Urban Teachers Face ‘Shocking Problems’

Urban teachers face “a shocking pattern of problems” including student violence and parent apathy, and have less authority or administrative support than their suburban and rural counterparts, according to a survey released Monday.

Fifty-three percent of teachers working in cities of 100,000 or more and in schools with 1,000 or more pupils said that disruptive behavior in class was a problem. Violence against students was seen as a problem by 32%.

But among teachers in smaller districts, those with populations under 100,000 and in schools with fewer than 1,000 students, only 30% said disruptive behavior was a problem, and 9% reported problems with student violence.

The findings were part of a nationwide survey last spring of 6,300 public secondary school teachers by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, a Princeton, N.J.-based research and policy organization.

Ernest L. Boyer, president of the foundation, called it “a shocking pattern of problems” faced by teachers who “have the least authority and get the least support.”

“When all is said and done, the reform movement must be measured not only by conditions in our more privileged schools, but also by what happens to children in the inner city,” Boyer said.