Lack of Quality Education in Urban Areas - Research Paper Example

Lack of Quality Education in Urban Areas Education is the cornerstone of America. This is reflected in thefact that from the early days of the formation of the country, the Founding Fathers saw fit to mandate a certain section of land throughout the nation be reserved for the purposes of education. Through the years, communities have rallied behind education and truly sought to create a system where young people could thrive and flourish. These truths, unfortunately, are no longer evident in many urban areas of the country today. School buildings are crumbling, classes are over crowded, and the lack of qualified teachers is overwhelmingly apparent. Academic achievement levels are at all time lows in urban areas, while many suburban schools continue to flourish. The findings of this report indicated that quality of education in many urban areas throughout America is poor and that education reform in almost every area is sorely needed in order to provide equal opportunity to the urban children in our midst. Lack of Quality Education in Urban Areas Introduction The case can certainly be made for deriving the conclusion that urban education in the United States of America is lacking and suffering in innumerable ways. Children in urban communities across the country frequently suffer from inequalities that are not typically present in more bedrock and suburban communities. In addition, children fortunate enough to live within a higher socioeconomic class tend to receive more educational advantages and privileges when compared to children coming for a poor urban area. Poverty is inexplicably linked to race and ethnicity, which means that minorities are disproportionately affected by this social issue due to their disproportionate likelihood to be in such a demographic group (Dell’Angela, 2007). Many school districts around the country are located in urban centers that are home to a diverse population. As such, these areas require well trained and educated professionals to work with young people in order to accommodate their unique educational needs, yet the reality is that these areas are often lacking in such individuals. This situation, while challenging, presents a unique opportunity for research to be conducted in an effort to examine and possible implement new strategies and perspectives designed to elevate that level of educational offered in urban areas. Many schools and educational facilities throughout the country are desperately trying to alter the current educational environment in urban areas that often offers substandard teaching, poor access to limited resources, and a level of academic achievement that is far lower than that found in wealthier areas of the country. That is the focus of this study. Low Academic Achievement For quite some time, as reflected by recent national reform efforts, the status quo in many urban areas throughout America has revolved around the low academic achievement levels of students forced to attend inferior educational institutions. Left unchecked, the fear is this situation will get even more out of control and that we will end up with a hopeless situation whereby it would be nearly impossible to improve the educational situation being experienced by countless minority students living in such areas of the country. There is a dearth of current literature and associated data that alludes to the reality that there are certain strategies and instructional methodologies that have proven effective and that schools can readily implement in their efforts to minimize, or even eliminate, the achievement gap that noticeably exists in urban areas, compared to suburban areas dominated by those in at the majority (Ferguson, 2003, p. 462). The stark truth is, however, that little is being to properly utilize these new innovations. In addition, many available resources are being redirected to other areas, as opposed to those individuals and classrooms that need them most. Even the staunchest critics of the latest efforts at educational reforms tend to agree that there currently exists the means to improve educational offerings in urban areas, yet little has actually been done today to impact a positive change. Across the country, there is a growing outcry that current and prevailing teaching methodologies are largely outdated and in need of reform. Even the best intentioned of teachers, many argue, are at a loss for how to effectively reach minority students today. Teachers are ill-equipped to handle the lack of support that they receive in an urban environment. Naturally, however, teachers are not to blame for the debacle that is urban education today, as there has certainly been a fundamental breakdown system wide. Some would argue that the teachers of today lack the cultural competence required to teach in many urban areas, as many districts in such localities have a disproportionately high number of students from a diverse background. It takes a certain level of cultural understanding and competence in order to promote positive academic growth amongst these demographic groups (Goretskaya, 2007). There is also mounting evidence to support the notion that teachers from a similar background as their students not only identify with them better, but help realize higher academic gains as a result. Teachers who do not have the capability to relate to students from a diverse background, however, face a more difficult time implementing the type of change within the classroom environment that leads to an increase in the overall academic achievement of their students. Consider the reality that many African American students live and attend school in urban cities. As a percentage, they reflect a majority of some of the school districts in cities such as