A National Portrait of Chronic Absenteeism in the Early Grades
National Center for Children in Poverty, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York City. (2007).  M. Romero & Y-S. Lee.

“This brief reveals a significant level of absenteeism in the early school years, especially among low-income children, and confirms its detrimental effects on school success by examining children from across various incomes and race/ethnicity groups in a nationally representative sample of children entering kindergarten—The Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (Kindergarten Cohort) — in 1998.”
Full text:    http://www.nccp.org/publications/pub_771.html

A New Majority: Low-Income Students in the South’s Public Schools
Southern Education Foundation, Atlanta, Georgia. (2007).

“This research report reviews trends in the growth of low-income children in the South’s public schools.  The report finds that public schools in the region have enrolled a majority of low-income students in each of the last three years (2004-2006), and today the South is the only region in the nation where low-income students are 50 percent or more of public school enrollment.  The report also (a) provides some historical background on the presence of low-income students in Southern states; (b) reviews trends during the last 50 years; (c) documents patterns of growth in the South and other non-South regions and States during the last two decades; and (d) identifies the primary factors and implications behind the trends.”  The report includes information on percentages of low-income students, achievement gaps, graduation, college participation, and funding inadequacies.
Full text:   http://www.southerneducation.org/showTeaser.asp?did=542

America’s Black Male:  Disadvantaged from Birth to Death
Perspectives on Urban Education. (2006). University of Pennsylvania. L. Brown.

“The challenges faced by Black males in American society are well known.  What may not be widely recognized is the role America's schools play in perpetuating these problems.  The purpose of this paper is to make more generally accessible recent research that attempts to isolate factors leading to conflict between Black male students and increasingly White teaching staff in our public schools. . . . This paper also describes ways in which schools and school districts are beginning to implement programs designed to resolve these conflicts.  This paper then outlines recommended objectives for a program of staff development and in-service training which experience has shown will help teachers help their Black male students succeed in school and in life.”
Full text:   http://www.urbanedjournal.org/notes/notes0016.htm


America’s Children and the Environment
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (Continuing Collection)

This website “brings together, in one place, quantitative information from a variety of sources to show trends in levels of environmental contaminants in air, water, food, and soil; concentrations of contaminants measured in the bodies of mothers and children; and childhood diseases that may be influenced by environmental factors.” Among the conditions covered are attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, asthma and other respiratory conditions, birth defects, childhood cancer and leukemia, neurodevelopmental disorders.
Home page:   http://www.epa.gov/envirohealth/children/


America’s Perfect Storm: Three Forces Changing Our Nation’s Future
Educational Testing Service, Princeton, New Jersey. (2007).
I. Kirsch, H. Braun, K. Yamamoto, & A. Sum.

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Inc, Lanham, Maryland. (2006).
E. M. Horvat & C. O’Connor (Eds.).

In Beyond Acting White the authors “contend with one of the most oft cited explanations for Black underachievement; the notion that Blacks are culturally opposed to ‘acting White’ and, therefore, culturally opposed to succeeding in school.  The book uses the ‘acting White’ hypothesis as the point of departure in order to explore and evaluate how and under what conditions Black culture and identity are implicated in our understanding of why Black students continue to lag behind their White peers in educational achievement and attainment.  Beyond Acting White provides a response to the growing call that we more precisely situate how race, its representations, intersectionalities, and context specific contingencies help us make better sense of the Black-White achievement gap.”
For purchase:  
http://www.rowmanlittlefield.com/Catalog/SingleBook.shtml?command=Search&db=
^DB/CATALOG.db&eqSKUdata=0742542726

The Century Foundation, New York City. (2004).  R. D. Kahlenberg.

The author points out that “No Child Left Behind (NCLB) does not address the central obstacle in the struggle to reduce the achievement gaps -- the concentrations of poverty in American schools.  High-poverty schools (schools in which at least 50 percent of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch) are much less likely to be successful than middle-class (low-poverty) schools.  A middle-class school is twenty-four times as likely to be consistently high performing as a high-poverty school.”  The author discusses the ‘piecemeal fashion’ in which NCLB addresses some of these inequalities, including the  ‘highly qualified’ teacher provision. Title I funding requirements, and school choice.

