inner city parents vs. naacp and Aft

[billc]

Inner city parents want their children to recieve the best education possible. They want their children to escape the bad public schools and to have a chance to have better lives. The naacp and uft have said,well...no...we need those kids in the bad schools to keep our agenda's alive. Here is an article on the subject.

http://biggovernment.com/publius/20...aacp-over-charter-school-lawsuit/#more-291720

From the article:

Minority parents in New York have a message for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the United Federation of Teachers (UFT): you are hurting our children.
In New York Monday, charter school parents staged another of several rallies to voice opposition to a lawsuit brought by the UFT and NAACP against the New York City Department of Education. If the organizations are successful with their suit, it would prevent enrollment or re-enrollment in 17 charter schools and stop the closure of 22 public schools.

“I am the product of the public school system that allows 70 percent or more of its black men to not graduate from high school,” said Candido Brown, a charter school teacher at May’s rally. “I could barely believe my ears when I found out that the NAACP was trying to shut down some of the most successful schools serving black and brown children in our city. NAACP, do not take away this awesome education from our children.”
.................................

they have to destroy those charter schools. When people are poor, then recieve good educations and move up economically, they might start voting against the same democrat institutions that tried to trap them in horrible inner city schools.

 

[Empty Hands]

I hope you're getting paid for this. It really would be a shame to do so much work for free.

 

[Flying Crane]

I hope you're getting paid for this. It really would be a shame to do so much work for free.

I never thought of that possibility. That would explain a lot.

 

[MJS]

I wonder if there's ever been a study done, that shows if a child, who left a supposed 'bad' school, to transfer to a supposed 'good' school, actually did better, the same or worse.

Do the larger, inner city schools, really provide a lesser education?

I have to wonder...how much is the teacher not doing his/her job vs the student just not giving a crap about their education.

 

[granfire]

I wonder if there's ever been a study done, that shows if a child, who left a supposed 'bad' school, to transfer to a supposed 'good' school, actually did better, the same or worse.

Do the larger, inner city schools, really provide a lesser education?

I have to wonder...how much is the teacher not doing his/her job vs the student just not giving a crap about their education.

I can't speak for really big cities, but the 'inner city' schools are often lacking material.
because they are in a poor district, the parents don't have a lot of spare money....I don't know.

Around here you can look at the student body and can pretty much tell from there where the school is and whether they have some $$ to play with or not. Sometimes even the test scores telegraph it.

I have - on an Elementary level - not seen that the teachers lacked...with a few exceptions. I found most of them dedicated and many poor their own money into the class rooms or find private sponsors for their class rooms. But they do fight an uphill battle for most parts.

 

[cdunn]

I can't speak for really big cities, but the 'inner city' schools are often lacking material.
because they are in a poor district, the parents don't have a lot of spare money....I don't know.

Around here you can look at the student body and can pretty much tell from there where the school is and whether they have some $$ to play with or not. Sometimes even the test scores telegraph it.

I have - on an Elementary level - not seen that the teachers lacked...with a few exceptions. I found most of them dedicated and many poor their own money into the class rooms or find private sponsors for their class rooms. But they do fight an uphill battle for most parts.

Poverty is the #1 determinator of how our schools perform. The charter school system could not be better designed to make the comparative performance of poor school districts look worse - It punishes the the poor district by siphoning away funding that the poor district already does not have, skims away the best students, thus removing positive role models, and rejects the students most likely to fail, creating enormous selection bias.

An effective education requires more than just a good teacher and supplies. It requires a dedicated student with, at the least, a minimal support network at home. To inspire dedication, the student must believe that the education is going to be beneficial. The support network requires the presence of at least minimally educated parents, older siblings, or effective substitutes for these - one of which can be the very same well propelled students siphoned away by charter schools. A poverty stricken child, particularly is most likely to have much less of these.

It is... a poor situation to be in. A minor fix to the system could be to alter things so that the charter system doesn't drain away the funding that public schools desperately need. A better fix for funding is to remove the dependency of the school system on local property taxes. But most important of all is the motivation of the students. I do not have an easy solution for that.

 

[MJS]

IMO though, it shouldnt matter what income level the kids family has. I mean, thats like saying that just because someone is poor, that they wont do well. IMO, the same can be applied to the school. I'll use the martial arts as an example. Just because someone doesnt have a 3,000 sq/ft school with state of the art equipment, doesnt mean that because they have to teach out of their garage or basement, doesnt mean that they wont produce quality students. They may even produce better students, due to the fact that from my experience, the 'garage dojo' groups, are a different breed of people. They're there for 1 reason, and thats to learn. They dont give a crap about belts, uniforms, whether or not they get a bump or bruise, they're there to work hard and put in blood, sweat and tears.