Philadelphia, Chicago, Detroit and New York. Compared to their white counterparts, their levels of academic achievement have declined significantly in recent years, leading to the inference that urban youth are at an educational disadvantage in the modern age. One can go back to the Antebellum south to see that education is largely a political charged and decisive issue amongst black communities (Goretskaya, 2012). Students in this particularly demographic have suffered through decades of segregation, have received poor levels of educational services, and lack many of the opportunities in society typically reserved for students from other races and localities. It has also been found that many students in this group have deep rooted anger at being disenfranchised, and this is demonstrated by a show of apathy in school (Oakes, 2005). As a result, it is important that student in urban areas have role models that they can look up to, such as teachers who are culturally competent, in order to give instill a faith in them that education can be improved over time. Minority Teachers There is currently a lack of qualified minorities choosing to work in the field of education today. To be fair, this is empirical evidence that points out that race and gender do not dictate an effective gender. There is, however, the current reality that minorities, particularly blacks, are becoming increasingly sparse in the classroom of urban areas throughout America. The teachers that remain do not typically identify with the student body and are poorly qualified and trained to work in areas that they are unfamiliar with. We have to go back as the 1987-1988 school year to find black teachers present in the classroom at a significant level. The National Center for Education Statistics that year reported that nearly eight percent of the educators in America’s school were black. This provided some hope for urban areas to have teachers that better identified with the unique needs that presented themselves in these locations. Today, that figure has declined to only five percent and the trends are not encouraging. This decline in the number of minority teachers in the classroom is occurring as student enrollment in many districts is on the rise, creating large class sizes that further weakens the quality of education being offered in urban areas (Harris, 2009). Many scholars point out the non-academic benefits of schooling that many urban children, are missing out on. While adults typically forget much of what went on during the schooling years, research has indicated that there are certain social, cultural, and academic experiences that can either positively or negatively impact a person for life. In America, a person’s formative years are spent in one educational environment or another. If a person suffers from the reality of attending a poorly funded school in an urban area, absent any teacher that truly understands them, they will not likely have any fond memories of school when they are an adult (Burke & Heritage, 2012). In addition, due to the poor level of education received in these schools, adults are often at a disadvantage throughout their professional life due to the simple fact that they lack many of the basic skills and knowledge that those who attended better quality institutions possess. The race and gender of a teacher does not necessarily matter, so long as the teacher is willing to work hard to reach an urban student in terms of helping young people reach their social and academic potential. Barring this, even teachers that are not highly skilled in their profession may still provide value to the educational system if they can culturally identify with the students in their class. A recent study commissioned by the state of Texas supports this contention by finding, “A positive value of matching students and teachers by race…and black teachers tend to be more effective with minority students’ (The Market for Teacher Quality, 2005). This is one area that urban areas can certainly focus on moving forward. The training and recruitment of minority teachers could prove critical eventually raising the quality of education offered to student in urban cities. The city of New York recently put this idea to the test. Dubbed the ‘Teachers as Leaders Program’, the initiative focused on the recruitment and retention of minority teachers, particularly African American males, to enter the teaching profession in the district of New York City. The program was about much more than simply getting minorities to teach, however, as it focused on encouraging these young professionals to engage themselves in the community as policy advocates and push for educational reform that would be designed to increase the educational quality in the urban areas of New York City. Initiatives such as this one are being employed in many urban areas across the country, yet the decline in academic achievement is still glaring, particularly amongst minority students. Studies do reveal that African American males disproportionately suffer from a lack of educational opportunity, however, so programs such as this one should certainly be seen as a step in the right direction (Ferguson, 2003). In New York City, the idea has caught on and has become to show some encouraging signs, based on the premise that if even one child can be helped, then it is worth it. In fact, this particular initiative has since joined forces with Schott’s Representative Leadership, Race, and Gender Equity program agenda (Schott Foundation for Public Education, 2011). As programs such as these begin to combine resources and double their efforts, urban education can be in good hands once again. It will take, however, an entire community effort in order to realize this vision and ambitious objective. It should be said that the endemic problem