Factors Associated with Success in Urban Elementary Schools

Abstract

cation has described the urban pub lic school in center-city locations as low in student achievement; lacking in parental involvement and interest; and plagued by low teacher morale and job satisfaction, high rates of teacher absenteeism, and stu dent absenteeism and vandalism. Daniel Levine, an observer and researcher who has examined these schools throughout this period, notes: Overloaded with too many students who themselves are overloaded with a multitude of individual and family problems, the public schools as tradi tionally organized and operated some times then may all but cease functioning educationally at all, becoming little more than custodial institutions in which students and teachers expect little and achieve less.1