In a nationwide effort to create standardized performance criteria, there has been an emphasis on testing data as the strict measurement of teacher and student success or failure (Volante & Sonia, 2010). These testing accountability systems, developed under No Child Left Behind (2001), were based on assumptions that high-stakes assessments…

This article presents the author's views about the school district deconstruction in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He discusses his 30-year experience as a principal and central office administrator with the School District of Philadelphia and his involvement in the efforts to lead urban school reform in the country. He also describes the reform…

Despite its flaws, the USCO created the conditions for an unprecedented national statement on school safety. This study asks: How do states conceptualize school safety? While critics have denounced the dizzying assortment of states' persistently dangerous criteria, we argue that these differences have been grossly exaggerated. We contend that…

In this paper the author argues that during the Civil Rights era, during that time of great concern regarding Black American voting and citizenship rights, ideas about rearing young Black children in the United States were explicitly introduced to guide parent education programs. Early emphases on deficits linked to educability, shifted to themes…

Teacher insurgency is on the rise as critical educators refuse to accept the authoritarianism of English-only reforms by struggling to undermine current educational policies while at the same time advancing alternatives. Federal hijacking of language policies -- presently manifested by the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) -- is being met with…

Schools with more targets to meet under NCLB were far more likely to be branded as in need of improvement. Some critics of the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) have argued that large schools and schools with a diverse student population are penalized by the law's provisions. School performance results from 2004 in Philadelphia appear to…