Maryland, the first state to mandate performance assessments for its elementary school students, administers the Maryland School Performance Assessment Program as a week-long series of activities measuring reading, writing, language in use, science, and social studies for students in grades 3, 5, and 8. Open-ended questions are built around…

The need to recruit more minority teachers for urban schools is acute. Although enrollment in teacher preparation programs has increased, few of these future teachers intend to teach in urban schools where they are most needed. Ninety-five percent of prospective secondary school teachers come from suburban, rural, or small town backgrounds, and…

Concern for student improvement and recognition of the importance of individualizing instruction provided the rationale for this project. A definite need was seen for paraprofessionals to help teachers with instruction, not just with clerical work. The project was organized so that teacher aides received on-the-job experience concurrently with…

This study focuses on three new teachers, Arnie, Andrea, and Frank, who are New York City Teaching Fellows (NYCTF), a program of alternative teacher recruitment and certification that is in its third year at an urban public college in New York City. This study focuses on just three of the Fellows in order to have a more intense look into the…

While researchers continue to debate teacher qualifications, explore how to get more qualified teachers into urban schools serving low-income students, or try to determine whether teachers who are successful with middle-class students would also be successful with pupils in low-income urban schools, one practicable idea can easily be overlooked.…

This report discusses three major issues in urban education: dropout prevention, secondary education for Hispanic Americans, and urban teaching careers. Current studies on dropping out attempt to locate the responsibility for high dropout rates in policies or practices that schools initiate and have the power to change. Findings of these studies…

From some 700 books and articles on the professional education of teachers, most of them published from July 1966 through June 1967, 350 were selected for inclusion in this annotated bibliography. Entries were selected for representative quality and significance. The introduction lists 12 observations regarding trends in the field and notes the…

Despite periodic reform movements, the American educational system has remained essentially unchanged since about 1885, when it was established as "universal, tax-supported, free, bureaucratically organized, class-biased, and racist." Bureaucracy emerged as the dominant structure because it is the most practical method of keeping the lower orders…

To examine the hypothesis that alternative routes to teacher certification are more likely than traditional routes to recruit successful urban school teachers, beliefs and practices of 45 secondary English and mathematics novice teachers from both routes were studied. Findings confirm the importance of teacher sensitivity to urban multicultural…

Preparing inservice and preservice teachers and administrators to meet the challenges of student diversity requires collaboration among teacher educators, state leaders, school practitioners, and the community. The Urban Living-Learning Teaching Center partnership is designed to meet this challenge. The partnership includes faculty,…

In order to remain competitive in the world economy, the United States must develop and improve mathematics and science education. Given that the future workforce in this country will be comprised largely of women and minorities, groups traditionally not entering mathematics and science careers, special recruitment and retention efforts must be…

This document on the working conditions of urban teachers reports data from a survey of 31 elementary, middle, and secondary schools in five urban school districts. More than 400 interviews were conducted with teachers, school administrators, central office personnel, district officials, board members, and union officials. The observations,…

In the spring of 1986 the United Federation of Teachers and the Edwin Gould Foundation for Children embarked on a six-month study, visiting schools and talking with staff about what comprises and influences teacher professionalism. This booklet presents nine case studies that illustrate teacher professionalism in actual New York City public school…

Sixty-one reports, books, papers, journal articles, bibliographies, and handbooks are cited in this bibliography. Each reference deals with urban education on the elementary, secondary, postsecondary, or adult continuing education level. Among the topics addressed are urban problems, urban areas, curriculum, research/evaluation tools, teacher…

One third of this report on the Mid-Continent Regional Educational Laboratory's Cooperative Urban Teacher Education (CUTE) Program is a description of background information including origins, evolution, organization, structure, and formulation of the concepts used. CUTE is designed to improve urban teaching through helping the teacher to…