Maintaining that urban teaching and learning is characterized by many contradictions, this work proposes that there is a wide range of social, cultural, psychological, and pedagogical knowledge urban educators must posses in order to engage in effective and transformative practice. It is necessary for those teaching in urban schools to be scholar practitioners rather than bureaucrats, who can only follow rather than analyze, understand, and create. The ten major sections cover: context of urban education; race and ethnicity; social justice; teaching and pedagogy; power and urban education; language issues; cultural issues of urban schools as seen in the media; doing research in city schools; aesthetics and the proximity of cultural institutions; and, education policy. Sixty-one essays - written by specialists in teacher education; public policy; sociology; psychology; applied linguistics; forestry; urban studies; school administrators; cultural studies; evaluation, and linguistics - provide a blueprint for scholars, teachers, parents, urban politicians, school administrators, policy professionals and others seeking to understand the situation of urban schools across America today.