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This article explores the student strike which won Ethnic Studies and Black college student admissions. The San Francisco State Strike of 1968 which shut down the campus for five months was unique in its vision, its intensity, its class composition, its strategies, and its relationship to both the Black community and non-Black student organizations. The event is significant because the creation of Ethnic Studies as an academic field has vastly expanded humanity's knowledge of African-American history and the history of other people of color, and the percentage of Black students completing four years of college more than doubled in the period following this strike and subsequent similar college movements. One of the authors was a leader of the Black Student Union Central Committee. The authors use interviews with the leaders, personal reflection, and archival material to draw conclusions about the reasons for the strike's success and long-lasting impact. Its lessons may have importance for the racial and social justice movements of today., Author(s): Kitty Kelly Epstein [sup.1] , Bernard Stringer [sup.2] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.420735.7, 0000 0004 0446 3619, Holy Names University and Fielding Graduate University, , Oakland, CA, USA (2) S.F. [...]

This article argues that economic exclusion, standardized testing, and racially biased definitions of teacher quality continue the exclusion of teachers of color from the urban teaching force. The authors highlight two urban programs designed to address such barriers and situate such efforts within a critical race theory framework that identifies ways urban communities can increase control through local teacher development. The article concludes by presenting a teacher evaluation model that integrates school, district, and university perspectives with urban students, families, community-based organizations, and teacher self-perceptions to redefine teacher effectiveness. (Contains 2 figures and 2 notes.)

Oakland, California, has launched a protracted campaign against the purchase of a state-approved K-12 social studies textbook series published by Houghton Mifflin. Numerous organizations, parents, and teachers voted against adopting these texts, which portray U.S. society as an immigrant culture and shortchange African-American, Latino, and Asian contributions to U.S. history. Oakland instead opted for its own curriculum. (eight references) (MLH)

The authors of the original "Kappan" article protesting the Houghton Mifflin textbook series respond to Edward Berenson's claims that these books are neither racially biased nor Eurocentric. The voices of minorities are missing, particularly their essential observations about whites, power, and privilege. Only white educators' viewpoints are represented. (MLH)

Case studies done on students who left school early have shown that they felt mainstream education to be anonymous, lacking in care and humiliating. Some of these students attended a different type of school and went to take degrees. The ordinary schools were criticised because nobody seemed to care about the students, not even bothering to contact parents to report truancy. Humiliating incidents also figured largely in the case studies. These case studies could be useful for trainee teachers, especially those working in areas where 50% of students may drop out.

Social studies textbooks, adopted by California, were criticized and ultimately rejected by Oakland, CA's school board. In the opinion of many, the books failed to present a proper racial balance and perspective.

The national economic position of Black Americans has for decades included unemployment rates that are double those of Whites and a racial wealth gap of 13 to 1. Barriers to employment in the construction industry are among the many contributing factors. In 2010, I participated in the creation of an alliance to challenge the exclusion of African American organizations from discussions on the Oakland Army Base redevelopment project. This paper introduces the broad range of urban activist scholarship and then describes this particular activist campaign and its success in raising the percentage of hours worked by African Americans in construction jobs on this project. It uses a critical race theory framework to explore the necessity of a race-conscious approach to campaigns on such issues as local hire. It also describes the methodology of a long-term resident participating in the daily life of a city as a scholar-activist analyzing the urban issues that emerge. The paper concludes with recommendations to activists, policymakers, and scholars. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Describes the techniques, including the use of a peer tutor and the language experience approach, that helped a 16-year-old nonreader learn to read. (MKM)

Imagine a school that offers its students a safe environment, a rigorous college-prep curriculum, high expectations for student responsibility, and individualized attention. Ms. Epstein describes such a school, but it [...]

Imagine a school that offers its students a safe environment, a rigorous college-prep curriculum, high expectations for student responsibility, and individualized attention. In this article, the author describes such a school, but it is not an elite private school for the wealthy. It is the Street Academy in Oakland, California, which serves a population of primarily low-income, urban, disenfranchised students. (Contains 4 notes.)