Editor's Introduction
Sam Stringfield

Volume 5, Nos. 1 and 2, of JESPAR is special for several reasons. This double issue presents summaries of the scholarly and practical-reform accomplishments of the first five years of the Center for Research on the Education of Students Placed At Risk (CRESPAR). As described in Wade Boykin's introductory article, this bold, five-year initiative was charged with addressing, and has addressed, several of the problems that most directly challenge the values and practical aspirations of modern democracies.

For any nation to succeed and prosper in a global information economy, we simply must help all our citizens read, write, understand mathematics and the very meaning of democracy at dramatically higher levels (Freidman, 1999). As the subsequent articles make clear, CRESPAR has focused on the schools in many of America's most challenging communities. There we have both helped local schools improve themselves, and advanced the nation's research base. As Bob Slavin notes in the final paper of the issue, CRESPAR's substantial contributions create a firm base from which to move optimistically forward.

This issue is written in commemoration of the life and work of John Henry Hollifield, Jr. As noted in the introduction to JESPAR 4(4), John died on February 2, 1999. For 28 years, Hollifield served as an editor and administrator at Johns Hopkins University's Center for Social Organization of Schools. When JESPAR was just an idea, John was one of the people who most strongly advocated its development. John and I were the founding co-editors, and I can't imagine starting or developing JESPAR without him. John had a ready smile, a fine editorial touch, and a relentless will to produce each excellent issue. Drs. Jones-Wilson and Datnow, myself, Ms. Meyers, and the entire CRESPAR faculty, were very fortunate to have gotten to work with him.

This issue, summarizing much of the research from CRESPAR's first five years, is presented by the full team of authors and editors in loving memory of John H. Hollifield, Jr.

References

Freidman, T.L. (1999). The Lexus and the olive tree. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux.