Nonprofit community-based organizations (CBOs) increasingly provide services that are traditionally thought to be a governmental responsibility. Through a qualitative case study, we examine the role, politics, and sustainability of a nonprofit CBO aimed at expanding opportunities for underserved youth. Our findings explain how this CBO worked to…

Community-based organizations have long influenced education reforms, and urban areas are especially vulnerable to community work that transcends racial and economic boundaries. The purpose of this study is to explore how The League of Women Voters of Las Vegas Valley, a mostly White, middle-upper-class women's organization, worked to pursue one…

This article is a historical case study of an attempt to build a citywide coalition in Rochester, NY. The coalition wanted to improve urban education by implementing community based wrap-around supports in a similar form as the well-respected Harlem Children's Zone. Our study found that groups had difficulty creating buy-in for this reform effort…

Disparities in academic achievement begin in early childhood, before children step foot into a classroom. These early gaps, often along racial and economic lines, widen throughout children's academic careers because children who are well-prepared at entry are able to take full advantage of school, while children who enter less prepared spend more…

Historically, schools serving impoverished families trapped in America's urban "ghettos" have been resistant to community participation. Enhanced participation is critically needed, however, if long-term urban school-reform projects and efforts to develop more empowering, community-supporting forms of pedagogy are to succeed. This article examines…

Intended to chronicle the still-emerging concept of career education, this monograph contains 10 papers prepared during the 1979-80 academic year. In the first paper career education is discussed in terms of its role in developing employability/adaptability/promotability skills. The strong emphasis in 1979-80 on making career education a community…

This report profiles 12 programs conducted as part of the Hitachi Foundation's Partnerships in Economic and Educational Opportunity Initiative. The introduction and overview explain the goals of the initiative, which was undertaken to improve the economic and career options available to young people who have traditionally been underserved by…