Electronic Magazine of Multicultural Education

Spring 2006 (Vol. 8, No. 1)

Theme: Urban Education and Reform

Guest Editor: Dorothy L. Hurley, Ed. D.

Overview | Articles | Reviews of Resources

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Overview

Multicultural education overlaps with urban education in its desire to provide quality education to all students regardless of their racial, ethnic, linguistic, gender, class, religious, and ability differences.  Urban education is unique in a way that it focuses on urban students.  The wide range of student diversity, lack of resources, and complexity of urban social and political structure make the implementation of effective urban education and reform very challenging.  Yet many conscientious, hard-working teachers, administrators, researchers, policy-makers, as well as students have attempted and continued to improve the educational conditions for our children residing in urban contexts.  

This issue is devoted to providing a forum for researchers and practitioners to share their stories of involvement in urban education and reform.  In the Article section,  guest edited by Dorothy Hurley, three essays introduce urban educational issues and reform efforts from Chicago, Philadelphia, and Cincinnati.  Fallahi's article discusses tenets of effective urban teachers that she discovered as a consultant at an urban high school in Chicago; Blanc, Pickron-Davis, and Mordecai-Phillips focuse on teachers' beliefs of equity as part of an evaluation project of the Urban Systemic Program designed to improve mathematics and science achievement in Philadelphia; and Bauer, Castañeda-Emenaker, Williams, and Phillips share various perspectives and voices of outsider evaluators and insider participants regarding an ESL program provided by a Title II grant.  Hurley's article ties these three articles coherently within the framework of urban transformation.  She suggests that readers start with her article and proceed in the order of Fallahi, Blanc et al., and Bauer et al. in order to gain a cohesive picture of the issue theme.

All review sections include reviews of various materials pertaining to the theme of urban education and reform.  The Art Reviews contains a concise, yet informative, article on urban murals with illustrations of three mural paintings from Waterbury, Connecticut.  Book Reviews provide reviews of six books for children or youth and four professional books.  Three videos and seven useful websites are reviewed in the Multimedia Reviews section as well.

I hope you enjoy the articles and reviews and share with others who are concerned about improving education for all our children who happen to live in urban settings.

Heewon Chang, Ph. D.
Editor-in-Chief

Articles

DEVELOPING STUDENTS AS CHANGE AGENTS:  Urban Education and Reform 
by Dorothy Hurley, Eastern University-Campolo School for Social Change, Philadelphia, U. S. A.

TEACH AMERICA WITH CARE:
Reflections on Two Years Working in an Urban School as a Consultant
by Mitra Fallahi, Ph.D., Saint Xavier University
Chicago, U. S. A.

TEACHER BELIEFS ABOUT EQUITY IN A MATHEMATICS AND SCIENCE REFORM PROGRAM
by Suzanne Blanc, Marcine Pickron-Davis & Rhonda Mordecai-Phillips
Research for Action, Philadelphia, U.S.A.

DEVELOPING THE SOIL FOR DIVERSITY:
Opening the US K-12 School Districts to Every Student
by Lisa Bauer and Imelda Castañeda-Emenaker, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, U.S.A.; Jennifer E. Williams, Cincinnati Public School District, Cincinnati, U.S.A.; and Mari Phillips, Princeton City Schools, Sharonville, U.S.A.

Reviews of Resources

ART REVIEWS

MURAL PAINTING AS PUBLIC ART
Hwa Young Caruso, M. F. A. & John Caruso, Jr., Ph. D.

BOOK REVIEWS
 

Literature for Young Readers

Gonzalez, Rigoberto & Ibarra, Rosa. (2003). Soledad Sigh-Sighs/Soledad Suspiros. San Francisco, CA: Children's Book.

Myers, Walter Dean. (1988). Scorpions. New York, NY: Harper & Row Publishers.

Myers, Walter Dean. (1996). Slam. New York, NY: Harper & Row Publishers.

Robles, Anthony D., Angel, Carl (illustrator), de Jesus, Eloisa, D. & de Guzman, Magdalena (translators). (2003). Lakas and the Manilatown Fish/ Si Lakas at ang Isdang Manilatown. San Francisco, CA: Children's Book.

Yolen, Jane & Condon, Ken (Illustrator). (1996). Sky Scrape/ City Scape. Honesdale, PA: Boyds Mills.

Professional Literature

Compton-Lilly, Catherine. (2003). Reading Families: The Literate Lives of Urban Children. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Dance, L. Janelle. (2002). Tough Fronts: The Impact of Street Culture on Schooling. New York, NY : Routledge Falmer.

Fine, Michelle & Weis, Lois. (2003). Silenced Voices and Extraordinary Conversations: Re-Imagining Schools. New York: NY : Teachers College Press.

Nieto, Sonia  (2003).  What Keeps Teachers Going?, New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

MULTIMEDIA REVIEWS

Films and Videos

Children in America's Schools with Bill Moyers: They're a bunch of flowers growing in a garbage can. (1996).

Listening to America with Bill Moyers: Unequal Education. (1992).

School The Story of American Public Education: The Bottom Line in Education: 1980 to the Present. (2001).

WEBSITES

ERIC Clearing House on Urban Education

Hope for Urban Education: A Study of Nine High-Performing, High-Poverty Urban Elementary Schools. 

Metro Center for Urban Education

Mural Arts Program

National Urban Alliance

No Child Left Behind 

Research for Action