+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Listening to America with Bill Moyers: Unequal Education. (1992). 60 minutes, color. Produced by Howard Weinberg. Distributed by PBS Video.   

Though the campaign debates between George Bush, Sr. and Bill Clinton have all but gone the way of the dinosaur, the politics of education are still going strong in our current administration. While the first fifteen minutes of this film documents the heated political climate of the late 1980's and early 1990's, Moyers spends a considerable amount of time focusing on a project completed by four recent New York City High School graduates. This project details the striking and shocking differences between two New York City junior high schools. One school (Riverdale Junior High School) located in an economically privileged section of the Bronx, hires fully certified teachers, provides students with a myriad of after-school activities, and is well equipped with books and resources. The other school (I. S. 137), located in the economically disadvantaged area of the Bronx, South Fordham, struggles with finding certified teachers to hire, spends a large amount of time and resources on safety issues, and tries to get by without adequate materials and resources for teachers. This documentary follows one student from each of these schools over a six-month period and portrays trials and successes of each student as they go through the school year. Moyers then bounces from this film into an expanded discussion of how to "fix" the plight of unequal school funding, he does this by moderating a debate between Jonathan Kozol, a proponent of switching school funding sources from local communities to the federal government and John Chubb, a strong proponent of school choice and vouchers. Moyers in his usual style pulls together a thought- provoking program that will make any viewer think hard about America's educational system and the equity of that system. The video is a decade old; yet the excerpt portraying educational inequality in urban settings still speaks to the present time.  It is a must-see for educational policy makers as well as the general public.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

School The Story of American Public Education: The Bottom Line in Education: 1980 to the Present. (2001). 55 minutes, color. Produced by Sarah Mondale & Sarah B. Patton. Distributed by Films for the Humanities and Sciences.   

Part of a four-video series documenting and commenting on the history of public schools in the United States, this video tells the story of K-12 education in American schools from the 1980s to the present.  Narrated by Meryl Streep, the video opens with a sunny picture of schools in America where over 85% of all high school graduates went to college in the 1980s and then enters the era of Ronald Regan and his policy to break up the "public school monopoly" and to increase competition in the education sector with parental choice.  When the economic times changed, politicians began to blame schools for the fiscal downturns and the focus of schools went from one of equity to one of excellence, as evidenced by the landmark publication of "A Nation At Risk."  The "A Nation At Risk" report led to demands for measurable results from the education sector through high-stakes testing.  In some schools, principally those in urban America, the video reports that much help was, and still is, needed to raise the academic bar.  Drawing upon the expert opinions of scholars in education, both successes and failures of school choices and vouchers are examined.  This video will be a great asset to any pre-service or in-service teacher who wishes to learn about the history of education in America and the role of business politics in this endeavor.  The foundation that this film will provide to educators will help make meaning out of current educational trends and philosophies in this new era including the No Child Left Behind legislation.

Websites
 

ERIC Clearing House on Urban Education
http://eric-web.tc.columbia.edu
This specialized clearinghouse in the ERIC system, funded by the Office of Educational Research and Improvement of the U.S. Department of Education, is a national information service and database focusing on urban education, urban reform, and research. The site is easy to navigate and provides a wealth of information on the following topics: education of African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders, other ethnic and racial groups, and newly arrived immigrants. There are two easy ways to browse the site: one is through the Major Subject Areas Link that will allow users to select from a menu of the following broad subjects: Student Learning and Development, Schools and Schooling, Urban/Minority Families and Communities, Social/Economic Factors, and Equity & Diversity. Clicking on any one of these links will take the user to a menu of links on more specific topics pertaining to each broad subject area. The second way to browse the contents of this site is to click on the pathways link. This link will connect users with a pathway page that contains links to other internet sites related to the pathway topic chosen. Pathway topics include: Alternatives to Expulsion, Asian/Pacific American Studies, Bilingual Reading Instruction, Closing the Achievement Gap, Family Literacy, A Guide to Welfare Reform, Immigrant Education Issues and more. In addition to access to thousands of articles, books and research on urban education, the site also provides opportunities to publish research in the area of urban education. This site is a must for any teachers, administrators, teacher educators and researchers interested in Urban
Education. 

Hope for Urban Education: A Study of Nine High-Performing, High-Poverty Urban Elementary Schools. 
http://www.ed.gov/pubs/urbanhope/
This report tells the story of nine urban elementary schools that served minority children in poor communities and also achieved impressive academic results, in some cases results beyond those of some suburban schools. The authors also attempt to explain how these schools came to these high results and the changes they had implemented. Though all nine schools used federal Title I money to create Title I programs within their schools, the funding only supported the change efforts and thus Title I was not the catalyst of the change. All nine schools met certain criteria regarding income, location, admission policy, and student achievement, but all schools were also different in many areas. The schools varied in enrollment, grade-level configurations, cultural demographics, and school reform models. The stories of these nine schools will be of interest to administrators of academically struggling schools, teacher educators and researchers focusing on school reform. 

