Introduction: The changing social contours of urban education

Abstract

There is a widespread belief today that city schools are an unrelenting dilemma. Just the mention of urban education can conjure images of disorder, negligence, and low academic achievement. Problems of the city schools find their way into the news: drug abuse, gang violence, teenage pregnancy, and dismal test scores. Middle-class urbanites often send their children to private institutions or to magnet schools to keep them away from the problem-plagued public systems. Big city schools are seen as serving the students left with no alternatives.1.