The large difference in average achievement test scores between white students and black students is exacerbated in Pennsylvania by the fact that 90% of the black students are enrolled in only 9% of the state's 500 school districts. The nature of this achievement gap was examined, focusing on the variation of the gap's size as measured within a…

This autobiographical narrative explores the life and experiences as a parent (the white mother) of racially mixed children, identified by society and their family as black. The author's search is to understand her own whiteness, rather than to understand the blackness of her family. Her feminist perspective means that she examines race and gender…

This report contains data on the educational attainment of persons in the United States from the Current Population Surveys conducted by the Bureau of the Census in March 1992 and 1993. Summary data on educational attainment by age, sex, race, and Hispanic origin are shown for both years in Table 1. Other detailed data are shown for 1993 in tables…

This report summarizes the level of academic achievement, and the extent of racial and gender gaps in that achievement, of students in North Carolina's Wake County Public School System (WCPSS). The comparison was conducted using 1993 End-of-Grade (EOG) tests; low income group EOG test performance; 1993 writing tests and high school writing…

Young children's knowledge of race and ethnicity is conveyed in their own terms, and how this knowledge affects their social relationships and ideas about procreation is explored. Participant observation, informal conversations, and collecting children's artwork were used to build a picture of race through the eyes of the kindergarten child.…

This report examined the participation of at-risk children in preschool programs, after controlling for selected individual, family, and geographic characteristics. A multivariate statistical technique, a logistic regression, was applied to data from the 1990 Decennial Census. This allowed an analysis of the relative effects of each of the…

This study was designed to address two related issues: (1) Why are Blacks, Hispanics, and American Indians underrepresented in science and mathematics-related fields, and (2) Why do students of these minority groups have lower achievement test scores in science and mathematics than other students? Data on a number of home, school, and student…

This brief report summarizes data on racial and ethnic differences in participation in higher education. Major findings include: (1) between 1993 and 1995, white high school graduates aged 18-24 enrolled in college at a rate 9 percentage points higher than blacks and Hispanics; (2) between 1972 and 1995, the college enrollment rate for whites aged…

This annual report shows the number and percentage of students retained in grade at the conclusion of the 1987-88 school year in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). Statistical data were gathered from a principal's report and a student survey. The following findings are presented: (1) in June of 1988, 29,205 students were retained;…

This annual report shows the number and percentage of students retained in grade at the conclusion of the 1988-89 school year in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). Statistical data were gathered from a principal's report, a student survey, and earlier reports. The following findings are presented: (1) in June of 1989, 30,413 students…

Information is presented about public school teachers and other holders of certificates in Colorado in 1991. The average salary for the 33,093 public school teachers was $33,072, representing a 3.9% increase over the 1990 average salary. This marked the third consecutive year that the average teacher salary in Colorado was below the national…

Reviews of research, studies of early readers, and investigations of emergent literacy uniformly conclude that parents' beliefs, aspirations, and actions affect their children's growth into and embracing of literacy. However, conflicting results call into question the utility of simply correlating race or various socioeconomic factors, such as…

The project described in this article examined the connection between students' overall development level as measured by the Student Developmental Task and Lifestyle Inventory (SDTLI), and their participation in either part-time, on-campus employment or volunteer membership in the Stamp Union Program Council. A group of 141 students (from a total…

A year-long thematic unit for fifth-graders combines critical thinking and whole language frameworks to help students retain, understand, and make active use of knowledge within and across domains. Using systematic instruction in critical thinking, students explore the fundamental human concepts of race, sex, age, and power. David…

To explore the complexities of communication with Asian and Pacific Islander (API) children and their families, this digest describes the overt and covert dimensions of the various API cultures, and discusses API's socioeconomic background and the life experiences that affect their communication behavior. The general ethnic groups in the API…