In this Education Week response, educators explain why «teachers don't leave high -
poverty urban districts; they are exiled» and how to support and help them stay.
The ruling dates back to a 30 - year - old lawsuit which established that New Jersey's high -
poverty urban districts deserved extra funding.
It's also seen evolving attitudes toward discipline, with tactics such as restorative justice starting to replace zero - tolerance approaches, including in high -
poverty urban districts.
Looking down the 2012 - 13 list of America's most charter - school - heavy districts, the top five look familiar — high -
poverty urban districts such as New Orleans, Detroit, the District of Columbia, Flint, Michigan and Kansas City, Missouri.
The state's big - spending lists also always include a few so - called Abbott districts, the high -
poverty urban districts targeted under the state Supreme Court's Abbott v. Burke rulings.
And although charters enroll only 5 percent of America's K - 12 students, to the cash - strapped, high -
poverty urban districts that have been targeted for charter expansions, that number represents a shift of roughly $ 38.7 billion per year in lost tax dollars and mass closings of neighborhood schools.
A high -
poverty urban district with 28 percent English language learners and more than 50 home languages spoken throughout the district, Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) in California was looking for new ways to reach these diverse families.
For a high -
poverty urban district like LAUSD, where declining birth rates, reduced immigration, gentrification and the expansion of charters have left neighborhood schools scrambling for resources, education researchers believe that community schooling offers the first meaningful bang for its buck in delivering equity for its highest - needs students.
In every community I have served, we have reduced the dropout rate and in a high
poverty urban district substantially -LSB-...]
Not exact matches
But some education specialists say that elected school boards in general pose problems for
urban school
districts with challenges related to
poverty.
The
district consists of high -
poverty to middle - class schools, rural, suburban, and demographically diverse
urban schools — including one where over 60 languages are spoken.
«An ideal situation in five years may be in a leadership role at a large
urban school
district, charter school network, or nonprofit organization that serves underrepresented students, especially those living in
poverty,» she says.
Urban school
districts spend significantly less per pupil on their high -
poverty schools than their low -
poverty ones, a fact that is routinely masked by school budgets that use average - salary figures rather than actual ones, a new paper suggests.
A research team led by Harvard Graduate School of Education's Susan Moore Johnson at the Project on the Next Generation of Teachers spoke to 95 teachers and administrators in six high -
poverty, high - minority schools in a large,
urban district.
As part of his campaign plan for lifting children out of
poverty, Democratic presidential candidate Bill Bradley recently proposed spending more on child care and early - childhood education, guaranteeing health care for all children, and creating a new program to recruit teachers for
urban and rural
districts.
But, contrary to many leading reform voices, progress on the important issues of
poverty and talent will not be enough to reverse the dysfunction of
urban school
districts.
We present results from a randomized experiment of a summer mathematics program conducted in a large, high -
poverty urban public school
district.
With increasing teacher - turnover rates in high -
poverty and
urban districts, school and
district leaders need to make sure that the job is satisfying and rewarding — and quality collaboration time can help lower turnover rates.
In fact, Boston ranks number 67 in the nation in enrollment, and its student
poverty rates — 73 percent — are lower than in many other
urban districts (Chicago's is 85 percent).
The study also compared charter performance to average statewide performance — admittedly, a higher bar, as schools statewide had significantly lower levels of
poverty than the charters (and their
urban districts).
NCPW: You've painted a complex portrait of reform efforts in
urban districts, especially those plagued for years with high
poverty and low achievement.
State ID (9 sub-codes)
District site ID (18 sub-codes) District size (large, medium, low) District poverty (high, medium, low) District diversity (high, medium, low) District location (urban, suburban, rural) School site ID School level (elementary, middle school, high school) School poverty (high, medium, low) School diversity (high, medium, low) School size (student population) Interviewee role district (superintendent, board member, staff, parent representative, community stakeholder) Interviewee role school (principal or assistant principal, teacher, teacher leader, other staff, parent representative) Interviewee gender Interviewee role experience (0 - 2 years, 3 - 5, 6 - 10, 11 +) Interviewee site experience (0 - 2 years, 3 - 5, 6 - 10, 11 +) Site visit date (site visit 1, 2, or 3) Document type (district, school, researc
District site ID (18 sub-codes)
District size (large, medium, low) District poverty (high, medium, low) District diversity (high, medium, low) District location (urban, suburban, rural) School site ID School level (elementary, middle school, high school) School poverty (high, medium, low) School diversity (high, medium, low) School size (student population) Interviewee role district (superintendent, board member, staff, parent representative, community stakeholder) Interviewee role school (principal or assistant principal, teacher, teacher leader, other staff, parent representative) Interviewee gender Interviewee role experience (0 - 2 years, 3 - 5, 6 - 10, 11 +) Interviewee site experience (0 - 2 years, 3 - 5, 6 - 10, 11 +) Site visit date (site visit 1, 2, or 3) Document type (district, school, researc
