Across the country, urban school districts are opting to close under-enrolled schools as a way to consolidate resources. Motivated by a reported $1 billion deficit and declining enrollments in depopulating neighborhoods, the Chicago Board of Education voted in May 2013 to close 49 elementary schools and one high school program located in an…

The Expanded Success Initiative (ESI) evaluation was designed with two overlapping and interacting components: (1) a study of the initiative's implementation in the participating high schools; and (2) a study of its impact on student experiences and other outcomes. As the document of record evaluating an important, large-scale initiative, this…

This book embraces the idea of listening to and learning from students. Although many educational theorists have long argued that incorporating children's perspectives about teaching and curriculum has the potential for increasing students' interest and participation in learning, their radical perspectives are still ignored or dismissed in theory…

In this article, four urban high school students and their student leadership and social justice class advisor address the question, "What are high school students' perspectives on the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act's (NCLB) definition of a highly qualified teacher?" As the advisor to the course, Garcia challenged her students to examine…

As of October 2007, 54 interdistrict magnet schools enrolling 18,928 students were operating in Connecticut. The bulk of these schools are located in the Hartford and New Haven areas--21 in the Hartford area and 17 in the New Haven area. Interdistrict magnets also serve significant numbers of students in the Waterbury region. In keeping with the…

This document comprises a report of the postgraduation plans of seniors in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) and their opinions about their high school education. A sample of 20,131 seniors, (response rate of 77 percent) responded to a three-part, 59-item questionnaire. Findings are arranged in the following order: (1) total group;…

This annual report examines student achievement in U.S. schools, using evidence released in the previous 12 months to investigate the enormous gap between the U.S. and other nations in mathematics achievement and analyze the gap in reading achievement between the nation's best and worst fourth-grade readers. The report also explores the culture of…

During the 1987-88 school year the New York City Board of Education instituted Magnet School Programs in the following high schools: (1) Central Park East Secondary School; (2) The High School for the Humanities; (3) Townsend Harris High School; and (4) John Dewey High School. The programs at these schools were designed to offer special curricula…

This report of a New York City Technical College (NYCTC) task force focuses on a diminished sense of campus and institutional community. Three committees were formed to explore the problem. The committees' findings are reported in an early section. The Research Committee found a lack of studies on college community and recommended some models for…

This report details the technical aspects of an evaluation of Magnet School programs in the Los Angeles Unified School District in 1982-83. It focuses on implementation during that year and on progress made toward reducing harms of racial isolation. A prologue considers the social, economic, and governmental context affecting the analysis and…

This document comprises part 2 of a two-part evaluation of the third-year implementation of the New York City Board of Education's 3-year high school Dropout Prevention Initiative (DPI). It consists of reports on 8 special substudies of the program in year 3 (part 1 describes the DPI and presents the evaluation findings and recommendations.) The…

Reducing absences is the most readily available strategy that high schools have for reducing the number of dropouts. A sample of approximately 2,000 students who entered three Oregon urban high schools in the Fall of 1983 or 1984 was studied in order to establish criteria for identifying students who were at-risk of not graduating. The group was…

This report details the technical aspects of a 1983 evaluation of Year-Round Schools (YRS) in the Los Angeles Unified School District. It is part of a combined effort to assess voluntary integration programs and is designed to inform the district's policy-makers on the progress the district has made in relieving the harms of racial isolation. A…

Results of district-wide opinion surveys about a variety of key topics concerning the Austin (Texas) Independent School District (AISD) conducted during 1988-89 are discussed in this report. Over 49,000 students, teachers, other campus professionals, campus administrators, and parents participated. The following positive views about school quality…

The study on which this book is based examined the development of social relationships among black and white students in a new, desegregated urban middle school. In the initial phase, information was gathered from classroom observation, interviews, and a wide variety of supplementary sources over a three-year period beginning with summer…