Urban Education Essay

Urban schools are interpreted as the low income institutions with horribly irresponsible students. Bulman explains that Hollywood does not give these schools any justice by labeling them as the as the middle’s worse nightmare (43). Even though Bulman believes that real American urban schools are taking a turn for the worst, Hollywood adds benefiting factors to increase the chances for these students to

For decades now, there have been educational problems in the inner city schools in the United States. The schools inability to teach some students relates to the poor conditions in the public schools. Some of the conditions are the lack of funds that give students with the proper supplies, inexperienced teachers, inadequate resources, low testing scores and the crime-infested neighborhoods. These conditions have been an issue for centuries, but there is nothing being done about it. Yet, state and local governments focus on other priorities, including schools with better academics. It is fair to say that some schools need more attention than other does. However, when schools have no academic problems then the attention should be focused

America’s school system and student population remains segregated, by race and class. The inequalities that exist in schools today result from more than just poorly managed schools; they reflect the racial and socioeconomic inequities of society as a whole. Most of the problems of schools boil down to either racism in and outside the school or financial disparity between wealthy and poor school districts. Because schools receive funding through local property taxes, low-income communities start at an economic disadvantage. Less funding means fewer resources, lower quality instruction and curricula, and little to no community involvement. Even when low-income schools manage to find adequate funding, the money doesn’t solve all the school’s

I personally think many minds are going to waste in our urban environments, minds that could be reinventing the world, but are, for some reason, only keeping themselves out of a culture that needs them. Why are there so few college-bound kids graduating from our urban schools, and why are the ones who do go to college so ill-prepared when they arrive? We live in a nation where education is a prominent force of succeeding in life. Children learn critical and analytical skills for twelve years in school to prepare to graduate high school, and go on to receive a two- or four-year college education. Being educated is an integral part of society. School helps children learn social norms and teach them how to be successful adults in society. The communities that some youth live in molds their future education and how much they succeed. Are they truly getting the best education for them to be successful college students and have a career? Or it is their education determinant of failure and going into the system? Manyof my minority students are not getting the proper education that they need to succeed. Urban students experience the lack of structure throughout their daily routine and do not understand the deficits in their education system. Urban students face many challenges: many come from neighborhoods or communities where alcohol, drug, sex, continuous violence, and poverty are rampant. [include introductory sentence here: The issues in communities of color are exacerbated when those with the most resources leave the community.”] “The highest costs of the white flight areborn by the children left in segregated, almost entirely poor neighborhood schools. [The lack of resources in the community have a negative effect on the school.]

The schools from poorer towns and cities do not have the financial assets available to them to hire the kind of teachers that schools with more money have the capability to employ.

Many African American families are suffering from the violence and substance abuse in their towns today, as reflected in the film “Boys of Baraka”. This film focuses on four young African American boys and their families from an inner city in Baltimore; Richard and brother Romash, Devon, and Montrey. As a result of the lack of discipline and an increased violence rate, these African American boys are suffering education-wise. Luckily, the Baraka School in Africa was designed for these children and gave them hope of bettering their lives as they enter high school.

The higher the percentage of students of color in an urban school, on average, the higher the percentage of poor students. And students who attend high-poverty schools generally score lower on standardized tests, are less likely to graduate, and are less likely to go to college. School finance reform, the remedy sought by urban districts and activists in the post-Milliken era, has made less difference than one would have hoped and has done little to bring most urban schools up to par with suburban ones.(James E. Ryan) Much of the debate falls around school

Teachers are a critical aspect to urban schools, they give children hope that they can succeed, they give families satisfaction that their child is being cared for and pushed, and they show society that even though urban schools are not properly funded and lack supplies that they can make a difference in these students. These risks are scary, but urban schools are risky. Urban schools are risky because they have overcrowded classrooms, students with many outside difficulties that are brought into the classroom, lack of supplies, teachers who constantly are transferring in and out, and not enough support from families. Urban schools are difficult, but they are worth the risk of

