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One of the most important developments in the recent politics of education reform has been the rise of a new group of education reform advocacy organizations (ERAOs) that are working to mobilize parents behind school reform at the district and state levels. The past two years have witnessed an unprecedented wave of state education reforms to increase accountability for student achievement, improve teacher quality, turn around failing schools, and expand school choice, much of this fiercely opposed by the teachers unions. The ERAOs and their efforts to organize parents have played an important role in pushing for these changes in state capitols, and they clearly are reshaping the politics of school reform in the United States in important ways. Despite the increasing number and activity of ERAOs, we know relatively little about them and how they operate. This paper will offer an in-depth examination of ERAOs and what we can learn from their efforts to engage parents in school reform and from other grassroots community organizing experiences. Including academic research, a brief literature review, and field-based case studies and interviews, this paper will assess the circumstances necessary for parent empowerment campaigns to be successful and the factors that may hinder engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we examine the Cumulative General Social Survey (GSS) survey data and find that American confidence in schools declined markedly between 1973 and 2010. Those whose confidence declined the most were white, elderly men. In order to determine if this lost confidence was due to poor student performance, we examined NAEP math and reading scores (1978-2008). We found evidence of strong improvements across students of all ages and racial groups. Finally, we re-estimated the NAEP gains by using two different statistical methods that control for changes in the demographic composition of the American student body. We find that failure to control for these factors causes researchers to underestimate NAEP gains by more than 40%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars and policy makers in the U.S. have long been concerned about achievement gaps between ethnic minorities and white students. The notorious black-white test score gap of a full standard deviation has received special attention (Jencks and Phillips 1998). Although the consensus is strong that such gaps exist and ought to be significantly narrowed if not eliminated, there is little agreement regarding which public policies are likely to be most effective in closing minority student achievement gaps.     In this paper we examine the question of what policy-influenced characteristics of teachers appear to hold the most promise to boost achievement among various disadvantaged groups and whether such achievement gains are likely to come at the expense of other subgroups of students. We pay especially close attention to the question of teacher race and ethnicity and explore what implications teacher race has for the academic achievement of various student groups. We are particularly interested in exploring whether or not teachers of minority races boost the achievement of students of their race, thus demonstrating a [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]