urban poverty and school reform

["Monty Neill" <monty@fairtest.org>]

SUMMER OF FATE
Urban violence and riots in more than 100 cities in the mid-1960s was a "body blow" to urban education. Some will tell you the wounds of that brief, if terrible, period are long healed. Others disagree. But it's worth noting that the conditions that sparked the violence still linger in many of the nation's urban centers. The influences of racism, poverty, blighted neighborhoods, joblessness, and hopelessness continue to make themselves felt. These influences reach into classrooms and hinder student achievement, writes Del Stover in American School Board Journal. They affect policy decisions at all levels of government and explain why school reform has proven so intransigent and insolvable. It's questionable whether the nation has ever had the political will to tackle the social ills that drag upon urban education. President Johnson's war on poverty fell victim to the cost of the Vietnam War, and later federal anti-poverty initiatives were curbed by a political backlash agains
 t affirmative action, entitlement programs, and the "undeserving poor." President Bush called education the great civil rights issue of the 21st century, but since 9/11, the federal government's focus has been the war on terror. To date, funding for the No Child Left Behind Act has fallen $43.5 billion below what was originally authorized. Some critics argue that more money isn't the answer. Since the 1967 riots, billions in state and federal dollars have been invested in the nation's inner cities, but urban renewal, public housing, and economic development programs have proven ineffective as a counterweight to poverty or the social problems that flourish in impoverished neighborhoods. The same can be said of Title I funding, which certainly has made a huge difference in the education of urban students -- but has not been enough to raise academic performance to that of their more affluent suburban peers. But, most urban school policymakers would argue, more money would help.
  It costs more to educate students in an environment of poverty, high mobility, and, in more recent years, limited English proficiency. Yet the financial resources of urban schools rarely have matched those of their suburban counterparts. 
http://www.asbj.com/MainMenuCategory/Archive/2007/CurrentIssue/SummerofFate.aspx
Monty Neill, Ed.D.
Co-Executive Director
FairTest
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Cambridge, MA 02139
617-864-4810    fax 617-497-2224
monty@fairtest.org
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