Education and Urban Society

Drame, Elizabeth R.

doi: 10.1177/0013124510362031pmid: N/A

In the current climate of high-stakes accountability created under the No Child Left Behind legislation, public schools, including charter schools, are under tremendous pressure to show consistent improvement in student achievement for all students. Students with disabilities present unique challenges to schools attempting to meet Adequate Yearly Progress. An accountability system that relies exclusively on students’ ability to meet a fixed proficiency level is now under great scrutiny. Indeed, efforts to pilot an assessment system that measures individual students’ growth are underway in a number of states.What can be learned from analyzing the achievement of students with disabilities using a growth model? This question became the focus of a study conducted in 4 urban charter schools where growth in reading and math achievement were examined for students with and without disabilities. The challenges with measuring growth in charter environments and implications for policies around accountability are examined.

Sidney Vaughn, E.

doi: 10.1177/0013124510361843pmid: N/A

According to Arthur Powell “Advanced Placement courses have probably brought more challenging academic experiences to more students than any other single reform in recent American high school history” (Lessons from Privilege: The American Prep School Tradition, p. 243). To this end, there has been a significant increase in Advanced Placement (AP) course offerings, course enrollments, and AP test-taking throughout the Commonwealth of Virginia and the nation. In this article, the effect of an urban school district’s initiative to expand PSAT test-taking as a means of identifying academically able students is examined in relationship to increased AP course-taking and completion. Three years worth of data involving over 4,000 high school graduates are included in the study. Logistic regression is used to model the relationship between students’ ninth grade GPA, 10th grade PSAT scores, race, gender, and graduation year on completing at least one AP course in high school. Suggestions are included for improved use of PSAT results to identify students who might succeed in AP courses. Finally, model adequacy is considered with an eye in identifying additional variables for use in future studies.

Dessel, Adrienne

doi: 10.1177/0013124510361852pmid: N/A

Public schools represent the pluralism of American society. Unfortunately, many children experience their public school environment as unwelcoming or even violent. Prejudicial attitudes contribute to problematic intergroup relations in public school settings. Furthermore, teachers are often unprepared to work with the diversity of class, linguistic groups, sexual orientation, and other sociocultural backgrounds that make up the student body in their classrooms. This article discusses theories of prejudice and how they inform an understanding of bullying, conflict, and violence in schools. Evidence-based prejudice reduction approaches are presented that teachers and school administrators can use to improve school culture and climate.

Garas-York, Keli

doi: 10.1177/0013124510361850pmid: N/A

This study of the impact of the homeschool connection on achievement was part of a larger interpretive case study which examined high achieving readers in a low performing school. The primary participants in the study were 7 African American 6th graders. Caregivers’ thoughts on education and their aspirations for their children were examined through the lens of social reproduction theories, cultural-ecological theory, and the notions of cultural capital and habitus. Discourse analysis, analytic induction, and the constant-comparative method were used to analyze the data. Findings show disconnect among caregivers’ aspirations for their children, how these aspirations are fostered, and student achievement.

Byrd-Blake, Marie; Afolayan, Michael O.; Hunt, John W.; Fabunmi, Martins; Pryor, Brandt W.; Leander, Robert

doi: 10.1177/0013124510362340pmid: N/A

This study tested how well Fishbein and Ajzen’s Theory of Reasoned Action predicted the attitudes and morale of urban teachers in high poverty schools under the pressures of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). NCLB forced local administrators to target schools that had not made adequately yearly progress (AYP) for two or more consecutive years. Teachers from 4 schools in an urban school district in Southern Illinois were surveyed under the scope of the theory of reasoned action. Quantitative and qualitative results were analyzed to determine that the pressure of NCLB adversely affected teachers’ morale.

Ngo, Bic

doi: 10.1177/0013124509356648pmid: N/A

In this article, I examine how students, teachers and staff understood and addressed cultural difference at an urban, public high school in the United States. My research reveals that the school’s multicultural practices contradictorily sustained and exacerbated problems and made teachers resistant to multicultural education. Simultaneously, my research elucidates the ways in which pedagogy that focuses on tensions and conflicts that arise from cultural differences offer important possibilities for multicultural education.