Although state-run turnaround districts have grown in prominence as a school improvement strategy with significant equity implications for urban education, little is known about the similarities and differences across states. This article provides a comparative analysis of state-run takeover districts in Louisiana, Tennessee, and Georgia. Although…

The purpose of this study was to examine the factors that impact teachers' decisions to remain teaching in an urban school district. The researcher analyzed survey data provided by the Office of Planning and Accountability for an urban school district in Tennessee. The findings of the study are also discussed as well as any implication for…

In this article, the authors utilize core ideas from Critical Race Theory (CRT) to examine the nature of education reform in two river cities. Similar to other cases of education reform in urban districts, the reforms in the two focal cities reflect at least four characteristics in common: (1) a form of portfolio management; (2) the growth of…

Improving low-achieving schools is a critical challenge facing urban education. Recent national policy shifts have pressed states to take an expanded role in school improvement efforts. In 2009, a federal grant competition called Race to the Top (RttT) compelled states to improve their capacity to implement ambitious education reform agendas.…

In every state in the South, the percentage of residents with bachelor's degrees or higher who were born outside the state exceed the percentage born in-state, reflecting their dependence on imported talent over building their own talent-development systems. In Virginia, the Southern state with the highest percentage of residents with a B.A. or…

New Schools for New Orleans (NSNO) commissioned this guide, in collaboration with the Louisiana Recovery School District and the Tennessee Achievement School District, to meet the Investing in Innovation (i3) requirement that grantees disseminate the lessons of their work. To create this guide, NSNO worked with Public Impact to build on prior…

The purpose of the study was to evaluate two approaches to teaching spelling and vocabulary to second through fourth graders in two different urban school systems to determine if one program revealed greater growth scores on Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program (TCAP) reading components. Research question1 posited: Does Word Study, a…

This study evaluates how welcoming thirty American cities--the twenty-five largest and five smaller "hotspots"--are to "nontraditional" problem-solvers and solutions. It assumes that the balky bureaucracies meant to improve K-12 education and hold leaders accountable are so calcified by policies, programs, contracts, and…

In order to systemically improve student achievement in elementary literacy, a large urban school district partnered with a local university to develop a model for high-quality professional development that hopefully would result in long-term changes in teachers' literacy instructional/practices. Schools were selected based on their Adequate…

During the 2006 fall semester, Nashville State Technical Community College (NSCC) completed a review of its general education program, including assessment of student success. A major advantage in assessing general education is that a number of measures are available for this purpose. A major disadvantage is that these measures rarely can be tied…

About one-fourth of the undergraduate student body of 1,200 at Fisk University expect to teach; most of them will teach in inner city schools. Therefore, teacher education at Fisk University has been conditioned mainly by the trend of urbanization in American life. Every prospective teacher is required to gain a solid foundation in the liberal…

This report examines comparative data on fiscal need factors critical in equitably financing public education and on factors with varying or unique implications for urban, suburban, and rural school systems in Tennessee. In analyzing the current operating expenditures for 1976-77, expenditures were divided into two components--instructional…

The Cooperative Leadership for Urban Education (CLUE) program, funded under Title III of the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act, tries to find a way of working with students in grades 5-9 that will get them vitally interested and involved in learning, that will develop in them genuine specific skills for continued learning, and that will…

Project Cooperative Leadership for Urban Education (CLUE), launched in December 1969, funded under Title III of the Elementary Secondary Education Act, uses such cooperative strategies as the Jobs-Alike Work Conference, The Design for Materials Sharing, and The Inter-City Program Transplant. The program goals of the Memphis component were to…

A study was conducted to secure baseline data on Tennessee public high school students working during the school year, to ascertain and compare the students' and parents' opinions on a 31-item questionnaire, and to project the earnings and sales tax contributions of the students. A predetermined sample size was established in order to infer the…