Now, I'm not saying that that those garage students wouldn't benefit from state of the art equipment, but they're able to make due with what they have. Basically, its not all the school, but the person as well.

 

[Empty Hands]

IMO though, it shouldnt matter what income level the kids family has. I mean, thats like saying that just because someone is poor, that they wont do well.

And yet, that's exactly what the data shows. There are always exceptions, but poverty is a huge barrier to success of all kinds, including academic. This isn't limited to inner city black kids either. Do you imagine that the education is superior for poverty stricken rural whites in the Appalachias?

 

[granfire]

A MA school is different.

You don't get the students (much) that don't want to be there, or those with parents who don 't care.

But I have seen a school whose student body came predominately from the projects, the rest where just poor saps. The faces were predominantly dark. (yes, down here it IS a factor, the 'sister school' across the park was the polar opposite: parents transferred their kids because of the skin color (even black parents preferred that school...if they had to pick) When we moved, my kid's 3rd grade teacher was nearly in tears, having yet lost another one of her smart kids. (I would have loved to keep her, she was super!)

The new school is mostly middle class, pretty mixed, and academical a lot better than the old school.
You don't need to bring much in terms of supplies to school (the old school I held up with my part until around Christmas, the teachers would usually run low by then.)

But also, while the old school LOVED parental involvement, in the new one I was never able to get a satisfying raport with the teachers. They all seemed to be incommunicative.


Personal experience, in no shape representative.

But we did a lot of demos in the 'inner city' elementary schools. Usually the color of student body was indicative of the rest of the school, in terms of over all feel. Most of them were pretty run down.


But yes, the poor get the shaft. Either because the parents can't afford to move to a better district, or they simply don't care (when you have a school of 500 student, but only see maybe 5 parents at any given time at an event...)


(k, rant over....)


I'd like to add that yes, a good mix of students is important for a good school.
When my kid was in 1st grade he helped out a little girl with her work. The teacher (she was one of the really engaged active ones) commented how he was reaching her on a level that she could never get to.

 

[cdunn]

IMO though, it shouldnt matter what income level the kids family has. I mean, thats like saying that just because someone is poor, that they wont do well. IMO, the same can be applied to the school. I'll use the martial arts as an example. Just because someone doesnt have a 3,000 sq/ft school with state of the art equipment, doesnt mean that because they have to teach out of their garage or basement, doesnt mean that they wont produce quality students. They may even produce better students, due to the fact that from my experience, the 'garage dojo' groups, are a different breed of people. They're there for 1 reason, and thats to learn. They dont give a crap about belts, uniforms, whether or not they get a bump or bruise, they're there to work hard and put in blood, sweat and tears.

Now, I'm not saying that that those garage students wouldn't benefit from state of the art equipment, but they're able to make due with what they have. Basically, its not all the school, but the person as well.

It is largely the student - but the environment of poverty is corrosive to the student. Many of these students face the challenges of functionally absentee parents, or even parents which actively discourage education, due to believing that the system has failed, a community which believes that the education recieved will not be of benefit to their lives, and as they get older, a number of exits from the system that, on first blush, may appear superior because of immediate reward.

When you pile a school which is physically rotting, where the teachers have to go to the local Staples or Office Max and pay to make copies of handouts and tests with their own salary, where one teacher who might be perfectly fine with 25 or 30 students has to handle 45 with a total of 20 textbooks and 35 desks on top of the home environment... Well, they're only going to see it as more reason to abandon the educational system at any opportunity.

Charter schools, meanwhile, get to sit pretty - their students, pretty much by definition, are going to be those whose parents believe they need a good education. The support network will exist. The motivation will probably exist, and if it doesn't, the charter can always expel them back to public, which has to take them.

 

[MJS]

And yet, that's exactly what the data shows. There are always exceptions, but poverty is a huge barrier to success of all kinds, including academic. This isn't limited to inner city black kids either. Do you imagine that the education is superior for poverty stricken rural whites in the Appalachias?

Points taken, but I still can't help but to think that people are hinting that the majority of the blame falls on the school system. I disagree. 50%, sure, I could go with that, but if a student has no desire to learn, thats not the schools fault, its the students.

 

[MJS]

A MA school is different.

You don't get the students (much) that don't want to be there, or those with parents who don 't care.

But I have seen a school whose student body came predominately from the projects, the rest where just poor saps. The faces were predominantly dark. (yes, down here it IS a factor, the 'sister school' across the park was the polar opposite: parents transferred their kids because of the skin color (even black parents preferred that school...if they had to pick) When we moved, my kid's 3rd grade teacher was nearly in tears, having yet lost another one of her smart kids. (I would have loved to keep her, she was super!)

