Background/Context: To enhance postsecondary completion and minimize equity gaps, researchers have focused on defining, measuring, and developing students' college readiness, or the preparation required to persist in higher education. While this work has been useful to identify the ingredients of postsecondary success, the emphasis on individual…

Background/Context: Studies that compare the achievement benefits of charter public schools versus traditional public schools (TPSs) yield quite uneven results. The quality and long-term commitment of teachers represent related mediators that may help to explain effective and ineffective charter schools. Early findings on the comparative rates of…

Background/Context: Within the context of four locally funded research projects, the researcher was asked to disseminate the findings of her narrative inquiries not to the research community, which had previously been the case, but to the practice and philanthropic communities. This, in turn, created a representational crisis because practitioners…

Background/Context: In most judicial and social science debates about school desegregation, it is usually assumed that educational and social benefits, if significant, help establish a compelling purpose for school desegregation plans. Less thought has been given to whether the degree of benefits should factor into whether a plan is narrowly…

Background/Context: In an age of test-driven accountability, many schools are returning to banking pedagogies in which students passively take in content. Inquiry-based instruction offers one approach for actively involving students in meaningful learning activity, however, research on inquiry pedagogies often focuses on academic accomplishments.…

Research on requests to transfer to magnet schools in Montgomery County, Maryland, suggests that racial factors play a strong role in school choice. The paper argues that unfettered choice still has the potential to exacerbate racial separation, even in relatively liberal and progressive settings like Montgomery County. (SM)

Magnet schools strive to draw students voluntarily to racially mixed settings by offering diversified educational opportunities. The impact of magnet schools on the political and organizational processes of a school system are discussed. (DF)