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DOCUMENT RESUME UD 029 657 ED 365 760 Hill, Paul T. AUTHOR Urban Education. Reprints. TITLE Rand Corp., Santa Monica, CA. Inst. for Education and INSTITUTION Training. RAND-RP-178 REPORT NO 93 PUB DATE Reprinted from "Urban American," Steinbert, NOTE 301 ; James B., Ed.; And Others. 1992. p.127-151. Viewpoints (Opinion/Position Papers, Essays, etc.) PUB TYPE Evaluative/Feasibility (142) Reports (120) MF01/PCO2 Plus Postage. EDRS PRICE *Disadvantaged Youth; Economically Disadvantaged; DESCRIPTORS Educational Change; *Educational Improvement; Educational Quality; Elementary Secondary Education; Governance; *Inner City; Minority Groups; *Problems; *Public Schools; *Urban Education; Urban Problems; Urban Youth ABSTRACT This document addresses the difficulties of urban education, particularly relating to inner cities that contain immigrant and minority students, and argues that schools contribute to the problems of today's urban youth and that schools must do a better job of educating students. It recognizes that schools are burdened by the urban environment but contends that the public cannot wait to change schools until other problems are solved. It grants that someone must address problems, such as poor student health and family instability, but argues that educators have enough to worry about in their own backyards. Better schools will not solve all the problems of American cities, but they are definitely part of the (1) bad public schools solution. Further, the ducument argues that: are making their own distinct contributions to the problems of (2) there is a substantial consensus among educators and cities, parents about how schools can be made to work for disadvantaged and (3) betty' inner-city schools minority students in the big cities, are unlikely given today's methods of financili, and governance, and (4) better schools are possible in the inner city but only if efforts are made to make a major change in what is meant by a public school. (Contains 19 references.) (GLR) *********************************************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the Iwst that can be made 'C from the original document. *********************************************************************** Urban Education Paul T, Hill U S DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Office of Educator., Research and Imolovernent EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) ejechiS document has be en reproduced as FeCeived from ihe person or aganittion nnoinatmg it O Minor Changes nave been made lo improve reproduction quality Points 01 vie* Or Opinions Slated in this docu ment do not necessarily represent Official OE FE POSilico or policy "PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS MATERIAL HAS SEEN GRANTED BY ((Kr .404AD TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERICI lifiERINTs Institute on Education and Training 2 improve public institution that seeks to a nonprofit RAND is The RAND Reprint Series and analysis. policy through research in published originally of RAND research offprints contains with permission of is reproduced here journals or books. The text necessarily .effect the Publications of RAND do not the publisher. research. the sponsors of RAND opinion or policies of Published 1993 by RAND Monica, CA 90407-2138 Box 2138, Santa 1700 Main Street, P.O. I) 1.1v.S.7 ' 555 .,:' SSS '; Z,0 %%V , ".t " " \S555 S'. 55 , ssea:iL i - 1'k 1` SSS .SS S. REPRRITS_ . - / v r Urban Education Paul T. Hill The decline of big American cities can be measured by the collapse of their public schools. Before the immigration wave of the late 1930s, the public school systems of the most important U.S. metropolises, including New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Boston, and I louston, had suffered enrollment declines averaging 30 percent, and their student populations had become increasingly poor and welfare dependent. Working and middle class students of all racial and ethnic groups have deserted the big city public schools for suburban and private schools. Until the 1950s, many big city school systems were among the best in the country. The New York, Chicago, and Boston public school systems, among others, were America's greatest sources of successful and outstanding business leaders, public officials, and scholars. Small town and rural schools were generally considered inferior in teach.m- quality, classrooms and other instructional resources, and community support. Since that time, however, urban schools have declined dramatically; half the students in big city school systems drop out before high school graduation, four times the national average rate. The majority of students in big city public schools drop behind the national average in reading after the fourth grade and never catch up. Only one-third of the graduates of some big city public high schools can score well enough on the military qualifying tests to enlist in the armed forces. Since the days of their early success, the big city schools have changed in many ways. Schools built nyr the end of the 19th century arc still in use, and many are suffering from decado of neglect. Spending in city schools, once the highest in the ce(tnt-ry, is now lower than the statewide average in many states. 11,21 SChool beards, once staid collections of educated citizens, are now arenas for con- flict among the politicrIly ambitious. Most schools are burdened by layer after layer of regulations emanating from board politics, federal Reprinted from Urban America, James B. Steinberg, David W. Lyon, and Mary E. Vaiana (eds.), RAND, MR-100-RC, 1992, pp. 127-151. 