The new school is mostly middle class, pretty mixed, and academical a lot better than the old school.
You don't need to bring much in terms of supplies to school (the old school I held up with my part until around Christmas, the teachers would usually run low by then.)

But also, while the old school LOVED parental involvement, in the new one I was never able to get a satisfying raport with the teachers. They all seemed to be incommunicative.


Personal experience, in no shape representative.

But we did a lot of demos in the 'inner city' elementary schools. Usually the color of student body was indicative of the rest of the school, in terms of over all feel. Most of them were pretty run down.


But yes, the poor get the shaft. Either because the parents can't afford to move to a better district, or they simply don't care (when you have a school of 500 student, but only see maybe 5 parents at any given time at an event...)


(k, rant over....)


I'd like to add that yes, a good mix of students is important for a good school.
When my kid was in 1st grade he helped out a little girl with her work. The teacher (she was one of the really engaged active ones) commented how he was reaching her on a level that she could never get to.

I suppose it'll vary from dojo to dojo, but during my years spent teaching, I've seen alot of students who really had no desire to be there, as well as many kids, who I started to think had no parents, as I never saw them.

Hey, I'll be the first to admit that I hated to get up in the AM, head to the bus stop or later to my car, and make that drive to school. I was far from a straight A student, but I still made it. Why? Part of the reason was my family. The other part was because I knew that if I didn't listen to the advice they were giving me, that I'd end up at a min. wage job forever.

So, if the poor are getting the shaft, its a shame nothing other than bussing kids from one dist. to another. I say that, because what happens then, is over crowding. So, its a damned if ya do, damned if ya dont situation.

What're the solutions?

 

[MJS]

It is largely the student - but the environment of poverty is corrosive to the student. Many of these students face the challenges of functionally absentee parents, or even parents which actively discourage education, due to believing that the system has failed, a community which believes that the education recieved will not be of benefit to their lives, and as they get older, a number of exits from the system that, on first blush, may appear superior because of immediate reward.

When you pile a school which is physically rotting, where the teachers have to go to the local Staples or Office Max and pay to make copies of handouts and tests with their own salary, where one teacher who might be perfectly fine with 25 or 30 students has to handle 45 with a total of 20 textbooks and 35 desks on top of the home environment... Well, they're only going to see it as more reason to abandon the educational system at any opportunity.

Charter schools, meanwhile, get to sit pretty - their students, pretty much by definition, are going to be those whose parents believe they need a good education. The support network will exist. The motivation will probably exist, and if it doesn't, the charter can always expel them back to public, which has to take them.

Damn....had a nice reply typed out, and lost it. Lets try again.

Points taken. But going on what you said in your first paragraph, do you really think that a better school would make that much of a difference, as far as parents are concerned? I ask this, because if they're absent, as you say, then that tells me, that they're probably not going to give a crap either way.

As I said to granfire, another problem you now run into, is over crowding. Start bussing in kids from a poorer district, and you'll get parents from both sides, still complaining that due to class size, their kids still aren't getting the education that they should be.

 

[granfire]

maybe we need to actively encourage smart people.

you know: Not the jocks that get paid insane amounts of money while hardly being able write their own names, but the smart people.

We have made it look so easy: Play football or basket ball, make big money.

To understand the odds of even making it for one season into the bigs, you already have to have some smarts....
But generally speaking we are morel like 'wtf are you doing going to college? You got all that money!'

You and I value education, but we still have the majority of 300 million people to convince.

 

[cdunn]

Damn....had a nice reply typed out, and lost it. Lets try again.

Points taken. But going on what you said in your first paragraph, do you really think that a better school would make that much of a difference, as far as parents are concerned? I ask this, because if they're absent, as you say, then that tells me, that they're probably not going to give a crap either way.

As I said to granfire, another problem you now run into, is over crowding. Start bussing in kids from a poorer district, and you'll get parents from both sides, still complaining that due to class size, their kids still aren't getting the education that they should be.

A better school can help. The student that fears where he is or who he is supposed to learn from is not likely to learn much.

Bussing only helps to the extent that individuals can be completely immersed in a different environment. It is a pretty primitive way of dealing with things.

Improvement comes from making sure that all schools, not just a favored few have the necessary resources. It comes from doing everything possible to make sure that there's a light at the end of the tunnel that students, and their parents can see.

Personally, I feel that we need to make an effort to remember that high school does not have to feed into an expensive 4 year college - it is the proper time for trade and vocational training. It is the proper time for the start of business education. Education needs to appear to impart opportunity - and sometimes, opportunity is popping out of school at 18 and going straight to work to support yourself. If that opportunity is a machine shop floor, that's where kids will go. If that opportunity is plumbing or electricity, and they know they can do it, that's where they'll go. If the only visible way to do that is selling crack on the corner, guess what?

