Archives for category: Poverty
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Jersey Jazzman Answers Another Teacher’s Question

By dianeravitch
January 21, 2013 //
6

This day on which we mark the life of Martin Luther King, Jr., is an appropriate time to think about our nation’s determination to revive a dual school system in urban districts: one for the “strivers” (the charters, as Mike Petrilli explained it in a post), and another for the kids unwilling or unable to enroll in a charter school (that is, those who are in public schools).

Yesterday, a teacher asked why parents would keep their children in public schools when charter schools are able to exclude the disruptive kids and provide homogeneous groups of well-behaved students.

Here, Jersey Jazzman adds his thoughts to the exchange on the blog:

An excellent discussion here. I wrote about this last week:

http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2013/01/segregation-by-behavior-chartery-secret.html

The sad fact is that we already do segregate the students in our public schools: we segregate them by the ability and willingness of their families to pay high prices for housing. If you can afford to pay in the high six-digits for a house in the leafy ‘burbs, then you can send your kid to a fabulous school that will not segregate her from high-achieving children, even if she’s struggling academically or behaviorally. That school will be well-resourced and have a broad and rich curriculum; you’ll also have much more influence on its administration through democratically elected school boards that will be far more responsive to your concerns than autocratic urban school leaders.

These are rights and privileges that come from wealth. They are not available to parents living in urban areas where school resources are being drained by both regressive tax structures and the proliferation of charters, and where citizens are increasingly disenfranchised from having a say in how their schools are run. We currently have a two-tiered system of eduction in this country, and it has nothing to do with how “gifted” the students are in each tier.

Again, I give Petrilli credit for finally addressing all of this. But let’s take it to its logical conclusion:

If we are really saying the issue in urban education is that the “disruptors” need to be separated out, then charters are a terrible way to do so. Folks like Petrilli who want to segregate the children this way have an obligation to propose a fair, transparent, and broad-based system of evaluation at the developmentally appropriate time to track children not just by ability, but by classroom behavior. That system needs to be free of racial, ethnic, gender, and socio-economic bias.

But, perhaps most importantly, it needs to be applied uniformly across our society. There should be no more recourse for wealthy parents to buy their way into a public school district that mainstreams their disruptive, underachieving child with the high-flyers, while poor children in cities are separated into castes.

Good luck trying to sell that one to the PTO, Mike.

Until Petrilli is ready to roll out his system, let’s at least all agree on his premise: the secret to “successful” charters is that they serve different students than neighboring public schools. That’s a big step forward in the debate, and one I’d be happy to see many others take.

Categories Charter Schools, Poverty, Special Education, U.S. education

Is This the Broad Academy Playlist?

By dianeravitch
January 20, 2013 //
13

A reader offered this comment in response to the post about school closings in Sacramento:

A “Broad” superintendent who follows its “play-list” to “capture” the school board and privatize the district as much as possible:

– Convinced the board of education to turn all the power over to the superintendent.

– Keeps secret all the contracts and consultants hired by the superintendent. In fact, it’s been said that the latest consultant working with the superintendent was the principal of Kevin Johnson’s St. Hope H.S. None of this information can be found on the district’s web site. Even the organization chart with unfilled positions is dated July 2012.

– Consistently and knowingly breaches the contract to keep the union busy with grievances and court procedures.

– Whittles away at teacher tenure by creating a class of teachers in the district’s “priority schools” whose jobs are protected from last hired, first fired. (Yes, the union is
grieving this.)

– Increases class size to 30+ in all grades except those in “priority” schools.

– In “failing” schools the district insists on split grades rather than keeping class sizes
low.

– Forces remedial programs (more test prep on top of test prep) onto “failing” schools
without any input from the teachers and wastes hundreds of thousands of dollars on
consultants and test prep companies.

– Closes the neighborhood schools under the pretext that there are too few students in
the school. But in fact, it’s because they are “failing” (read: poverty and neglect.)

– “Allows” a private charter school to locate in the former “neighborhood ” school.

– Parents who want and need a neighborhood school drop out of the public school and send their kids to the charter.

– Pink slips for union teachers.

