Are Standards Lower in Urban Schools?
Urban teachers seem to have even more doubts about their schools’ willingness to enforce academic standards: Only about one-third (34 percent) of urban teachers say that in their communities public schools have higher academic standards than private schools, compared with 59 percent of nonurban teachers. Urban teachers are also somewhat more likely than their nonurban colleagues to report that their schools automatically promote students who have reached a maximum age (47 percent vs. 39 percent). “They have done everything possible to stop you from giving a D or an F,” said a Los Angeles teacher. In the same focus group another teacher said, “Somewhere along the line … the message came from higher up that they needed to lower the standards for children in high-impact neighborhoods. Give the kids 50 points for coming to take the final, lower your D to 35 percent, whatever it takes to get kids passing.” Capping this sense of weaker expectations, 37 percent of urban teachers say a high
