities maintained by inexcusable racist laws and practices, structures of class domination, and institutionalized political marginalization. After "Brown v. The Board of Education," educational reformers have increasingly (mis)framed the problem of "ghetto schools" as a failure to…

This article begins with an introduction to the concept of urban education. Next, the author addresses the future challenge of long-term and developmental perspective in this field, as contrasted with perspectives held by prekindergarten and preschool professionals in early childhood education. Her hope is that this challenge will be addressed in…

This essay explores the political economic roots of the notion of precarity and migrates the construct into critical educational studies, reviewing the literatures on structural dispossession and race; disruptive innovation and educational reform, and embodied precarity as narrated by youth of color, poverty and immigration. Implications for urban…

CC Vision -- an urban education reform effort launched to strengthen the cradle-to-career education pipeline in Central City -- provides the impetus for our use of youth participatory action research (YPAR) to gather and activate student voice in the fight for education justice. Student voice can significantly enhance the quality of policy…

This review examines four books that may offer some insight into what the discussion about educational policy, reform, and performance may look like after the era of No Child Left Behind (NCLB). Collectively, "The Allure of Order: High Hopes, Dashed Expectations, and the Troubled Quest to Remake American Schooling" by Jal Mehta,…

"Starting Up" is a collection of first-person accounts by some of the best-known founders of new schools in America. Providing the kind of knowledge that only experience can teach, it is an invaluable resource for anyone in the process of or thinking about opening a new school, as well as those interested in the politics of today's era of new…

This narrative study is based on stories told by African American adolescents experiencing homelessness. It offers insights into their lived experiences and describes the challenges faced in negotiating the urban education system. African American youth are disproportionately represented in the adolescent homeless demographic. "Unheard and…

The author discusses the boarding school model as a schooling alternative to improve life chances for disadvantaged youth, particularly African American youth, by positively meeting their social and educational needs. Bourdieu, Coleman, and other social scientists purported that these needs can be better met by exposing students to social and…

This book chronicles the journey of seven schools serving students of poverty, English Language Learners (ELLs), and students of color, which were able to sustain school improvement for a decade on either state and/or national criteria that measure student performance outcomes. The book shares stories of these seven schools and demonstrates that…

Urban school reform has begun to penetrate the school counseling profession in both theory and practice. The American School Counseling Association's National Model (ASCA, 2005), as well as the Transforming School Counseling Initiatives component of the Education Trust (2007) are initiatives within the school profession promoted, in part, as…

The focus of this book extends the discourse on student engagement beyond prescriptive definitions and includes substantive ethical and political issues relating to this concept. As such, this collection includes voices of educational theorists, practitioners, and students. It provides a counter discourse to the current dialogue on student…

Criticism of teachers who work among the poor is analyzed. (CK)

This book begins with an examination of school inequality in the United States. The discussion focuses successively on the issues of: the paradox of unequal schools in a welfare state, the distribution of educational resources in American cities: some new empirical evidence, inequalities in the allocation of educational resources among cities and…

What we know about parental involvement in schools cuts across two areas: how and why parental involvement is important and the structural barriers that impede parental participation. However, it has been difficult to construct an account of parental involvement, grounded in everyday practice that goes beyond a laundry list of things that good…