Full text:   http://www.tcf.org/list.asp?type=PB&pubid=468

National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing,
University of California, Los Angeles. (2007).  D. Koretz & Y-S. Kim

The authors point out that "in a pair of recent studies, Fryer and Levitt (2004a, 2004b) analyzed the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study–Kindergarten Cohort (ECLS-K) to explore the characteristics of the Black-White test score gap in young children. They found that the gap grew markedly between kindergarten and the third grade and that they could predict the gap from measured characteristics in kindergarten but not in the third grade.  In addition, they found that the widening of the gap was differential across areas of knowledge and skill, with Blacks falling behind in all areas other than the most basic.   They raised the possibility that Black and Whites may not be on “parallel trajectories” and that Blacks, as they go through school, may never master some skills mastered by Whites.  The study reported here re-analyzes the ECLS-K data to address this last question.  (The current researchers) find that the scores used by Fryer and Levitt (proficiency probability scores) do not support the hypothesis of differential growth of the gap. . . . (The current researchers) found no relevant patterns in the distribution of the differential item functioning (DIF) statistics or in the characteristics of the items showing DIF that support the notion of differential divergence, other than in kindergarten and the first grade, where DIF favoring Blacks tended to be on items tapping simple skills taught outside of school (e.g., number recognition), while DIF disfavoring Blacks Tended to be on materials taught more in school (e.g., arithmetic).”
Summary and click at the bottom of the page for the full text:
http://www.cse.ucla.edu/products/summary.asp?report=715
Cited references:

Charter School Performance in Urban School Districts: Are They Closing the Achievement Gap?
National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education,
Teachers College, Columbia University, New York City. (2006).
R. Zimmer & R. Buddin

Innocenti Report Card No. 7. (2007).
UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre, Florence, Italy

“This report builds and expands upon the analyses of Report Card No. 6, which considered relative income poverty affecting children and policies to mitigate it. Report Card 7 provides a pioneering, comprehensive picture of child well being through the consideration of six dimensions: (a) material well-being, (b) health and safety, (c) education, (d) family and peer relationships, (e) subjective well-being, (f) behaviours and lifestyles -- informed by the Convention on the Rights of the Child and relevant academic literature.”
Full text:   http://www.unicef-irc.org/cgi-bin/unicef/Lunga.sql?ProductID=445
Also see: Report Card No. 6, which states that “at the top of the ratings are Denmark and Finland, with child poverty rates of less than 3 percent.  At the bottom are the United States and Mexico, with child poverty rates of more than 20 percent.”
http://www.unicef-irc.org/cgi-bin/unicef/Lunga.sql?ProductID=371
And see: Report Card No. 4 which states that “a child at school in Finland, Canada, or Korea has a higher chance of being educated to a reasonable standard. and a lower chance of falling a long way behind the average, than a child born in Hungary, Denmark, Greece, the United States, or Germany.”
http://www.unicef-irc.org/cgi-bin/unicef/Lunga.sql?ProductID=340

Children in Poverty (A New Report Based on 2007 Census Data)
First Focus, Washington DC. (2008).

“This report provides a state-by-state breakdown of the number of children living in poverty by analyzing the 2007 U.S. Census data. . . . (It shows that) in 2007, the child poverty rate reached a level, 18%, not seen in this country for more than a decade.  Furthermore, the number of children who live just above the poverty line (between 100% and 125% of the Federal poverty level) also grew by about 100,000 children from 2006 to 2007.  All told, last year more than 13.3 million children in America were living in poverty, with an additional 4.3 million living just above the poverty line.  For decades, children in America have suffered higher rates of poverty than any other age group.  Since 1974, no age group has had a higher percentage of people living in poverty than children.”
Full text:    http://www.firstfocus.net/pages/3470/


Cities in Crisis:  A Special Analytic Report on High School Graduation
Editorial Projects in Education Research Center, Bethesda, Maryland. (2008).
Distributed by America’s Promise Alliance, Washington DC.

