racial bias charges against specialized high school test... your thoughts?

[Nestof3]

I'm speaking from where I live. People I know who live in Norfolk refuse to send their kids to those schools because of the violence and gangs there. Teachers don't want to teach there because they are scared and disrespected so horribly.

 

You're right -- it must just be the faculty.

 

Yes. Bad schools are bad because they are populated with/surrounded by bad people. Yup. That's it.

 

:banghead: :cursing: :willy_nilly:

 

Are you kidding me? You really believe that?

 

In our state, school funding is based on property taxes. Bad schools aren't bad because the families suck. Bad schools are bad because they have the least money. They have cr@ppy, old facilities, cr@ppy, old materials, and cr@ppy, inexperienced teachers because the ones who demand more money and a better environment won't work in cr@ppy, underfunded schools that lack basic materials and pay them a pittance.

 

Our school district is routinely one of the worst in the state. It's not because the people in my city are bad people, and I am honestly gobsmacked at your hubris in suggesting otherwise.

 

I guess Mitt Romney does have his finger right on the pulse of the American spirit. A huge proportion of our populace is, apparently, not our problem.

 

Revolting.

 

Tara

[Haiku]

Btw, it's been well over a decade since school funding based on property taxes has been ruled unconstitutional in our state, and NOTHING has changed because the richies don't want to give up a dime of their tax money so that kids in poorer districts can get an equal education.

 

People really believe that poor kids don't deserve a good education.

 

Tara

[Haiku]

You're right -- it must just be the faculty.

 

Experienced faculty makes a difference. If the poorest districts had the fanciest schools, the best materials, and the highest pay, the most talented teachers would follow, and there would be a difference. If the schools were places kids actually wanted to be instead of just another example of how their lives and neighborhoods are worthless, there would be a difference. If the poor weren't treated like they were less than, there would be a difference.

 

Tara

[Kimber]

Some people, especially the children, have no way out. Single and double income families have to work. Homeschooling isn't an option for everyone.

[SKL]

SKL, you seem to be reducing the entire issue down to "who works the hardest." THAT is insulting to people who have or whose kids have worked very hard and still weren't able to get ahead. Do you really believe that ALL who work hard get ahead? Or that all who don't ... don't? Do you not believe that racism is alive and well these days?

 

Tara

 

I said not one word about who works the hardest. Not everyone has to aspire to a gifted education. Hardworking people do many other things besides rocket science. I'm not the person taking offense at the fact that some people just don't want it and aren't pushed to pursue it.

 

My dad (who is "white") is severely dyslexic and couldn't learn to read despite much trying as a kid - and despite coming from an educated, professional family who cared about him. I'm not ignorant. The fact is, my dad was born with a disability and that did define a lot of his life. That's not what we're talking about here.

 

People are saying that, without even assessing abilities, we can declare that a child born into a certain situation has no chance to participate in the American dream. You know, honestly, I would not want a person with that opinion to be counesling my troubled child. I don't see any child as a lost cause. Any child might be born with the wiring to be a great innovator.

 

BUT, I see lots of kids of all skin colors who can't do high-level science and math without a lot of hard work. And it just happens that certain families are more likely than others to push that type of hard work. (They are also less likely to push other types of hard work.)

 

I'm not even agreeing that those "better" families are actually doing their kids any favors. If a child isn't born wired that way, why force them into that mold? I'm frankly against that. So maybe that's why I don't consider it a national tragedy that the average black / Hispanic or even "white" family does not force their kids into math tutoring or ground them if they get Bs.

[Nestof3]

Btw, it's been well over a decade since school funding based on property taxes has been ruled unconstitutional in our state, and NOTHING has changed because the richies don't want to give up a dime of their tax money so that kids in poorer districts can get an equal education.

 

People really believe that poor kids don't deserve a good education.

 

Tara

 

Yes, and I'm sure you would take your extra $40,000 a year that you are spending on private schools for your kids (so they don't have to be in those schools) and give it instead to the public school system because it may help -- and it may not. Those horrible wealthy people.

[Joanne]

Exactly.

it is hard to pull yourself up by your bootstraps when you don't even have a pair of boots.

 

The white privilege evident in some of these posts would irritate me if it didn't make me so sad.

 

Totally.

 

I had a client a couple of months ago introduce himself, and his reason for being here. (I have many criminal justice clients - substance abuse). He mentioned that this was going to "be his one interaction with the law, everyone has one". He truly, absolutely, 100% believed that to be true. His cohort, his peer group, his generations above and below ALL had a minimum of one brush with the law.

 

Similarly, a significant percentage of my clients thing "everyone" drinks/smokes pot. Literally everyone. Clients under the age of 30 rarely see or identify people who don't at least smoke pot.

