An Extreme Degree of Difficulty: The Educational Demographics of Urban Neighborhood High Schools

Abstract

Despite the growth of a variety of alternatives to the neighborhood high school, most students in big-city school systems still attend large comprehensive high schools that serve a particular residential area. The authors contend that the extreme concentration of educational need at these schools is often overlooked by policymakers, school reform programs, and even district personnel. To illustrate the challenges facing neighborhood high schools, this paper examines key academic characteristics of ninth graders in Philadelphia during 1999-00. The authors find that a large percentage of ninth graders at neighborhood high schools have been ninth graders for two or more years. Many of the first-time ninth graders are either over-age, two or more years below grade level in reading and math, or had weak attendance in eighth grade. These data suggest that large and sustained investments of human and financial capital are desperately needed in the many neighborhood schools that serve primarily, and often almost exclusively, students with multiple risk factors for academic failure. AbstractDespite the growth of a variety of alternatives to the neighborhood high school, most students in big-city school systems still attend large comprehensive high schools that serve a particular residential area. The authors contend that the extreme concentration of educational need at these schools is often overlooked by policymakers, school reform programs, and even district personnel. To illustrate the challenges facing neighborhood high schools, this paper examines key academic characteristics of ninth graders in Philadelphia during 1999-00. The authors find that a large percentage of ninth graders at neighborhood high schools have been ninth graders for two or more years. Many of the first-time ninth graders are either over-age, two or more years below grade level in reading and math, or had weak attendance in eighth grade. These data suggest that large and sustained investments of human and financial capital are desperately needed in the many neighborhood schools that serve primarily, and often almost exclusively, students with multiple risk factors for academic failure. 2As school choice within the public sector has become more pervasive, high school students in the nation's largest cities confront an ever-widening array of schools from which they are free to choose, at least in theory (Hassell 1999;Kane 2000;Witte 2001). Nevertheless, the majority of high school students in big-city school systems attend large neighborhood schools that serve students living within specific geographic boundaries. In Philadelphia, about 70 percent of all students in non-charter public high schools are enrolled in neighborhood high schools; in Chicago, the figure is 83 percent; and in Baltimore, an estimated 67 percent attend these schools (Neild 1999; Consortium on Chicago School It is noteworthy that so many urban students attend neighborhood high schools because these institutions are often characterized by chronic student absenteeism, h...

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