The study has the following limitations: 

1.  All data was publicly available on state, district, and school websites.  This relies on these entities reporting their data accurately.   

2. There could be thousands of factors that contribute to equity within urban education systems, but this study will only examine the factors most widely researched and utilized by urban districts. 

3. A small sample size. 

This study included the following assumptions. 

1.  The equity factors could positively impact graduation rates and entry into post-secondary education. 

2. A strength-based perspective in research will yield results that will have a positive impact on the topic of urban education. 

3. The biases of the researcher will have a positive impact on research conducted. 

To determine the basis for current equity factors in urban education a review of research studies conducted over the past thirty years on graduation rates and the introduction of certain factors deemed by researchers to provide equity to urban education were examined.  There were over thirty-five research studies on high school graduation rates that suggested a specific factor or factors that would positively impact the success of students on their road toward graduation and entry into post-secondary education.   

There are multiple gaps in the research.  The first gap can be found in the fact that there is still a huge discrepancy between the graduation rates and entrance into post-secondary programs between urban school districts and the overall graduation rate for the state.  For the state of Missouri, the overall high school graduation rate is 92%, but one of the major urban school districts, St. Louis Public Schools, only has a 73% graduation rate.  This discrepancy demonstrates the disconnect between graduation rate research and application of the interventions/equity factors that would make the most difference for urban students.  The second gap can be found in the perspective of the researchers.  When we examine the history of research on urban education and graduation rates a trend in deficit-perspective of urban students.  In many of the studies that I reviewed, the researchers shared a common perspective of urban education, that students are failing and low socioeconomic status bias. This bias impacts the research and ultimately determines the outcome of the study.  Once the research is disseminated the bias is also disseminated, although it could also be that the bias already exists in our society.