Historians of education have probed into the involvement of Social Reconstructionists' with issues of racial justice and have argued explicitly that Social Reconstructionists, while "interested" in racial problems during the Depression, actually did little to carefully study the role of race or race relations in America. The authors found that…

My apologies to iconic hip-hop artists, De La Soul for I have shamelessly appropriated the title, "Stakes is high" to underscore the importance of the work ahead for educators, students, parents, community members, and researchers as we attempt to develop a generation of what I call "new century" students for a world we can hardly imagine. Through…

This literature analysis examines the experiences of Black students in public charter schools in the United States by analyzing the current literature and enrollment data in this domain. Through the investigation of multiple empirical studies that examine the effects of charter schools on the academic achievement and enrollment trends of Black…

Despite the increase of women earning degrees in STEM fields, there continues to remain a dearth in the number of women pursuing terminal degrees in mathematics. Additionally, Black women are nearly invisible in the field. This qualitative study examined the undergraduate and graduate experiences of twelve Black women mathematicians. A Black…

Charles H. Thompson is best known as the founder and the first editor-in-chief of "The Journal of Negro Education" (1932-1963). Throughout his career, Thompson sought to extend educational opportunity in ways that were "for the good of Negro education as a whole." His main concern was in educating future leaders for service in African American…

In order to ensure that American students are competitive with students in other countries, since the 1980s, U.S. policymakers have been trying to improve the K-12 public school system. Recent reform efforts have led to the current high-stakes testing movement, which measures student achievement and school effectiveness mainly by standardized test…

"Basic skills" teacher licensure exams such as Praxis are the first gatekeepers to the teaching profession. Fewer than half of the aspiring Black teachers who take these exams pass on their first attempt. While critiques of these exams are warranted, critiques alone will do little to help certify more Black teachers. This solution-oriented article…

This article is a call to the research community to look again at the "everyday" or community-based meaning-making practices--ways of seeing, knowing, talking, acting, valuing, representing--that African American students K-12 use routinely in navigating everyday life out of school and how these relate to learning and achievement in science and…

Correlation and regression analyses were used to investigate the relationship of student mobility (as expressed by the school-level mobility rate) and first through fifth grade reading, language arts, and mathematics achievement for a statewide sample of 1062 elementary schools. Comparison data were analyzed to further investigate the relationship…

This article uses critical race theory, court opinions, newspapers, and interviews to explain how the burden of busing for desegregation was placed upon Blacks in Nashville, Tennessee and why the agenda of the litigants in the Kelley v. Metropolitan Board of Education cases shifted over time. The deliberate pace of the initial desegregation…

Data from the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction archive are used to assess the joint effect of race and gender on advanced academic (advanced placement and honors) course enrollment within a school district with an open enrollment policy. Using student SAT scores; the authors compare expected levels of advanced course enrollment for…

Eighteen years after the Supreme Court rendered its decision in Fordice, many states have complied somewhat or not at all to its mandates. This has been particularly evident in Maryland, where the presidents of historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) are pressuring the state to fulfill its commitment with the Office of Civil Rights…

In this article, the authors describe self-efficacy building activities that practitioners can use in the preparation of teachers who are efficacious in their ability to teach African American students. The general principle underlying these suggested activities is that preparing teachers should entail fostering the development of competence and…

This article presents a framework for a discussion of the role of historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) that focuses on teachers and teaching for the new millennium. HBCUs have the potential to make a significant difference in solving one of the most intractable problems in K-12 education: how to recruit, retain, and develop…

An issue of much concern, and under much scrutiny and debate, is the persistent and extensive under-representation of African American students in gifted education. A number of efforts have been proposed and implemented to improve their recruitment and retention, but to little or no avail Progress has been slow or non-existent in many cases. In…