 “This report takes a geographically-informed approach to the issue of high school completion.  Specifically, (it) examines graduation rates in the school districts serving the nation’s 50 most-populous cities as well as the larger metropolitan areas in which they are situated.  Results show that graduation rates are considerably lower in the nation’s largest cities than they are in the average urban locale.  Further, extreme disparities emerge in a number of the country’s largest metropolitan areas, where students served by suburban systems may be twice as likely as their urban peers to graduate from high school.”   The report is based on graduation rates in 2003-2004.  
Overview and click for the full text:
http://www.americaspromise.org/APAPage.aspx?id=9172
And see:  Counting on Graduation: An Agenda for State Leadership, The Education Trust (October 2008) -- Scroll down
http://www2.edtrust.org/EdTrust/Product+Catalog/main.htm#hs


Class and Schools: Using Social, Economic, and Educational Reform to Close
the Black-White Achievement Gap
Economic Policy Institute, Washington DC, and Teachers College,
Columbia University, New York City. (2004). 
R. Rothstein

The publisher points out that “the stubborn achievement gap between black and white students is a key measure of our country’s failure to achieve true equality.  Federal and state officials are currently pursuing tougher accountability and other reforms at the school level to address this problem. In making schools their sole focus, however, these policy makers are neglecting an area that is vital to narrowing the achievement gap: social class differences that affect learning.  This book . . . shows that social class differences in health care quality and access, nutrition, childrearing styles, housing quality and stability, parental occupation and aspirations, and even exposure to environmental toxins, play a significant part in how well children learn and ultimately succeed.”
For purchase:   http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm/books_class_and_schools


Closing Achievement Gaps: Improving Educational Outcomes for Hispanic Children
National Hispanic Caucus of State Legislators, Washington DC. (2003)
Prepared by the Center for Latino Excellence, The Tomás Rivera Policy Institute, University of Southern California, Los Angeles.
L. G. Tornatzky, H. P. Pachon, & C.Torres.

“The goals of this report are to familiarize Hispanic state legislators and other stakeholders with a range of educational issues confronting the community, as well as to pose potential program and policy solutions. . . . Contributing factors to primary educational outcomes are discussed in the following areas: (a) preschool education; (b) time devoted to learning; (c) maximizing intellectual rigor; (d) better trained teachers; (e) learning resources, programs, and technology; (f) social organization of schools; (g) academic choices and transitions; and (h) enabling Hispanic parents.”
Full text – Click on Product 2049:   http://www.trpi.org/update/education.html


Creating Schools Where Race Does Not Matter: The Role and Significance of Race in the Racial Achievement Gap
In Motion Magazine. (2008). P. Noguera.

“Since the enactment of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) in 2001 and its requirement that schools and students be held accountable for achievement through annual standardized tests, a sense of urgency has developed over the need to improve the educational outcomes of under-performing students. . . . Throughout most of American history, racial disparities in educational achievement and performance were attributed to innate genetic differences between population groups, and as such, were regarded as acceptable and understandable ‘natural’ phenomena. . . . Although policy makers have not called attention to the fact that the effort to eliminate racial disparities in student achievement represents a repudiation of America’s past views on race, educators at the center of this effort often find that they engage attitudes and beliefs that are associated with the vestiges of racial attitudes from the not so distant past. . . . This paper explores these issues through an examination of the historical and theoretical factors that influence the role of race in educational performance. Additionally, through analysis of empirical research in two school districts where efforts to close the racial achievement gap have been undertaken we will consider why greater progress has been achieved in some communities as compared to others, and (the author) will examine the factors that seem to obstruct progress in other places.”
Full Text:
http://www.inmotionmagazine.com/er/pn_creating08.html


Democracy for Some:  The Civic Opportunity Gap in High School
Center for Information & Research on Civil Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE),
University of Maryland, College Park. (2008).  J. Kahne & E. Middaugh

