Urban Education

We investigate the effects of participation in the Chicago Child-Parent Center and Expansion Program from ages 3 to 9 on early school dropout at age 17. The Child-Parent Centers offer a government-funded educational intervention program in preschool through second or third grade in 20 locations in Chicago’s poorest neighborhoods. Using data from the Chicago Longitudinal Study, we address two major questions: (1) Is participation in the Child-Parent Centers program associated with a lower rate of high school dropout at age 17? (2) Which nonintervention variables predict high school dropout? After comparing children in 20 intervention sites with similar children who attended schools in similarly poor neighborhoods in which the intervention program was not offered, we find that participation in the intervention offered by the Child-Parent Centers is associated with a 7 or 8 percentage point reduction in the probability of dropout. Our findings also indicate that parental involvement in schooling and avoidance of frequent school mobility are important predictors of high school completion.

Alarming numbers of students, particularly minority students, are being suspended and expelled from our nations' schools. The surface issue is discipline; however, the underlying issues are literacy and barriers to academic success. To address these issues, a large urban district opened a new school for students who were not succeeding in traditional settings, had escalating discipline problems, and were failing academically. It was called Project Succeed Academy. This article details the lessons learned in the schools design, implementation, and evolution. An analysis of the political, community, and financial issues that caused reduction of the original design are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

Individual interviews were held with 165 boys and 139 girls in Grades 3 to 6 in a New York City public school. Professional and white-collar aspirations were expressed by 30% of the boys (modal aspiration, policeman) and 85% of the girls (modal aspiration, nurse). Job titles and locus of performance given to the 18 plates of the Vocational Apperception Test were scored. Mean scores of boys and girls did not differ, but girls' responses to the male and female teacher and secretary plates were significantly superior to those of the boys. Professionally aspiring boys scored significantly higher than boys with other aspirations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

This article was bestowed the 2011 Editor’s Choice Collection (1st edition) for publication of one of the journal's most noteworthy manuscripts. Despite decades of research examining the disproportionate representation of racial minority students in special education, our understanding of the complexity of disproportionality remains incomplete and much of the previous research was designed without a clear theoretical framework. This exploratory study applied a structural theoretical lens as a means of understanding racial inequity in special education across analytical scales, racial groups, and disability categories. The findings confirm differential risk of educational disability across racial groups. Based on the theory adopted, several hypotheses were tested regarding the relations of relative risk to district structural features, with conflicting results found.

Over 50 years after the monumental decision of Brown v. Board of Education, many U.S. schools remain separate and unequal. This includes schools in the nation’s capital, Washington, D.C. The article discusses how in the two centuries of public education in Washington, D.C., Black educators used a variety of subversive tactics to educate their children. This article chronicles critical milestones in educational policy that affected Black educators working in segregated, all-Black schools in Washington, D.C. The authors demonstrate that, in the face of the oppressive sociopolitical conditions and racist policies, Black educators continued to serve in their own interests by fostering liberatory spaces for their children.

Examines old schools and new, inside and outside, in the historic city center and its developing suburban rings, for the "respectable classes" and the "struggling masses," as a municipal investment and as a design problem, in order to understand the material culture of vital urban places, not as facade, but as environment. (Author/JM)

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Discusses (1) how schooling for social and economic mobility worked invidiously against poor Black migrant children; and (2) how the school's role as a mobility agent was subsumed under the immediacy of averting disenchantment with the social system through measures of social control. (Author/BE)

Uses New York City schools as a case study in the translation of national policy into local action during World War I. Examines how the Board of Education initiated the intertwined tasks of stimulating patriotism and promoting Americanization. Discusses how schools were used as channels of communication to all Americans. (JS)

Describes how Ernest Hartwell's efforts to establish junior high schools in Buffalo with broad curricula failed, largely because the city's would-be political reformers did not accept the importance of educational reform. (CMG)

This study analyzes the increase in school segregation in Delaware from a quantitative perspective. The article tests the hypothesis that the declaration of unitary status that released the Wilmington area school districts from their desegregation order caused the increase in segregation. The research reveals that the declaration of unitary status contributed to an increase in segregation in the Wilmington area. However, the primary factor in the statewide increase in school segregation was the flight of White students from the Wilmington area schools, a result that might be expected from the imposition of a desegregation order but not from its termination.

