Challenges and Solutions in Urban Education Student Achievement

Learning tools
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Morgan Barth, former principal of Amistad High School, had one of the state’s most successful track records. As principal, Morgan Barth led the urban high school to its number one ranking in the state and a top-20 ranking in the country a few years ago, according to US News and World Report. This success story is a bright spot in a landscape typically characterized by a number of challenges.

Urban schools face many challenges that hinder learning and student achievement. Students who attend urban schools typically have lower test scores and lower graduation rates than their suburban peers. This makes closing the achievement gap one of the nation’s most pressing social justice and civil rights issues. In order to close the achievement gap, it is important to understand some of the root causes.

School Choice: Affluent and middle class parents are able to exercise school choice. They can afford to make the choice to move to communities with strong schools or to pay for private schools. Poorer parents do not have these choices. Many districts force students to attend their zoned school, regardless of that school’s performance. This traps hundreds of thousands of low-income families in failing schools. A solution is to ensure that all districts allow families to choose the best school for their child by allowing school funding to follow the student to out-of-district schools, charters, magnets or private schools.

Housing Segregation: Communities with concentrations of low-income housing tend to have low-performing schools. As noted above, it is important that all families (regardless of income) have access to great schools. One solution to this problem is to allow school funding to follow the child to any school his or her family chooses. Another is for cities to use housing vouchers (rather than public housing) to reduce housing segregation.

Teacher Preparation and Retention: Schools that serve lower income communities tend to have newer teachers who have less training and support, and who turn over more quickly. Districts should incentivize the best and most experienced teachers to teach in low income schools. Districts should also turn to proven teacher training programs such as Teach for America, Relay Graduate School of Education or TNTP to help ensure that teachers receive better training and support.

Early Childhood Education: Another factor at play, relates to student preparation upon entering high school. In urban settings during a child’s primary grades, the emphasis might not necessarily be on education. In many cases, parents who have to work many hours, parents headed by a single parent, or low-income households create an environment not conducive to the kind of consistent exposure to learning found in other communities -- the kind of learning that promotes literacy in students upon reaching high school. A solution is ensuring that all students have excellent and low-cost (or no-cost) options for daycare and pre-school.

Tips for Students to Maximize Academic Success

Student raising his hand Photo by Felicia Buitenwerf on Unsplash

Former principal and regional superintendent of private and charter schools, Morgan Barth has always taken academic success seriously and maintained a strong focus on academic preparation. Morgan Barth is an expert in instructional design and has led schools to strong records of academic success.

Academic success is guided by teachers and instructors, but it is always up to students to take that guidance and apply it. Some of the simplest tools and methods are the most effective at ensuring achievement.

For instance, students should focus on planning their time realistically, as this helps allocate free time without sacrificing responsibilities, and it’s also a good exercise to start learning for later use in life. A good idea is to keep a planner to schedule activities rather than trusting dates and times to memory.

Another aspect is studying, where many students rely on rote repetition and memory techniques. Memorizing certain information is important, but it requires a lot of concentration and focus. Otherwise, retention will suffer and the effort will go to waste. Using flashcards, diagrams, and other tools can make the process more efficient.

A pillar of academic success, for better or worse, is test-taking. Learning how to take tests successfully should be another priority for students. Paying attention to directions, answering the easy parts first, and being attentive to qualifiers are all important test-taking skills.