owed to a lack of quality educational opportunities in urban areas is not limited to those students identifying themselves as black. The problem is currently plaguing members of various cultural groups in urban school districts across the country. In fact, it is now noticeable that the gap in academic achievement between those in the majority (typically those identifying themselves as ‘white’) and minorities is cloyingly at an alarmingly slow rate. The progress being made to help minority students, many of whom are located in urban areas, minimize the perceived lack of academic achievement when compared to students in other locates is quite trouble. This really speaks to an issue of pedagogy. Many believe that culturally competent teachers are needed in urban areas and, at present, this simply is not happening (Guskey, 2010). To test this theory, however, will require further in-depth studies. In considering this issue, it is important to examine the topic from the perspective of comparing the level of educational services offered in many suburban areas to those of more urban areas. Naturally, there are failing areas in suburban areas, just as their are high successful schools in urban areas. The problem, however, is that these schools are the exception. The norm in urban schools, sadly enough, are crumbling school building, overcrowded classroom, a lack of supplies, and often a poorly trained and ill-equipped teaching staff. In comparison, suburban schools tend to have much more support from the community, increased levels of funding, the very best teachers, and a committed and available pool of resources. While these words might seem to stretch reality, they actually speak the harsh truth about the current state of urban education in the United States. While schools are no longer segregated in America today, there is a defacto discrimination occurring in our schools as minority groups tend to be clustered in certain urban areas and come from a poor demographic background. As a result, they have no choice but to attend neighborhood schools that, in many cases, have over a 90% minority population (Institutional Advancement, 2011). Since we have already established that minorities disproportionately suffer from low academic achievement levels, the problem simply becomes exacerbated. The truths presented to this point lead us to the startling conclusion that, in terms of education, in truly does make a difference where you live. Suburban schools consistently outperform their urban counterparts in nearly area. Schools in suburban areas are often deemed to be safer and the environment more conducive to social and academic growth. Suburban schools tend to offer more academic programs and courses, have athletic programs that are far superior to those offered in urban areas, and include many fine arts programs that urban schools simply do not have the funding to support. Cycle of Poverty and its Relationship to Education in Urban Areas It has also become apparent that the cycle of poor education in urban areas is compounding the problem in the modern era. Suburban schools, for example, benefit from parents who tend to be more educated themselves, and they are more involved in the school system as a result. Urban schools, however, suffer from a lack of parental involvement that cannot always be blamed of the parents themselves. It is important to understand that many parents in urban areas have long since lost faith in their local schools. Arguing that the school system did little for them when they were younger, and the reality that little has changed, it is not surprising that these same adults fail to involved. In addition, urban schools themselves are less likely than suburban schools to work at implementing programs to encourage parental involvement. Where suburban school often actively encourage parental involvement, and teachers openly receive parental input, such innovative and progressive thinking is not readily apparent in most urban schools (Ferguson, 2003). Finally, urban parents tend to themselves be less educated than parents whose students attend suburban schools. As a consequence of this reality, even the most concerned and caring of urban parents are often ill-equipped to help their children with any level of academic work. As a result, children are often left to motivate themselves. Many of them develop the groupthink mentality that if education has not worked for their community, then it will not work them either. Once this group way of thinking begins to pervade an urban area, the value of education is actually cheapened, and it becomes even more difficult for a school to overcome this mindset. Carrying this sociological theory forward, it is likely concluded that it will take a generation of two of increased levels of education offered in urban areas for real change to actually be realized (Goretskaya, 2007). This is due to the reality that it will take an entire generational shift in thinking to begin to once again support urban schools, encourage teachers to spend their career in minority driven areas, and to enlist the help of parents throughout the community and surrounding regions. The Issue of Taxation A common argument used to explain why urban schools have such a poor education track record stems from simple finances. The contention is that suburban schools have a higher tax base throughout much of the country, in comparison to urban areas, and therefore receive a significantly increased amount of money from state and local budgets to fund educational programs. This is not supposed to occur, but the reality is that it most certainly does. Schools with the same enrollment in two different areas within the same district, for example, should receive the same amount of funding. In many cases, however, this simply does not