District size (large, medium, low)
District poverty (high, medium, low) District diversity (high, medium, low) District location (urban, suburban, rural) School site ID School level (elementary, middle school, high school) School poverty (high, medium, low) School diversity (high, medium, low) School size (student population) Interviewee role district (superintendent, board member, staff, parent representative, community stakeholder) Interviewee role school (principal or assistant principal, teacher, teacher leader, other staff, parent representative) Interviewee gender Interviewee role experience (0 - 2 years, 3 - 5, 6 - 10, 11 +) Interviewee site experience (0 - 2 years, 3 - 5, 6 - 10, 11 +) Site visit date (site visit 1, 2, or 3) Document type (district, school, researc
District poverty (high, medium, low)
District diversity (high, medium, low) District location (urban, suburban, rural) School site ID School level (elementary, middle school, high school) School poverty (high, medium, low) School diversity (high, medium, low) School size (student population) Interviewee role district (superintendent, board member, staff, parent representative, community stakeholder) Interviewee role school (principal or assistant principal, teacher, teacher leader, other staff, parent representative) Interviewee gender Interviewee role experience (0 - 2 years, 3 - 5, 6 - 10, 11 +) Interviewee site experience (0 - 2 years, 3 - 5, 6 - 10, 11 +) Site visit date (site visit 1, 2, or 3) Document type (district, school, researc
District diversity (high, medium, low)
District location (urban, suburban, rural) School site ID School level (elementary, middle school, high school) School poverty (high, medium, low) School diversity (high, medium, low) School size (student population) Interviewee role district (superintendent, board member, staff, parent representative, community stakeholder) Interviewee role school (principal or assistant principal, teacher, teacher leader, other staff, parent representative) Interviewee gender Interviewee role experience (0 - 2 years, 3 - 5, 6 - 10, 11 +) Interviewee site experience (0 - 2 years, 3 - 5, 6 - 10, 11 +) Site visit date (site visit 1, 2, or 3) Document type (district, school, researc
District location (
urban, suburban, rural) School site ID School level (elementary, middle school, high school) School
poverty (high, medium, low) School diversity (high, medium, low) School size (student population) Interviewee role
district (superintendent, board member, staff, parent representative, community stakeholder) Interviewee role school (principal or assistant principal, teacher, teacher leader, other staff, parent representative) Interviewee gender Interviewee role experience (0 - 2 years, 3 - 5, 6 - 10, 11 +) Interviewee site experience (0 - 2 years, 3 - 5, 6 - 10, 11 +) Site visit date (site visit 1, 2, or 3) Document type (district, school, researc
district (superintendent, board member, staff, parent representative, community stakeholder) Interviewee role school (principal or assistant principal, teacher, teacher leader, other staff, parent representative) Interviewee gender Interviewee role experience (0 - 2 years, 3 - 5, 6 - 10, 11 +) Interviewee site experience (0 - 2 years, 3 - 5, 6 - 10, 11 +) Site visit date (site visit 1, 2, or 3) Document type (
district, school, researc
district, school, research memo).
Even where
urban and high -
poverty school
districts emphasize public engagement, the policies and preferences tend to «trickle down» to schools only in the form of mandated representation on school councils — a weak strategy for distributing leadership.
We heard similar criticisms about the effectiveness of state support - system interventions for low - performing schools in one of our large, high -
poverty, low - performing
urban school
districts — where (again) the
district developed no plan for systematic intervention to ameliorate the problem.
The Council of
Urban Boards of Education (CUBE) has been at the forefront in helping urban school districts in their work to close the achievement gap, raise high school graduation rates, provide intervention services to academically struggling students, and create broad - based school programs to support students who live in poverty or other circumstances that create obstacles to lear
Urban Boards of Education (CUBE) has been at the forefront in helping
urban school districts in their work to close the achievement gap, raise high school graduation rates, provide intervention services to academically struggling students, and create broad - based school programs to support students who live in poverty or other circumstances that create obstacles to lear
urban school
districts in their work to close the achievement gap, raise high school graduation rates, provide intervention services to academically struggling students, and create broad - based school programs to support students who live in
poverty or other circumstances that create obstacles to learning.
For fifty years, the Council of
Urban Boards of Education (CUBE) has been at the forefront in helping urban school districts in their work to close the achievement gap, raise high school graduation rates, provide intervention services to academically struggling students, and create broad - based school programs to support students who live in poverty or other circumstances that create serious obstacles to lear
Urban Boards of Education (CUBE) has been at the forefront in helping
urban school districts in their work to close the achievement gap, raise high school graduation rates, provide intervention services to academically struggling students, and create broad - based school programs to support students who live in poverty or other circumstances that create serious obstacles to lear
urban school
districts in their work to close the achievement gap, raise high school graduation rates, provide intervention services to academically struggling students, and create broad - based school programs to support students who live in
poverty or other circumstances that create serious obstacles to learning.
