Notes - Handbook of Urban Education - Introduction

Handbook of Urban Education

Is UE a discipline or a subfield? Education developed and practice in urban schools.

Education is not the only area that has failed to define and conceptualize “urban”. Identity challenges in the conceptualization or urban are prevalent in other domains like sociology, anthropology, public policy, economics,… (Frey & Zimmer, 2001)

Following aspects in the definition and conceptualizing urban education:

1)      The size of the city in which schools are located: dense, large, metropolitan areas,

2)      The students in the schools: a range of student diversity, including racial, ethnic, religious, language, and socioeconomic;

3)      And the resources: the amount and number of resources available in a school, such as technology and financial structures through federal programs as well as property taxes.

Due to structural and systemic inequities (Anyon, 2005), the 6.9 million students (Council of the Great City Schools, 2013) in urban environments are the most underserved in the United States. We see structural and systemic inequities, as well as other challenges in urban education associated with the underperformance of students as those practitioners and policy makers, must address and solve but also as ones that researchers and theorists should be on the front lines of interrogating to inform practice.

• Challenges in urban schools (Milner, 2013)

Factors both inside of the school:

·       Inadequate teaching practices,

·       Inadequate funding,

·       Poor administrative decisions,

·       Underveloped counseling and psychological services

·       Curricular opportunities that are unchallenging for and unresponsive to students

 Outside-of-school factors that seem to play a role in students´ experiences inside of school:

·       Family income

·       Parental educational level

·       Family structure

·       Student home living conditions

Some characteristics of students in urban education schools:

·       First language is not English

·       Poverty (pervasive social problems that can have a lasting influence on students in urban communities and schools.

·       Children of color disproportionately receive and experience the most disturbing educational experiences

Low-income families by race adapted from Munin (2012), Simms, Fortuny, and Henderson (2009)

Race                                   % of low-income families                           % of US population

White                                42%                                                                65.6%

Black                                  22%                                                                12.2%

Hispanic                            30%                                                                15.4%

Total % for B and H         52%                                                                27.6%

Rather than perceiving students and their families as inferior or deficient because of their poverty, the point is to identify, study, and address structural forms of inequity that do not serve students well in education and beyond.

The decisions conceived as:

·       A sporadic, disconnected, multidimensional knowledge base in urban education;

·       An absence of a coherent assessment of needs, challenges, problems, and solutions in urban education;

·       The nonexistence of a consistent definition or conceptualization of the concept, urban education;

·       An underdevelopment of research and theoretical tools to analyze and improve urban education; and

·       A significant disconnect between research and practice in urban education.

Crisis

At least two levels of crisis are prevalent in urban education:

1)      Micro-level practices and programs that inadequately address the needs of students in urban schools, affecting factors like:

a.        teaching (including teacher professional development, attitudes, qualifications, and more (Delpit, 2012).

b.       The leadership of principals (Wallace Foundation, 2013)

c.       Student characteristics and needs, including factors like family background and student motivation.

2)      Failure of research, theory, and policy to make significant strides in impacting urban schools.

a.       Areas:

                                                               i.      School choice,

                                                             ii.      Common core standards,

                                                           iii.      Alternative routes into teaching,

                                                           iv.      Scripted curriculum mandates

                                                             v.      Pay for performance

List of areas that need further exploration to advance urban education:

• -          Psychology, Health, and Human Development:

o   What psychological factors shape the experiences and practices of students and teachers in urban environments?

o   In what ways might human development intersect with student learning, motivation and interactions in urban schools?

• -          Sociological Perspectives:

o   How do societal factors contribute to -or detract from- efforts to educate students in urban schools?

o   How do social forces support and/or hinder student resilience inside and outside of school?

• -          Families and Communities

o   What is the role of families and communities in enabling English-language learners to be successful in urban schools?