happen. Schools in the ‘inner city’ end up receiving less capital money and funds for other needed expenses than suburban schools. In addition, because many urban schools are much older than their physical suburban counterparts, it requires substantially more financial and human capital to provide for the daily upkeep on such buildings. Without proper funding, the physical building in many urban areas simply cannot withstand the aging infrastructure. Many schools in urban cities, for example, have broken down air conditioners and poorly ventilated classrooms. Teaching pedagogy informs us the a student needs a comfortable classroom environment to truly learn to the best of his or her ability. This is hampered, however, when students are forced to endure miserably hot conditions and air flow that is less than suitable to a young person. The result is a situation where suburban students are able to thrive in comfortable, environmentally controlled conditions, while urban students have a bad situation that is further compounded by a less than optimal learning environment (Guskey, 2010). Prevailing educational theory in the Western world dictates that a child’s geographical location should not be a determinant in the quality of education that he or she received. In addition, while the amount of taxes collected for certain government services in certain areas might differ from one another, such as when considering monies collected for trash collection or the building of community centers, this should not be the case for education. Most scholars contend that the system is designed to collect taxes equally from one area to the next, but the reality is that the level of taxation in America greatly differs from one area to another. This can also be reflected in the quality of education offered in one region of the country compared to another. New England, for example, consistently has some of the highest performing schools in the country, while much of the south has long been mired in educational deficiencies (Dell’Angela, 2007). Much of this dates back to the pre-Civil rights era where education was not highly valued in the south, yet much emphasis was placed on it in the North. As a result, some of the urban in areas of the south are in even more dire shape their northern counterparts. That not withstanding, the disparity between suburban and urban schools can best be seen in the north as well. While some suburban schools throughout the region rival college campuses in terms of facilities, resources, and teachers, many of the urban schools are in such poor shape that they have been likened to institutions found in third world countries. The disparity is stark, has been evident for decades, yet the trends do not seem to be reversing. In fact, while academic achievement continues to rise in some schools outside the urban centers of America, they continue to decline in urban schools. Conclusion Moving forward, it is important to understand that the implementation of strategies designed to enhance learning and those designed to increase levels of academic achievement must be seen as complementary ideas. Urban areas need to better comprehend the critical role that the initial training of a teacher plays in their ability to be an effective educator, particular in schools that are historically labeled as under performing. The impact that a teacher can have a student cannot be underestimated. To improve the quality of education offered in urban areas, the effectiveness of the teacher must first be tackled. Teachers can motivate students to excel in ways that other members of the community simply cannot. Even students who come from broken homes, with little to no support outside of the school, can thrive in an educational environment if the institution will focus on their whole being. Students in urban areas often need more than just academic to succeed. To be successful, schools must focus on the social and emotional well being of the child as well. This, naturally, begins with a well qualified teacher in the classroom that is trained to work with particular demographic of student usually found in the urban school district. Current research does reflect that new pedagogical practices being put into place are having a positive effect at helping educators to better accommodate students from diverse cultural backgrounds. This, in turn, is leading to positive results in terms of helping urban school offer academic programs and teaching methodologies that work for their particular students, but there is much work to be done. Many educational institutions are working to test strategies designed to address the unique learning and teaching needs of underrepresented students, all in an effort to narrow the achievement gap represented between suburban and urban schools. References Burke, L. M., & Heritage, F. (2012). The Student Success Act: Reforming Federal Accountability Requirements under No Child Left Behind. WebMemo. No. 3461. Heritage Foundation. DellAngela, T. (2007). Scores stagnant at high schools: 2nd day of testing brushed off, some say :[Chicagoland Final Edition]. Chicago Tribune, p. 1.1. Retrieved from Chicago Tribune. (Document ID: 1231460931). Ferguson, R. (2003). Teachers Perceptions and expectations and the black-white score gap. Urban Education, Vol. 38, No.4, pp. 460-507. Goretskaya, Y. (2007). Influence of alternative methods of instruction on English learners achievements in northern California school districts. (Doctoral dissertation). Available from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses. (Publication No. AAT 3251379) Guskey, T. R. (2010). Lessons of mastery learning. Educational Leadership, 68(2), 52. Institutional Advancement. (2011). Higher education abstracts, 46(1), 26-27. doi:10.1111/j.2150-1092.2010.00017_27.x. Read More