Categories Broad Foundation, Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Closing schools, Poverty, Privatization, Teacher Evaluations, Testing

Can You Do This?

By dianeravitch
January 19, 2013 //
62

A reader comments:

* *

What do the following major problems have in common?

1. Severe budget cuts to schools, bashing of teachers, lack of a broad based curriculum for developing critical and creative thinking students and cheating scandals?

2. Allowing civilians to buy assault weapons that can be used to murder innocent children and adults?

3. Inadequate mental health services?

4. Unaffordable health care services and millions of uninsured?

5. High rates of poverty?

6. Global warming, climate changes with bizarre weather patterns and allowing the destruction of the planet?

7. The crash of 2008 that led to a severe economic crisis?

8. Extreme materialism and money as top priority?

9. Special interest groups and corporations having greater influence on politicians than the people?

10. High crime rates and overcrowded prisons?

All of these problems reflect a deterioration of human values- the type of values which are humane and indicative of the ideals of humanity. Values such as kindness, caring for others, love, integrity and compassion make us good human beings. These values are the antidote and solution to many problems in the world today.

Certainly there are many people who display these values, but many more people with human values are needed if we are to reach a tipping point. For us to create a world that reflects love and caring for all it must begin with each individual. To reach critical mass the consciousness of more people must be raised so that the problems mentioned are unacceptable and not tolerated.

It is for each of us to get in touch with our humanity and with others to positively influence our leaders or replace them with people who will lead with human values. Are we as a human family willing to put into action those values which will create a better world for everyone? This is a question for each of us to answer.

Raymond Gerson

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Poverty

Where Are the Closing Schools?

By dianeravitch
December 27, 2012 //
13

Jersey Jazzman connects the dots about school closings.

Do they close in white neighborhoods? No.

Do they close in affluent neighborhoods? No.

Guess where they close? In high-poverty neighborhoods.

My guess: the white and affluent neighborhoods are next.

Categories Accountability, Chicago, New Jersey, New York, Philadelphia, Poverty, Privatization, Segregation , Racial Isolation and Integration

Teacher: Common Core Harms My Title I Students

By dianeravitch
December 27, 2012 //
26

One of the unsettled questions about the Common Core standards is whether they will widen or narrow the achievement gaps between children of different races and different income levels. In their first trial in Kentucky, the gap grew larger, and scores fell across the board. Some see this effect as a temporary adjustment to higher standards. Some suspect that it is intended to induce panic among parents about public education. Some see it as an opportunity for entrepreneurs to sell more stuff to schools.

This teacher read Stephen Krashen’s post last night about the Common Core and offered the following comments.

“From a teacher who has spent this year implementing CC I can tell everyone it has been a nightmare of epic proportion.

“We were already a standards based Title 1 school with great success over the past 4 years, and these past 5 months have left my students months behind. I am a great teacher, building the relationships necessary in a TItle 1 school for students to learn. I have always posted 90% and higher pass rates on the state test (not that I give any heed to those numbers – even though my job now depends on them), but I will be shocked if I hit 70% this year following this CC crap.

“The design and implementation has left my Title 1 students feeling like failures. There is no “leveling of the playing field.” If I am to salvage something from this year I will have to risk my job and fix what CC has done for my students, essentially nothing.

“There was zero thought given to low income students, how they think or how they learn. You cannot build EVERYTHING on previous learning. Anyone who teaches TItle 1 will tell you it does not work that way. The achievement gap widens, and will become irreparable in just a few years of CC.

“I sit here over my Christmas Break trying to figure out how to implement CC for the next 5 months and still catch my kids up to level. CC is not about teaching. It is about the creation of two separate educational systems, one for the haves, and one for the have nots. Sadly for my students, and more than 50% of the children in the South, they have not and CC is not helping.”

Categories Common Core, Poverty, Teachers and Teaching

How Standardized Testing Reinforces Inequity

By dianeravitch
December 26, 2012 //
21

Paul Thomas of Furman University in South Carolina says it is time for Southerners to recognize that testing is a way of reinforcing inequity. Tests reflect socioeconomic conditions. The haves dominate the top half of the bell curve, the have-nots dominate the bottom half. And the tests legitimate their status. Tests measure inequality of opportunity. They don’t change it.