 

These are people with whom I shop at the same stores, travel the same roads, their children go to schools my kids would go to. We don't live the same life, we don't have the same life experience. My experience as a parent in the schools, or my children's experience as a student aren't comparible.

 

More than half my clients didn't complete high school. Of those, many never got a GED. These clients can't do basic level worksheets for our psychoeducational and process components.

 

These people weren't failed in school; they were failed long before school age. The *answer* isn't going to come from the top down (school) but will have to be a holistic, pervasive remedy that spans generations.

[Nestof3]

In fact, everyone so passionate about it, stop homeschooling your kids, move to a bad school district, enroll your kids, and volunteer your services there instead.

Edited October 3, 2012 by nestof3

[SKL]

Yes. Bad schools are bad because they are populated with/surrounded by bad people. Yup. That's it.

 

:banghead: :cursing: :willy_nilly:

 

Are you kidding me? You really believe that?

 

In our state, school funding is based on property taxes. Bad schools aren't bad because the families suck. Bad schools are bad because they have the least money. They have cr@ppy, old facilities, cr@ppy, old materials, and cr@ppy, inexperienced teachers because the ones who demand more money and a better environment won't work in cr@ppy, underfunded schools that lack basic materials and pay them a pittance.

 

Our school district is routinely one of the worst in the state. It's not because the people in my city are bad people, and I am honestly gobsmacked at your hubris in suggesting otherwise.

 

I guess Mitt Romney does have his finger right on the pulse of the American spirit. A huge proportion of our populace is, apparently, not our problem.

 

Revolting.

 

Tara

 

Are you sure about the bolded? Because I've read that the low-performing schools tend to spend the most on a per-capita basis. Why does it cost more, on average, to educate a child in a poorer community? Because of influences (and lack thereof) in the community in which the kids are being raised. Ask any KG teacher who has worked in both environments.

 

Oh, and read about Marva Collins.

[Pink Fairy]

Btw, it's been well over a decade since school funding based on property taxes has been ruled unconstitutional in our state, and NOTHING has changed because the richies don't want to give up a dime of their tax money so that kids in poorer districts can get an equal education.

 

People really believe that poor kids don't deserve a good education.

 

Tara

 

Who are these people?

 

Is it because they aren't lining up to take money from their kid's good school district and give it to a failing school district? Is it reasonable to expect them to volunteer for that?

 

My husband's school district sucks with money, school board members have made stupid decision after stupid decision and have hugely impacted the classroom in a negative way. And yet, the community keeps reelecting them. Why should the neighboring districts be expected to fix that? How would it work exactly?

[Haiku]

Yes, and I'm sure you would take your extra $40,000 a year that you are spending on private schools for your kids (so they don't have to be in those schools) and give it instead to the public school system because it may help -- and it may not. Those horrible wealthy people.

 

No, that's not how it would work. Right now, the school districts with lower property tax revenues get less funding. That's unconstitutional. What people who actually give a cr@p about poor kids' education want to do is take all the tax revenue and equally distribute among all the districts. No one would have to pay more ... their district would just receive less (if they were wealthy). But the richies think their kids deserve more than the poor kids, so they oppose it ... EVEN THOUGH our state constitution says that the poor kids do, in fact, deserve an equal public education.

 

No one is advocating taking away the rich parents' private school money.

 

Tara

[Joanne]

People are saying that, without even assessing abilities, we can declare that a child born into a certain situation has no chance to participate in the American dream. You know, honestly, I would not want a person with that opinion to be counesling my troubled child. I don't see any child as a lost cause. Any child might be born with the wiring to be a great innovator.

 

.

 

Wow. That was beyond uncalled for.

 

It also takes my posts out of context, and asserts an opinion I do not hold nor did I state (ie lost cause).

 

I spend 50+ hours a week working with families, kids, and adults of the population being discussed. How DARE you.

[Haiku]

Are you sure about the bolded? Because I've read that the low-performing schools tend to spend the most on a per-capita basis.

 

In our state, the districts with the least property tax revenue receive the least funding. There was a court case, and it was ruled unconstitutional (more than once, I believe). But nothing has changed.

 

Who are these people?

 

Is it because they aren't lining up to take money from their kid's good school district and give it to a failing school district? Is it reasonable to expect them to volunteer for that?

 

It's the people who fight against making school funding in our state equitable and therefore constitutional. And yes, it is reasonable for them to follow the constitution and share the portion of their property taxes that are allotted to public schools with all the schools in the state. It's both reasonable and constitutionally required. Darn those pesky constitutions that try to protect all citizens' rights ...

 

Tara

[Joanne]

In fact, everyone so passionate about it, stop homeschooling your kids, move to a bad school district, enroll your kids, and volunteer your services there instead.

