This paper focuses on the problems of education for disadvantaged urban minorities. Although the educational situation in the big cities is grim, a decade of study and experimentation should ready us for massive positive action. The educational system of the big cities is basically viable. An effective improvement program calls for: (1) developing appropriate systems of rewards for school achievement by children of various sub-cultures; (2) building a coherent, rational school program and curriculum that is understood and accepted by the pupil; (3) maintaining a pre-school program for disadvantaged children followed by a primary school program built upon it; (4) establishing a system of local community participation in school affairs in disadvantaged local communities; and, (5) developing a central school administration which relates the school system to other school and governmental systems in the metropolitan area. The alternative is to try to replace the present establishment in education with a chaos of small innovative enterprises of extremely uneven quality. [This paper was prepared for a book entitled "Urban Education in the 1970's," edited by A. Harry Passow, to be published by the Teachers College Press, Fall 1970.] (JM)