URBAN NAEP COVERAGE EdWeek: NAEP: Urban School Districts Improving Faster Than the Nation Baltimore Sun: Baltimore students score near bottom in reading, math on key national assessment Cleveland Plain Dealer: Vast poverty differences create unfair comparisons on Nation's Report Card Miami Herald: Miami and Florida students outperform peers on national
URBAN NAEP COVERAGE EdWeek: NAEP:
Urban School Districts Improving Faster Than the Nation Baltimore Sun: Baltimore students score near bottom in reading, math on key national assessment Cleveland Plain Dealer: Vast poverty differences create unfair comparisons on Nation's Report Card Miami Herald: Miami and Florida students outperform peers on national
Urban School
Districts Improving Faster Than the Nation Baltimore Sun: Baltimore students score near bottom in reading, math on key national assessment Cleveland Plain Dealer: Vast
poverty differences create unfair comparisons on Nation's Report Card Miami Herald: Miami and Florida students outperform peers on national test
In large
urban districts, like the Los Angeles Unified School
District or Chicago Public Schools,
poverty, violence and trauma can be barriers to learning for thousands of students.
One specific study, which examined five low - performing, high -
poverty urban high schools in three
districts and their use of data to inform school improvement, concluded that the more school staff worked collaboratively to discuss and analyze student performance the more likely staff members were to use data to inform curriculum decisions (Lachat & Smith, 2005).
Higher needs children in primarily high
poverty rural and
urban school
districts are seeing greater disparity increasing over time.
* Chronic absenteeism disproportionally affects minority children and children living in
poverty, no matter whether in a rural, suburban, or
urban district.
Every year,
urban school
districts across the country release test scores showing dismal student proficiency in math and reading, especially for students in
poverty.
Nationally, the results in most
urban districts still lag behind those of the country as a whole, in part because of their higher
poverty rates.
After three decades of competition, Milwaukee schools — public
district, voucher, and charter collectively — perform about as well as similar high -
poverty voucher - free
urban districts like Detroit, Memphis and Buffalo.
He testified that 22 percent of new teachers in California leave the profession after four years and that the percentage of teachers who transfer out of high -
poverty schools is twice that from low -
poverty schools, He said 20 percent of new principals in
urban school
districts leave after just two years and pointed to the Oakland Unified School
District as an extreme: There, he said, 44 percent of new principals leave the field after just two - years.
But
districts that serve disadvantaged
urban areas with high rates of
poverty «typically have both high rates and large numbers of chronically absent students.»
Yet many suburban
districts now rival
urban districts in the challenges they face, having experienced dramatic population changes in just the past decade, with fast growing numbers of English Language Learners and students living in
poverty attending Read more about Suburban Schools: The Unrecognized Frontier in Public Education -LSB-...]
Atlanta Public Schools Chief Financial Officer Lisa Bracken said the school
district has higher costs for several reasons: The expense of city living drives up teacher pay; the
district has «low population» schools that lack economies of scale but are kept open «due to
urban traffic constraints and community needs;» many students need extra services because they have learning problems or disabilities, don't speak English fluently or come from
poverty; and the
district has a large unfunded pension liability with growing obligations.
Most, not coincidentally, are from
urban school
districts with high
poverty rates and large populations of students of color.
Also, the link is punitive to teachers who work in schools that serve high -
poverty communities, and would provoke an exodus of minority and experienced teachers from
urban districts.
For the four school years from 2009 to 2013, even as
poverty rates increased in the city, Cincinnati remained the state's highest - ranked
urban school
district (Cincinnati Public Schools, 2014).
Place - based scholarship programs such as the Kalamazoo Promise, in which all students graduating from specific high -
poverty urban school
districts qualify for free college tuition, also have been shown to increase high school outcomes and college matriculation (Bartik and Lachowska, 2012; Andrews, DesJardins and Ranchhod, 2010).
Key examples include Cawelti and Protheroe's (2001) study of change in six school
districts in four states; Snipes, Dolittle and Herlihy's (2002) case studies of improvement in four
urban school systems and states; Massell and Goertz's (2002) investigation of standards - based reform in 23 school
districts across eight states; McLaughlin and Talbert's (2002) analysis of three
urban or metropolitan area California
districts; Togneri and Anderson's (2003) investigation of five high
poverty districts (four
urban, one rural) from five states; and several single - site case studies of
district success (e.g., Hightower, 2002; Snyder, 2002).
teacher6402: «The reason that scores and achievement are so low in
urban districts is due to many factors: transient leadership, unqualified administrators, lack of curricula,
poverty and transient students, lack of parental and community support, politicians posturing at the expense of poor and
urban communities, and yes - ineffective teachers who often get in to
urban school
districts because they lack the skill set and content knowledge to get in to other
districts.»
However, as you are fully aware, the major issue underlying the disparity of performance of students between
urban and suburban
districts is
POVERTY rather than the lack of competence, dedication or qualification of teachers.
Data were collected from 230 students and 20 teachers in two high -
poverty, low - performing schools in a large
urban school
district in the Midwest Students were 93 % African American.