According to Kozol (1991), America's inner cities and the education offered to children living there are in increasing jeopardy. These areas suffer from poverty, as well as segregated and unequal public education. Kozol states that inner city children receive not only a poorer education than their suburban counterparts but that they also have less hope and less concern about their education and the need for high quality learning.
Specifically, Kozol reports that there is a spiritual, racial, and economic isolation that plagues the inner cities, the hallmarks of which are the loss of factories and business in the areas, and the increase in gangs and gang violence. In terms of education, there is a reliance on low-paid teacher substitutes, disparity in funding between schools, and other negative factors (such as inequities in staffing and supplies) impacting the lives of inner city school-aged children.
The problems of the inner cities and public education have also been discussed by Peterson (1985). Like Kozol, Peterson describes inner cities as places where minority groups are increasing isolated, where there are declining economic opportunities for unskilled, blue collar workers, a growing urban underclass of unemployable, minority poor, patterns of ghettoization and suburbanization, and an ever rising rate of crime. These are the realities that confront teachers electing to teach in inner city schools.
In his delineation of the problems attendant to teaching in inner city schools, Hoyle (1981) noted that unless measures are taken to correct the poor education that these children are receiving from public schools and the violence and crime that takes place both in and outside of school, more and more teachers (of all races) are going to either opt to teach elsewhere or leave the profession entirely.
Hoyle (1981) feels that the problem can grow so bad that many large metropolitan school districts could face closure...