Hope vs. Despair: How Do We Reconcile the Two?

Hope is not what we think when we speak about public schools—especially urban schools. Disparity is seen when looking at public schools. Why shouldn’t we see disparity? When Harold Hodgkinson (2001) tells us in his article Educational Demographics: What Teachers Should Know that, “Twenty percent of U.S. kids are below the poverty line today—exactly the same percentage as 15 years ago—even though most of the nation is less segregated and wealthier” (9). In the past two decades have we made changes to fix this broken educational system? My main goal for this blog is to situate hope within a broad perspective that allows us to reconcile the despair that we see in public schools—especially urban schools.

A decade ago the Annenberg Institute for School Reform, as they tell us in their article The Promise of Urban Schools, “invited a small group of committed scholars and successful urban educators to think creatively together about the unresolved issues facing our nation’s urban schools” (1). After two years of researching and development, the group outlines a framework that would allow urban schools to excel in the postindustrial age. There first proposal to resolve issues facing urban schools is “the personal and collective agency of students and adults in the school and its community” (2). Believing that change in urban schools can only be made by those that are living in the community and those that are working in urban schools; the Senior Fellows perceive students and adults (teachers, parents, community leaders, and others) in the community and schools as major players in shaping a more just and equitable schools. The Senior Fellows' second proposal is the ability of urban schools to “function as equitable, just, humane communities” (4). As we all know, or better as Hodgkinson bluntly tells us that, “nothing is distributed evenly across the United States. Not race, not religion, not age, not fertility, not wealth, and certainly not access to higher education” (7). We live in one of the richest country in the world; yet, the United States has the largest gap of wealth between the poor and the rich. Knowing such facts, the Senior Fellows believe that it is important to pair the issues of equity and justice. As they explain to us in their paper, “Educational justice means that all children can achieve in school, regardless of their own or their community’s race, ethnicity, language, religion, gender, or economic status” (6). Such policies, as they tell us, “are the responsible of educators and policy makers at the local, district, state, and national levels” (6). There third proposal concerns the standard at which urban students are held. They believe that “like schools in all communities, urban schools must be held to high standards” (6). They believe powerful learning experiences and pedagogies can help urban students achieve high standards like their counterpart, suburban students. The last thing the Senior Fellow touch upon is assessment strategies. The Senior Fellows believe that, “exhibitions of students achievement should include multimodal and multimedia demonstrations and student-generated publications as well as text-based evaluations” (9). Something that we rarely see on state and federal tests.

The Senior Fellows outline a good framework that would allow urban schools to excel in the postindustrial age. Yet, I find myself doubting their proposals. My reason for doubting the Senior Fellows’ proposals is because the proposals they provide us are the same rhetoric that have been proposal by others to better urban schools: agency of changes, equity and justice for urban schools, and better instruction and curriculum. Their proposals sound like something a presidential candidate would say concerning education in America—ideals—things that people want to here. The Senior Fellows fail to discuss the problems that urban schools are facing. The only time that they discuss the problems that urban schools are facing is in their second proposal—the tension between equality and justice that are seen when looking at urban schools. I believe the Senior Fellows should have discus the disparities that urban schools are facing more in depth.

In conclusion, I believe to reconcile hope in urban schools we must bring to tension the disparities that urban schools are facing. We must not hide behind high hope to fix urban schools—they're just rhetoric. We must face our fear—that is the disparities that loom around urban schools. "We must look at the shifting demographics in the United States affecting the population that most concerns educators: their students" as Hodgkinson explains to us. In doing so, we can bring hope to urban schools.