 

This post has several logical fallacies.

[SKL]

No, that's not how it would work. Right now, the school districts with lower property tax revenues get less funding. That's unconstitutional. What people who actually give a cr@p about poor kids' education want to do is take all the tax revenue and equally distribute among all the districts. No one would have to pay more ... their district would just receive less (if they were wealthy). But the richies think their kids deserve more than the poor kids, so they oppose it ... EVEN THOUGH our state constitution says that the poor kids do, in fact, deserve an equal public education.

 

No one is advocating taking away the rich parents' private school money.

 

Tara

 

Your location sounds like mine. Maybe we are neighbors.

 

If so, then don't worry, because I have to pay 2% of my gross income every year for the awesome privilege of having an office address in that city (even though I actually work at home in another city, to which I also pay additional city taxes). The majority of the city income tax revenues - as well as the state and federal tax monies that go to the schools - come from those "richies" living in other school districts within the county / state. Lots of things aren't fair.

[SKL]

In our state, the districts with the least property tax revenue receive the least funding. There was a court case, and it was ruled unconstitutional (more than once, I believe). But nothing has changed.

 

 

The least funding from the county, or the least funding all together?

 

There are so many programs propping up inner-city schools that schools in other districts can't qualify for.

 

So folks vote to pass local school levies, which is really a collective donation. If the community wants to give their local school some money that the residents would otherwise keep in their own pockets, why is that anyone else's business?

[deacongirl]

I think in addition to Harlem Children's Zone another approach that is working is at Urban Promise in Camden, NJ.

http://urbanpromiseusa.org/

[Nestof3]

This post has several logical fallacies.

 

This is perfectly logical. If I were very bothered by something and wanted it to change, I would do something about it personally -- not just ask that some other group do more by giving more. And, criticisms are always thrown toward certain groups of people caring more about their own families than others' families.

 

It seems many people are upset by the lack of care shown to low-income schools. Many people are saying the schools would be better with more funding, better teachers. Then, care as much about those kids as your own and give your time to a community instead of your own.

 

This was the same thing presented to me by someone running for school council in Norfolk. He said since I was teaching my kids so much, why wouldn't I want the kids in Norfolk (he assumed I lived there) to have the same education mine were getting.

 

I seriously consider volunteering in some way when my kids are done being homeschooled. But for now, yes, I care more about my own.

[beaners]

Totally.

 

I had a client a couple of months ago introduce himself, and his reason for being here. (I have many criminal justice clients - substance abuse). He mentioned that this was going to "be his one interaction with the law, everyone has one". He truly, absolutely, 100% believed that to be true. His cohort, his peer group, his generations above and below ALL had a minimum of one brush with the law.

 

Similarly, a significant percentage of my clients thing "everyone" drinks/smokes pot. Literally everyone. Clients under the age of 30 rarely see or identify people who don't at least smoke pot.

 

These are people with whom I shop at the same stores, travel the same roads, their children go to schools my kids would go to. We don't live the same life, we don't have the same life experience. My experience as a parent in the schools, or my children's experience as a student aren't comparible.

 

More than half my clients didn't complete high school. Of those, many never got a GED. These clients can't do basic level worksheets for our psychoeducational and process components.

 

These people weren't failed in school; they were failed long before school age. The *answer* isn't going to come from the top down (school) but will have to be a holistic, pervasive remedy that spans generations.

 

I went to a school composed of mostly upper-middle class students, with a 97% graduation rate. The majority of the students there did have some kind of brush with the law. The difference was that their families usually had enough connections to get them off with a warning, and that any kind of violent offense was very, very rare. But busted for something? Providing alcohol to minors, selling drugs, having drugs? All the time.

 

The vast majority of the people I graduated with did or do drink and do some sort of drugs. The vast, vast majority of the people I've worked with in the service industry smoke pot, and more than 50% of the "professionals" I've known did coke. I don't know if the numbers are higher for that segment of the population because those are the ones I'd meet when I was working in bars, but I really don't find an assertion that a lot of people do drugs to be a shocking revelation.

 

I grew up in an entirely different world than the clients you are referring to, but I don't find their assessment to be too far off base. "Everyone" might not, but a huge amount of people do.

 

It's an interesting world we live in when the well-off parent who regularly smokes pot with his teenage son (true story, more than one example in my graduating class of about 150 students) ends up sending his son to a prestigious university, and a parent without the money and connections who does the same thing is preparing his child to drop out and probably end up in prison.

[butterflymommy]

Where I live (metro NY), some of the worst performing schools receive the most funding per child. I'm a stone's throw from Newark which has some of the worst-- but most heavily funded (23k+ per child)-- schools in the country. Sorry but more money is not the answer.

