Jan Resseger, a social justice activist in Ohio, writes on her blog about the hidden agenda behind the debate about “grit.”
She believes it is a way of blaming the poor for their poverty (obviously, they are poor because they lack grit) and at the same time, doing nothing to reduce poverty or to address the structural causes of poverty and inequality. In reality, it is a profoundly reactionary way of shifting responsibility from government to those who are at the bottom of the ladder.
She begins:
Our preoccupation in American education with character formation defined as “grit” is integral to our culture’s rock-solid belief in the myth of the American Dream. It doesn’t matter that economists today are documenting rigidifying inequality with the rise of incomes at the top, wage stagnation for families in the middle, and deepening poverty and segregation among those at the very bottom. It doesn’t matter that Nobel Prize winning economist, Joseph Stiglitz explains: “There’s no use in pretending. In spite of the enduring belief that Americans enjoy greater social mobility than their European counterparts, America is no longer the land of opportunity.” (The Price of Inequality, p. 265) And it doesn’t matter that last year Robert Putnam published a whole book about the increasing rigidity of social stratification in America: “Graphically, the ups and downs of inequality in America during the twentieth century trace a gigantic U, beginning and ending in two Gilded Ages, but with a long period of relative equality around mid-century… In the early 1970s, however, that decades-long equalizing trend began to reverse, slowly at first but then with accelerating harshness… (I)n the 1980s the top began to pull away from everyone else, and in the first decades of the twenty-first century the very top began to pull away even from the top. Even within each major racial/ethnic group, income inequality rose at the same substantial rate between 1967 and 2011, as richer whites, blacks and Latinos pulled away ….” (Our Kids, pp. 34-35)
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Reblogged this on Politicians Are Poody Heads and commented:
I think Resseger is right. It allows the “reformers” to blame the victim, and gives the government an excuse not to do much of anything to reduce poverty.
YES; I have been wondering about this, but suddenly I see it clearly as you say it: The “reformers” are simply looking for yet more reason to blame their victims. And what better way than to endlessly compare them to this or that aspect attendant to the privileged class, and then point out where they fall short? (This is how I see the “graduate kids on time or withhold the funding” game. Compare poor kids to wealthy kids and then blame the poor — and their schools/teachers — for not getting the same results.)
So what are Jan Resseger’s ideas for addressing these structural inequalities, which are so intimately tied to where people live, and which are far more linked to race than they are to class?
Maybe we can start with eliminating the various tax breaks received by homeowners, which, along with rampant mortgage discrimination, exclusionary zoning that thwarts the development of affordable housing, steering by real estate professionals, and acts of intimidation by private citizens and law enforcement, plays an enormous role in sustaining residential and school segregation. In 2008, the cost of these tax breaks was staggering– $171 billion dollars, or rougly about a third of the entire amount spent on K-12 nationally. In comparison, the entire amount spent by the federal government on direct housing assistance came to only $40 billion.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/06/opinion/sunday/the-eviction-economy.html
It isn’t just oligarchs and the Koch brothers who are profiting off the backs of the poor.
Tim, the only problem with what you propose is that again the onus for change is placed on the middle class. Those who have managed to enter the middle class and own their own homes are to give up an important mechanism that has allowed them to join the middle class, a tax break on home ownership. There may be a way to tap into property ownership perks to help fund affordable housing, but you are not going to ease the problem by driving those who are at the lower end of that group out of ownership. The economic pie has been cut in favor of a small elite group who keep nibbling at the little that is left. Taking more of the crumbs from those already slowly losing the little they have is not going to ease the desperation of those who have nothing.
It also lets political and business leaders off the hook. Don’t forget that all-important function of market-based ed reform.
If it’s all about “tenacity” and “work ethic” of the lower and middle classes a lot of very powerful people who like things just the way they are can pass the buck. And they do! Surely you’ve noticed how ed reform studiously avoids funding issues. They run lots of political campaigns but no funding campaigns. That’s not an accident.
Median income in my county has decreased by nearly 7,000 since 2005. That is a lot of money if your income was in the 30k/40k range and that’s what most people make here.
We actually used this in a levy campaign, where we had to increase local taxes to make up for cuts in state funding. We told people we have more children coming from poorer families. It’s true. People understood it because they live here and they know it’s true. The levy passed, thank God. They raised their own taxes to make up the difference, although they can actually afford it LESS now.
It’s like teachers are bailing a leaky boat with a teaspoon. If children’s families are poorer that matters. Our public school could have gotten “better” (by whatever measure we choose) but the school has a different population, not because the children changed- became less “gritty”- but because their family income changed. They’re poorer.