In this study of high school civic opportunities, the researchers “found that a student’s race and academic track, and a school’s average socioeconomic status determines the availability of the school-based civic learning opportunities that promote voting and broader forms of civic engagement.  High school students attending higher socioeconomic schools, those who are college-bound, and white students get more of these opportunities than low-income students, those not heading to college, and students of color.  The study is based on surveys of more than 2,500 California juniors and seniors over a two-year period (2005-2007) as well as on analysis of a nationally representative data set of more 2,811 ninth graders.”
Full text – See CIRCLE Working Paper 59:
http://www.civicyouth.org/?page_id=152


Demographic Trends and the Federal Role in Education
Center on Education Policy, Washington DC. (2008).  H. Hodgkinson

The author reviews U.S. demographic data and issues on improving education.  But his major premise is that “the one thing that would change the country for the better would be to reduce the number of young people in poverty by half, starting with the youngest children.  It is shameful that in the richest nation in the world, a higher percentage of youth are in poverty (18%) than in any other developed nation.”  These are some of the issues explored in this document, which is one of the peer-reviewed papers commissioned by the Center on Education Policy in its project to rethink the federal role in elementary and secondary education.  Four additional papers are available.
Full text -- Scroll down:
http://www.cep-dc.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=Page.viewPage&pageId=536&parentID=481

Education Next. (2003).  Hoover Institution, Washington, DC.
J. Jacobsen, C. Olsen, J. K. Rice, S. Sweetland, & J. Ralph.

This article cites data on employment discrimination and the belief that reducing the gap between test scores of Black and white students would reduce economic inequality.  Then it extensively reviews the findings and difficulties encountered in a study of employment and school practices commissioned by the National Center for Education Statistics.  The authors call for a “longitudinal study that would enable the tracking of changes in the Black-white test score cap from 1st grade to 12th grade for a single cohort of students” – which is something that has never been attempted.
Full text:   http://www.hoover.org/publications/ednext/3348071.html

Educational Equity and School Structure: School Size, Overcrowding, and Schools-Within-Schools
Teachers College Record. (2004).  Teachers College, Columbia University.
D. Ready, V. Lee, & K. G. Welner.

“Consistent with the Williams v. California suit, (the authors’) focus in this article is on educational equity, particularly the interface between equity and school organization.  (The authors) concentrate on two structural issues, school size and school overcrowding, and one specific school structure -- schools-within-schools. (They) organize the article as an interpretive summary of existing studies of these topics, concentrating on how these structural issues relate to social stratification in student outcomes, particularly academic achievement. (Their) evidence is drawn from both national studies and, when available and appropriate, from research that discusses the effects of school structure in California. . . . (The authors) advocate reforms that are associated with high achievement and achievement that is equitably distributed by race, ethnicity, class, or family origin.  Reforms that raise achievement of children at the lower end of the distribution without damaging those at the top are ones toward which (they) believe our nation should strive. By offering empirical evidence of practices that lead toward this important goal, (the authors) hope to inform the important debates surrounding the Williams case.”
Abstract (full text for purchase or by membership):    http://www.tcrecord.org/Content.asp?ContentID=11679

Ending the Blame Game on Educational Inequity:
A Study of “High-Flying” Schools and NCLB
Education Policy Research Unit, Arizona State University. (2006). D. N. Harris.
Distributed by the Education and the Public Interest Center,
University of Colorado at Boulder.

Poverty and Race (2004).  R. Rothstein.
Poverty and Race Research Action Council, Washington DC.

Teachers College Press, New York City. (2007).
C. Sleeter (Ed.).  Foreword and Afterword by J. A. Banks.