[Nestof3]

No, that's not how it would work. Right now, the school districts with lower property tax revenues get less funding. That's unconstitutional. What people who actually give a cr@p about poor kids' education want to do is take all the tax revenue and equally distribute among all the districts. No one would have to pay more ... their district would just receive less (if they were wealthy). But the richies think their kids deserve more than the poor kids, so they oppose it ... EVEN THOUGH our state constitution says that the poor kids do, in fact, deserve an equal public education.

 

No one is advocating taking away the rich parents' private school money.

 

Tara

 

You mean funding because less money is coming in from property taxes because the properties are worth less or are you speaking from some indirect correlation like the state gives extra funding to districts with better properties?

[kiana]

If they weren't segregated by race, but by reading level, how is that racist? Each student is an individual, it's not helping them if they are in the wrong reading level just to make things appear properly diverse. If Joe is a great reader, do you think his teacher looks at him and thinks, "Joe is black and even though he's a good reader he needs to stay in the turtle reading group--he would fail in the rabbit group." Maybe there are a few, but I don't think very many teachers think that way.

 

Depends on where you live.

 

And there certainly are a lot who think 'Joe has a heavy accent (the type doesn't matter)', or 'Joe doesn't use standard English when he speaks', or even 'Well, Joe is doing okay now, but his brother/mother is (whatever)', so therefore 'Joe must be in the slow reading group'.

[butterflymommy]

Yes. Bad schools are bad because they are populated with/surrounded by bad people. Yup. That's it.

 

:banghead: :cursing: :willy_nilly:

 

Are you kidding me? You really believe that?

 

In our state, school funding is based on property taxes. Bad schools aren't bad because the families suck. Bad schools are bad because they have the least money. They have cr@ppy, old facilities, cr@ppy, old materials, and cr@ppy, inexperienced teachers because the ones who demand more money and a better environment won't work in cr@ppy, underfunded schools that lack basic materials and pay them a pittance.

 

Our school district is routinely one of the worst in the state. It's not because the people in my city are bad people, and I am honestly gobsmacked at your hubris in suggesting otherwise.

 

I guess Mitt Romney does have his finger right on the pulse of the American spirit. A huge proportion of our populace is, apparently, not our problem.

 

Revolting.

 

Tara

 

Remember that many of the asian kids testing into the specialized high schools (stuyvesant is 70%+ asian) are coming from poor immigrant families (with parents not speaking strong english), in the same crappy neighborhoods and crappy, run down schools you mention. Yet they test in. And it's their seats that will be taken away if this complaint results in racial quotas. In fact I read an interesting blog post on this yesterday that asserts the complaint is, at its heart, anti-asian. Similar to what you see in the ivies setting asians against asians in admissions so as not to have "too many."

 

And it's simply not true that all poorly performing schools are underfunded. In fact the opposite is often true, especially in urban areas.

[Pink Fairy]

Depends on where you live.

 

And there certainly are a lot who think 'Joe has a heavy accent (the type doesn't matter)', or 'Joe doesn't use standard English when he speaks', or even 'Well, Joe is doing okay now, but his brother/mother is (whatever)', so therefore 'Joe must be in the slow reading group'.

 

 

A lot think this way? Where are the stats on that?

[MBM]

Some rich parents here formed a group to help a poorly-funded high school solve problems so students there could get a decent education. This occurred after a pastor and a group of students from that school took a bus to enroll in our district's well-funded high school. They were warmly welcomed by the principals, teachers, students and many parents. Although they couldn't legally enroll here, they were asked to come in and discuss their concerns with the school. No one to my knowledge snubbed them. Anyway, several years later, the parent group here still helps that school.

[butterflymommy]

In fact, everyone so passionate about it, stop homeschooling your kids, move to a bad school district, enroll your kids, and volunteer your services there instead.

 

My sister knows a family that did exactly this but went back to homeschooling because their young son was being exposed to so much bad language and violence.

 

It's not a terrible idea at heart-- just not very realistic, especially if you're the only do gooder sending your kid to the school for the greater good. And I'm not sure having a child in a school really lets you enact much change. It's not like I can march up to the principal and tell her how the school should run, now that I'm a parent.

[Caroline]

Where I live (metro NY), some of the worst performing schools receive the most funding per child. I'm a stone's throw from Newark which has some of the worst-- but most heavily funded (23k+ per child)-- schools in the country. Sorry but more money is not the answer.

 

Local control of the money is closer to the answer, though.

[Nestof3]

My sister knows a family that did exactly this but went back to homeschooling because their young son was being exposed to so much bad language and violence.

