This document presents a descriptive comparison of public education in Amsterdam, London, New York, Tel Aviv, Tokyo, and Toronto. These cities are alike in that in each population, money, power, and influence are concentrated. In all these cities a common educational problem has been to deal with the disproportionate number of the poor, recent immigrants, or otherwise marginal students that make up their school populations. Though the compensatory approach dominates the efforts of large city school systems to improve the lot of their deprived and marginal students, policies and practices toward cultural minorities remain problematic. Data collected for this survey indicate that urban school problems are widespread and similar across the developed nations of the world and that there are no quick solutions to the problems. (Author/AM)