Educating the urban child: special challenges--promising programs.

In discussing the topic "important issues in urban education," some might address the following: poor academic achievement, behavior problems, low teacher satisfaction, struggles with school budgets, parent involvement, and lack of motivation of both children and families. Still others might emphasize problems of low expectations, run-down facilities (Kozol, 1992, 2000), and the unique needs of children and families living in poverty (Payne, 2001). While attempts are being made to meet many of these challenges, the realities of poverty and the lack of resources still prevent the majority of urban children from reaching their full potential.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics (1996), urban students are more than twice as likely to live in poverty as students in the suburbs and are more likely to receive free or reduced-price lunch. Urban children are also more likely to be at risk of health problems and physical danger and to engage in more risk-taking behavior. In addition, students in urban schools tend to perform below the national reading and math averages and are more at risk of school failure (Education Commission of the States, 2003).

Considering that urban schools in the United States "educate approximately 40% of all non-white, and 30% of students from low-income families" (Education Commission of the States, 2003, p. iii), educators must continue to find ways to not only provide a high-quality education but also address the unique needs of these students and their families. Legislation, such as the No Child Left Behind Act, has been passed to help close the achievement gap and hold schools accountable for students' progress. Over the past years, many positive and negative effects of this legislation have been heard; regardless of where one stands regarding this particular piece of legislation, however, educators must continue to remain focused on one goal: finding ways to educate each and every child.

The Association for Childhood Education International is a unique organization that unites caring educators from all over the world around critical issues relating to children from birth through early adolescence. For this reason, this 2006 Annual Theme Issue was envisioned as a forum for exploring exemplary urban education programs as well as for generating discussions around important issues as they relate to the education of inner-city children.

My Personal Connections With the Theme

After receiving my Ph.D. degree in early childhood education in 2001, I started to work as a Teacher/Research Coordinator at the King Center Charter School in Buffalo, New York. The school is located in one of the most economically depressed areas in Buffalo. Ninety-eight percent of its children qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. The charter school had been established just a year before I joined its instructional team, and we soon experienced the pressure of accountability and various legislations, as well as the challenges of poverty and numerous inner-city crises.

The King Center Charter School is highly committed to addressing children's social/ emotional needs in addition to providing high-quality academic instruction for K-Grade 4 children. After two years of developmentally appropriate instruction and multi-sensory approaches, our first class of 4th-graders faced the high-stakes New York State tests. Upon receiving the exam results, every one of us just stared at the low test scores and the low ranking of our school. Although we knew we were doing the right things in terms of educating our children and providing them with appropriate social/emotional support, our children nevertheless were failing the standardized tests.

Since teaching to the test and mindless rote learning would never be allowed in our school, we spent the following summer dedicated to rewriting school-wide curriculum, with a focus on aligning all activities with state standards and creating standards-based learning centers while ensuring that all experiences were provided in a developmentally appropriate manner. Teachers also designed creative test-taking strategies for the children, and we celebrated every success--small and big. The school also added the Parent-Child-Home-Program, welcoming 30 families a year with children between the ages of 16 months and 4 years of age. In this program, home visitors work with the families each week on literacy-supportive activities to better prepare children for entering kindergarten.

The school also maintained close relationships with area colleges and universities. Through such relationships, we were able to recruit college students who volunteered as academic tutors whenever it was possible. During the fourth year of operation, the school also received the Reading First grant, which enabled teachers to participate in research-based instruction and professional development. This opportunity also provided a wonderful collection of research-based materials to help children in need of academic interventions.

At the end of the fourth year, these changes resulted in a major growth in students' achievement, moving the school from the bottom rank of the schools to the top. The school that once was criticized for spending too much energy and effort on children's social/emotional development, and not focusing enough on academic learning suddenly became a model for collaboration and improvement (Massey, Szente, & Stewart, 2005).

During one of the staff meetings in 2004, when we were celebrating our successes and planning for future social/emotional and academic interventions, it occurred to me that we should invite other educators and researchers to share their challenges regarding urban education, and also enable them to share their promising practices. And the idea for this theme volume of Childhood Education was born.