In this book, “leading educators and scholars examine the current accountability movement and the extent to which it supports equity and democracy.  They address how it was constructed, who it actually benefits, as well as how genuine progress can be made to close racial disparities in achievement.  While the authors have different perspectives, they all share a commitment to improving education for all children, especially for those who have been historically underserved.  Featuring case studies and critical analyses, this important volume examines: (a) the pressures on classroom teachers and how visionary school leaders can support equity and excellence in teaching; (b) how a learner-centered model of instruction supports student achievement, as well as equity and democracy; (c) various meanings of accountability, focusing on those that have the best record for improving student learning; and (d) who or what is driving accountability policy, who wins, and who loses as a result.”
For purchase:   http://store.tcpress.com/0807747793.shtml


Fertilizers, Pills, and Magnetic Strips: The Fate of Public Education in America
Information Age Publishing, Charlotte, North Carolina. (2008).  G. V. Glass

“Gene V. Glass analyzes how a few key technological inventions changed culture in America and how public education has changed as a result.  Driving these changes are material self-interest and the desire for comfort and security, both of which have transformed American culture into a hyper-consuming, xenophobic society that is systematically degrading public education.  Glass shows how the central education policy debates at the start of the 21st century (vouchers, charter schools, tax credits, high-stakes testing, bilingual education) are actually about two underlying issues -- how can the costs of public education be cut, and how can the education of the white middle-class be ‘quasi-privatized’ at public expense?  Working from the demographic realities of the past thirty years, he projects a challenging and disturbing future for public education in America.“
For purchase:
http://www.infoagepub.com/products/content/p474f75aec2d61.php
Book review abstract – Teachers College Record
http://www.tcrecord.org/Content.asp?ContentID=15322

Center on Education Policy, Washington DC. (2002-2008).

The Center for Education Policy has produced a number of documents on high school exit exams, all of which are available at the website.  See particularly (a) High School Exit Exams: Basic Features; (b) High School Exit Exams: Effects on Traditionally Underserved Students; (c) High School Exit Exams: Patterns in Gaps in Pass Rates.
Full texts of all papers – Click HS Exit Exams at the left:
http://www.cep-dc.org/

National Council of La Raza, Washington DC. (2007).
A. D. Kohler & M. Lazarín

This statistical brief provides a summary of the key data concerning Latinos in the educational pipeline. – from early childhood to high school to higher education.
Full text:   http://www.nclr.org/content/publications/download/43582

How Do Educators’ Cultural Beliefs Affect Underserved Students’ Pursuit of Postsecondary Education?
Pacific Resources for Education and Learning (PREL), Honolulu, Hawaii. (2003).
P. George & R. Aronson.

How Does the United States Stack Up? 
International Comparisons of Academic Achievement
Alliance for Excellent Education, Washington DC. (2008).

This fact sheet draws on data from the Programme for International Student Achievement (PISA) conducted by the Organization for Co-operation and Development (OECD), based in Paris.   The paper points out that “the United States has substantial inequities in achievement across the country, and international surveys show that the performance gap between the most-proficient  and least-proficient students in the United States is among the highest of all OECD countries.  Despite the myth that other countries achieve only because they have small, homogenous student populations, data show that many countries’ schools successfully assimilate immigrant or high-poverty populations that are proportionately larger than those in the United States.  American schools, on the other hand, do little to mitigate the barriers that these groups face.”  Detailed data in the paper show how U.S. 15-year-olds compare with their counterparts in other OECD member countries.
Full text - Scroll to International Comparisons:
http://www.all4ed.org/publication_material/fact_sheets
On this page, also see updated fact sheets on the educational status of various racial/ethnic student populations.


How Schools Matter:  The Link Between Teacher Classroom Practices and Student Academic Performance

Education Policy Analysis Archives, Arizona State University. (2002).
H. Wenglinsky

“Quantitative studies of school effects have generally supported the notion that the problems of U.S. education lie outside of the school.  Yet such studies neglect the primary venue through which students learn, the classroom.  The current study explores the link between classroom practices and student academic performance. . . . Such a study is made possible by the availability of a large-scale nationally representative database, the National Assessment of Educational Progress, which includes a comprehensive set of classroom practices, along with student test scores and other characteristics of students and teachers. For this study, the 7,146 eighth graders who took the 1996 assessment in mathematics are studied along with their mathematics teachers. . . . The statistical technique of multilevel structural equation modeling was employed to address the major methodological shortcomings of the quantitative literature, namely the failure to distinguish between school- and student-level effects, to measure relationships among independent variables, and to explicitly model measurement error. . . . The study finds that the effects of classroom practices, when added to those of other teacher characteristics, are comparable in size to those of student background, suggesting that teachers can contribute as much to student learning as the students themselves.”
Full text:   http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v10n12/

Invisible Children in the Society and Its Schools, Third Edition
Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, London. (2006).  S. Books (Ed.).

