"Diversity and You"

                             Making Urban Schools and Classrooms Effective

You have just graduated, and you quickly find that the job market is tight. You’ve been offered a job in a large urban high school with a student body that is overwhelmingly minority.

You’ve visited the school, seen that the resources are decent, and think that the administration is supportive and effective. But two factors disturb you. The school is heavily into tracking, and because you are new, you’re assigned many of the basic or remedial classes. In addition, class sizes are large, averaging more than 30 students. When you talked with several teachers in the department where you’ll be teaching, they said not to worry about class sizes; lecturing to 35 students is no different than lecturing to 20. They also said that tracking wasn’t so bad; it provided kids in the lower tracks with opportunities for success by slowing down and lowering grading requirements. One even said he gave fewer tests and quizzes because students complained that the work was too hard. On your way home from the interview, you had a lot to think about.

Consider These Questions

1. What can you personally do to minimize the negative effects of tracking?

2. What could you do to reduce the effects of the large classes that you will be teaching?