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,…

Through a case study of the Los Angeles city school district from the 1950s through the 1970s, Judith Kafka explores the intersection of race, politics, and the bureaucratic organization of schooling. Kafka argues that control over discipline became increasingly centralized in the second half of the twentieth century in response to pressures…

In this article, we argue that preparing and maintaining a cadre of culturally responsive teachers is critical to improving urban education and achieving educational equity. We discuss a collaborative, social-justice-oriented approach to teacher preparation committed to developing a stable and effective teaching force reflective of the student…

Reviews the final volume of Lawrence Cremin's trilogy on American education, "American Education: The Metropolitan Experience, 1876-1980" (1988) and summarizes the earlier volumes. Inequality, equity, and the role of education in a democracy are the central themes. (DM)

This article uses the metaphor of the achievement gap to make transparent, discuss, and critique the analytical frame/lens used in the articles to analyze urban education. Doing such an analysis is essential to producing an additional lens that has utility in theory and practice. It facilitates a historical analysis of urban education and leads to…

This volume of transformed research utilizes an activist approach to examine the notion that nothing is apolitical. Research projects themselves are critically examined for power orientations, even as they are used to address curricular problems and educational or societal issues. Philosophical perspectives that have facilitated an understanding…

Although the two countries differ vastly in wealth and resources, Cuba was selected as the second subject in this comparative study of the American effective schools movement and a socialist educational system because of: (1) the successes of the Cuban literacy campaign; and (2) similarities between the racial composition of the two countries. In…

The entries listed in this annotated bibliography were compiled to meet the needs of undergraduates and interested educators rather than those of the professional historian. Preference was given to items that had enduring value, had not appeared in other bibliographies, or that had been part of the periodical literature not ordinarily found in the…