I examine several potential explanations for recent evidence showing a lack of improvement in the academic achievement of children participating in several poverty reduction residential mobility programs. Detailed interviews and field notes about the relocation and school experiences of 80 children in the Gautreaux II residential mobility program…

This report examines how California's massive and ongoing investment in school construction could better advance the shared goals of school improvement, sustainable urban growth, and equal opportunity. This brief is organized in five parts. First, the authors sketch a "framework" for how smart growth principles could help guide school facilities…

This article examines a wide range of parish school indicators that can be used to predict long-term viability. The study reported in this article explored the relationship between demographic variables, financial variables, and parish grade school closures in the Archdiocese of Saint Louis. Specifically, this study investigated whether…

In this article, the author states that, for over 45 years, she has explored the issues of leadership and change, and, along the way, she has examined how diversity fits in with these ideas. She states that she found all three of these concepts embodied in the person of John McDermott, a leader in the American Montessori movement in the United…

Unrealistic as they may have been, television shows like Leave it to Beaver and Ozzie and Harriet served important social purposes during an age of tumult and anxiety. The domestic sit-coms of the 1950s played an educative function by reinforcing and disseminating traditional values at a time when forces of change were becoming quite disruptive.…

Inner-city crime is a motivating factor for middle-class flight. Therefore, crime is a cause of suburbanization. Movement of the middle and upper classes to the suburbs, in turn, isolates the poor in central-city ghettos and barrios. Sociologists and criminologists have argued that the concentration of poverty creates an environment within which…

The conditions that students, parents, teachers, and administrators experienced are a product of economic, political, and social influences that impact the day-to-day operation of urban schools. One cannot understand the context of urban schools in the United States without considering the economic, political, and social influences that have made…

Given some limitations of satellite imagery for the study of land cover change, we draw attention here to a robust and often overlooked data source for use in student research: USGS topographic maps. Topographic maps offer an inexpensive, rapid, and accessible means for students to analyze land cover change over large areas. We demonstrate our…

This report measures the amount of black migration from and to the nonmetropolitan parts of the United States south from 1965-70 and 1990-95. It considers trends both within the south and with the rest of the nation. For perspective, comparisons are made with the movement of the non-black population, more than 90 percent of which is white. In the…

Suburban schools are generally of higher quality than the inner city schools that continue to serve a disproportionate share of black children. This study provided significant evidence that school quality, measured by the mean test scores for individual grades/campuses, has a large impact on the achievement of individual students. The analysis…

"The crises of suburban development, inner-city industrial movement, shopping centers, suburban executive offices, decline of mass transit, New Towns and 'no growth' policy all received a good deal of their impetus from the interstate highway system. The decline of the urban school system can be dated to the start of the interstate highway…

Describes the history of the problem, shares thoughts about "bussing" and expresses concern about the growing problem of urban apartheid. (Author/AM)

For a community to be safe, all citizens must be protected against the problems of unemployment, inadequate housing, poor educational opportunities, racial discrimination, and unequal protection under the law. The attack on these problems must be coordinated and marked by good leadership if it is to succeed. (Author/MC)

This research study explores changes in the geographic dispersal of social classes in Philadelphia over a 20-year period. Discussed are the changes which occurred between the central city and its suburbs and those which occurred among suburban municipalities. Descriptions of several hypothetical models about the changes are tested. (EB)

In this study, information on race, poverty, and socioeconomic variables was analyzed to examine underlying relationships. A strong association of Blacks with poverty in suburban areas was found. The research supports the position that suburbanization of Blacks has not changed the intrametropolitan distribution of minority economic welfare.…