 

It's not a terrible idea at heart-- just not very realistic, especially if you're the only do gooder sending your kid to the school for the greater good. And I'm not sure having a child in a school really lets you enact much change. It's not like I can march up to the principal and tell her how the school should run, now that I'm a parent.

 

The person I spoke to suggested more along the lines of tutoring -- giving the extra time and attention teachers are not able to.

[Kebo]

Yes. Bad schools are bad because they are populated with/surrounded by bad people. Yup. That's it.

 

:banghead: :cursing: :willy_nilly:

 

Are you kidding me? You really believe that?

 

In our state, school funding is based on property taxes. Bad schools aren't bad because the families suck. Bad schools are bad because they have the least money. They have cr@ppy, old facilities, cr@ppy, old materials, and cr@ppy, inexperienced teachers because the ones who demand more money and a better environment won't work in cr@ppy, underfunded schools that lack basic materials and pay them a pittance.

 

Our school district is routinely one of the worst in the state. It's not because the people in my city are bad people, and I am honestly gobsmacked at your hubris in suggesting otherwise.

 

I guess Mitt Romney does have his finger right on the pulse of the American spirit. A huge proportion of our populace is, apparently, not our problem.

 

Revolting.

 

Tara

 

I think it has been well-established that simply putting money into schools won't necessarily fix what is the root of the problem. There are many ways to be "disadvantaged" (regardless of race), and these will undoubtable affect the school experience of those students and the ones around them. Having more programs, or even better programs, better teachers and nicer facilities does not automatically change this. Someone here recently recommended this book: How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character http://www.amazon.com/How-Children-Succeed-Curiosity-ebook/dp/B0070ZLZ1G/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1349281318&sr=1-1&keywords=how+children+succeed. I am reading it now, and it is fascinating and directly relates to the questions raised on this thread.

 

An early chapter talks about the experience of educators trying to set up a successful school (Fenger) in a tough Chicago neighborhood with traditionally dismal test scores and high dropout rates.

 

Fenger’s contemporary history begins in 1995, when Chicago’s mayor, Richard M. Daley, was granted control of the city’s schools by the Illinois state legislature......He introduced a restructuring plan for Fenger that included hiring an outside contractor to coach the school’s teachers in reading and writing instruction. He created a freshman academy at the school, a separate, dedicated floor where incoming students would get special attention for their entire freshman year. In 1999, he created a math-and-science academy at the school, complete with a $ 525,000 NASA-sponsored science lab. Two years later, he made Fenger a magnet school, specializing in technology. Each of Vallas’s reform initiatives came and went, but things never seemed to improve much for the students at Fenger. And the same was true under Vallas’s successor, Arne Duncan. In 2006, Duncan chose Fenger as one of the pilot schools for a large-scale collaboration between the Chicago school system and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, an undertaking called High School Transformation, which the foundation initially financed with a twenty-one-million-dollar grant. (After three years, the total bill for the citywide project had grown to eighty million.) When the initiative was announced, Duncan said it was “a truly historic day, not just for the Chicago Public Schools and the city, but for the country.” But a little more than two years later, with evidence mounting that High School Transformation wasn’t producing results, Fenger was switched over to Duncan’s latest reform initiative: High School Turnaround. Under Turnaround, a school’s principal and at least half its teachers were removed, and a whole new team was brought in.....

Clearly a whole lot of thought, work, and money ($80 million!) being thrown into a school and failing to produce results. The next team did not have any better results.

 

......When we spoke, though, Dozier said that her thinking about schools had been changed by her time at Fenger. “I used to always think that if a school wasn’t performing, that it was strictly because there was a bad principal, or there were bad teachers,” she explained. “But the reality is that at Fenger, we’re a neighborhood school, so we’re just a reflection of the community. And you can’t expect to solve the problems of a school without taking into account what’s happening in the community.”

 

Unfortunately, it is a HUGE undertaking with no clear path to change the neighborhood dynamic by addressing the individual family dynamics of the inhabitants. I'm not even sure it can be done on a large scale, and I expect many of the people in those troubled neighborhoods would reject the kind of help that is really needed. I hope it can be done, though, because I really fear for the fate of the country sometimes. It's easy to have a successful school when the kids show up cheerful, well-fed, well-behaved and ready to learn. How much harder it is to produce results when they show up angry, hungry, scared, distracted, confused and apathetic about learning. Regardless of what race they are.

Edited October 3, 2012 by Kebo
Corrected the city

[butterflymommy]

It is kind of ironic though-- the people I know who make the most noise about being socially conscientious are the very ones who pick up and run for the white suburbs when their kids hit school age, or who are in the greatest panic over where to send their kids to school. It's like the rules of self sacrifice and diversity are out the door once it comes to the precious darlings.

