Research on teacher professional learning communities (PLCs) has found that part of their benefit comes from increased collegiality. And yet, while the nature of such collegiality is theoretically multifaceted and includes a combination of instrumental, expressive and substantive relationships, this multidimensional nature of PLCs is almost never…

Purpose: The purpose of this essay is to honor, position and reflect on key themes related to high school reform within the careerlong scholarship of Karen Seashore Louis. It is presented in relation to my own and others' key studies and book-length arguments regarding educational change, knowledge utilization, professional communities and…

An urban middle school goes through the transformation of becoming a university-supported lab school. Drawing upon design thinking principles, the planning team cultivates a sense of shared empathy, creative problem-solving, and an ethos of curiosity and learning in a collaborative environment.

This study investigated the factors that pushed and pulled social justice educators out of urban elementary and secondary (K-12) schools and into teacher education. The authors utilized an autoethnography and counternarrative methodology to examine the systemic and distinct factors that impacted four social justice educators' decisions to leave…

The United States has undergone a revamping of education standards in an effort to systematize rigorous learning standards across the country and prepare students to be college- and career-ready. In addition, new accountability requirements have been put in place to determine the effectiveness of the school leader. Certainly, educational reforms…

The purpose of this study is to reflect on the evolution of a partnership between a university and urban charter high school serving a predominately African American population. Because of the author's embeddedness both as the researcher and participant member, this research assumes the paradigm of autoethnography. Reflections on key components of…

This article explores student empowerment in a restructured urban Title I middle school. The study includes data from eight participants in an action research project that involved a critical inquiry unit in an eighth-grade language arts class that asked students, "How are you empowered and disempowered by school?" Findings reveal that…

Five years ago, Baltimore City Public Schools seemed on the brink of a breakthrough. The district had been freed from mayoral control after more than a century, and a high-energy superintendent was leading bold moves to de-emphasize central administration, give schools greater autonomy, and engage families in a revitalized portfolio of educational…

During the period of 1981 to 2015, the total population of Black students in CPS plummeted from close to 240,000, 60% of all CPS students, to 156,000 or 39% of CPS. This paper documents how despite their decreasing numbers and percentage in the system, the vast majority of Black students remained isolated in predominantly low-income Black schools…

The authors situate the emergence and effects of contemporary market-based reforms within a framework of urban political economy that centers on racial inequality. They discuss how and why market-based reforms have evolved alongside racialized political and economic trends that have transformed cities over the past century, and they critically…

The racial achievement gap has persisted in the decades since "Brown v. Board," despite large-scale investment in school reform. Accordingly, some administrators and politicians are reconsidering integration policies as a means of addressing the gap. This study examines one Chicago community's discussion of such integration policy.…