Why is it so difficult to design and implement fundamental educational reform in large city schools? How does the politics of race complicate the challenge of building coalitions for improving urban schools? Here a group of political scientists examines education reform in Atlanta, Baltimore, Detroit, and Washington, D.C., where local governmental authority has passed from white to black leaders. The authors show that black administrative control of big-city school systems has not translated into broad improvements in the quality of public education. Filled with insightful explanations together with recommendations for policy change, this book is an important contribution to the debate about education reform.