This book “offers a series of reports by some of the most passionate and insightful scholars writing in the field of education today on groups of children and young people whose complexity, strengths, and vulnerabilities are largely unseen or unheard in the society and its schools.   The metaphors of invisibility and visibility are used to explore the social and school lives of groups of children and young people in North America who are socially devalued in the sense that alleviating the often difficult conditions of their lives is not a priority. This includes children who are subjected to derogatory stereotypes; children who are educationally neglected in schools that respond inadequately, if at all, to their needs; and children who receive relatively little attention from scholars in the field of education or writers in the popular press.”

Keeping Track:  How Schools Structure Inequality (Second Edition)
Yale University Press. (2005).   J. Oakes.

“Selected by the American School Board Journal as a ‘Must Read’ book when it was first published and named one of 60 ‘Books of the Century’ by the University of South Carolina Museum of Education for its influence on American education, this provocative, carefully documented work shows how tracking — the system of grouping students for instruction on the basis of ability — reflects the class and racial inequalities of American society and helps to perpetuate them.  For this new edition, Jeannie Oakes has added a new Preface and a new final chapter in which she discusses the ‘tracking wars’ of the last twenty years, wars in which Keeping Track has played a central role.”
For purchase:  http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/book.asp?isbn=0300108303

Kids on the Move:
The Effects of Student Mobility on NCLB Accountability Ratings
Perspectives on Urban Education. (2005).  University of Pennsylvania..
V. L. Rhodes

Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, New York City. (2006).
J. P. Greene & M. A. Winters

“The unreliability of official public high school graduation rates is well known. . . .  This study uses a widely respected method to calculate public high school graduation rates for the nation, for each State, and for the 100 largest school districts in the United States.  (The authors) calculate graduation rates overall, by race, and by gender, using the most recent available data (the class of 2003).”   The report shows graduation rates for each of the 100 largest school districts in the country, and also tables of state-by-state graduation rates by race/ethnicity and States’ ranks.
Full text:   http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/cr_48.htm

Less Tests, More Redress: Improving Minority and Low Income Students' Educational Access in the Post-Brown Era
Perspectives on Urban Education. (2004). University of Pennsylvania.
J. E. Obidah, C. A. Christie, & P. McDonouth

Civil Rights Project at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. (2004).
G. Sunderman, C. A. Tracey, J. Kim, & G. Orfied.


“Since there is much in NCLB that is aimed at teachers, (the authors) wanted to know what teachers think about the law and how they, and their schools, are responding to its strategies for change.  Thanks to the cooperation of two urban school districts in Fresno, California and Richmond, Virginia, (they) obtained survey responses from two groups of teachers on opposite ends of the country.  These two school districts serve many low-income and minority students, with one serving mostly Latino students and the other mostly African-American students, and each operates within a very different State policy and reform context.   The response rate of the teachers to the survey was 77.4%. The survey was administered in May-June 2004.”
Full text:
http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/custom/portlets/recordDetails/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&
ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=ED489176&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=eric_accno&accno=ED489176

Teachers College Record. (2005).  Columbia University, New York City.

“This commentary discusses how many of our low-functioning urban schools are packed with high proportions of foster youth.  This issue is not openly dealt with in policy, practice or research.  Some public inner city schools in major cities have between 20-40 percent of their students in foster care or group homes. This drastically changes the way the public, researchers, and teachers view the academic challenges facing those schools.  It also suggests that additional social and fiscal resources are needed if these schools are to succeed in improving academic outcomes.”
Abstract:  Full text is available for purchase or by membership
http://www.tcrecord.org/Content.asp?ContentID=12163