But no one in ed reform wants to talk about that. It makes the donors uncomfortable.
Here is another example of the problem.
Angela Duckworth of Grit fame is on the National Advisory Boardof GreatSchools.org, funded by Gates, Walton, Robertson, Arnold Foundations and 19 others, including the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice, Goldman Sachs Gives.
This nonprofit is a huge “red lining” operation with opportunities to license ads using data about schools which, coincidentally, has been gathered through other projects that are not what they seem to be on the surface, like the CORE district program in Californa reaching 11 million students, with data gathering well beyond what that state requires for accountability, including surveys of school climate and social-emotional well-being.
I am working on some chunks of information that show how deeply this organization is involved in redlining real estate, leveraging data on schools and “choice” options, parent profiles and so on.
GreatSchools.org offers licenses and ads. These are marketed with “base” and “local” modules set up to push enrollment in specific schools. The scary part is that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Devlopment and Fannie Mae have paid for a license,
The website boasts that it has one million customer ratings, on 200,000 schools, with more in the pipeline. I discovered this operation by looking at one school evaluation in Oakland CA, one of the 10 CORE districts that have a new system of data gathering on “school quality.” When I clicked on the rating, I was sent to the GreatSchools website. None of the PR about the CORE districts disclosed this commercial data mining operation operating under the auspices of a distant non-profit, funded by foundations known to be seeking market- based education with initiatives in dominating media outlets, and surveys that pretend to be research.
I read a piece where they said KIPP was the original experiment site for the “grit” measure.
Just like Summit charter schools are the model for blended learning that the Obama Administration is pushing.
It’s amazing how public policy dominated by people who run charter school chains ends up putting practices used in charter schools into every public school, huh?
Do our lawmakers ever consult with anyone who runs a public school? Are public school leaders unfashionable or something?
This sort of racist labeling (poverty is due to lack of grit, lack of character, etc) has been going on for a very long time.
And now someone (Angela Duckworth) has made a full blown pseudo-science out of it.
My, what an accomplishment. Worthy of a “genius” award, no doubt.
It will be politically popular though. A test to measure “character”!
We love reductive measures and rankings in this country. We love numbers and grades as proxy for everything. Ed reform just plays into a weakness that already exists.
They can do a Top Ten list for school with students who have the best “character”. US News can do a special edition.
My state will definitely follow the fad. In 2 years we’ll have a “character-added” measure on the glossy test results brochure we get, which is now up to 6 pages. I hope my youngest will be down the road by the time the latest crop of consultants parachute in. I’m not sure I want him measured for “character”.
“MLK Reinterpreted”
The content of their character
Is how they should judged
The coarseness of their grit, for sure
Is how the latter’s fudged
I agree that the concept of “grit” could be used by someone to blame people who aren’t successful, but that is no reason to abandon the concept within a school.
“Grit” is a specific trait from a taxonomy, but what we’re really talking about is self awareness, mindfulness and meta-cognition, and those are important things that haven’t gotten as much attention as they should.
I think helping students to understand how they make decisions in life is extremely important for all. And yes, maybe it’s most useful for children from low income families because their choices have been limited and frequently worse options than what high income families may have. For adults, that might be payday loans. For kids, that might be playing with the “community gun”.
Teaching children about how they make choices is definitely important, and frankly, I don’t hear anybody talking about a whole community not having enough grit (or something similar to that) anywhere except on these anti-reform blogs. Anyone have an example?
That said, any concept of evaluating grit using a test (other than as a self-assessment or learning tool) is ridiculous.
Where do you get “self awareness, mindfulness and meta-cognition” out of “grit”? “Grit” for poor kids is defined as the ability to doggedly comply with meaningless, tedious and irrelevant tasks as long as you are required to do them. True mindfulness and meta-cognition would be encouraging kids to recognize when these tasks are becoming ridiculous and being able to say, “I won’t play this useless game anymore.”
Dienne,
Who defines grit as “doggedly comply[ing] with meaningless and irrelevant tasks…”? That’s ridiculous. Sounds like anti-reformer strawmanspeak to me.
Grit = persistence
Now is it OK to discuss?
Perhaps both of you John and Dienne are right.
Perhaps grit is “doggedly comply[ing] with meaningless and irrelevant tasks…” as it is “perseverance.”
The first description is laden with a lot of connotative baggage – but could be relatively objectively (sans pathos)articulated as perseverance.
What is meaning? What is relevance? and what means what to whom? How can we measure perseverance?
