In spite of the trend toward suburbanization, the cities continue to be the hub of institutional America. The assimilation of growing numbers of uneducated, unskilled, and minority group immigrants in the face of declining physical, fiscal, and leadership resources is the basic problem confronting cities. The ghetto is populated by individuals possessing insufficient educational and occupational tools to manage in an urban setting. Although the schools are increasingly called upon to solve this problem, planning for building and staffing schools is frustrated by burgeoning and shifting enrollments. The difficulties of getting competent teachers into the ghetto aggravate the crucial problem of the concentration of large numbers of students with serious educational deficiencies. Today we have reason to question the old assumptions that school systems should remain isolated from surrounding institutions and that lay boards of education insure reflection of the public will in school policies. (DE)