Youth in the USA
have lower academic standards with the standardized tests consisting of more basic content compared to states like New York, Maryland, California, and Virginia. This, of course, has tremendous impact on their life out - comes and potential. Reflections from high schools in the Bronx of New York City New York City has one of the strongest urban school sys - tems in the country and is a city where teachers are paid a higher salary than average, which has positive impacts on the youth of the city. However, New York City also has a very segregated school system. There are sever - al international high schools in the Bronx, a borough or area in the New York City school system, that has a lot of students from all over the world. The majority of the - se students are first-generation Americans or recently arrived immigrants. This means that the students are learning English and have a background in a variety of different languages and cultures. These schools are very diligent about making sure that all cultures and religions are honored and take Islamic and Jewish holidays into account more so than other school districts. New York City and State has a lot of programs to support students financially with college and students have the opportuni - ty to visit colleges throughout the state where they are able to get financial aid during their junior and senior year. Many of these students are focused on being the person in their family that can create a better life after their parents or other family members have immigrated to the United States. These schools also tend to have fe - wer sports and music offerings than high schools in the south and more academic and cultural extracurricular clubs for students. Many schools in the Bronx of New York City, as well as other boroughs of New York City have a very diverse student population overall. General Teacher’s Perspective A teacher can easily lose hope as they begin their day. In the classroom, they can be confronted with the reality of trying to educate a child who is two or three grades below the grade level where they are supposed to be in terms of academic capabilities. They are also concur - rently trying to keep the child motivated who is highly in - telligent and bright, but may also face a learning disabili - ty that they cannot get psychological treatment for. The only thing that unites all of their students is that each is impacted by poverty, because they teach at a Title I school, which is a designation for schools with the high - est amount of poverty. They won’t necessarily be able to have enough food to eat during the day if they don’t
attend school. If they miss their school bus, they won’t be able to get to school because their single parent is stuck at work and can’t take off to bring them to school. All the while, the administrative demands of a school district are increasing every year. High stakes testing de - mands that teachers teach towards the test and not for general education. If classroom scores don’t meet a cer - tain threshold, a teacher faces being fired – even if there aren’t enough pencils to give the students to write with for the day. It is not uncommon for teachers to move onto a different profession after 3-5 years because of the increasing role of testing and administrative tasks they must complete that take away from teaching. It is also not uncommon for teachers in Title I schools to become burned out by the workload and lack of support and re - sources.
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