Many have argued that educational research does little to change (and may actually reproduce) the social-structural inequalities shaping the quality of high-poverty urban schools. Building from this premise, this paper asks: How can university-based scholars of urban education do research that encourages, produces, or informs change in urban schools and the conditions that shape them? I examine two broad aspects of urban educational research: the questions we ask and the methods we use. In both cases, I critique the dominant paradigm of technical rationality--one in which school failure is approached as a localized technical problem unveiled through neutral, objective, and experimental research methods. In contrast, I propose a paradigm of "political rationality" (Klees, Rizzini, & Dewees, 2000, "Children on the streets of the Americas: homelessness, education and globalization in the United States, Brazil and Cuba." New York: Routledge) that approaches school failure and research practice as political issues situated within and shaped by social relations of power. Innovations in urban education research that reflect the logic of political rationality include: more contextualized and politicized analyses of urban schools, and the expanded use of engaged, collaborative, and participatory research methods. Drawing on this work and my experience implementing a participatory research project, I propose a framework for activist research in urban education, and critically evaluate the limits and possibilities of such work to effect change in urban schools.