In response to numerous calls for more rigorous STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education to improve US competitiveness and the job prospects of next-generation workers, especially those from low-income and minority groups, a growing number of schools emphasizing STEM have been established in the US over the past decade.…

The January 1970 Music Educators Journal's "Special Report: Facing the Music in Urban Education" included the article "Recommendations for Teacher Education Programs." This article contained seven recommendations to prepare successful future urban music educators. As two urban music educators, we examine how "MEJ"…

Based on analysis of interviews conducted during 2008-2009 in Oakland, California, this article examines how narratives of inner-city youth reinforce and destabilize mainstream conceptions of "ghetto." The article demonstrates that inner-city youth discourses regarding "ghetto" spaces, subjects and schools often exemplify a…

For most families, their home address determines the school that their children will attend. While wealthier families can move to the community of their choice or choose a private school, lower-income families have fewer alternatives if they are not satisfied with their local schools. In the past two decades, many states have begun to subsidize…

The full-service community school (FSCS) model is one of the most popular and growing types of community school models, which is widely implemented in under-resourced urban schools. FSCSs offer an alternative to traditional public schools in the U.S. and are designed to coordinate community assets within a school. Given increased attention to this…

Preparing special educators for the highest-need schools remains an ongoing challenge in urban districts across the United States. One university's collaborative community-based immersive partnership model, with emphasis on service learning, has demonstrated promising levels of impact on candidates' preparation as preservice teachers learning how…

Chicago Public Schools and school districts throughout the country are seeking new ways to foster racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic equity as desegregation consent decrees are being lifted. One of Chicago's selective enrollment high schools drafted parents, educators, administrators, and community representatives to address its own diversity…

The Harlem Children's Zone (HCZ) is arguably one of the most extensive extended education approaches established to date. It has sought to create a seamless programme of support for children living in Harlem, from birth to early adulthood, in family, school and community settings. The evidence on HCZ's impacts is limited, but its approach…

This article examines the 2015 Atlanta cheating scandal trials and sentencing. Using critical race theory, the authors argue that cheating is a natural outgrowth of market-based school reform and that racial realism will always lead to scrutiny of Black performance. The sentences of these Black educators is overkill, rooted in anti-Blackness, and…

The Office of Black Male Student Achievement (OBMSA) of Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS), established in 2014, is one of the first in the country. The innovative work of the OBMSA is centered on student voice and student thought. After getting input from parents and families, community members, educators, and young Black males themselves, the…

Using a qualitative approach, we sought to understand the social networks and decision-making strategies of minority males as they choose to attend a postsecondary institution. Data were obtained from interviews where students self-report perceptions of their college transition process. Our findings suggest that students' social networks are…

Given that many urban students exclude Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics careers from their career choices, the present study focuses on urban high school students and adopts the social-cultural approach to understand the following questions: how do students envision their careers? What are the experiences that shape students'…

This study investigated how ten Asian American female classroom teachers experienced racial microaggressions (Ong et al. in "J Couns Psychol" 60(2):188-199, 2013; Sue et al. in "Cult Divers Ethn Minor Psychol" 13(1):72-81, 2007; Sue in "Microaggressions in everyday life: race, gender, and sexual orientation." Wiley,…

The current study explored the preschool classroom environment as an important context for supporting dual-language learning Latino children's development of emergent literacy skills. The results of the study showed that teachers in Spanish-English bilingual preschool classrooms varied in the way they shared wordless picture books with the…

This paper reflects on the impact of engaging pre-service teachers in an academic service-learning project working with urban students on a place-based science project. This collaboration seeks to provide pre-service teachers with experiences that encourage them to recognize the importance students' funds of knowledge and help them develop the…