Reaction to the Promise of Urban Schools

I thought the Promise of Urban Schools was quite enlightening and encouraging to me as a prospective teacher, and possibly in an Urban district. In my philosophical education class we watched a video Monday talking about what they called, "alternative learning" in classrooms which projected the same principles that the Senior Fellows developed to promote the promise of urban schools in America. Both stressed the idea that students need to be given enough freedom but a balance with responcibility to build confidence in themselves to be able to solve any problem they are given. A publi school I believe that was in California, Peninsula, was used as an example school in the video that illistrated the outcome of students working in a liberal enviorment where they have control over their learning. An urban school district director in Harlem, New York, admitted that his schools were losing students to drop outs, and they were not scoring well on alptitude tests. Once this method of teaching education was incorperated in the schools, students began to love school and the numbers became positive.
I think the reading explained it best on page 3 in the second column, first paragraph where it reads that the issue with so many urban schools now is the fact that "control and punishment are the priority." Also the irony in the task given to students in these urban schools is hours of community service, but they are not encouraged within the schools that there opinions, actions and participation are needed in society because they are not given the liberal enviorment of learning inside school so how are they suppose to feel they matter within their communities enought to give back?
I think the principles in the reading, and additionally for myself what I learned from the video I watched in my other class, are good to remember and take into account throughout the visits to Arts High. I look forward to seeing how strong these principles are enforced in this urban school enviorment, what they enforce and what they are possibly missing.