What Works and What Doesn't in Urban Education

As a teacher with several years of experience in an urban district, I am often asked what exactly is going on in our urban schools. Why do these districts fail, while so many other succeed? What about them is causing the "drag" on performance? In this and several subsequent posts, I will do my best to elucidate what works and what doesn't in urban districts.

Urban schools face problems that suburban schools may not even consider, and if they do, it is almost always on a much smaller scale. For example, I have had several teen parents in my classes, both the fathers and the mothers. When they become parents, these teens are asked to balance the incredible demands of raising a child with their education. In many cases, the young parents must now work long hours after school (if they didn't already before) in order to provide support for their child or children. While I can appreciate that some might be very quick to judge these young people for "getting themselves into this situation", or some other similar line of thought, and I cannot in honesty say that my own thoughts have not occasionally turned there, such an attitude is inevitably counterproductive to any effort to help the teen parent to successfully complete their education. Hence, in my professional capacity, I do my best to stay out of judgement, and instead focus on providing as ideal a condition as possible to help these young parents succeed in obtaining their educational credentials. My reasoning in this process is the result of years of angst and turmoil over what would be the best way to approach such a difficult situation. I am still of the mind that it is much better for a young person to hold off on having children until they are emotionally, financially and in all other ways ready to support a child, however when I have a teen parent in my classroom, that die is already cast. Once the teen is a parent, it is now time to help offer that teenager and their child or children the best possible chance for success in life, and a solid education is part and parcel of that process.

Certainly in a suburban school, there is the occasional scandal where a teen gets pregnant, but I would say that the scale and scope of the issue is completely different. In like fashion, there is also of course the possibility and threat of violence in an affluent, suburban school, however, there probably are not several different and well recognized gangs, some smaller and less well defined, and other with national and even international presences. In urban schools, we see all of this and much more.

My point in bringing up these issues is that urban teachers really are up against a different set of odds than suburban teachers often face. This is NOT an attempt to whine or cast blame. Rather, it is an effort to honestly and clearly provide information regarding what it takes to succeed in an urban setting as an educator. When teens are being awakened 3-4 times a night by their newborn child, or when they live with the constant threat or actualization of violence in their communities, it has a grave and negative impact on their psychology, and in my opinion, fundamentally alters their attitude about the importance of education. There is the old adage that "a hungry child can't learn". I would add to that that neither can a sleep-deprived, homeless, or otherwise endangered child.

Hence, there are social issues that come into play in an urban district that a suburban teacher rarely faces. To succeed in situations where the stakes are so high is in my eyes an admirable endeavor, but admittedly it is harder to pull off, and there are bound to be more times when things don't go the way we want them to. This is no excuse to stop trying, but hopefully it helps to put into perspective some of the differences in graduation rate, drop-out rate, and the like between urban and suburban schools.

Urban children, on the other hand, are children like any others, and as such they are young, full of hope, sometimes naive, and require the assistance of their elders to successfully integrate into society. It is our job as educators to play whatever part we can in helping these young people to find their ways in a world that only seems to increase in complexity and challenge.