A little-discussed aspect of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) is a mandate that requires failing schools to hire after-school tutoring companies--the largest of which are private, for-profit corporations--and to pay them with federal funds. "Making Failure Pay" takes a hard look at the implications of this new blurring of the…

City Year is a community-service program based in Boston (Massachusetts) that has frequently been praised as a model for other service programs. In City Year, young people of all races and from differing backgrounds work together for 9 months on public service programs ranging from physical labor to tutoring. Volunteers receive a small stipend and…

A practical guide is presented to peer tutoring for teachers and others with an interest in promoting cooperative learning. It includes a guide to organizing peer tutoring, as well as a review of research on the effects of peer tutoring, and evidence for social and academic gains for the student and the tutor. The perspective is international,…

An intervention designed to increase the reading skills, habits, and styles of low-performing elementary school students was implemented in the Dallas Independent School District (Texas). The issues surrounding implementation illustrate many of the problems of inner-city schooling and disadvantaged students and offer some solutions. The Reading…

A major crisis facing urban education is the inability of predominantly white, middle-class college students to deal with the realities of the urban primary school. A program that brings education majors into the urban school is described. The idea of partnership is the guiding principle of this program, in which college students, local teachers…