Using data from a multi-year study of eleven low-performing high schools, Cooper and Davis examine the academic aspirations and motivations of urban African American high school students in California. Situating their discussion within the context of neoliberalism and its manifestation in urban school reform and community cohesion, the authors…

Sixty years have passed since the pivotal 1954 Supreme Court case of "Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas" and almost fifty years have elapsed since the Higher Education Act of 1965. The Brown decision dismantled public segregated schools in many parts of the country, especially in the South, and racial access in schools…

Data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten cohort (ECLS-K) were used to examine the relationship between cultural capital transmission and reading achievement within a nationally representative sample of 5th grade African American males. Logistic regression techniques were used to examine several differences between high- and…

Highlights three related risks that mobile students face in the implementation of Title I of the No Child Left Behind Act: the risk that they will not be assessed or counted for school accountability; the risk that schools will push low-achieving students to other schools in order to avoid accountability for their achievement; and the risk of…

Foster children face many obstacles to academic achievement. In addition to low educational achievement, they may have high rates of school mobility and experience long delays when transferring schools. Sources of these transfers and delays include numerous residential movements and lack of coordination between child welfare and school…

Discusses the notion of social promotion versus grade repetition, arguing that neither approach represents an appropriate solution for enhancing the learning outcomes of low-performing students and closing the achievement gaps among students of various ethnic groups. Offers a learner-centered approach as a viable alternative and a mechanism for…

Oppositional culture accounts for race/ethnic differences in school achievement and the theory explains why male students tend to receive lower grades despite standardized test scores that equal or exceed the scores of female students. It is concluded that resistance to school is gender based and researchers should be more sensitive to gender…

In order to identify the relationships between the attitudes and perceptions of peer pressure and the academic achievement of academically able male adolescents, this study compares the school attitudes of high achieving and low achieving Black male youth. (EF)

Compared the academic achievement of 29 African-American and 145 European-American teachers in research-methodology courses. Discusses the implications of the lower achievement of the African-American students in these courses for the supply of African-American school administrators. (SLD)

Evaluates a program offered by the Los Angeles Student-Development Center as part of an intensive study skills curriculum for collegiate low achievers who had decided to continue their education, which focused on specific variables related to test anxiety. (JM)

From a review of studies of the relationship between cultural experience and language development, it is evident that ways must be found to aid children from impoverished backgrounds to use their basic intelligence to operate in the verbally oriented tasks demanded in the academic domain. (Author/EB)

In Langley Park, Maryland, a predominantly immigrant neighborhood, students perform well below state norms and have high dropout rates. Contributing factors are embedded in the schools and school system, neighborhood, family, and generalized process of marginalization. Residential mobility, school staff and peer turnover, and other elements of…

A data from 1996,1998 and 1999 Minnesota comprehensive statewide testing on eight graders is used to analyze whether African American students perform worse than the white students who attend the poverty schools. The analyses conclude that African American-White test score gap is attributed more to the racial discriminations and racial treatments…

Investigated the failure of New Zealand schools to address Pasifika students' low achievement, discussing the importance of students carrying out their own identifying process and having this valued by the school. Examination of students' and teachers' perceptions of each other indicated that schools' and teachers' perceptions of Pasifika students…

Presents two basic parallel block elementary school schedules (schedules in which a block of time is scheduled for essential and/or desired small skill groups parallel to large instructional activities). Contends that parallel block scheduling in elementary schools can lead to improved instructional programs for low achievers. (GC)