Challenges Facing Suburban Schools

This coedited book describes the impact that an increasingly diverse student population has on 21st century suburban schools. It also presents what can and should be done to help K-12 school district administrators and teachers address this growing phenomenon across the nation. This eight-chapter book: provides a demographic, political, economic, and sociological overview of the changing nature of suburban schools describes the nature of student diversity in the changing suburbs and issues with student achievement identifies administrative responsibilities and program structures for working with a changing student population proposes ways to reduce the achievement gap, most notably in literacy looks at how to use “whole child” assessment protocols to provide support for such students delves into parent inequities within changing suburban districts and offers ideas for closing the parent gap. This book is written for school district administrators, teachers, legislators, policy makers, teacher educators, and educational researchers for developing programs and pathways for a segment of the student and parent population that now is living in suburban areas without traditional roots as advantaged suburbanites.

Illuminates the condition of education in urban schools compared to schools in other locations. Also explores differences between students from urban schools and students in other locations on a broad spectrum of student and school characteristics. Contents: education outcomes (student achievement, educational attainment, economic outcomes); student background characteristics and afterschool activities; school experiences (school resources and staff, school programs and coursetaking, student behavior). Bibliography. Over 100 charts and tables.

Abandoned in the woods, a clever cat establishes himself as the feared ruler of all the other forest animals.

The school-aged population of the United States has become more racially and ethnically diverse in recent decades, but its public schools have become significantly less integrated. In California, nearly half of the state's Latino youth attend intensely-segregated minority schools. Apart from shifts in law and educational policy at the federal level, this gradual resegregation is propelled in part by grassroots efforts led predominantly by white, middle-class residential communities that campaign to reorganize districts and establish ethnically separate neighborhood schools. Despite protests that such campaigns are not racially, culturally, or socioeconomically motivated, the outcomes of these efforts are often the increased isolation of Latino students in high-poverty schools with fewer resources, less experienced teachers, and fewer social networks that cross lines of racial, class, and ethnic difference. Confronting Suburban School Resegregation in California investigates the struggles in a central California school district, where a predominantly white residential community recently undertook a decade-long campaign to "secede" from an increasingly Latino-attended school district. Drawing on years of ethnographic research, Clayton A. Hurd explores the core issues at stake in resegregation campaigns as well as the resistance against them mobilized by the working-class Latino community. From the emotionally charged narratives of local students, parents, teachers, school administrators, and community activists emerges a compelling portrait of competing visions for equitable and quality education, shared control, and social and racial justice.

Creating the Suburban School Advantage explains how American suburban school districts gained a competitive edge over their urban counterparts. John L. Rury provides a national overview of the process, focusing on the period between 1950 and 1980, and presents a detailed study of metropolitan Kansas City, a region representative of trends elsewhere. While big-city districts once were widely seen as superior and attracted families seeking the best educational opportunities for their children, suburban school systems grew rapidly in the post–World War II era as middle-class and more affluent families moved to those communities. As Rury relates, at the same time, economically dislocated African Americans migrated from the South to center-city neighborhoods, testing the capacity of urban institutions. As demographic trends drove this urban-suburban divide, a suburban ethos of localism contributed to the socioeconomic exclusion that became a hallmark of outlying school systems. School districts located wholly or partly within the municipal boundaries of Kansas City, Missouri, make for revealing cases that illuminate our understanding of these national patterns. As Rury demonstrates, struggles to achieve greater educational equity and desegregation in urban centers contributed to so-called white flight and what Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan considered to be a crisis of urban education in 1965. Despite the often valiant efforts made to serve inner city children and bolster urban school districts, this exodus, Rury cogently argues, created a new metropolitan educational hierarchy—a mirror image of the urban-centric model that had prevailed before World War II. The stubborn perception that suburban schools are superior, based on test scores and budgets, has persisted into the twenty-first century and instantiates today's metropolitan landscape of social, economic, and educational inequality.

Embrace the changing suburbs by changing your school! As your students evolve, has your school evolved with them? This unique book offers an explanation of the increasing diversity in student makeup and ideas for acting as an agent of positive change for your school. The authors offer tools and recommend ways you can improve student achievement by: Developing an action plan for more focused, culturally responsive student instruction Creating a culture that celebrates diversity Building partnerships with parents, universities, and the community Providing programs for English learners such as tutoring, the arts, and summer support