Diversity is core to what makes many cities vibrant, dynamic, adaptive and strong. Recently, Boston has gotten much more racially diverse, evolving from being only 20 percent people of color back in 1970 to 56 percent of color today. However, there's a way in which the rich tapestry of the city has eroded: Boston is rapidly losing families with…

This dissertation systematically explores the origins and evolution of the charter school movement in the United States from 1985 to 2015. I begin by analyzing the role of governors in K-12 education policymaking and find that while governors have generally placed greater emphasis on K-12 education policy over time, Republican governors have…

This report provides comparisons between Kansas and relevant state groups on key demographic variables. It is a companion piece to the "KASB Comparing Kansas 2017" report that helps show how factors outside of school funding may have an impact on student outcomes for each state. In addition, the Appendix contains the detailed tables…

The field of education has become comfortable in its use of the construct urban to describe particular schools in particular metropolitan places. This article argues that the construct has come to signify not just place but also to denote particular meanings of "urban" populations. It analyzes how literary and social-scientific practices converged…

An intensive consultation undertaken by the University of Winnipeg revealed that many residents--especially new Canadians and Aboriginal peoples living in the downtown neighbourhoods--face barriers to higher education, and for many the university was an unknown and unwelcoming territory. Winnipeg is home to the largest urban population of…

The purpose of this study was to conduct a formative evaluation of the efficacy of the Team Advisory program, an in-school intervention in an urban public high school using fitness to teach study skills and social responsibility, based on the perspective of its faculty (n = 9). The first research question asks what do Boston English Advisors…

Through an examination of the underserved urban population, this paper takes a look at how the use of games and simulations may provide a means of closing a gap in education which has lingered for several decades. Discussion on how this engagement might look as both a class learning algebra through game programming and gameplay is reviewed. As…

In the postbellum southern U.S., African Americans were steadily disenfranchised, a modern publicly financed universal school system with racially segregated schools was created, and public school monies were allocated so that white pupils received substantially more than black pupils. An earlier paper (Ng and Halcoussis 2003) established a…

Learning cycles were developed in Brazil as an innovative project in order to address the needs and characteristics of the country's growing heterogeneous urban population. This new school model aims at reducing dropout rates and student failure as well as providing a non-interrupted school experience for diverse learners. In this article, the…

Winners and finalists for the annual Broad Prize for Urban Education have consistently outperformed peer districts serving similar student populations. What makes the difference? These districts consistently demonstrate a learning loop that influences the district's ability to learn, which ultimately influences student opportunities to learn.…

In this study I explore a lack of cohesion between two Alberta government policy documents that are intended to address the problem of early school leaving of disenfranchised urban Aboriginal youth. The research explores the question of whether this lack of cohesion is reflected in educational practice for this population of learners. This issue…

School safety has become an important area of concern for school improvement. This study examined the effects of staff training as means of improving school responses to student threats of violence. A multidisciplinary sample of 351 staff from 2 school divisions completed pre-post training surveys as part of a 1-day training program using the…

In collaboration with the Thomas B. Fordham Institute and Catalyst Ohio, the FDR Group conducted a telephone survey of 1,002 randomly selected Ohio residents between April 1 and April 9, 2009 (margin of error +/- 3 percentage points). The survey--the third in a series--reports Ohioans' views on critical education issues, including school funding,…

"Every boy and every girl...should be a producer. The growing of plants...should therefore become an integral part of the school program." With these words, the federal Bureau of Education launched the United States School Garden Army (USSGA) during World War I, targeting urban and suburban youth. It represented one of the earliest federal efforts…

All political scientists who study education policy start their analysis with a similar premise: "educational reform does not take place in political vacuum." Studies of the politics of school choice have focused primarily on state-level political dynamics. This line of research makes sense since the charter school market is initially…