City Schools

Abstract

Though other issues exist, the basic issues and problems in city schools arise from a conflict of interests be tween haves and have-nots. Race appears as a subdimension of the larger problem. The major contours of this engagement are seen at the federal level where the power exists to make governing decisions about school financing and in state govern ment where conservative and usually anticity interests domi nate. It is seen in a dimmer but far more explosive form in the city itself where have-nots, mainly Negroes, are pressing demands for school equity. Class lines are somewhat redrawn within liberal city governments and school systems. Negro demands give the illusion that the issue is strictly racial al though, in fact, the educational and political interests of other have-not and liberal leadership groups run parallel and converge more often than they diverge.