Diversity in urban communities has not only increased, but has become more complex. Beyond traditional differences in race, language, culture, or customs, today's urban students also bring to the classroom different perspectives on the world in general and schooling in particular. Confounding these factors, the almost daily exposure to violence has led many urban students to believe that they will not survive their teenage years and therefore, have little motivation to prepare for life in the adult world. Taken as a whole, the diversity represented by today's students is qualitatively different than that of their predecessors in its intensity, direction and impact on students' view of schools as institutions and the role of education in their lives. Helping educators understand and mediate the range and intensity of urban diversity must be an integral and explicit part of staff development efforts in urban schools.
Relationships are a principal foundation of successful education.
At its core, education is an intensely personal experience whose success is largely a function of the relationship between the school staff, the students, their families, and the community as a whole. In urban districts, demography and geography have made the development of positive and meaningful relationships more difficult to achieve. As the urban teaching and administrative corps changes, the average teacher is farther removed from students and their parents in both age and experience than has been true for previous generations. In addition, fewer teachers live in communities similar to those of their students or are personally involved in their community's institutions. These conditions are further complicated or confounded by the lack of sufficient minority teachers, particularly minority males.