In this essay, we specifically focus our attention on Donald Trump's perspective of the conditions of schools that Black children attend. The fact remains that as a presidential candidate, he verbalized stereotypical notions that many people hold about the conditions of schools that Black children attend. Thus, the purpose of this essay is to…

Dr. James Lytle's discussion of the "destruction" of the School District of Philadelphia was indeed a bitter pill for Indi Ekanayake to swallow. As an educator who is both an alumnus of Teach For America and a charter school employee, Ekanayake feels as if he might be a representative of the types of people whom Dr. Lytle is…

Monolingual speakers of a national language continue to be the ideal figures on which national identities and senses of community are built. Yet this longstanding equation between nation and language is being contested by other ideologies. Alternatives are emerging from such disparate social locations as the European Union, now advocating for…

This article presents suggestions from various physical education teachers regarding how they can better prepare physical educators for teaching in an urban setting. An educator suggests that understanding that each student is an individual and taking the time and effort to talk with (instead of at) each student will allow a teacher the…

For millions of years, human beings evolved and then lived in small social groupings that were intergenerational, with simple divisions of labor, oriented to common tasks and values. It was a limited existence in many ways, but there was community and continuity. And now, very suddenly in evolutionary time, we have built the teeming cities and…

While many have focused on the program's positive impact on academic achievement, a recent Department of Education evaluation also studied how the program has affected students' educational experiences in other ways, including school safety and school climate. Past evaluations have reported that school safety was an important reason why families…

This system aims to improve the communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity in schools that serve students with disabilities, especially those in urban and/or high-poverty settings. The STAR system outlines five practices that build a more adaptive and inclusive education environment while utilizing modes of communication and…

The author's school had just been labeled a failing school by No Child Left Behind when its new principal arrived in the fall of 2007. In this demoralizing climate, teachers can get frustrated and choose to give up, or they can rise to the challenge, create a plan for improvement, and plunge into uncharted waters. This article discusses how the…

This article presents data from an ethnographic study focused on the school engagement of Puerto Rican girls. I explore the school engagement of Puerto Rican girls through the metaphor of "passing". The findings demonstrate that despite variation between individual girls in academic achievement, all of the girls in the study suffered…

The article explores the ways "uneven geographical development" conditions and is conditioned by local placemaking practices. Guided by David Harvey's work along with Henri Lefebvre's three dimensions of spatial production--spatial practices, representations of space, and spaces of representation or the "spatial imaginary"--I…

The purpose of this ethnographic study is to examine how a commitment to socially just pedagogies influences the core practices and policies of a school. This article presents a comprehensive description and analysis of two public middle schools committed to teaching for social justice: Urban Promise Academy and San Francisco Community School.…

In this article, the author demonstrates the very real possibility of using technology to help open up the classroom space so that students feel empowered. For her, such possibilities are at the center of feminist praxis, especially on urban campuses and at historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs). Building a feminist pedagogy on an…

Discusses varied roles a qualitative researcher or ethnographer plays in the educational research process. Focuses on ways in which these different roles affect others' behavior in the presence of the ethnographers; how ethnographers interact; and how ethnographers interpret, analyze, and present data. (Author/MJL)

Teachers who work in today's urban schools need to be prepared to work with culturally, ethnically, and racially diverse students. Teacher education programs need to make changes in curricula, clinical experiences, and commitment to urban schools if teachers are to be successful in helping these students achieve learning success. (IAH)

This article provides a brief history of the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), including an analysis of the demographic shifts and the tensions between the African American and Korean American communities at the time of the Los Angeles riots in 1992. The article includes my own experiences teaching high school English during the…