Problems in Inner-City Schools

America's inner-city schools are facing a variety of academic performance/achievement problems. Glazier (1993) states that the problems are so pervasive that inner city schools can be said to be plagued with difficulties; these include huge central bureaucracies; dumbed-down, irrelevant curricula; scant resources to provide well-compensated teachers, supplies, smaller classes, and social workers; and de facto segregation.

The scope and tenacity of these problems can best be seen in Kozol's (1992) remarks after evaluating 30 inner-city schools in New York City, Chicago, San Antonio, Ohio, and New Jersey. Specifically, the acclaimed author of "Death at an Early Age" concluded that public schools remained more separate and unequal than they were 27 years ago.

The result of these problems is massive academic failure. McPhail (1992), for example, states that reading failure in these schools is a critical contemporary sociopolitical problem. Instead of educating students, today's inner city schools are little more than holding pens for least prepared of all public school students, the result of which is that most become dropouts.

Improving School Climate As a Means of Remediating Academic Performance Problems of Inner-City Schools

A variety of school efforts, activities, strategies, and reforms have been proposed to help inner city students overcome their academic/achievement problems. One of these is to improve the school c

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cally observed that measures of achievement and academic performance (standardized testing data nd school grades) increased in association with increases in the positiveness of school climate. The primary obstacles that the girls faced were said to be bigotry and negative peer interactions. Supports provided by the school were more personalized structures, caring and dedicated staff, flexible student placement policy, student support groups, and mentors. In some studies, school climate can operate to effect some academic achievement measures but not others. For example, Cordero (1996) examined whether teacher perceptions of the importance and existence of 11 school effectiveness characteristics played a significant role in the academic achievement of limited English proficient students. The examined characteristics were (a) positive school climate, (b) the school's planning process, (c) academic goals/high expectations, (d) clearly defined curricula, (e) monitoring of student progress, (f) teacher staff effectiveness, (g) administrative leadership, (h) student responsibility and participation, and (i) rewards and incentives. These characteristics were selected based on existing research which had indicated they were pos
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Approximate Word count = 8090
Approximate Pages = 32 (250 words per page)

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