This brief is designed to promote collaborative leadership in the work of transforming low performing urban schools into successful schools. The brief is organized into several topics, which include framing the challenge (concentrated disadvantage, concentration effects, and savage inequalities); encouraging educators and partners to promote the…

One of the most intractable problems facing urban schools is the low performance of middle school-aged children. This is particularly true for the 13,360 students who attend the Baltimore City Public School System's (BCPSS) traditional middle schools, which serve only 6th, 7th, and 8th grade students. Not one of these 21 middle schools met…

In an urban magnet middle school serving mostly minority, poor, and low achieving students, the presence of high levels of interracial interaction and positive student-teacher relationships was attributed to the school's curricular, academic reward, and classroom activity structures, and to a faculty subculture that encouraged teachers to foster…

The role of British Columbia's rehabilitation programs for socially maladjusted and disturbed youth is described, and attention is directed to provincial policies, factors related to successful outcomes, and program evaluation needs and results. (SEW)

Examines how low achieving Australian students fit into the foreign language classroom beyond Year 7, and whether the course content or teaching method should be altered. Reviews the students' reasons for continuing language study, their feelings about certain teaching and learning strategies, exercises and activities, their perceptions of their…

In an experiment designed to dissociate the effects of instructional approach and system interface on learning in computer-based instruction, 18- to 30-year-old high school graduates with low mathematics ability were tested before and after completing three mathematics practice modules. Found that low ability students may not learn from computers…

Examines mobility's underside, including confused and rootless children and frustrated teachers. One in six third-graders has attended at least three schools. Schools with the highest mobility rates are poor, urban, and increasingly less accountable. Educators cannot remedy mobility's social causes, but are helping transient kids with electronic…

Argues that the primary reason for Mexican American students' low academic achievement was the agrarian belief system, shared by both Mexicans and Whites, that valued children's labor in the fields more than in the school house. (SM)

Compared children retained in kindergarten with matched samples of age and grade mates, using teacher ratings as an index of their social and academic skills. Found that retained children showed a reduction in behavior problems, specifically acting-out and shy-anxious behaviors, but only slightly increased competence for task orientation across…

Some educational solutions to the problems facing young African-American males have been developed through the New Orleans (Louisiana) Public School Study on Black Males (1987-88). From the more than 50 study recommendations, 10 are selected to illustrate the range of strategies. (SLD)

Thirteen teachers rated elementary students (n=30) with learning disabilities and low achievement as having significantly lower social competence and school adjustment than their achieving peers, but teacher ratings of junior high students did not discriminate among groups. Results support use of teacher ratings for initial screening of elementary…

Perceptions of 520 Israeli seventh graders of teachers' differential behavior toward high and low achievers were compared with those of 17 teachers themselves. In a second experiment, teachers received feedback, which decreased the gap between students' and teachers' perceptions, although contrasting perceptions of emotional support given to low…

Differences in use of selective attention by 64 more successful and 48 less successful readers in the tenth grade were studied. More successful readers are more aware of how and when to use the selective attention strategy and use more conceptual attention while reading than do less successful readers. (SLD)

Argues that neither the core curriculum nor the multicultural education approach to school reform adequately addresses the problems of minority groups who traditionally have not done well in school. The crucial issue in cultural diversity and learning is the relationship between minority cultures and the U.S. mainstream. (SLD)

Argues that high-stakes primary grade testing increases pressure on low-achieving schools to improve test performance and increases chances that low achieving children will be retained in grade or classified as handicapped. It is suggested that current practices be modified to eliminate motives to engage in such placement practices. (SLD)