127 Urban America 128 and state funding programs, and court orders. Teachers are union- ized, and their contracts, after decades of bargaining in which school boards made concessions on work rules rather than grant wage demands, constrain any attempt to adapt school programs to new needs. The combined effect of all these trends is to make big city public school systems weak and inflexibleexactly the wrong characteris- tics for organizations that must master an exceptionally turbulent situation. City student populations are changing faster than at any time since the turn of the century, and city school budgets are declin- ing even as their student populations increase. Since the 1960s, the student populations of most big cities have changed from majority white to majority Hispanic or black. After a period of enrollment decline caused by "white flight," many city school populations have grown dramatically due to immigration. Since the late-1980s, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Miami have collectively enrolled nearly 100,000 new students each year who are either foreign born or children of migrants. City school budgets are falling as dramatically as their populations are rising. New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles have had to make crippling midyear cuts in their school budgets in each of the last three years. No one knows how much Los Angeles must cut during the 1992-1993 school year, which is about to begin, but a good estimate is $240 million from a general fund budget of $2.9 billion plus smaller cuts in state categorical programs and capital funds. [3] Chicago must cut over $200 million from a budget of $2.3 billion; according to best estimates, Chicago must continue cutting and will still face a deficit of over $500 million in the 1997- 1998 school year. (41 It is hard to imagine how any organization could provide consistently good services in such a turbulent environment. Schools must have consistent and predictable funding, and the cuts of the last five years must be restored. But funding is not enough. If funding is used only to restore existing programs, schools will still not be effective for immigrants, for whom existing programs and materials are not ap- propriate, or for native-born minority students, whom the schools were failing long before the present fiscal crisis began. [3] Big city schools are also embedded in communities that lack sound economic bases and are burdened by crime, unemployment, to .page Urban Education 129 parenthood, child abandonment, drug use, and disease. These problems, too, must be solved if children born in the inner city are to have the educational and career opportunities available to other Americans. The growth and persistence of these problems demon- strate a lack of public and private capacity to give inner-city children a fair shot at life. In several RAND studies conducted in the past few years, we have interviewed many educators who claim that the schools are helpless in the face of these problems. Nothing can be done, they claim, until the schools get more money and children get better prenatal and health care, better home environments, and more conventional adult role models. Other educators draw a quite different conclusion: that the schools must become comprehensive social service agencies, de- livering health, family planning, counseling, and income support services. These respondents may disagree about whether schools should wait for other services or aggressively seek to provide them, but they agree that the real problems are not in the schools but elsewhere and that schools would work if only children were properly cared for by their parents and the broader community. This chapter makes the contrary argument: that public schools contribute to the problems of today's urban youth and that schools must do a better job of educating students. It admits that schools are burdened by the urban environment but contends that we cannot wait It grants that to change schools until other problems arc solved. someone must address problems, such as poor student health and family instability, but argues that educators have enough to worry about in their own backyards. Better schools will not solve all the problems of American cities, but they are definitely part of the solution. The remainder of this chapter argues four points: Bad public schools are making their own distinct contributions to the problems of cities. There is a substantial consensus among educators and parents about how schools can be made to work for disadvantaged and minority students in the big cities. Better inner-city schools are unlikely given today's methods of financing and governance. Urban America 130 Better schools are possible in the inner city but only if we make a major change in what is meant by a public school. SCHOOLS MAKE THEIR OWN CONTRIBUTION TO URBAN ILLS The Rodney King verdict was the spark that ignited the tinder of poor urban neighborhoods in Los Angeles. These arrested in the ensuing violence were largely young adult males, unemployed and embit- tered. These conditions are established during the years of children's supposed compulsory attendance in school. Starting in the seventh grade, low-income urban students develop poor school attendance habits; most rapidly fall behind in their classes and eventually fail many. Those students who do attend school regularly learn to standards far lower than those expected by employers and postsecondary training institutions. RAND studies of inner-city schools in Los Angeles and elsewhere have repeatedly encountered high school juniors and seniors who have never read local newspapers, have no knowledge about the local economic base or the names of major local employers, and do not know the location or significance of local landmarks. 