[Lovin Learnin]

It is kind of ironic though-- the people I know who make the most noise about being socially conscientious are the very ones who pick up and run for the white suburbs when their kids hit school age, or who are in the greatest panic over where to send their kids to school. It's like the rules of self sacrifice and diversity are out the door once it comes to the precious darlings.

 

Yep. This is what we did and I'm not ashamed to say it. My boys were educated in a predominately black school through mid-middle school, then we moved to an all white neighborhood so they could attend the highly rated, mostly white high school. There was no comparison between the two high schools and I wanted my children to have the best I could afford. Is that so bad? I don't think so. There are many people in my family who have chosen careers that allow them to help change the system. We are much more effective in that capacity than we would be if we were undereducated and trying to work from within.

 

BTW, being a minority in an all white neighborhood does not come without problems. Thus, we are homeschooling dd.

[Haiku]

We live in the urban district of which I spoke, and our daughter goes to a public high school. In fact, we specifically chose to live within the city limits so that we could participate in revitalizing our city.

 

Tara

[SKL]

I've been in the inner city schools volunteering over the years. They have plenty of books and supplies. Classes are fairly small. Kids who are behind in reading have the most resources provided for them. Most of them are bright and healthy. The key is to make them feel like their future is worth the effort.

 

Most of us have had the experience of teaching a child to read. It happens when the child realizes "I can." This is why I used to tutor, because I had the opportunity to show each child that he was personally worth the effort and could learn. The results could be stunning, even though nothing in the "home situation" changed.

 

I feel the best thing we can do for these kids is to go in there (I'm talking to *you*) and work with them one-on-one at an early age (1st or 2nd grade ideally). Before they get a chance to feel like failures. I used to be on the board of a major literacy organization, and I know that hundreds of "richies" and regular people were doing this regularly in the school system. (I've also seen big dollars donated to the literacy cause and many books (new and used) donated.) It's not as if we have some evil desire to see children grow up illiterate and unemployable. If schools / governments would make it easier to volunteer, I think more people would do it.

 

Another thing I've done is fund scholarships to private school for kids whose families are interested but have financial difficulties.

[MBM]

I think it has been well-established that simply putting money into schools won't necessarily fix what is the root of the problem. There are many ways to be "disadvantaged" (regardless of race), and these will undoubtable affect the school experience of those students and the ones around them. Having more programs, or even better programs, better teachers and nicer facilities does not automatically change this. Someone here recently recommended this book: How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character http://www.amazon.com/How-Children-Succeed-Curiosity-ebook/dp/B0070ZLZ1G/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1349281318&sr=1-1&keywords=how+children+succeed. I am reading it now, and it is fascinating and directly relates to the questions raised on this thread.

 

An early chapter talks about the experience of educators trying to set up a successful school (Fenger) in a tough NYC neighborhood with traditionally dismal test scores and high dropout rates.

 

Fenger’s contemporary history begins in 1995, when Chicago’s mayor, Richard M. Daley, was granted control of the city’s schools by the Illinois state legislature......He introduced a restructuring plan for Fenger that included hiring an outside contractor to coach the school’s teachers in reading and writing instruction. He created a freshman academy at the school, a separate, dedicated floor where incoming students would get special attention for their entire freshman year. In 1999, he created a math-and-science academy at the school, complete with a $ 525,000 NASA-sponsored science lab. Two years later, he made Fenger a magnet school, specializing in technology. Each of Vallas’s reform initiatives came and went, but things never seemed to improve much for the students at Fenger. And the same was true under Vallas’s successor, Arne Duncan. In 2006, Duncan chose Fenger as one of the pilot schools for a large-scale collaboration between the Chicago school system and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, an undertaking called High School Transformation, which the foundation initially financed with a twenty-one-million-dollar grant. (After three years, the total bill for the citywide project had grown to eighty million.) When the initiative was announced, Duncan said it was “a truly historic day, not just for the Chicago Public Schools and the city, but for the country.†But a little more than two years later, with evidence mounting that High School Transformation wasn’t producing results, Fenger was switched over to Duncan’s latest reform initiative: High School Turnaround. Under Turnaround, a school’s principal and at least half its teachers were removed, and a whole new team was brought in.....

Clearly a whole lot of thought, work, and money ($80 million!) being thrown into a school and failing to produce results. The next team did not have any better results.

