Editors' Introduction
Sam Stringfield and John Hollifield

In our first issue we declared that the purposes of the Journal of Education for Students Placed at Risk (JESPAR) were to provide the best research-based information to educators involved with improving the education of students placed at risk and to promote the use of that information through effective communication among researchers, policy makers, and practitioners. Given that those goals are close to the heart of all four members of the editorial committee, we are unlikely to stray far from them.

The proof of any editor’s convictions rests in actual articles and issues. In this issue, we present a case study, by Hirshman, of an unusually effective early effort to take full advantage of the Chapter 1 schoolwide project option. The site was one of Philadelphia’s original “Priority 1” schools. It and similar projects were supported by Philadelphia’s then-superintendent, now professor and JESPAR board member, Connie Clayton. This issue also includes the most thorough review of schoolwide projects to date, by Pechman and Fiester. Both the case and the review article make clear the promise of schoolwide projects. The two articles make equally clear the need for continuing research on the differential effects of alternative uses of the schoolwide option. Considering the new Title I legislation’s focus on schoolwide programs, the JESPAR editorial team regards these articles as a “first installment” in a long line of articles looking at ways to maximize the effectiveness of schoolwide reforms.

The Datnow and Hirshberg case study of a detracked middle school reminds us that although the road is not always easy, the potential exists for meeting the simultaneous requirements of equity and excellence. The case study illustrates struggles, potential pitfalls that others would be well advised to guard against, and good reasons for believing that the results are worth the struggles. The Datnow and Hirshberg article puts a human face on many of the themes inherent in struggling toward multicultural education that permeate the Handbook of Research on Multicultural Education—edited by Banks and Banks and published in 1995—which is reviewed in this issue.

Kernow’s urban-mobility article is a forceful analysis of an underdiscussed reality of school reform. The children of frequently moving families present some of the greatest challenges to the goal of providing a high-quality education to all Americans. Longitudinal studies of education generally and site-based reform efforts specifically almost necessarily drop large number of highly mobile students from their analyses. Teachers do not have this luxury. Frequent geographic mobility may pose a threat to young children’s prospects for long-term socially upward mobility. In fact, as Kerbow details, we have a need for new and thoughtful policies to ensure that these often highly at risk students are offered high–quality educations.

This issue’s two book reviews are on topics of obvious relevance to educating students placed at risk. The Rivers and Lomotey review of Banks and Bank’s Handbook of Research on Multicultural Education brings out the strengths of this groundbreaking volume. Howey’s review of Bringing Out the Best in Teachers points to important issues in professional development, especially for those of us working with students placed at risk. This Blase and Kirby volume has been a best-seller within the profession since its release in 1992, and Howey points to its strong mixture of theory and practice in explaining why it remains a volume worthy of consideration.

With out first two issues now in print, JESPAR is establishing a track record true to the editors’ intentions. JESPAR is publishing articles on a wide variety of topics related to improving the educations of students placed at risk. We hope these articles steer a path between uncritical celebration of new ideas for their own sake and staid, highly technical prose. We hope you are finding JESPAR focused on its purposes, readable, educational, and useful.