WASHINGTON - May 22, 2001 -A new city-by-city analysis of state test data shows that the nation's urban schools have posted important gains in math and reading achievement, in spite of limited resources and substantial challenges. In addition, the big city districts are showing promising reductions in gaps in student achievement between white and minority students, according to researchers at the Council of the Great City Schools.

"We are encouraged by the improvements that urban schools are showing on these state data," says Michael Casserly, the Council's executive director, who wrote the report with Sharon Lewis, the Council's research director. "To completely close achievement gaps and bring all school districts up to state averages, we must accelerate our gains and reforms- raising standards, stabilizing leadership, improving instruction, lowering class sizes, strengthening pre-school programs, and keeping our eye on the academic bottom line."

The report, Beating the Odds, is the nation's first look at how its major city school systems are performing on state assessments that the country is now relying on to measure what students know and are able to do.

The report indicates that 92% of cities had improved math scores in a majority of grades tested and 80% had improved in reading. About half of the urban districts (47 percent) made faster mathematics test score gains  than the state average in at least half of the grades tested and approximately 34% made faster gains in reading.

The math gains for urban schools were corroborated by improvements on ACT math scores over the last decade and on the math portions of the state National Assessment of Educational Progress.

Some 23 urban districts posted math score gains that were faster than their states in half or more of the grades tested-Boston, Birmingham, Broward County (Fort Lauderdale), Charlotte-Mecklenburg, Clark County (Las  Vegas), Cleveland, Dallas, Detroit, Hillsborough County (Tampa), Houston, Indianapolis, Long Beach, Miami-Dade County, Minneapolis, Norfolk, Orange County (Orlando), Philadelphia, Rochester, Sacramento, Seattle, St.  Louis, St. Paul, and Tulsa.

In addition, some 17 cities posted reading gains that were faster than their states in half or more of the grades tested-Anchorage, Boston, Birmingham, Charlotte-Mecklenburg, Cleveland, Dallas, Hillsborough County  (Tampa), Houston, Los Angeles, Norfolk, Philadelphia, Portland (Oregon), Providence, Richmond, Sacramento, San Diego, and Seattle.

Four districts - Charlotte-Mecklenburg, Fort Worth, Houston, and Miami-Dade - were particularly noteworthy in having narrowed the racial achievement gaps in all or almost all grades tested by the state. 

Reasons for Improvement

According to the report, urban school districts are aggressively pursuing the reforms that the nation is reaching agreement on: greater focus on high standards, improved instruction, stable leadership, smaller class  sizes, effective pre-school programs, regular assessments, and other strategies. Many of these reforms are reflected in the strategies of urban school districts that are posting impressive gains on statewide tests. For example:

• Charlotte-Mecklenburg's students are improving faster than other students in North Carolina in four out of six grades tested. The district was one of the first to adopt high standards and has aimed programs at reducing achievement gaps. The district has stable leadership, an innovative pre-school program, and extensive teacher professional development.
  
• Houston's gains on the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills were larger than the state average in all grades tested in reading, and in six of seven grades in math.  The district has aligned its goals, curriculum, and assessment systems, and enjoys stable leadership, highly regarded reading programs, and extensive summer and weekend classes.
  
• Sacramento has improved its reading and math scores in all grades tested as the result of a strategy to raise standards, align curriculum, strengthen professional development, and lower class sizes.

Where We Need to Go

The Council of the Great City Schools also announced that it is working with the Manpower Development Research Corporation (MDRC) to conduct case studies on Charlotte-Mecklenburg, Houston, Sacramento, and other cities to determine how and why the gains are being made. The results will be used to formulate a comprehensive and coherent strategy to accelerate urban school progress nationally.

"We think that it is important for urban schools to have a broad strategy for pursuing their own improvements, " Casserly says. " We are optimistic that the preliminary gains we are seeing can be translated into broader and faster ones."

The report also underscores the need for policymakers and educators to adopt better comparative measures to monitor improvement across cities.

"In preparing this report, we are painfully reminded of the difficulty of measuring student performance with 50 different measures that are difficult to compare or convert," said Sharon Lewis, the Council's research  director. "There is no way to compare Boston to Baltimore or San Francisco to St. Louis using current state test data. Nor can we produce a single measure of overall urban performance."

"These comparisons make rocket science look easy," Casserly noted. "When NASA had to cope with just two systems of measurement, its Mars probe confused feet for meters and crashed. But urban education has 50 different yardsticks."

Urban Schools Have Greater Needs, Fewer Resources

School districts that are members of the Council of the Great City Schools enroll one out of seven of America's students (14 percent).  A disproportionate number of these students are low-income and children of color. Three out of five students are eligible for a free and reduced lunch subsidy (61 percent) compared to almost two in five (38 percent) nationwide. These schools have nearly three times as many children from homes where English is not the first language (22 percent compared to 8 percent).  And seven in ten Great City School students (70 percent) are African American or Hispanic compared with a third (32 percent) nationwide.

The study also found that, in spite of the vastly greater needs of inner city students, the average per pupil expenditures of the Great City Schools had slipped below the national average for the first time since the  organization has been tracking funding.

"We are working triple time to improve our performance. The nation, for its part, needs to think long and hard about the resources that its urban schools have to beat the odds," concluded Casserly.

The Council of the Great City Schools is the only organization in the nation representing the needs of urban public schools. Composed of 56 large city school districts, its mission is to promote the cause of urban schools and to advocate for inner-city students through legislation, research, and media relations. The organization also provides a network for school districts sharing common problems to exchange information, and to collectively address new challenges as they emerge in order to deliver the best possible education for the nation's urban youth.