Publication Type: Individual Paper
Abstract: In 2006, Cleveland, Ohio was rated the poorest big city in the nation. This was the second time in three years a major city; which has over 117 ethnic groups - majority of the residents are African American, has garnered the big city poverty crown (Suchetka and Galbincea, 2006). A third of the city’s 478,000 residents live below the poverty line. The demoralizing circumstances in the city substantiate the nickname that Cleveland is commonly referred as “the mistake by the lake.”

The state of impoverishment and despair in Cleveland is also reflected in its public school system. Nearly half of the 70,000 students enrolled in the Cleveland Municipal School District (CMSD) live in poverty. Eighty percent of the districts’ students receive free or reduced lunch. The CMSD, as well as the rest of the public school districts in the Buckeye State, operate under a state school funding formula declared unconstitutional three times by the Ohio Supreme Court (Lyles, 2004). Coupled with the fact that Cleveland lacks a burgeoning tax base, the district eliminated 1400 instructional and support staff positions in 2004 (Charney, 2005). In 2006, the Ohio Department of Education placed the CMSD as a whole on “academic watch,” however many schools within the district have “academic emergency” status (Mitchell, 2006). As a result, many administrators in academically deficient schools, especially in urban or economically disadvantaged areas, encourage teachers to teach to the test and prescribe curriculums that focus on the core courses such as reading, writing, and arithmetic in order to improve standardized assessment scores. With an emphasis on the 3 R’s, many education researchers have indicated that non-core courses, such as geography, has become limited to a minor or non-existent role in the curriculum in many primary and secondary schools nationally as well as internationally (Morrill, 2004; Ward, 2005).

As an educator and researcher with a vested interest in the community, it is my estimation that the disheartening conditions and pessimistic attitudes projected about this city and its public school system negatively impacts the disposition of its citizenry, especially the youth. In an attempt to address this dilemma, Dr. Dwayne C. Wright, Assistant Professor in the Department of Curriculum and Foundations at Cleveland State University, and Ms. Dionne Thomas Carmichael, founder of the Negro Cultural Center in Cleveland, spearheaded a supplemental community education course, Our Stories: Untold Stories and Experience of Black Cleveland. This eight week seminar-style course provided an opportunity for youth and adults to engage in critical cross-generational dialogue about the place and space for which many, including myself, call home – Cleveland (Taylor, 2004). In addition to cross-generation exchange, students also acquired research methods, skills and strategies necessary to actively engage in the preservation and planning of their community, often referred to as C-Town or the North Coast, a geographical space with a rich and bountiful heritage.