Talking about ‘grit’ or ‘perseverance’ – is a very dangerous area. Some / many people might assume that it refers to an internal (in born) characteristic or moral trait – but actually it’s only a description of conditioning to schedules of reinforcement. This is why it is important to avoid pseudoscientific mentalisms and rely on a science of behavior.
Moore, J. (2003). Behavior analysis, mentalism, and the path to social justice. The Behavior Analyst, 26(2), 181–193.
This is similar to critical theory discussions.
Ahl, H. (2006). Motivation in adult education: A problem solver or a euphemism for direction and control? International Journal of Lifelong Education, 25(4), 385–405.
I teach “grit” every year to my students. It is an integral part of what they should learn every year, as determined by local and state standards.
Grit, as I teach it refers to clastic fragments of pre-existing rocks and mineral matter having a size range of 0.06 to 0.004 cm, otherwise known as silt. Grit is an important component in sedimentary rocks.
Of course I’m a geologist who teaches Earth Science, so my job may be easier than others when it comes to teaching about “grit”.
Don’t hate me for it.
Kisses to you, RH2, for making me laugh amidst a very grim discussion.
What a bunch of schist.
… though gneissly put.
I once dated a geologist so know all the jokes (unfortunately)
I’m flattered by all this talc about my comment, but understand this: I know far more geology puns than you probably have an apatite for.
Shale I go on?
Please, Sir, I want some Moh
and, rest fissured I won’t take anything for granite
That last one of yours?
I was laughing so hard I fell on the fluorite there.
We better stop…we don’t want others to sulfur further. Besides, its slate, and I have to finish grading. Of quartz, I can resume this another time, when I’m not so buried under with work.😃
Good gneiss, good gneiss, parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say good gneiss, til it be morrow
OK, OK…
Puns are one thing, but poems are another. Separate I’m fine, but when you conglomerate them together, well I’m done.
My coal was simple: to amuse, to add a bit of levity. I think I’ve succeeded. Now I have to go…we are having a dinner party and I have 8 people cummingtonite.
Maybe tomorrow I can dig some more up.
Things just don’t seem to change. Blame the less fortunate and go away pounding your chest about how great you are.
Hi Marian,
I was reading Dr. Ravitch’s piece in the Times yesterday (go, Dr. Ravitch) and, although nine of ten comments were reasoned and supportive, there was that one inevitably chiming in about how “those students have got to learn,” which to me read as dog whistle for “know your place.” Such persons will ever count their having been born into privilege as personal accomplishments.
I had to stop reading after that.
And forget to mention how much money you’ve made in the process by neverendingly testing them, forcing a new curricula upon them, and pushing your technology into their schools.
Grit will set you free.
Or drive you crazy when it gets in your eye.
To set greedy corporate free to be greedier and bolder to boast their wealth from looting, cheating and bullying the unfortunate. Back2basic
Back in the 50s, 60s, 70s, and possibly 80s, you could be working poor and get by. Now that is not the case. The wealthy don’t care that the working poor, lower middle class, middle class – pay the same for groceries, car insurance, cars, gasoline, internet, phone service, heat, water, rent and/or mortgage (albeit the last 2 on a sliding scale) as the wealthy. We all have to live/survive, with a roof over our heads, clothing on our backs, food in our bellies, heat, water, insurance, etc. By the corporate practice of CEOs making fortunes and the trickle down employees getting less and less, it has become difficult for people to simply exist and afford the basics. Rents are out of control, food, clothing, insurance, electricity, etc., all of that is expensive. Companies scaling down and hiring only part time workers without benefits so the CEOs can make big money is an appalling practice that only digs the “other” classes into holes.
I knew a bread truck driver who made a good living and was able to take care of a family of 5. My divorced mother took care of 3 kids on her own. To me, our Newark neighborhood was normal. I didn’t know anyone who was better off then me, and at the time I didn’t realize we were poor because he had an apartment, food, clothes, etc. Nowadays, a crappy apartment is going for $1,500 a month–who can afford that at $8 an hour part time? One can argue people don’t need cell phones, or internet, or a computer, but one cannot argue that food, clothing, shelter, transportation, aren’t vital. Even public transportation costs a fortune. Have you been to a laundrymat lately? I go just to wash the blankets/quilts, and its terribly expensive – imagine if you have to go there weekly or every other week to wash your family’s clothes. Life’s basic needs have become terribly expensive while those at the top eek out menial wages for part time positions.
