In poor urban communities all across the nation students must deal with structural and cultural impediments to accessing their education:

• Lack of funding
• Limited high school curricula
• Parents’ low levels of educational attainment
• Structural racism throughout the educational system
• Legal status
• Violence in neighborhoods

Funding

Nearly half of the funding for public schools in the United States is provided through local taxes, which serves to exacerbate already stark differences between wealthy and impoverished communities.

Data shows communities where student poverty is rare tend to have well-funded schools, whereas schools in communities where student poverty is rampant tend to receive much less funding.

In the 1970s Demetrio Rodriguez and other parents in Edgewood, a largely poor, Latino school district in San Antonio filed a law suit claiming that their children’s’ facilities were subpar wen compared to that of a neighboring district . Edgewood is across town from a largely white district that, back then, had some of the best-funded schools in Texas. Rodriguez’s sons attended an elementary school where the third floor had been condemned. It lacked books, and many teachers weren’t certified. The plaintiffs argued that any school-funding system that depends on local property tax revenue is fundamentally unfair to poorer districts. While they lost the case the case sparked a national conversation about educational inequality.

Structural Racism in Schools

In urban communities across the nation students’ bodies are being policed differently base on their race. The Department of Education Office of Civil Rights reported that in the 2012–13 school year the Chicago Public School system issued 32 suspensions for every 100 Black students. That number drops to 5 of every 100 white students.

Legal Status

One of the most significant structural barriers for academically high-achieving undocumented students as they near the end of high school is their inability to qualify for federal or state financial aid due to their immigration status. While undocumented youth are entitled to equal protection under the law according to the 14th Amendment and are guaranteed right to K–12 education those rights do not extend to post-secondary education. Meaning thousands of talented youth are left behind and unable to further their educational prospects and further limiting their job prospects.

Impact of Violence in Local Neighborhoods on Schools

Research show that schoolchildren exposed to neighborhood violence can have a tougher time learning and experience added stress and depression due to their circumstances.

“The results show that children from more violent neighborhoods fall farther behind their peers from safer neighborhoods as they progress through school. These effects are comparable in size to the independent association with socioeconomic disadvantage and an annual measure of more recent neighborhood violence exposure.”

In addition to inadequate schooling, these students are also batting with day to day trauma of what it means to be poor in urban communities.