The purpose of the study was to compare and contrast influences principals have on staffing, curriculum issues, and discipline policies in high- and low-performing urban high schools. The data for the present study were drawn from the first year follow up of the Educational Longitudinal Survey of 2002-2004 (ELS: 02), administered by the National…

Although research is scant, there is a growing interest in the manifestation of the racial and cultural context on the schooling of biracial students. The purpose of this qualitative research study was to explore the schooling experiences of 10 Black-White biracial students. Specifically, the goals of the study were to (a) identify the factors…

This article explores the intersection of culturally responsive pedagogy and faith-based schooling. The author presents a portion of a larger ethnographic research project conducted at a Catholic elementary school that serves a predominantly Latino population in urban Chicago. This work contributes to theories of culturally responsive education by…

This article describes the incorporation of computer technology into the professional lives of school nurses. St. Louis, Missouri, a major urban school system, is the site of the study. The research describes several major impacts computer technology has on the professional responsibilities of school nurses. Computer technology not only affects…

How can teachers enact a curriculum that is responsive to students and emergent from them when teachers are under enormous constraints to cover specific course content and to prepare students for standardized tests? Rather than an either/or perspective, this article embraces a both/and approach based on the belief that teachers can do both.…

The purpose of this article is to examine the proliferation of alternative certification pathways through an analysis of the role and history of teacher certification and supply followed by a synthesis of national, regional, and state research studies on alternative routes to certification programs and a review of studies conducted on well-known…

This study examines narratives of English learners who have either dropped out or considered dropping out as a result of their experience in high school. This research seeks to determine at which point students left or considered leaving school, which often goes undetected in traditional quantitative data collection methods. The common themes that…

The author analyzes the revealed school preferences of parents in the Washington, D.C., and asks, "What is the main determinant of charter school choice and how does it create racial, economic, and linguistic segregation?" The author first establishes a theory of choice, which incorporates past research and adds an additional variable to our…

This qualitative study explored Teach for America (TFA) alumni teachers' discourse on Arizona language policy, conducted with eight teachers in the Phoenix metropolitan area who received their professional teacher preparation from TFA, a national organization that uses alternative paths to certification to place teachers in low-income schools.…

This study investigates the implementation of educational research among urban secondary schools in Malaysia. The respondents include school teachers and administrators, lecturers in education institutions, and committee members of the state education departments. Data collected from interviews were coded and analyzed using open, axial and…

We explore the efficacy of one increasingly familiar strategic intervention designed to disrupt antigay school environments--Gay-Straight Alliances (GSAs). Despite the increasing popularity of GSAs, there has been little research on the ways in which they do--and do not--impact school climate. The ubiquity of antigay and homophobic attitudes…

Educating a nation of culturally, ethnically/racially, and linguistically diverse (CLD) students is one of the many challenges facing teachers and teacher educators, resulting in teachers' questioning their ability to improve learning for these groups. Yet teacher efficacy is significantly related to student achievement, motivation, and students'…

Using a sociopolitical perspective to understand the alignment of community values and school policies, we conducted focus groups in three geographically close but economically varied neighborhood in one Midwest urban area. The article presents findings related to constituent values, social capital, and school policies, including charter school…

Special education and bilingual teachers are in high demand. Many teachers in these specialization areas enter the profession via alternative certification programs, expedited routes to teacher certification. There is little research focusing on the specific support needs of novice special education and bilingual teachers from these widely varying…

This investigation uncovered the conditions of learning, both positive and negative, that students in an alternative school experienced both in and out of the classroom setting. Eleven students at an alternative high school in a large suburban school district in the Pacific Northwest were interviewed using methods of narrative inquiry and…