When first conceived, charter schools were envisioned as local projects initiated by parents and/or groups of teachers seeking to improve the educational performance of students. In the past two decades, the phenomenon has expanded to more than 5% of all U.S. public schools and almost 3% of all students (Center for Education Reform [CER], 2009).…

This article focuses on the basic idea that having equality and justice for all in schooling cannot be achieved in the current climate where students are viewed solely as individuals. In fact, given the educational debt and achievement gaps, the ideas of equality and justice are necessarily contradictory. Achieving justice, in light of the…

The goals of this chapter are threefold. The first goal is to examine the scientific attainment of African Americans in the post-"Brown" era. The term scientific attainment is used here to describe more broadly mathematics and scientific achievement as measured in trend studies, academic coursework, and degrees. A second, related goal is…

The 50th anniversary of "Brown v. Board of Education" in 1954 also recalls the anniversary of "Lau v. Nichols", decided exactly 20 years later in 1974. The two decisions were monumental in the history of civil rights and, interestingly, have shared similarities in the ways in which they have been reinterpreted since they were…

In recognition of the 50th anniversary of the Supreme Court's decision in "Brown v. Board of Education" (1954), this volume of "Review of Research in Education" looks at education research linked to issues addressed in that decision. In the "Brown" case, the court asserted the central importance of the government's…