• -          Teacher Education and Special Education
• -          Leadership, Administration and Leaders
• -          Curriculum and Instruction
• -          Policy and Reform

• Absence of Critical Assessment

Little effort has been made in exploring the successes that have been achieved in some urban schools to determine the applicability and transferability of those strategies in other urban contexts. Critical assessment opens the door for additional exploratory as well as theory-testing studies looking at the applicability of these best practices and much more. Research and theory related to urban education in the areas outlined above have provided important insights. However, the overall body of work is disparate at best; this volume provides a critical assessment of what is available.

• Conceptualizing “GAPS”

Several gaps exist in urban educations to be addressed:

-          Definitional Gap: lack of a comprehensive, uniform definition of urban education.

-          Historical Gap: Researchers rarely provide a historical context in urban education scholarship and practice. There is not a concrete historical storyline of scholarly work and practice in urban education.

-          Methodological Gap: Replicating studies can assist us in generalizing and transferring findings through consistent, rigorous methods.

Questions

What are your thoughts regarding the 2 components of the urban ed identity crisis discussed on p xvi?

I coincide with Marwa in the way the author divided into different categories the challenges in urban education schools: inside and outside the school, and the relation between each other, even I started to create a list of them but because of a technological problem I lost the file. It is funny the “repetition” of some factors of the crisis like how dealing with poverty, diversity, and the professional development of teachers, educators and school staff in this communities. And of course the lack of literature in this field, or at least the inconsistency in research in urban education as well as the educational policies to create programs for the schools in this setting and their components: diversity in population (race), equity in socio-economic and cultural opportunities, resources and materials, developing a better participation of all the members of the urban school community, for instance.

Would you add any research ?´s or theme to those listed on pp xvii and xviii?

According to my experience in some schools in Houston ISD, I would add the research of language development in low-income Latino children during their early stages of education, as well as dual language learning methods and strategies that can be extended to home as well in a way to facilitate instruction from home too and making them more active during their learning process.

Another important topic to be listed is pedagogy, personalized learning and educational strategies to deal with diversity in classroom, since the fact that one curriculum for everyone is not working anymore. Innovation in teaching could include technology too, since according to research most of the low socioeconomic status families have smartphones and other devices like computers or tablets.

Other important topics could be professional development for teachers about dealing with diversity in classroom, providing schools and administrators with new strategies to encourage family involvement and participation.

What do you think about the gaps listed? (We have talked about some of this)?

I think that every urban school has its own characteristics, although it shares some shared characteristics like poverty and diverse population (Hispanics, Africa-American,… students), but some of them have learned how to deal with them in a positive and successful way, or even the districts provide some schools with some resources and materials, included Human ones, like specialists and teachers who were well trained or formed in a domain like “Las Americas” school in HISD. This school hosts refugees and other “newcomers” from different countries that are well assisted by teachers and educators, and even their families are welcome to participate and collaborate in the school community.

Maybe I would like to have a list by the lawmakers for every urban school and, like rubrics or standards, to fill them according to what they need, in this way they would be able to invest money wisely and addressing to their current and future needs.

Chapter 2

The title of ch2 2 suggests that urban ed should be for human freedom. Thoughts?

I agree with Roseline when she states about the complex term of “freedom”. Education provides us with tools to make us successful in life, but what happens with other fields like the beliefs and ideas of society, the cultural shocks and impositions, and who can escape from the influence of mass and social media?

Along the Human story we saw many episodes like this, the “other”, and the way education and other fields tried and, currently, try to give them/us (I included myself here since I´m part of “the others” in the American society since I´m an immigrant) opportunities and help us overcome the challenges we have to face.

What are your ideas/comments about deficit approaches discussed in ch 2 as the primary approach in urban ed today?

This is related to what we read in one of the chapters of the 19 questions of urban education and the need of a curriculum based or centered on the students and their characteristics. I remember that one of them wanted to focus on their strengths instead of their weakness, their resilience. Standardized tests don´t help students to learn and even less if they are not proficient in English. And as an extension to this point: are the policy makers aware of this need? Are they offering tools and resources to help urban schools to deal with diversity? Are they offering administrators and teachers professional development and formation?

Perhaps, as our society is in continuous change and motion, it is difficult to have a consistency in finding solutions or answers to all and new challenges that urban schools are facing every day.