The readings for this past week were very interesting.  This is my first opportunity to really read about urban schooling systems and the lives of some of their students.  The first two chapters of Urban School Public Will were really powerful.  The part of chapter one that interested me the most was how Camden, NJ used to be primarily a white town, but just before the “Negro invasion” began the white families moved to the suburbs surrounding the city.  A few years ago Maxim magazine had an article that depicted Camden as “murder capital USA” for it’s extremely high crime and murder rate.  It’s hard to picture a city like that being primarily white only 50 years ago.  The two main stories in chapter two were also an eye opener.  Reading how Gilyard had to have two images of himself to fit into both his neighborhood group of friends and his school friends (a white institution), and how he fought back from extreme drug use to achieve his goals really shows how difficult the life of an urban child can be.  I also found it interesting reading about Robby and how he never wanted to pursue a proper education until he was behind bars. 

The second reading helped to bring some of the realities of rural versus suburban versus urban education systems.  In the area I grew up many of the parents would rather send their children to private schools believing that their child will receive more personal attention and receive a better education.  Learning that the teacher to student ratio is practically the same throughout each of the systems was something that I never would have thought.  The section that discussed the crime rates was also a statistic I never would have believed if I had heard it.  The fact that these stats are not based on percentages but factual numbers is amazing.  Suburban areas experienced nearly double the amount of reported crimes of urban centers, and three times the amount of rural areas.  The discussion we had in class about the different reactions we see from the public to the same type of crime committed in a suburban setting as opposed to a urban setting only makes this section intriguing.  The “good old boys” of the suburbs are in reality more violent than the “animals” that live in the ghetto.

 

 

Some of the influences that help shape urban schools are as follows:

-         Larger populations and numbers in the schools

-         Racism and difference in families economic status

-         More diverse/difference in cultures

o       Bilingual education is one of the areas the government funds more in urban schools than rural and suburban schools

-      Difference in environmental setting