From the NYT:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/10/education/education-gap-grows-between-rich-and-poor-studies-show.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all
According to the author of a new study, "“We have moved from a society in the 1950s and 1960s, in which race was more consequential than family income, to one today in which family income appears more determinative of educational success than race".
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18 comments:
Oh great! Another gap we're going to get blamed for.
Anyone who doesn't understand that the very essence of what the Occupy movement was protesting about is essentially true must be brainwashed. Unfortunately, their message was obscured by some strange decisions and actions.
Whether politics, schools or social issues, money makes the rules.
Look at what Gates and Broad did to our district: throw millions at an urban school to push a personal philosophy.
Now this study.
Will anyone even take notice?
So many people just don't see the reality of our lives.
is anyone really shocked by this:
'Attention, new study shows rich people have more money to spend on anything you can think of, including education' I just want to know where I can sign up to run studies like this ... for example, I'd love to run an exploratory study to determine whether or not the earth orbits the sun.
Class warfare at its best!
just wanted to remind everyone of the perspectives piece written by Pitt's Dr. Larry Davis and published recently in the PG:
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11352/1197401-109-0.stm
If you check the PPS website Dr. Davis is a member of the Equity Advisory Panel.
The Larry Davis article was posted here in December.
Please let us NOT make "poverty" the excuse for the inability of schools, teachers and principals. Poverty is not the cause for the achievement gap as cited in this articles. Good schools, good teachers, good principals are closing, eliminating and reversing that "achievement gap" every day in this nation and others.
Money does not create intelligence. No, it does not!
Intelligence is there within every child. The responsibility, the job, the expectation is that schools develop that intelligence. Education is the one proven equalizer. That is the reason we have schools. If teachers and principals in schools can NOT educate children, there is no reason or purpose for the existence of schools. If one school (and there are many) can educate children in poverty, then all schools can do the same.
Ron Edmonds says it best:
"How many effective schools would you have to see to be persuaded of the educability of poor children? If your answer is more than one, then I submit that you have reasons of your own for preferring to believe that pupil performance derives from family background instead of school response to family background. We can, whenever and wherever we choose, successfully teach all children whose schooling is of interest to us. We already know more than we need to do that. Whether or not we do it must finally depend on how we feel about the fact that we haven't so far." -- Ronald Edmonds, Harvard University
Say there was a school with great success educating a student body of poor Cuban refugees from a community with low rates of crime, incarceration and drug use and stable family structures. It is not at all clear that the success of that school could be replicated in a school of poor Native Americans on a reservation. Family background would be one of several reasons that success could be difficult to replicate. To move beyond the hypothetical- what is the name of a school that has had great success with an impoverished student body for, say, five years?
Dear Anonymous who is driven crazy at the mention of the word and concept of poverty,
No one here (at least that I've seen) has ever said that poverty makes someone uneducable. That's a strawman you've created.
At times too, poverty is used here and in the general literature to describe a constellation of problems: high crime neighborhoods, high rates of single teen parents (often dropping out of high school) raising kids, low education levels of parents, lack of books and reading experiences before starting school, often the presence of unhealthy food or lack of food, lack of health care, lack of appropriate vision correction, and on and on.
Now, again, this is NOT saying that any or all of those things makes someone "uneducable." Not at all.
But, what you are hearing people say is that it makes it MUCH harder to teach kids with the disadvantages decribed. Exceedingly few schools have succeeded in doing so for any length of time in an ordinary setting.
That *to me* says that we need to work on a lot of things:
-- attacking the problems of poverty (so that children are well-fed, talked to, listened to, exposed to large vocabularies, read to, given an appropriate sleep schedule, provided a safe and secure home, etc.)
-- learning how to teach children who are not likely to connect in the larger classes and strictly paced curriculum of the currently structured system. Learning how to deal with learning difficulties and behavior problems that interfere with being educated in what is seen as an "ordinary" classroom.
-- learning how to make available to these kids the same advantages of other kids -- museum visits, music, the arts, sports teams, etc. that other children (and parents) take for granted.
But, "just believing" isn't enough, not by a long shot.
Exactly! And putting it all on the teachers provides an excuse to ignore other steps that will have more impact for the effort.
No one has mentioned child motivation and the lack of parent value put on education. Yes anyone can be educated but if one does not value and is unmotivated to learn it does not matter where they are from. Too many of the students in pps have that I do not care attitude. They are not taught to value education and too many parents do not make learning a priority. Kids only know what they see and are told. If parents don't care then kids don't care Oh yea I forgot it is the teachers job to make them care
It's a balance... motivation is very mportant, but students need to be encouraged and see that success is possible.
2:14 - "Kids only know what they see and are told."
YES, kids do know and learn from "what they see and are told." That is the very reason that teachers have an influence greater than you can ever imagine___positive or negative.. Kids "see and are told" for more than six hours every day what teachers and principals in schools value and model and say and do.
Think about it IS "what they see and are told" the right things, the good things, the history, the culture, the contributions of their race, the life skills, the critical thinking skills that will take into a better future OR is the culture of the school something much more deleterious, more negative, more punitive, more discouraging? Can you answer the question, honestly___those of you who are in a position to POSITIVELY influence the growth of children.
Children are "motivated" by the positive adults in their world. Plain and simple. So, are they positively motivated by the adults in schools?
I think a program should be developed where parents/administraters and any others interested could go into a pps and teach for a week. This would provide those that question teacher quality a snapshot of what they face Any competent teacher knows how to motivate students. The issue that upsets me is peoPle assume when kids are failing it is the teachers fault. They are told to motivate but the scripted curriculum and required procedures do not leave time to do anything but what a lesson dictates. Rise /vam and all the other new evaluative measures are nothing but a tool to fire professional teachers. The real issue is money and until everyone wakes up there will be no public education in the very near future.
Check this out, those of you who believe that there are limits to our young people’s potential especially those who live in “poverty” or Pittsburgh OR who are African American. Hope that you will THINK AGAIN!
Boy genius' book reveals life in college at age 8
"I was able to reach the stars, but others can reach the 'Milky Way," he tells readers.”
“It was a professor at his first institution of higher learning, East Los Angeles City College, who inspired him, Cavalin says. He didn't like the subject but managed to get an A in it anyway, by applying himself and seeing how enthusiastic his teacher, Richard Avila, was about the subject.”
Read more: Reviewhttp://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/breaking/s_781725.html#ixzz1mSp2QVqa
By Associated Press
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Last updated: 9:58 am
Of course there are always geniuses, but for success on a broad level- children living in poverty may well need more support and attention (and not just from their teachers) to succeed. That is not to say their potential is limited, just that in many cases efforts both in and beyond the classroom are necessary to help them reach that potential. This article says nothing about the child's level of poverty, race (except that his mother is Chinese), or support he may have received outside the classroom.
Did you miss the part where he states that he is not a "genius"?
He sounds like a charmingly humble child.
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