Educational reform, theoretical categories, and the urban context

This paper will assess a recent reform attempt in an inner city school by looking at how the social manifestations of race and social class impinged on efforts to improve a K-8 school in Newark, New Jersey, a large city district in the northeastem United States. The paper ends with a preliminary analysis of forces and historical trends that a materialist analysis would implicate in attempts to understand the etiology of failed educational reform.