Urban schools cannot be fixed with the ideology in place in public schools.

If you don't remove the violent children from school and keep them away from the non violent children, you can't fix public schools no matter how much you spend.

My brother runs an inner city charter school where children excel relative to private and suburban public schools. How does he do it?

First, it takes effort to enroll children into a public charter school, that small selection criteria improves school performance.

Second, more school. The school day is around one and half hours longer than in community public schools. Many children start out behind and need "more school" to catch up. School unions and many parents won't tolerate this, and violent students don't like it.

Parental involvement. When children are doing poorly, parents are expected to work with their children or bring them in on Saturdays for additional tutoring.

It is not a matter of more money, he actually gets less per student than the public schools. It is a matter of creating safe environment for children to learn (not home since many parents work) and providing the additional teaching necessary to supplement the learning that inner city urban children do not get at home.