The problem in many low-income schools today is discipline. It is not always that students are the cause the problem, but the surrounding environment. When the environment outside the school is violent, disadvantaged, and/or impoverished the coping mechanisms of the residents are not always good. Every so often these coping mechanisms make their way into the schools system. Many times teachers are not trained on how to deal with these issues. They also do not feel supported by their school administration. Low-income schools teacher turnover rate tends to be high and increases through the years. In many of these low income schools parental involvement is low and safety concerns are often high. Teachers are frequently left to look for resources

The lack of good quality teachers contributes to this fact, but also the lack of supplies in general. According to the article, some of the larger cities are still working on implementing plans that will reduce the poverty rates within their cities and school districts. They are also deciding to pay more attention to the divisive factor, which is race. “’Over time it will also be the place to go to see whether our strategies are working or

The Boys of Baraka begins in a similar manner. Taking place in Baltimore, Maryland, It illustrates the heart of Baltimore and how rundown and unclean the streets are within this area. It shows kids as young as 4 years old running through the streets, it shows teenagers are low education dancing in the streets and acting as fools. Also gives a factual statistic that around 76% of boys in Baltimore don’t graduate. Many of the kids in which attend “Dunbar Middle School”, which has low graduation rates, lower class students and leads to a sever disruptive learning environment. To help kids escape areas such as this, a school in Kenya Africa is opening opportunities for students to get the right education they need to further success in life away from drugs and violence and the streets.

New York resident Angeles Barragan said that her daughter “fell behind due to an incompetent teacher who didn’t assign homework and didn’t help her child learn to read.” (3) Now, Barragan’s daughter is repeating second grade due mostly to the ineffectiveness of her child’s teacher. In the recent court case, Vergara v. California, a California judge ruled that “the state’s laws governing teacher tenure [are] unconstitutional, saying they interfere with the state’s obligation to provide every child with access to a good education.” (4). The court case brought forth compelling evidence as to why the tenure system needs to be either eliminated completely, or radically changed. The evidence showed that the failure of schools to weed out underperforming teachers led to the pairing of the “grossly ineffective teachers” with the poor and minority students, who were already underperforming. (3) This has been deemed unconstitutional because it violates students’ rights to the equality of education. Students in poor areas are forced with some ineffective teachers who cannot be fired because of their tenure, leading to lower test scores and, on average, lower graduation rates. In another example, parents in New York are eagerly trying to send their students to Charter Schools, in an effort to avoid “bad” teachers that ultimately lead to their students performing significantly lower than they should be. (The

To begin this reflection let me ask a couple questions, what are we supposed to expect when we as future teacher get hired at a urban school compared to a non-urban school? How is it going to be different? These are just a few questions I had in my mind going into this field experience. The reason for this thought process was the result of the school system I grew up. The school I grew up in was mainly a white based student population and non-urban. So, before this field experience I had no idea what a urban school was going to be like as the result of my white privilege of the location of where I lived and the amount of money my parents make. It seemed to me that an urban school was the total opposite of what a non-urban school, that I went to was. An urban school, has a more diverse population of students and students that come from parents that can’t make as much money as my family. Furthermore teachers that rotate between other urban schools in the area compared to teachers staying in one school. This is a major difference because when I was in high school where I knew from year to year if my teacher was going to be around. In a urban setting a teacher may be working at school for one year and working at a totally different establishment the next time period. I feel the differences at intervals of urban and non-urban stop there. These schools are similar by the virtue of they have teachers that care about their students. If teachers are present to care about the

Today, schools and neighborhoods are segregated by social and economic disadvantages not only poverty but also a host of associated conditions—depresses student performance. Concentrating students with these disadvantages in racially and economically homogenous schools depresses it even further.

Urban school districts are defined as education facilities that provide education to students who live in metropolitan areas. Urban school districts exist within areas with a large population of students living in the area. Urban school districts tends to lack funds needed to create a successful work environment for the students. “Poverty rates among children are higher in urban locations than in the surrounding suburban or rural areas, which translates into higher concentrations of poor students in urban public schools ().” This means that a high percentage of students attending an urban elementary school come from a family who are poor and typically receives benefited from the government such as Medicaid, Food Stamps and or housing assistance. In a study of 57 urban school districts in 35 states, the Council of the Great City Schools has found that test scores are