In June 2008, Albert Sidney Johnston High School (JHS) in the Austin Independent School District (AISD) became the first school in the state of Texas to be closed by the Commissioner of the Texas Education Agency (TEA) after receiving ratings of academically unacceptable for five consecutive years under the Texas public school accountability…

This article describes the cultural characteristics of four elite African American high schools, initiated prior to Brown v. Board of Education, that produced outstanding graduates. Positive school culture characteristics examined were leadership, faculty, curriculum and instruction, student qualities, the environment, and internal and external…

The "IDRA Newsletter" serves as a vehicle for communication with educators, school board members, decision-makers, parents, and the general public concerning the educational needs of all children across the United States. The focus of this issue is "Welcoming School Climates." Contents include: (1) Welcoming and Safe Schools…

In 2012, Denver Public School District superintendent Tom Boasberg wrote to his employees about the state of their schools: "Yet there's a great deal of work ahead because our gaps still aren't closing at all. They remain strikingly and distressingly similar to the national data. Our schools still aren't the equalizing force that they need to…

This study examined the learning trajectory of five US humanities teachers when navigating learning to teach the difficult history of school desegregation within a context of a six-month inquiry-based professional development. The research questions were: What do teachers frame as problems when teaching difficult histories? How do they…

Efforts such as the "Brown v. Board of Education" (1954) have focused on providing an equitable education for Black students. However, educational inequality for marginalized and underrepresented students continues to persist. Education experiences for black students are impacted significantly by implicit bias. The purpose of this…

Decades after the historic ruling in "Brown v. Board of Education," AAM students are not only performing poorly academically but are also dropping out of traditional high schools at an alarming rate and enrolling into Alternative Education (AE) or Alternative Learning Programs (ALP). Public education officials and policymakers were…

Although the United States Supreme Court declared segregation in education under law unconstitutional in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954, the public high schools in Jackson, Mississippi, would remain segregated until 1970. The present study examines the effects of this social climate on the high school band programs in…

In this historical examination, Amato Nocera, Kyle P. Steele, and John Hensley argue that the development of Black rural high schools in the decades leading up to the "Brown v. Board of Education" decision represented the dynamic between standardization, white supremacy, and Black self-definition that has shaped US education reform.…

East High School was opened in 1926 to over nine hundred students from the surrounding neighborhoods. At that time, East High School was an all-White suburban school in comparison to its identity today as the most diverse high school in the state with over forty languages and countries represented in its population. During the first decades of its…

Oregon needs Black educators in the K-12 public school system. In 35 school districts throughout the state, the number of students of color has risen by over 40% in recent years (Oregon Chief Education Office, 2019). The number of educators of color in the state is under 10%. The number of Black educators is even lower. Research has shown that…

Many urban public schools are often perceived as inclusive due to the demographics of their diverse student populations. This myth of inclusivity reifies notions of equity in both education and broader society. However, upon closer inspection, this myth of inclusion crumbles once immersed within an urban high school. In this article, I present the…

This qualitative case study research explores the discursive practices of three White secondary US history teachers while teaching about the "Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka" Supreme Court decision. Using critical discourse analysis as a methodology, this study examines teachers' use of naming, verb tense and presupposition to…

Using research from two eleventh-grade U.S. history classrooms in the San Francisco area, this article examines how students draw on their lived experiences to create historical meanings. Specifically, a three-day lesson on "Mendez v. Westminster" was used as part of a curricular intervention to explore the following question: How do…

Brown v. Board (1954) catalyzed a nationwide effort by the federal judiciary to desegregate public schools by court order, representing a major achievement for the U.S. civil rights movement. Four decades later, courts began dismissing schools from desegregation decrees in a staggered fashion, causing their racial homogeneity to rise. I leverage…