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“Blaming it on SES is a copout and a "blame the victim" mentality. The district lines are arbitrary and in many cases the strong economic variations from one side of a district line to the other is BECAUSE of the bad school district.”
OK, this is a refrain that I’ve heard many times and I think
needs to be untangled. It is a fact that
low-SES correlates with much higher levels of either poor behavior or lack of
parenting capacity. For instance, a
single parent working two jobs is going to struggle much more in giving her
kids the adequate attention they need to develop. It doesn’t mean she can’t. But that on average there are going to be
many more situations where kids fall through the cracks. And that’s only one dimension. Lower-SES means that overall levels of
capital in a neighborhood are going to be lower, so the other kids in her
apartment complex are more likely to have parents who are dealing with more
stress, less money, and less education.
This deficit of societal capital translates directly into ongoing
deficiencies in levels of human capital in students.
So, I would say that yes, I am blaming the poor. But I am seeing them as disadvantaged and deserving
of extra social support, the blame lying on a capitalist system which
perpetuates poverty: low education and low pay means you can only afford to
live in certain areas, which means you are dragged down by those around you who
can’t, or don’t know how to be more successful.
In moral terms, I would say this isn’t actually blame because I argue
that there is no *real* choice being made (I’m actually a philosophical
determinist so I don’t really believe in free will, but that’s a whole other
can of worms/rabbit hole!). If you can’t
do something because you don’t know how or are physically incapable, there is
no choice occurring.
But in so far as I am taking the emphasis of the school and
placing it on the parent, I see how you could say it is a cop out. But my case is that schools as currently
designed are incapable of handling the extra work that low-SES populations
require. You say they can do it, by not
allowing the 20% to dictate the culture.
Are you getting that number from somewhere, or using it as a kind of
general point that there is some difference in populations, but not so severe that
an average school shouldn’t be able to overcome it?
My response could be that it is you who are copping out,
right? Poor schools have always
performed poorly. All of the current
problems have always been there. We know
that teachers at poor schools are not really any better or worse than teachers
at good schools. So it isn’t the
teachers. It must be the “culture” so
often spoken of. I completely agree that
culture/climate of a school is important.
But it is something highly complex, that cannot be created top-down, and
has as much to do with serendipity as anything else. It is dependent on so many things going just
right, can often take years to evolve, and can devolve at any time due to
staffing or policy changes. I’m all for
good school culture, but I certainly don’t want to rely on it to solve the
achievement gap. Again, SES is going to
be a major factor in driving a school culture - which indeed you admitted, and
which I think is further argument that low-SES schools need much higher levels
of resource-requiring intervention capacity.
“But most of the people in bad schools are very much like most of the people in good schools. Kids are reasonably intelligent, kinda lazy, come to school most days, have parents who care but aren't super involved with school, etc. Which brings me to answer of your second question -- most traditional public schools allow 20% of the school population to determine the entire culture of the school -- the programming, the discipline procedures, the attitudes and expectations of the staff, etc. In wealthy schools, the top 20% establish the culture. In poor schools, the most disadvantaged 20% establish the culture. But average kids have absolutely no chance in a typical low-achieving school. And average kids have a very good chance in a high-achieving school.”
I just have to really disagree with this, and it is borne
out in the research. Not only is there a
spectrum of societal capital (that stimulus/support which students receive from
families, peers, society), but so too a spectrum of human capital (the
cognitive, emotional, social, behavioral skills that students have developed
via societal capital). This spectrum in
the classroom is easy to see, and must be accounted for through differentiated
curriculum. This is probably where the
rubber meets the road in terms of the school “culture” that gets spoken of. At a high-SES school, most of the kids will
be at grade level, having received adequate support at home. It is therefore much easier to teach them all
to grade level. At a low-SES school, the
range in abilities (emotional, cognitive, behavioral, etc.) is much greater,
and therefore much more difficult to assess, plan for, teach, etc. Truancy rates – an enormously important
factor in academic success, also correlate highly with SES. (http://www2.dsgonline.com/dso/Truancy%20Literature%20Review.pdf)
It simply isn’t true that low and high SES populations are similar
at all. I agree that the culture of low-SES schools is disproportionately
established by the bottom 20%. But that
is because they are so much more difficult to deal with. As any teacher will tell you, even a small
number of trouble-making students can be severely disruptive in a
classroom. Again, there is a spectrum,
and disruptive students are only an additional problem on top of truancy, lack
of cognitive development, language skills, etc.
Let me give you an example of how linked SES with academic readiness. English language-learners are given mandated
competency tests, right? So, even a kid
who speaks little English, but comes from a home with higher levels of capital
(parents read to him at night, aren’t stressed, are better educated, etc.),
will often perform better on the CELDT test than a native born, English-only
speaking kid who comes from a low-capital home.
Time and again, you see poor kids who are for all intents and purposes
at the level of non-native speakers. Not
only in terms of language ability, but in every other developmental domain they
will consistently be less-developed. But
this is basic human development: kids don’t develop by themselves. Learning begins at birth and is enormously
dependent on environmental stimulus.
