This conceptual article examines the in¯uence of the current standards-based reform upon science education policies and practices within urban schools. We identify four negative yet unforeseen effects of the reform movement: undermining urban teachers' professionalism, eroding teacher±student relationships, diluting the science curriculum, and disparate instruction based on predicted individual test performance. Our awareness of these nuisances emerged from our ®rst-hand engagement with urban science teaching and through our collegial relationships with exemplary urban teachers. In closing, we propose mechanisms by which university-based science educators might address these issues by assisting exemplary urban teachers to resist the reform-induced perils and by incorporating the urban milieu as a substantive aspect of science teacher education. ß

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This study traces a heuristic inquiry process from the point of view of a science educator, from a secular-humanist background in the northern United States, attempting to better understand and appreciate a major aspect of religious-influenced culture in the southern United States which has a major bearing on science education in the region. The intellectual and emotional viewpoints of selected scientists, science educators, science teachers, and prospective science teachers are examined regarding the relationship between their orthodox Christian religious beliefs and biological evolutionary theory. We view the prospect of teaching evolution to students with such a religious commitment as a prime example of the severe limitations of cognitively-oriented conceptual change theory. We also view conflicts between religion and science regarding evolution as a bona fide example of a multicultural issue in education. These theoretical perspectives are inconsistent with the common tendency among science professionals to view or treat orthodox Christian students in a manner unconscionable with others-to disrespect their intellect or belittle their motivations, to offer judgments based on stereotypes and prejudices, to ignore threats to personal selfesteem, or to deny the de facto connection of some scientific conceptions to the morals, attitudes, and values of individuals with such religious commitments.

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The skeletons of 17 Black slaves were excavated from an unmarked 18 th century cemetery in Montserrat, West Indies. A pharmaceutical phial found with one of the probable coffin burials bears the inscription OCT 29 1751. The date on the phial, skeletal analysis and ethnohistorical records suggest the skeletons are those of Black slaves, possibly from the nearby Bransby Plantation. Evidence of pathological conditions include enthesopathies, osteoarthritis, anemia, malnutrition, a high incidence of fractures and one possible case of lepromatous leprosy. Ages at death suggest that the adult females were outliving the males.slave cemetery from Montserrat, West Indies." Annals of the Carnegie Museum