This project, referred to as the Aviation Careers Accessibility Program (ACAP) established a model program for inner-city minority high school students that would allow them information and accessibility to careers and opportunities in the aviation industry. The project featured two program components: an academic year component during and a 5- or…

This brief report addresses two issues. One is the stagnation in the rate at which young people are receiving 4-year college degrees, and the increasingly high financial barriers to attending college. The other is the large, and increasing, inequality in opportunity to achieve a college education. At the same time, economists have warned that our…

This report provides an assessment of the progress of Sacramento START, an after-school learning program, for the period from September 1996 through May 1997. Evaluation instruments included standardized test scores for students in grades three through six and interviews with 18 principals from 20 START schools and teachers from 18 schools. Test…

The New York Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) is a grass-roots community organization representing 20,000 mostly low-income residents of New York City. This report presents evidence uncovered by ACORN of institutional racism in the New York City public schools that prevents parents of color from making informed…

The focus of this book is a study of voice through writing among poor, urban preadolescent fifth-grade girls. Voice became a central focus when the researcher, engaged in observations of peer writing conferences for students who were not native speakers, noted that the girls appeared to lose their voices as the year went on. The loss of voice was…

The Ninth Grade Restructuring Program of the Detroit (Michigan) public schools was designed to restructure the ninth grade in ways that improve academic performance, develop positive attitudes toward learning, improve the school environment, reduce the dropout rate, and increase the graduation rate of students. Features of the program were…

The Ninth Grade Restructuring Program of the Detroit (Michigan) public schools was designed to restructure the ninth grade in ways that improve academic performance, develop positive attitudes toward learning, improve the school environment, reduce the dropout rate, and increase the graduation rate of students. Features of the program were…

To initiate a primary prevention program in a Midwestern urban community consisting primarily of Chicanos, needs were assessed by conducting focus group meetings with school administrators, teachers, parents, and children in a public school setting. In each student focus group, 8-10 children were selected from a seventh-grade classroom, an…

Family MAASAI is a multiservice substance abuse prevention and intervention program for African American at-risk urban youth. The program commemorates the Maasai people of Africa and uses MAASAI as an acronym that stands for Maintaining African American Survival, Achievement, and Integrity. Cultural awareness, pride, and respect for self, elders,…

The GEAR UP Austin: Impacting Lives program serves a cohort of approximately 3,369 seventh graders from 10 Austin Independent School District (AISD) middle schools and 28 seventh graders from the Texas Empowerment Academy charter school. More than half of these students come from low-income households, and many are considered at risk. This…

In a fifth-grade transitional bilingual class in Hartford (Connecticut), a project was conducted to focus on writing to learn in science. The process of writing facilitates development of critical thinking, deepens understanding of science content, and develops collaborative learning skills. The example of a set of lessons on the skeleton…

Examines the effects of a negative income tax on school-enrollment and labor-supply decisions of urban Black teenagers. Results support the contention that the negative income tax would enable more teenagers to complete high school and postpone entry into the labor force. Theoretical considerations and empirical results are analyzed. (MF)

Investigates the informal curriculum of a state-funded after-school dropout prevention program for adolescents. The program's goal is to resocialize them into their schools and enable them to achieve academic success. The paper proposes that the program fails to achieve its goal because of its ideology, and it recommends an alternative perspective…

Examines the monitoring processes of parents and their effects on the attitudes and experiences of 498 sixth-, seventh-, and eighth-grade African American inner-city adolescents. Finds parental influence to be significant in the career and goal aspirations of the adolescents, despite adolescents' reports of feeling "hassled" by parents.…

Studied the effect of programs within desegregated schools that serve an identified population of students for cultural affirmation and advancement. Ethnographic data from a girls' group at an urban magnet school and a Vietnamese students' homeroom, focusing on 20 high school students, in an urban comprehensive school demonstrate both the power of…