This report examines how inner-city schools are performing on the academic goals and standards set by the states. Researchers investigated student achievement in math and reading and measured achievement gaps between cities and states, African Americans and Whites, and Hispanics and Whites. The report focuses on whether urban schools have made…

The history of SAT® score scales is summarized, and the need for realigning SAT score scales is demonstrated. The process employed to produce the conversions that take scores from the original SAT scales to recentered scales in which reference group scores are centered near the midpoint of the score-reporting range is laid out. For the purposes of…

Examined the flow out of and into science, mathematics, and engineering (SME) majors among African American, American Indian, and Hispanic students, noting persistence-related factors. Student surveys indicated that these groups experienced greater attrition from SME majors than did whites and Asian Americans. Person-oriented fit and peer values…

Many community colleges have pursued aggressive initiatives to serve students on welfare, creating new academic programs or expanding existing ones. This chapter highlights case studies of best practices that illustrate how institutional initiatives targeting welfare students have resulted in an expanded capacity to educate and serve mainstream…

Fifty years ago, the Supreme Court ruled in "Brown v. Board of Education" that: "Segregation of white and Negro children in the public schools of a State solely on the basis of race, pursuant to state laws permitting or requiring such segregation, denies to Negro children the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth…

A program was developed to create a positive school climate in a multiethnic school to reduce conflict among students. The targeted population consisted of students in kindergarten through grade six in a school in a low socioeconomic environment in a rural community in northern Illinois. The majority of the school's 309 students were White, but…

Beginning in 1981, the Bay Shore (New York) School District initiated comprehensive changes in its instructional program. The process, which involved long range planning for 1982-1987 and 1987-1992, used focus groups, survey data, community input, and school-based feedback. Several of the overall goals of these plans are concerned with assuring…

This booklet presents information on the achievement gaps in education between white, Asian, and economically advantaged students and their African American, Hispanic, Native American, and economically disadvantaged peers. It provides examples from higher education, district, and school levels and summarizes available resources and tools to help…

Analysis by the Civil Rights Project has shown that the isolation of Latino and black students from white students in public schools has substantially increased since the l980s. These findings have been criticized recently in a report by the Mumford Center at the University at Albany, "Resegregation in American Public Schools? Not in the 1990s"…

A study examining student perceptions of teacher ethnic bias surveyed 2,409 Mexican American and non-Latino white adolescent dropouts and students from three communities in the southwestern United States. Although perceptions of teacher ethnic bias were not rampant, such perceptions existed to a greater degree among dropouts, Mexican Americans,…

Analyzes victimization data obtained from 1,272 Black, Hispanic, and White high school students in Los Angeles (California). Findings include the following: (1) males are victimized more frequently than females; (2) Blacks are victimized more frequently than either Hispanics or Whites; and (3) younger students were victimized less frequently than…

In response to the national push to raise academic performance of all students, most states have adopted policies designed to raise academic standards, monitor progress toward those standards, and hold schools and students responsible for attaining them. Given the complex nature of the educational process, these policies are likely to have mixed…

This study examined the influence of racial/ethnic dynamics on the process of social and academic integration. Students of diverse racial/ethnic and academic backgrounds were interviewed throughout their first-year and again at the beginning of their sophomore year about their pre-college and in-college experiences. Results yielded a qualitative…

Research shows a serious underrepresentation of Hispanic students entering the math, science, and engineering fields, possibly fueled by a large gap in math achievement between Hispanic and Euro-American students. The current study addressed this concern by examining the general school-related attitudes, coursework, and achievement, with a focus…

Increased numbers of minority students as well as increased numbers of Florida high school graduates entering higher education in Florida have influenced Florida SUS [State University System] enrollment and graduation characteristics. This study of 510,952 undergraduate students shows that between the years 1996 and 2003, the number of entering…