The Devolution of the Inner-City High School

Abstract

Over the past century, the inner-city high school has devolved from a place that was indicative of progress and social betterment to an institution that is severely challenged by structural poverty and racial inequality. Exploring the connections between education and the process of demographic, economic, and political change in Philadelphia, this article considers white resistance to the presence of black people in white neighborhoods and black students in their public schools and, ultimately, the white workplace itself. The typical inner-city high school is no longer widely perceived as a “cathedral of learning,” an engine of upward mobility, and a center of civic pride; it now symbolizes many of the ills of the ghetto. As black and increasingly impoverished students replaced those who were white and middle and working class, public investment in the school declined; it lost the moral authority, political power, and finances so vital to fulfilling its educational mission.