Education and Urban Society

This article discusses the political nature of urban school districts, the job of the urban school superintendents, and the impact Brown v. Board of Education continues to have on urban school districts. It begins by examining demographic changes experienced in many urban areas since the Brown decision. The article also pays special attention to the impact “White flight,” federal and state education policy, and school takeovers have on the political nature and structure of big-city school districts and their leadership. It concludes with a brief overview of the role parents play in the new politics of urban education and some issues current and future urban school superintendents must consider as they accept these positions.

This study investigates race views of students from a Midwestern, predominantly White, all-male high school. Findings corroborate a belief that students at the pre-sophomore college level lack a proper understanding of affirmative action (AA). Forty-three percent (n = 266) lacked knowledge altogether, whereas 30% (n = 188) opposed AA as a job hiring and promotion (out-come) measure. Conversely, a majority of students (n = 394, 65%) supported AA as an academic scholarship (front-end) measure, compared to those opposed (n = 188, 30%). When using a .05 alpha criterion, significant differences were shown for relationships between (a) job-hiring AA and age of student, grade average, and four selected social policy variables, and (b) academic scholarship AA and five of the social welfare indices. Five of the eleven relationships disappeared, however, when a stricter .01 rule was applied. In spite of the school's elitist reputation, students were supportive of multicultural education, adding credence to the argument that blatant racism is not the only factor that drives the antiracial preference movement.

Using the 1992 NELS data set, this study assessed the effects of student religious commitment on the academic achievement of urban and other children. The results indicate that religiously committed urban children performed better on most academic measures than their less religious counterparts, even when controlling for SES, race, and gender. The same general pattern held for all the children in the sample as well. In addition, the effects for religiosity were usually greater for urban children than they were for nonurban children. Supplementary analyses indicated that there were no differences between Catholic and Protestant students, but there were differences between religious students of Christian faith versus students of other religious faiths. These results suggest that when researchers study the effects of religion on the academic achievement of children, the religious nature of the students should be considered. The significance of these results is discussed.

This article examines four models for secondary education (magnet schools, school reform models, small high schools, and Catholic high schools) and their impact on student achievement in the urban setting. Numerous references to educational studies on the topic provide abundant opportunity for readers to engage in further study.

Using constructivist theories as a framework, this study tested the effects of prior knowledge and two models (structured problem solving, SPS, and guided generation, GG) of anchored instruction on student mathematical problem solving and transfer to an analogous task. Two groups (N = 50) of randomly assigned students to treatments were taught by 2 teachers for 15 days, using tasks in the Jasper Woodbury Problem Solving Series. ANOVA and t tests showed a significant main effect for prior knowledge, significant differences on transfer to analogous tasks, a significant difference between groups on transfer favoring the GG model, and a significant interaction between low priors and the GG treatment on transfer. In particular, findings showing learning success in mathematics problem solving with low prior achievers support the notion of encouraging and expanding this line of research with at-risk learners.

Academic success of at-risk, African American students in inner-city environments is not due to chance but is the result of a culmination of factors. This study describes the characteristics of Wesley Elementary that are supported by research on effective schools. The researcher, formerly a Title I Coordinator/Reading Specialist at Wesley, interviewed three teachers who had taught at Wesley along with the former principal, Dr. Thaddeus Lott. An educational consultant who assisted teachers in the writing process from 1991-1992 was also interviewed to verify the perspectives of those interviewed that the school's success was due to specific factors. Implications for future research, instructional practice, and professional development are also discussed.