So now, to absolve themselves for the conditions those at the bottom find themselves in, they blame the teachers and schools and ultimately the poor. Meanwhile, those in charge will ensure that those below always stay in our places. No excuses charter schools don’t ensure those children will succeed if they strive and have grit, because the odds are stacked against them. The silver spoons take care of themselves and other silver spoons; they give jobs to each other’s kids. I’ve seen it. I will never understand how inhumane life has become. This is he bottom line – why is the CEO of an airline making MILLIONS while the clerks are making crap and customers are paying a fortune to fly? Why is Eva paying herself $500,000 from public taxes? How is that even ALLOWED? When Wall Street crashed, the Executives were paid their bonuses…and we the people bailed them out. Makes no sense.
Anyhow, the reformers and the Broads and the Toads will continue to spin new ways to keep the impoverished poor, and the politicians will continue to pander to them. The odds are stacked, and they are brilliant in their smoke and mirrors, deflect from the real issues, manipulations. Brave new world that has such things in it.
I love you , Donna for you speak out the absolute truth.
All silver-spoon children are greedy and selfish. They cannot work hard and smart as their parents did. They only know to bully and create inhuman working conditions to all levels of blue and white collars in order to maintain their luxury living lifestyle.
Dr. A. Duckworth’s new fancy vocabulary of “GRIT” is to promote GRIT or being greedier as her conclusion without morale conscience.
It is no doubt that Dr. A. Duckworth must graduate from “closed down” Trump university. Back2basic
Since when is government responsible for those at the bottom of the ladder? Never has been and never should be….
Please tell me my sarcas-o-meter is malfunctioning.
Rarely mentioned in these discussions is the fact that class size has been shown to be correlated with these “non-cognitive” skills like persistence or grit. See the research studies linked to here:
http://www.classsizematters.org/research-and-links/#non-cognitive%20skills
Having adults who support you and provide you close attention and encouragement is key to having the self-confidence and commitment to work hard and persist. To the extent that low-income students and students of color are also disproportionately disadvantaged by large classes, with the lack of this individualized attention, they will also suffer in this category.
Chiara,
Duckworths’ original studies on grit were from high performance, high endurance, high stress populations West Point or comparable cadets, kids who won or were finalists in the national spelling bee. She has a TED talk about this if you want to learn more.
Laura H. Chapman: correct me if I’m wrong, but I read your remarks as meaning…
That outliars use outliers in order to flat out lie.
Next thing you know, you’ll say that Dr. Raj Chetty’s plan (as expressed in the Vergara trial) to put the teacher-equivalent of an outlier among outliers like Michael Jordan of basketball fame in every typical classroom is, by definition, impossible.
And that’s not to mention that the late Gerald Bracey must have been utterly mad to even suggest that “when comparing groups, make sure the groups are comparable.”
My head is reeling…
😎
Students that work hard on their studies do better in school. Graduation rates from college increases for students with higher GPAs. There is nothing wrong with encouraging students to work hard in school.
For some time now, I have felt that those we deem to be financially successful are those who are morally labile. This is especially true at the corporate CEO level. In fact, I believe that lack of scruples is a requisite for such a position. When will we start testing for that?
KrazyTA… just saying that Duckworth gives a TED talk on how she came up with grit as concept to study.
The outliers were the source of her enchantment.
Bracey was right.
I am sick of the excessive use of the “great” schools, teachers, students, and the rest as if every day, in every way, everyone was 100% perfect.
Humm…..for the most part historically, those oppressed or enslaved had, have, much more “grit” than their rich oppressors; for the work hard in difficult jobs (ones that the indolent rich will not due). Our farm workers have more “grit” than most of our programmers; if grit is a measure of performing under difficult circumstances or persevering in a hard situation. Slaves have more grit than the owners, etc. etc….
If wages have anything to do with the importance and value of the good or service in meeting real human needs, then tell me how our “free market” says that an NBA player is worth a thousand times more than our farm worker. When in fact the farm worker performs a service that is a thousand times more important than entertainment and bravado (why no “Oscars” for farmworkers?). The NBA and Hollywood can go bankrupt and society will still function just fine, but have farms close down for lack of making sufficient profits (because of unjust wages) and society comes to a halt.
So, poverty is not a function of a lack of “grit” because fundamentally is the result of unjust wages (coupled with unjust gains), where the value and the profit of the goods produced are not equitable shared among those who do the production (the majority of the work). Jeremiah 23 and James 5 give the book-ends of this reality. Jeremiah confronts those who hire people and then pay them essentially nothing, and profit from the unjust share they keep; then James finishes off the “1-2 punch” because condemning these hoarders/oppressors/abusers by telling them “their riches testify against them and the Lord of the harvest”, and these riches that they lusted for and used unjust means to get will rot in their hands and be fuel for the fire of judgment of that Great and Final Day.