The Research for Better Schools Urban Education Project is working with teachers in Baltimore (Maryland) and Washington (District of Columbia) to reduce the alienation of many urban students by exploring how to align what students bring to school with classroom learning. This effort is centered around the concept of learner experience, an outgrowth of the project's Urban Learner Framework (ULF), which presents the urban learner as capable, motivated, resilient, and able to build on cultural strengths. The experiences of students in school and outside school are aspects of learner experience. Relating the two is seen in inner-city Baltimore schools where efforts to integrate learner experience into the formal curriculum and an increased awareness of the strengths students bring with them to the classroom have resulted in more respect and greater student achievement. In the District of Columbia the ULF has been used in lesson infusion plans that make sure that student background and curriculum content are connected. In both cities, plans are being made to extend ULF concepts into other schools. (Contains 2 figures and 17 references.) (SLD)