Discusses problems with reform issues that focus specifically on changing the system of educational policymaking to achieve excellence but lack safeguards against compromising equality of educational opportunity in the public school system. Explores the conflicting political views of reform policy, which include economic issues and democratic value debates. (JS)

This instrumental case study reviews the 1994-2004 period of state financial oversight in East St. Louis, Illinois School District 189, with a secondary review of the initial years of NCLB implementation. Although the oversight panel’s fiscal management did generate financial stability, case findings indicate that its accountability processes did not result in sustained improvements in student achievement indicators despite anticipated links between the two in the panel’s reporting. Furthermore, the oversight process operated as a hierarchical structure without identification of cultural implications. Attention to culture and subsidiarity are indicated for future state–district partnerships oriented toward urban educational reform.

Pay incentives effectively motivate teachers in a suburban school district in New York State to reduce their rates of absence, particularly the number of sick days used. This suggests clearer perspectives on teacher absence. (BJV)

Pupils are put at hazard by tobacco and drugs. Social work can reduce the risk.

Examines the extent of adolescent drug abuse and alcoholism, psychological factors that lead to drug abuse and drinking, and treatment approaches that have been used with young people. Focuses on drug-abusing family systems and the roles of the school and the community in combatting drug abuse. (Author/GC)

Discusses (1) the use of chi square significance tests in social science and educational literature; (2) chi square in relation to sample size; (3) field difficulties with chi square analysis as exemplified in Milwaukee County Juvenile Court data; and (4) alternative methods for using chi square in field research. (Author/GC)

Responds to a recent article in which Harry Miller criticizes the use of ethnographic or naturalistic methods in educational research. Reviews a number of ethnographic studies of schools, discusses the methodological rigor of such studies, and stresses the importance of information that can be gained through this type of research. (GC)

Contrary to the popular conception that high school students find no value in their studies, the students surveyed seem unusually content with their academic coursework. In large numbers they report that their courses have been important to them personally. (LHW)

The responses of 109 Black and 201 White urban college students to a questionnaire were examined for connections between social background, self-concept, and social and academic experiences. Findings indicate that ethnic identity has no effect on performance. (FMW)

Results covering a period of two years (including three academic years) fail to give any evidence that elementary school children who are bussed do any better academically than those who remain in inner-city schools. (Author/AM)

This article explores the results of a study of Latino youth in New York City public high schools. We propose that the common element among the schools is what we call here transcaring, an overarching culture of care that allows for the creation of third spaces within school, transcending traditional dichotomies around language, culture, place, and measurement found in many U.S. schools. We identify the different threads that make up transcaring strategies—translanguaging, transculturación, transcollaboration and transactions through dynamic assessments—focusing on each of its components by drawing examples from our data.

The correlates and presumable causes for dropping out: The phenomenon is more complex than might have been expected.

High school students in "EXCEL" are prepared for college by enrichment, career explorations, and the "demystification " of college.

This study measured the relationship between outcome expectations, outcome value, and cultural mistrust among African American male high school students (N = 75) attending an urban, Southern California school. We hypothesized that a negative perception of the dominant culture would negatively affect academic outcome expectations and academic achievement values. The results indicated, as hypothesized, a significant inverse relationship between cultural mistrust and outcome expectations. There was also a significant relationship between cultural mistrust and outcome value. In addition, cultural mistrust and outcome value were significant predictors of academic outcome expectations. Findings are discussed in terms of the importance of understanding sociocultural influences on achievement motivation among ethnic minority youth.