The proportion of secondary school classes conducted by teachers without a degree in the subject was 22 percent in the city systems, as opposed to only 8 percent elsewhere, the survey found. The classes city teachers are leading, moreover, are likely to be considerably larger. In the state's other large urban systems, it was 24.5, and for all other districts it was 22.4. At the high school level, an average U.S. history and government class in New York City had 30.6 students. Other conditions are more challenging as well.
Violence is an ever-present threat.
The city's students typically also face more obstacles to learning, including poverty, lack of fluency in English, inadequate parental support, and dangerous neighborhoods. In New York City, about 30 percent of the district's children are poor, well above the 19 percent average for the state. More than 17 percent are not fluent in English, compared with about 8.4 percent in the four other big districts, and fewer than 2 percent in the rest of the state. The heterogeneity here is different both in quantity and quality, and it makes for a need for real flexibility in how we educate children. Besides difficult working conditions, teacher recruitment and retention in New York City are hurt by a sizable salary gap with its surrounding suburbs.