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This teacher's guide is intended to move beyond the confusion and conflict that has surrounded religion in public schools since the early days of the common school movement. For most of our history, extremes have shaped much of the debate. On one end of the spectrum are those who advocate promotion of religion (usually their own) in school practices and policies. On the other end are those who view public schools as religious-free zones. Neither of these approaches is consistent with the guiding principles of the Religion Clauses of the First Amendment. This guide is not intended to render legal advice on specific legal questions; it is designed to provide general information on the subject of religion and public schools.

This publication of the James R. Squire Office of Policy Research offers updates on research with implications for policy decisions that affect teaching and learning. Each issue addresses a different topic. This issue addresses English Language Learners.

Our mission: the Urban Institute gathers data, conducts research, evaluates programs, offers technical assistance overseas, and educates Americans on social and economic issues - to foster sound public policy and effective government. The Urban Institute builds knowledge about the nation's social and fiscal challenges, practicing open-minded, evidence-based research to diagnose problems and figure out which policies and programs work best, for whom, and how.

"In a March 14, 2005, Op-Ed piece published in The New York Times, Dr. Armand Marie Leroi, an evolutionary developmental biologist at Imperial College in London, challenged scholarly approaches that treat race as a social construction, arguing that recent research in the biological and the social sciences offers fresh evidence that racial differences are genetically identifiable. His editorial, "A Family Tree in Every Gene," expresses a more widespread tendency among certain communities of researchers to revise longstanding scientific understandings about the relationship between race and genetics. The SSRC believes the subject of race and genomics warrants critical reflection and debate among researchers and the broader public, given its important implications across an array of disciplines in the biological and social sciences, its potential impact on a number of policy domains, as well as broader consequences for society at large. In an effort to contribute to this discussion, we have commissioned a series of short essays by leading researchers with a diverse set of disciplinary and analytic perspectives. We hope this forum will serve as a tool for scholars, educators, policy makers and students, and promote informed debate on what is no doubt one of the most important public issues of our time."

Rethinking Schools began as a local effort to address problems such as basal readers, standardized testing, and textbook-dominated curriculum. Since its founding, it has grown into a nationally prominent publisher of educational materials, with subscribers in all 50 states, all 10 Canadian provinces, and many other countries. While the scope and influence of Rethinking Schools has changed, its basic orientation has not. Most importantly, it remains firmly committed to equity and to the vision that public education is central to the creation of a humane, caring, multiracial democracy. While writing for a broad audience, Rethinking Schools emphasizes problems facing urban schools, particularly issues of race. Throughout its history, Rethinking Schools has tried to balance classroom practice and educational theory. It is an activist publication, with articles written by and for teachers, parents, and students. Yet it also addresses key policy issues, such as vouchers and marketplace-oriented reforms, funding equity, and school-to-work. Brazilian educator Paulo Freire wrote that teachers should attempt to "live part of their dreams within their educational space." Rethinking Schools believes that classrooms can be places of hope, where students and teachers gain glimpses of the kind of society we could live in and where students learn the academic and critical skills needed to make that vision a reality. Rethinking Schools attempts to be both visionary and practical: visionary because we need to be inspired by each other's vision of schooling; practical because for too long, teachers and parents have been preached at by theoreticians, far-removed from classrooms, who are long on jargon and short on specific examples.

Established in 1983, the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center has grown to become the largest LGBT multi-service organization on the East Coast and second largest LGBT community center in the world. Every week, 6,000 people visit the Center, and more than 300 groups meet here. In addition, our myriad meeting rooms are booked months in advance, indicating the community is as hungry as ever for a place to call its own. We provide groundbreaking social service, public policy, educational and cultural/recreational programs. We also serve as an incubator for grassroots groups that meet here. Indeed, we were the birthplace of organizations such as the AIDS activist group ACT UP and the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), the principal organization combating homophobia and stereotyping of gays in the media.

NAME is a non-profit organization that advances and advocates for equity and social justice through multicultural education. Objectives: * To provide opportunities for learning in order to advance multicultural education, equity and social justice. * To proactively reframe public debate and impact current and emerging policies in ways that advance social, political, economic and educational equity through advocacy, position papers, policy statements and other strategies. * To provide the preeminent digital clearinghouse of resources about educational equity and social justice.

This article places the problem of disproportionate representation of African American students in special education in the context of the White privilege and racism that exist in American society as a whole. The author discusses how educational resource allocation, inappropriate curriculum and pedagogy, and inadequate teacher preparation have contributed to the problem of disproportionate representation. More important, she argues that remedies designed to address the disproportionality challenge must place the aforementioned structural forces at the center of education research, policy, and practice.