Focusing on the causes for the continuing marginalization of minority children, this book examines inner-city education, its teaching practices, curricular rationales, perspectives of teachers and students, and the institutions themselves. Framed in the author's own experience as an inner-city middle school teacher, this book explores the historical development, the truncated curriculum, the pedagogical styles, the preconceptions that teachers and students bring to their daily interactions and the social and educational justifications for the profound educational failure of inner-city schools. The text takes the reader into classrooms, faculty meetings, playgrounds, and conversations with students and parents to demonstrate the poverty of education as practiced in inner-city schools. The book details and critiques the educational goals, the rationalizing ideologies, the paucity of reform efforts - especially that of multiculturalism - in these schools, and criticizes the failure of institutional teacher education to address the needs of urban students. While surveying education in urban and inner-city schools, the author spotlights the challenges that educators face at this time of increasing diversity and dwindling resources in American schools.