Overview of the Articles

The call for this urban education theme resulted in a number of high-quality manuscripts. Due to space limitations, however, we were able to share only a few herein. Additional theme-related articles will be included in subsequent issues of Childhood Education. The following section contains an overview of the seven articles selected for publication within this theme issue.

Getting Ourselves Together is a historical reflection of issues related to urban education and teaching. Monroe Cohen references his lifelong work as an educator and reflects on how certain educational issues have changed or remained the same over the past 40-50 years. Cohen also shares major parallels between his work as a USAID consultant overseas and his teaching in U.S. inner-city schools.

Preferential Option for the Poor: Making a Pedagogical Choice provides readers with a definition of poverty and identifies effects of poverty on individuals. In this article, James Kirylo also describes a theological perspective of poverty and identifies certain curricular and pedagogical ways educators may make preferential options for the poor.

Finding Their Place in the Community: Urban Education Outside the Classroom places the NCLB legislation into perspective and invites readers to consider place-based learning in relation to constructivism as well as democracy. Linda Tolbert and Paul Theobald provide examples of how place-based lessons are beneficial for student learning and achievement in all subject areas.

Who Said These Kids Don't Want To Learn? chronicles the experiences of educators as they created a partnership between an inner-city elementary school and a teacher-education college in New York State. Rosemary Murray and Rebecca Harlin provide a theoretical framework for the collaboration and highlight certain aspects of the partnership that positively influenced all who were involved in it--children, undergraduate students, and teacher educators.

Ain't Nothin' Like the Real Thing: Preparing Preservice Teachers in an Urban Environment chronicles the experiences of preservice teachers within the Indianapolis Public Schools. Nancy Armstrong Melser describes the urban semester program for junior level college students designed not only to influence views of future teachers in urban settings, but also to prepare preservice teachers for teaching positions in inner-city schools. The article summarizes the four major lessons that were learned during the program.

Promising Practices in Preservice Teacher Preparation: The Ball State University Urban Semester describes a case-study of preservice teachers as they participated in a four-month urban semester program. Eva Zygmunt-Fillwalk and Ann Leitze utilized both quantitative and qualitative measures to study undergraduate students' development within the project. Both methods indicated a significant change within the participants' personal development and understanding during the program.

Children's Support Services: Providing a System of Care for Urban Preschoolers With Significant Behavioral Challenges highlights an interagency approach to serving urban preschoolers who need comprehensive services to address their social/emotional and behavioral needs. Karen Tewhey describes the essential components of the intervention program in Massachusetts that has resulted in positive outcomes for low-income children.

Conclusion

The 2006 Annual Theme Issue of Childhood Education is intended to provide readers with some historical and theological perspectives on urban education and poverty, and initiate discussions around important education issues and programs that were created to improve children's, parents', and teachers' lives. It is our hope that such discussions will positively influence political decisions that are related to early education and education reform throughout the United States--and abroad.

References

Education Commission of the States. (2003). Improving academic achievement in urban districts: What state policymakers can do. Retrieved January 23, 2004, from www.ecs.org/html/educationIssues/Urban/urban-pdf/urbanbook.pdf

Kozol, J. (1992). Savage inequalities: Children in America's schools. New York: HarperPerennial.

Kozol, J. (2000). Ordinary resurrections: Children in the years of hope. New York: Crown Publishers.

Massey, C., Szente, J., & Stewart, C. (2005). Creating a charter school to meet students', teachers', and parents' needs. Childhood Education, 82, 37-42.

National Center for Education Statistics. (1996). Urban schools: The challenge of location and poverty. Retrieved January 23, 2004, from http://nces.ed.gov/pubs/96184all.pdf

Payne, R. K. (2001). Framework for understanding poverty (Rev. ed.). Highlands, TX: aha! Process, Inc.

Web Sites

King Center Charter School, Buffalo, NY: www.kingcentercharterschool.org King Urban Life Center, Buffalo, NY: www.kingurbanlifecenter.org

Judith Szente, Guest Editor

Judit Szente is Assistant Professor, Early Childhood Education, University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida.