Urban Issues
Urban schools face unique challenges including limited resources, and underperformance within the school and environmental stressors including gang activity, drugs, poverty, housing issues and stressed families. This is the reality of urban classrooms. At the same time, serving urban students effectively is critically important and many urban schools are doing a fine job and there are many myths about urban schools. This page is dedicated to urban issues and will address urban issues, news, resources and related matters.
The Urban Institute
The Urban Institute was developed at the recommendation of a blue-ribbon commission of civic leaders appointed in the mid-sixties by resident Johnston. Their task was to analyze problems faced by American Cities in order to improve the social, civic and economic well being of city residents. A current focus of their research is high school graduate rates. The Urban Institute has computed graduation rates for the high school class of 2001 in almost every school district in the U.S. They found that about one-third of all public high school students fail to graduate and there are significant racial gaps in regard to students who graduate and those who don’t. For more information click here.
Urban Education Resources
The National Urban Alliance is a network of mentors focused on learning and teaching. They provide professional development for school staff with the goal of improving classroom instruction. On their website they provide a number of interesting resources including articles, projects and programs and links.
Educational Equity and Excellence
Understanding educational equity and excellence is a project of the Annenberg Institute for school Reform. The Annenberg Institute for School Reform is dedicated to providing high-quality education to all children especially those in American’s urban Communities. Interesting highlights from their newsletters can be found here.
Perspectives on Urban Education
Order in Schools: Perspectives on Discipline and Control is the theme of an Online Urban Education Journal. Articles of particular interest include: School safety under NCLB’s Unsafe School Choice Option, In the face of danger: Comprehensive emergency preparedness and response for schools, and A cultural approach to establishing equity and closing the achievement gap.
