How Systemic Reform Harms Urban Schools

By Larry Cuban

For the past quarter-century, critics of public schools have evoked images of failure from horror stories about schools in Boston, New York City, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Although few adults in this country have ever set foot in these cities' schools (much less ever taught in them), they believe they know what happens there based on news reports and Hollywood portraits, such as those in the television series "Boston Public" and in films like "Stand and Deliver."

Yet these critics rarely point to demonstrated successes in big-city schools such as Boston Latin, Bronx High School of Science, or San Francisco's Lowell High School. With little to connect these schools and other high schools in their districts, civic and corporate reformers have adopted the critics' blanket condemnation. Unless policymakers address the fundamental problems that permeate public schools, those reformers argue, our economic position in the global marketplace will be seriously endangered.