Categories Accountability, Poverty, Testing

A Sad Story of “Reform Churn” in Newark

By dianeravitch
December 2, 2012 //
3

Did the Global Village School Zone in Newark have a chance?

Did it get enough time?

Did it spend enough money?

Does Superintendent Cami Anderson have better ideas?

Doesn’t reform take time?

Stay tuned.

Categories Charter Schools, Education Reform, New Jersey, Parents, Poverty, Segregation , Racial Isolation and Integration

Carrots and Sticks Are for Them, Not Us

By dianeravitch
December 1, 2012 //
11

Jersey Jazzman describes Race to the Top as “segregation gone wild.”

Strangely enough, the districts that applied for RTTT cash and mandates are mostly poor and minority.

Wonder if they know that none of the federal “remedies” has ever worked?

Wonder if they know their district is likely to spend more on implementing the mandates than the money it “wins”?

Categories New Jersey, Poverty, Race to the Top, Segregation , Racial Isolation and Integration

Gary Rubinstein Asks: Is Poverty Destiny?

By dianeravitch
November 28, 2012 //
7

Gary Rubinstein ponders the familiar phrases “poverty is not destiny” and “poverty is not an excuse.”

He understands that many poor students succeed in school, but most don’t.

The typical claim of the “reform” movement is that every student, regardless of poverty, would perform at high levels of proficiency if their teacher has high expectations or if they attended a “no-excuses” charter school.

Gary suggests it might be more fruitful to ask whether insufficient resources are destiny.

He writes:

A suburban school where the students don’t have to contend with so many out of school factors might not need very many resources for the majority of the students to be ‘college bound’ (assuming, for now, that this is a good goal to have). A school with a lot of poor students, though, might require extensive resources in order to get the majority of their students college bound. They might need an army of nurses, social workers, mental health experts, and more. Either school if not provided with sufficient resources is going to ‘fail’ to get the students to be college bound. But the suburban school, not needing as many resources, is likely to have a sufficient amount, while the urban school, since it needs more, is unlikely to get the resources it needs.

Reformers like to point to schools like KIPP or Eva Moskowitz’s charters to say that they don’t spend more than regular public schools.

But, says Gary, that’s not true. They do spend more, and they don’t have to accept every student who walks in the door, and they do have higher attrition rates than public schools.

Maybe we have to change our spending priorities if we want to be sure that “poverty is not destiny.”

Categories Charter Schools, Poverty

Poverty and Stress Can Damage Children’s Lives

By dianeravitch
November 17, 2012 //
31

The latest research studies from Harvard University’s Center on the Developing Child demonstrate how “toxic stress” can severely damage children’s minds.

Everyone needs to learn to deal with adversity, says Dr. Jack Shonkoff of the Harvard Center, and some stress is a good learning experience.

But the conditions associated with living in poverty harms children’s development.

“The same brain flexibility, called plasticity, that makes children open to learning in their early years also makes them particularly vulnerable to damage from the toxic stressors that often accompany poverty: high mobility and homelessness; hunger and food instability; parents who are in jail or absent; domestic violence; drug abuse; and other problems, according to Pat Levitt, a developmental neuroscientist at the University of Southern California and the director of the Keck School of Medicine Center on the Developing Child in Los Angeles.

“Good experiences, like nurturing parents and rich early-child-care environments, help build and reinforce neural connections in areas such as language development and self-control, while adversity weakens those connections.”

This should be a required reading assignment for all those corporate-style reformers who insist that poverty is no excuse for low test scores, or that anyone who refers to poverty is making excuses for bad teachers.

Thus, when someone from TFA points to one school and says, “See, poverty doesn’t matter. High expectations are all it takes to overcome poverty,” tell them to read the work of Shonkoff and the Harvard Center on the Developing Child. Some children survive the most extreme adversity, but far more do not. Why should so many children in the richest society in the world be subjected to extreme adversity and toxic stress? The claim that charter schools can redress the harm done by living in deep poverty is shameful.

Poverty really does have an adverse impact on children’s development.

Categories Childhood, Pre-K, K, Corporate Reformers, Education Reform, Poverty
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