 

......When we spoke, though, Dozier said that her thinking about schools had been changed by her time at Fenger. “I used to always think that if a school wasn’t performing, that it was strictly because there was a bad principal, or there were bad teachers,†she explained. “But the reality is that at Fenger, we’re a neighborhood school, so we’re just a reflection of the community. And you can’t expect to solve the problems of a school without taking into account what’s happening in the community.â€

 

Unfortunately, it is a HUGE undertaking with no clear path to change the neighborhood dynamic by addressing the individual family dynamics of the inhabitants. I'm not even sure it can be done on a large scale, and I expect many of the people in those troubled neighborhoods would reject the kind of help that is really needed. I hope it can be done, though, because I really fear for the fate of the country sometimes. It's easy to have a successful school when the kids show up cheerful, well-fed, well-behaved and ready to learn. How much harder it is to produce results when they show up angry, hungry, scared, distracted, confused and apathetic about learning. Regardless of what race they are.

 

Paul Tough wrote that book. I listened to his lecture at our high school last week. The KIPP schools are using his advice to develop grit. Each student's character development is noted on a Character Report Card which is discussed between individual teachers and student. The discussion is done in a positive, hopeful manner -- not mean, not ugly. If anyone is interested, here is a link to the forms:

 

http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~duckwort/images/KIPP%20NYC%20Character%20Report%20Card%20and%20Supporting%20Materials.pdf

 

Angela Duckworth, who worked on the grit studies, is going to be speaking at our high school this year, too. Here is her TED talk on perseverance:

 

 

Brene Brown will be speaking next Wednesday and Thursday. Those are going to be very crowded events. People will probably be turned away. I would highly recommend watching her TED talks about the power of vulnerability:

 

[stripe]

Experienced faculty makes a difference. If the poorest districts had the fanciest schools, the best materials, and the highest pay, the most talented teachers would follow, and there would be a difference. If the schools were places kids actually wanted to be instead of just another example of how their lives and neighborhoods are worthless, there would be a difference. If the poor weren't treated like they were less than, there would be a difference.

Lisa Delpit discusses in "Multiplication is for White People" how experienced and effective black teachers in urban areas have been pushed out of schools. Often their replacements are Teach for America volunteers who have no experience and leave after a year or two.

[beaners]

I've been in the inner city schools volunteering over the years. They have plenty of books and supplies.

 

:001_huh: That may be true where you have been. Did you see the link I posted earlier in the thread where one of Pittsburgh's *magnet* schools had only 40 usable books in the school's library?

[SKL]

:001_huh: That may be true where you have been. Did you see the link I posted earlier in the thread where one of Pittsburgh's *magnet* schools had only 40 usable books in the school's library?

 

Edited: I just looked at your link and that's not what it said. It said the "fiction" section had that many. They also didn't explain why - were the kids pilfering or damaging the books? They obviously had shelf space for them, which probably means once again that people have spent money that didn't end up benefiting kids because of local community dynamics.

 

BTW, the school where I learned to read did not have a library at all. School libraries are a fairly recent, rich-nation phenomenon and not actually necessary for learning.

Edited October 3, 2012 by SKL

[Pink Fairy]

Lisa Delpit discusses in "Multiplication is for White People" how experienced and effective black teachers in urban areas have been pushed out of schools. Often their replacements are Teach for America volunteers who have no experience and leave after a year or two.

 

My husband's district replaced some of the teachers they laid off with Teach for America teachers. It's one of the things they are doing to shore up finances after they pissed away millions of dollars on bad land investments. Naturally, it's been great for the students and the laid off teachers. :001_rolleyes:

[Nestof3]

My brother pays about $8,000 a year in real estate taxes alone. I cannot imagine what their income taxes are. I just have a hard time saying he should be paying more.

[mirth]

Remember that many of the asian kids testing into the specialized high schools (stuyvesant is 70%+ asian) are coming from poor immigrant families (with parents not speaking strong english), in the same crappy neighborhoods and crappy, run down schools you mention. Yet they test in. And it's their seats that will be taken away if this complaint results in racial quotas.

 

Asians can then cry discrimination that there are not very few or zero Asians on the varsity basketball and football teams so those sports must be racially discriminatory too.

[Nestof3]

And teacher unions is one of the reasons I asked if anyone has watched those documentaries.

 

I'll add our experience w/#3: It was declared illegal here to provide NCLB related tutoring thru volunteers or professionals afterschool, even with free transportation home provided. Students have to have their remediation during the school day, delivered by professionals. Only those students who are far far behind qualify...it's not on the basis of 'disadvantage', but on the basis of their performance in the classroom. Those who are struggling, but aren't failing absymally, must find help elsewhere if they need more than office hours. If your child fails a unit, it is not enough. He must fail at least a year's worth, in order to get anything more than the standard help available in class or during office hours. This is in complete contrast to the nonNY school districts I went to, where the teacher was responsible and accountable for teaching the material. Had my math teacher left out half of the material critical for understanding the unit, she'd have been fired. In NY, it's OK for her to do so. The parent is at fault for not picking up the slack. And it is seen as ethically correct to hire the teacher that is teaching your child's class as the tutor. The teacher can then do things to help your child that her teaching contract doesn't allow her to do at school.