Metro Center for Urban Education
http://www.nyu.edu/education/metrocenter/
While the homepage may be misleading, after users delve a bit deeper there are many useful resources on this site regarding urban education. This site, created and maintained by New York University, provides information and services to schools and school districts that serve diverse learners, include high poverty areas, have multiple barriers to providing high-quality education, struggle with safety and drug-related issues, and/or require equity assistance. Some of the programs that are supported through the Metro Center include: The Equity Assistance Center (EAC) which assists states and school districts in areas of desegregation, achievement gap, and issues related to race, gender and national origin; The Upward Bound program; Teacher Opportunity Corps; Tutoring Programs; and Liberty Partnerships program. In addition to supporting these various programs, the Metro Center also provides links to publications, teacher resources, student links, and breaking news on equity issues in education. Access to three urban-focused newsletters are also available through the Metro Center Web site, including the Equity Bits and Bytes newsletter, the LEAD (Language Equity Access and Diversity newsletter), and the SDFS (Safe and Drug Free Schools) newsletter. 

Mural Arts Program
http://www.muralarts.org/
This public art program, located in Philadelphia, partners with community residents, non-profit and grassroots organizations, government agencies, educational institutions, corporations and others to create murals of "enduring value while actively engaging youth in the process." This web site not only chronicles their monumental efforts through an online gallery (incomplete), but also provides users access to many other valuable resources. Students, parents, and teachers have access to valuable Arts Education Programs including a year-long "Big Picture," whose curriculum not only exposes students to the "history and process of mural painting" but also involves students in designing and completing a small mural. Other programs include a job shadowing program and youth art show. While this might be of the value to those living in the Philadelphia region, this site can be of use to those in other urban areas, providing a template for creating an urban mural arts education program for youth living in and around major cities.  

National Urban Alliance
http://www.nuatc.org/index.html
The National Urban Alliance, founded in 1989, sponsors this web site that assists in fulfilling its mission to "promote effective, accelerated student learning, as demonstrated on standardized, alternative measures of assessment...." This site educates users about the NUA approach to urban educational reform and gives researchers, administrators, and teachers the resources to begin school reform programs of their own. Users are provided access to the numerous NUA projects and specific details regarding goals, objectives, components, access to guidelines, and more on each NUA project. Access to articles published by and of interest to the NUA is also available to users, topics ranging from literacy to achievement gap. Users are also provided with many other useful resources, such as links to handouts from previous presentations and conferences, web links to hundreds of additional sites that focus on urban education and reform, and access to purchase publications used and created by the NUA. This site should be a part of any urban educator's list of internet favorites.  

No Child Left Behind 
http://www.nclb.gov/
The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2003 will invariably be of paramount importance to all schools, but for urban schools this new legislation creates an accelerated need for reform in an effort to reach government mandated adequate yearly academic progress levels. This site, though geared towards parents and other lay persons, will provide educators and administrators the government perspective on the NCLB legislation. Links to frequently asked questions, fact sheets, and statistics help to untangle this complicated education reform initiative.  Users are encouraged to register for The Achiever newsletter that chronicles the current administration's activities regarding education and reform, provides access to teaching ideas and a monthly close-up on No Child Left Behind reform in specific educational areas (elementary education, science education, etc.). A news center also provides users with links to the latest pro-NCLB news stories. Most importantly this site provides easy-to-access links to the Department of Education web pages containing information on the legislation, regulations, and guidance of NCLB for administrators. 
  

Research for Action 
http://www.researchforaction.org/
This web site is maintained by Research for Action, the Philadelphia-based non-profit group that is committed to increase awareness about school reform by sharing their research with the public. Research for Action's work ranges from "formative evaluation of educational programs to broad-scale policy research carried out in collaboration with other organizations, both local and nationwide." Through a collaborative inquiry process that brings educators, parents, and students into the evaluation process, Research for Actions web site and various publications represent the perspectives of many "different voices and visions"
regarding school reform. Their site provides access to their many projects (over thirty), both in progress and completed. Some of these projects include: The Philadelphia Research Project, documenting the changes in Philadelphia's public school system under the current state takeover; The Urban Systemic Program (USP) designed to reform math, science, and technology instruction; The Talent Development High school and many others. The site also provides users access to a myriad of publications and additional resources for teachers, administrators, parents, and students. This site is a must-visit for anyone interested in urban school reform.