It took a while for four-time finalist Aldine, Texas, to win the Broad Prize for Urban Education. But it took even longer to craft the system that ultimately put the district over the top. Educators in Aldine district have been working for more than a decade to refine their "managed instruction" system. Reviewers examined how the school…

Despite increasing emphasis on preparing more and better teachers and despite the near universal presence of student teaching across teacher education programs (TEPs), numerous questions about what and how student teaching experiences contribute to preservice teachers' development remain unanswered. Indeed, much of the attention focused on student…

The lack of sufficient literacy skills is a major factor contributing to poor performance in high school and post-secondary education. Many students, particularly those in urban schools, lack the foundational literacy skills necessary to read and comprehend the academic texts appropriate for high school and beyond. This brief provides a synthesis…

Beginning on the front cover, the superintendents of schools in four urban areas describe successful programs in their districts. They explain why individualized instruction improved reading achievement in Detroit (Michigan), while it was phased out in Red Bank (New Jersey); why Milwaukee's (Wisconsin) school organization is unique; and how…

Data on achievement gains in urban schools were analyzed to identify those schools with achievement consistently higher or lower than schools with similar characteristics. Only one school showed unusually high achievement gains. Efforts to identify and reward schools based on achievement may be erroneous and may decrease morale. (Author/VM)

In each of 3 years, 20 City College of New York undergraduates from New York City public inner city school backgrounds read to and mentored individual second graders in a Harlem public school in a program supported by the Department of Education's Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE). Supporting academic experience aimed to…