13,5) These children have grown up isolated from the broader community in ghettos that provide few avenues of access to mainstream economic, cultural, and political life. Like the poor minority children whom Coles studied in Northern Ireland and South Africa, the children of our inner cities see government and its political processes as closed and indifferent, likely to do things to them, not for them. 161 They may serve as spectators through radio, television, and movies, but they do not prepare themselves and do not expect to take part in life in environments unlike their own. Aside from the media, such children's contact with the broader society is mainly through the police, whom they regard as a hostile and punitive force, not a source of help or protection. Even those who enter the legitimate economy through jobs in fast-food establishments or small retail stores usually stay in their own neighborhoods and deal mainly with people of similar background. The school programs that most inner-city minority students en- counter do little to remedy their isolation from the broader commu- Urban Education 131 nity. As several RANI) studies by Oakes have shown, public high schools, especially in urban areas, "track" students on the basis of the motivation and performance levels they display on entering the ninth grade. 17,81 Students with poor attendance records or deficient in mastery of basic skills (as is the case with a majority of students and most urban high schools) are typically assigned to remedial drill practice on reading and arithmetic. Remedial instruction is boring; poorly motivated students seldom learn much from it or persist in it long. Even those students who stick with full-time remedhl instruction seldom progress quickly enough to join the regular high school curriculum. Only a few ever take the normal "gatekeeper" courses that prepare students for college and good jobs (e.g., algebra, geome- try, English literature, world history, or laboratory science). Even when remedial instruction does teach students how to read, write, and figure, it does not teach them how those skills ..:e used in adult life. Remedial classes teach skills subjects in isolation from one another and leave it up to the student to sec and exploit the connec- tions. Students in such classes do not take part in writing and research projects that give others at least some experience of using skills in combination. 18,9,10,111 Schools in general may do too little they know, but to help students learn how to integrate and use what remedial instruction does nothing to that end. Urban public schools are also poor places to learn about how adults work in the real world. The only adults whom students observe working on a daily basis are teachers. Yet public schools are a poor model because they are not organized to be productive. They ex- emplify the kinds of businesses more typical of the United States in failed in the the 1960s and 1970s that were either restructured or (teachers) 1980s and 1990s. Work is routinized and most workers understand only their own duties, not the whole productive process. for A few individuals work desperately hard and take responsibility and nui- the results, but they are as likely to be regarded as zealots accountable for sances as to be imitated and rewarded. Workers are following rules, not for contributing to overall success. Top man- their expertise agement acts without consulting with workers to use or gain their support.151 Few teachers are concerned with their school's general appearance in controlling their own or climate; even those who arc effective CI 132 Urban America classrooms seldom act in response to disruptions outside their classrooms or obvious student truancy or class cutting. A norm of mutual noninterference also discourages teachers from identifying col- leagues who are poorly prepared or who consistently turn out below- par students. 1121 Many teachers think they have no warrant for action beyond their instructional duties and fear (sometimes correctly) that students or other teachers might resent interference. Many ur,pan teachers also exercise "leniency" in dealing with students, lowering standards for behavior and academic attainment. Lenient treatment of students is often well intentioned, motivated by teachers' reluctance to burden students who already have difficult lives. It is often reinforced by administrators' reluctance to back teachers who become controver- sial because of their demands on students. But the result is an im- poverished education, producing students who are not even aware that their behavior and knowledge are insufficient for a successful life in the broader community. Many teachers and principals think of themselves as administrators of a public agency. They feel responsible to deliver a prescribed curriculum and to respect students' rights as defined by law. As one principal told a RAND researcher, "My job is to make sure this school runs according to the policies and regulations of the school system." Albert Shanker of the American Federation of Teachers quotes a teacher's statement that encapsulates the problem: "I taught them but they did not learn it." The implication that the teacher is responsible to deliver material, but not to make sure that students master it, demonstrates teachers' bounded responsibility. Student respondents in a recent RANI) survey demonstrated this attitude in another way. Several said, "I hate it when the teachers say, 'I get paid whether you learn this or not." Teachers may come to these atti- tudes through years of frustration, but students (and their parents as well as researchers and other outsiders) often see teachers as dutiful only within the letter of their job descriptions. The nature of teachers' work has important consequences fo: what students learn about adult life. Students who see teachers executing narrow routines and avoiding collaboration or responsibility for the 10