[ChocolateReignRemix]

Asians can then cry discrimination that there are not very few or zero Asians on the varsity basketball and football teams so those sports must be racially discriminatory too.

 

 

I always like it when someone trots out this argument, as it makes it crystal clear that they just.don't.get.it.

[Haiku]

were the kids pilfering or damaging the books?

 

So once again, blame the poor kids for their cr@ppy education. If students in poor schools don't have books, it must be because the kids steal and destroy them. Unbelievable.

 

Earlier in this thread it was stated that anyone with access to a library can educate himself and overcome a cr@ppy school. Then it is stated that libraries aren't necessary, anyway. Apparently poor kids can't win no matter what.

 

I don't know why I keep coming back to this thread. It's like a motor vehicle wreck. I'm transfixed by the horrific nature of what I'm seeing.

 

Tara

[Lovin Learnin]

Asians can then cry discrimination that there are not very few or zero Asians on the varsity basketball and football teams so those sports must be racially discriminatory too.

 

What are you proposing - that Asians don't try hard enough or that they just don't care about sports?

[SKL]

So once again, blame the poor kids for their cr@ppy education. If students in poor schools don't have books, it must be because the kids steal and destroy them. Unbelievable.

 

Earlier in this thread it was stated that anyone with access to a library can educate himself and overcome a cr@ppy school. Then it is stated that libraries aren't necessary, anyway. Apparently poor kids can't win no matter what.

 

I don't know why I keep coming back to this thread. It's like a motor vehicle wreck. I'm transfixed by the horrific nature of what I'm seeing.

 

Tara

 

a) I am just realistic as far as the books. Kids do those things. You forget I grew up poor in a big city. When there is no respect for books, books get disrespected. Hello. Ask the district if they really only started out with 40 fiction books in their library if you think I'm wrong.

 

b) I said school libraries are not necessary. I walked to the public library as a kid. You mentioned the public libraries in the city you used for your example were awesome.

[kubiac]

Are you sure about the bolded? Because I've read that the low-performing schools tend to spend the most on a per-capita basis. Why does it cost more, on average, to educate a child in a poorer community? Because of influences (and lack thereof) in the community in which the kids are being raised. Ask any KG teacher who has worked in both environments.

 

See, I always assumed (perhaps wrongly?) it was because the preponderance of special services are delivered in high-need neighborhoods, whereas in wealthier neighborhoods, there is both less need and parents are more able to privately fund whatever needs to be funded. In poorer neighborhoods with less privileged populations, I assumed there would be more free school lunches, more special education for disabled kids, more speech therapy, more remedial interventions for neurotypical kids who arrive at school with no previous school experience, etc.

 

My feeling is that isn't not outright pernicious or overall malicious influences that add to the cost of education in poor communities, but rather that it's hugely expensive to ameliorate the worst of worst circumstances. Something like the 80-20 rule: 80 percent of the funds go to help the most challenged 20 percent of the population.

 

What's sad, and this relates to the thread topic, is that it becomes politically impossible to reallocate funds for enrichment programs for those who aren't in such dire straits: We lose intensive STEM programs, musical instruments for a band, books for the library, teacher's aides for the busiest and best teachers, etc.

 

How do we decide, as a community, which population is the most deserving of funds, in a world where funds are decidely finite?

Edited October 3, 2012 by kubiac

[NASDAQ]

Is anyone familiar with the Kansas City experiment? Unlimited money, and the schools stayed, well, crappy. Just very expensive and crappy. Camden NJ spends as much as almost any district in the US. Would you send your kid to public school in Camden NJ?

 

Shaker Heights phenomenon? The racial gap persists even in fussy majority-white suburban schools.

[stripe]

I don't know why I keep coming back to this thread. It's like a motor vehicle wreck. I'm transfixed by the horrific nature of what I'm seeing.

 

 

Barbara Ehrenreich's book about how she was implictly blamed for getting breast cancer because she wasn't thinking positively enough, in Bright-Sided, shows the degree to which this mentality prevails. It's worth reading.

[stripe]

The racial gap persists even in fussy majority-white suburban schools.

There are many gaps, not only one.

 

Why are less than a third of those taking AP physics and comp sci tests female? Why did FIVE TIMES more boys get a 5 on the Physics C test in 2008 than girls?

[Haiku]

Barbara Ehrenreich's book about how she was implictly blamed for getting breast cancer because she wasn't thinking positively enough, in Bright-Sided, shows the degree to which this mentality prevails. It's worth reading.

 

It is amazing to me the lengths people will go to disavow any collective responsibility for the conditions of the society in which they live.

 

Tara