One more example of this: at my daughter’s high-performing
school, high scores are no accident. And
they have little to do with the school or the teachers. My daughter (both parents with graduate
degrees) has classmates whose parents are doctors, lawyers, business owners, head
chefs, professors. One girl has two
parents who are both optometrists. Most
can afford to have one parents stay home. Parents routinely come in and not only conduct
small-group work with children, but grade papers, prepare projects, organize
events, etc. on a *daily* basis. At a
recent fundraiser, they raised $90k. I
would venture to guess that most children were reading when they entered
kindergarten. Most take music lessons,
are heavily involved in athletics, and generally live very enriched lives
outside of school. When I taught
kindergarten, it was difficult for me to find parents who were available to
help out in class, either because they didn’t speak English very well, were
busy working low income jobs (many were gardeners, maids, clerks, or other
service-industry workers), or because they just didn’t feel comfortable coming
in and taking the initiative. Attempts
at organizing PTA activity at the school were very difficult.
“Oh, and as far as social programs, I'm not opposed to safety nets, but I'm against widespread government interventions. I don't see politicians as inherently different than businessmen, and playing politics is almost identical to commercial marketing, so I don't get the mindset that big government is somehow going to save us from the greedy businessmen. Big government people are just as self-serving as big business people.”
There’s a lot here. I’m
not sure what you mean by “greedy businessmen”.
What does that have to do with reducing class sizes, paying for aides,
counselors, home-health visits, or anything else for schools? Or daycare for single-mothers, or subsidized
students loans, or better libraries, or food stamps?
“The idea that liberals care more about poor people than conservatives do is a marketing gimmick, not anything based on liberal policies actually being good for poor people. Try to find a low-income person that's against school choice. Why do you think that is?”
There seems to be a bit of incoherence here. You seem to be saying that liberals claim
they care more about poor people, but only because they favor spending programs
targeted towards them, when it isn’t that conservatives don’t care, but rather
that they don’t think these programs are effective. Is that right? I agree with this, to a degree. But there is also a long history of
conservatives being opposed to social programs in principle, that they cannot
be anything but ineffective, because the solution to poverty is not a handout
but an individual making better choices.
This has led to more than one conservative blaming the poor for their
own poverty *and* not feeling any personal obligation to help them. Maintaining that state services are
ineffective can be a very corrupting crutch in deciding not to do
anything. The most cynical conservatives
argue that indeed, liberal social programs are actively causing poverty; the
assumption being that without them, everyone would be successful. Again, were they not to be successful, how
then would these conservatives explain any lack of success, except by blaming
the poor themselves?
School choice is an interesting proposition. On one level I completely agree – poor people
should get to go to good schools. But
again, I argue that the reason the schools are bad is because people are
poor. Because we live in a capitalist
society, and we have free property, there will always be poor
neighborhoods. This is purely a function
of the economy. I refer you to the
previous links I gave upthread to the two cities in California. This is just a reality. Capitalism gives you as much choice as you
can afford. Of course everyone would
like to have choice: better roads, libraries, parks, neighbors, businesses, healthcare,
etc.
Now, public education – like other state services – are socialist
in the sense that they promise a basic level of service to everyone, regardless
of income. But the problem with
education is that it relies on one’s peers.
You can create better parks or roads, but you can’t create better neighbors. There will always be more crime in poor
neighborhoods. And there will always be
more disruptive, less prepared/developed children in poor schools. School choice is essentially like a holiday
from one’s economic position.
Yet there is a way in which it is like a shell game. If the premise is that good schools are due
to the student population, then to “choose” a better school, you must “choose”
a school in which the demographic make-up is selective *away* from the element
of the population that is bringing the school down. Unfortunately, this group tends to be the
least likely to make the “choice”, and further, much less be able to follow
through with the requirements that allow a school to be good: low truancy, good
behavior, academic ambition. Poor
families are not at all homogeneous, and many are perfectly able to provide the
kind of support their children need to be successful. Indeed, what brings them down as a school is
the much higher degree of ill-prepared/developed students. Much of the strength of charters is in their
ability to select for the quality of its student population.
So, I disagree that the problem is the school, and believe it
is the tendency of low-SES student populations to be under-prepared for academic
success that drives the achievement gap.
I think families deserve a quality education, but would rather not see
the better-prepared students sapped from a community. I think much of the problem can be solved by
radically reduced class-sizes, which allow a teacher to better meet the extra
needs of low-SES populations, as well as a more robust system of family support
and intervention that targets the ecosystem in which the most troubled students
are developing.
I think in providing this kind of support, poor and affluent
parents would *all* have a choice, and be proud to send their children to the
local school, regardless of economic geography.
I understand the reservations, the questions as to whether government
programs can really be effective in providing adequate support to the low-capital
families responsible for pulling schools down – to diminishing the climate, as
you might put it. I have my own concerns
as to how much we can ever truly do for these families. The best thing might be to simply remove them
from mainstream classes and develop more comprehensive special-ed type on-site
programs for disruptive children (I’m reminded of the portrayal of this concept
in the 4th season of The Wire).
But I strongly disagree that the schools themselves are to blame for
allowing the culture to diminish. As I
hopefully have demonstrated, in reality this “culture” tends to consist of
overwhelmed teachers being asked to do too much with too little.
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