 

[MJS]

A better school can help. The student that fears where he is or who he is supposed to learn from is not likely to learn much.

True. But thats something that the student will have to overcome themself. If we take what you said, then IMO, it wont matter if its the best school or the worst school...if they have a fear....

Bussing only helps to the extent that individuals can be completely immersed in a different environment. It is a pretty primitive way of dealing with things.

I'm not following you here?

Improvement comes from making sure that all schools, not just a favored few have the necessary resources. It comes from doing everything possible to make sure that there's a light at the end of the tunnel that students, and their parents can see.

Agreed with you 100%.

Personally, I feel that we need to make an effort to remember that high school does not have to feed into an expensive 4 year college - it is the proper time for trade and vocational training. It is the proper time for the start of business education. Education needs to appear to impart opportunity - and sometimes, opportunity is popping out of school at 18 and going straight to work to support yourself. If that opportunity is a machine shop floor, that's where kids will go. If that opportunity is plumbing or electricity, and they know they can do it, that's where they'll go. If the only visible way to do that is selling crack on the corner, guess what?

Again, agreed! I went thru 12yrs of school, and gave college a try. College wasn't for me, so rather than prolong something that wasn't working for me, I paid my loan off, and got a job. Given the fact that I dont have a college degree, the job that I have now pays me very well. But thats been my point all along. Hey, if a kid doesnt want to go to college, thats fine. But everyone needs a HS diploma. IMO, without that, you're on a road to nowhere. Well, maybe not nowhere, but the road wont be easy to travel IMO.

 

[cdunn]

True. But thats something that the student will have to overcome themself. If we take what you said, then IMO, it wont matter if its the best school or the worst school...if they have a fear....

If the fear is 'The roof might fall on me', and unfortunately, there are schools that poorly off, then yes, a better school will help. When most teachers have a limit of about 30 - 35 kids for effective teaching, and the bad school can't afford more than one teacher per 45 students, then a richer school will help. The effects are not singular, they are additive.

I'm not following you here?

Previously, the point of bussing a student around is to mix the population of the school, ensuring that more than one race was represented. This may or may not be helpful when it comes to racist attitudes. When it is done obviously for race, it will probably not help grades - The student will likely feel unwelcome, and unless the home environment breeds the right kind of willpower, he may well fail.

When a student with a poor home environment is placed in a school environment where he is encouraged and where the reward for effort is apparent, then the school environment may be able to outweigh a toxic home environment. If you overwhelm the population of the 'good' school with 'bad' students, you reverse the flow.

Just shuttling kids around, without a real good idea of what you're doing... That doesn't work real great.

 

[granfire]

If the fear is 'The roof might fall on me', and unfortunately, there are schools that poorly off, then yes, a better school will help. When most teachers have a limit of about 30 - 35 kids for effective teaching, and the bad school can't afford more than one teacher per 45 students, then a richer school will help. The effects are not singular, they are additive.

agreed

Previously, the point of bussing a student around is to mix the population of the school, ensuring that more than one race was represented. This may or may not be helpful when it comes to racist attitudes. When it is done obviously for race, it will probably not help grades - The student will likely feel unwelcome, and unless the home environment breeds the right kind of willpower, he may well fail.

When a student with a poor home environment is placed in a school environment where he is encouraged and where the reward for effort is apparent, then the school environment may be able to outweigh a toxic home environment. If you overwhelm the population of the 'good' school with 'bad' students, you reverse the flow.

Just shuttling kids around, without a real good idea of what you're doing... That doesn't work real great.

Ah, yes, the experiment of the 1970s, called desegregation...the schools are still divided by racial means, just simply because the population has not mingled much...(I guess it has gotten a little better)

 

[MJS]

If the fear is 'The roof might fall on me', and unfortunately, there are schools that poorly off, then yes, a better school will help. When most teachers have a limit of about 30 - 35 kids for effective teaching, and the bad school can't afford more than one teacher per 45 students, then a richer school will help. The effects are not singular, they are additive.

Agree with this.

Previously, the point of bussing a student around is to mix the population of the school, ensuring that more than one race was represented. This may or may not be helpful when it comes to racist attitudes. When it is done obviously for race, it will probably not help grades - The student will likely feel unwelcome, and unless the home environment breeds the right kind of willpower, he may well fail.

When a student with a poor home environment is placed in a school environment where he is encouraged and where the reward for effort is apparent, then the school environment may be able to outweigh a toxic home environment. If you overwhelm the population of the 'good' school with 'bad' students, you reverse the flow.

Just shuttling kids around, without a real good idea of what you're doing... That doesn't work real great.

Well, I wasn't thinking or hoping that it'd turn into a racial issue. The kids have to get to the schools somehow. Of course, the next issue that'll no doubt pop up is....lets say you have 1200 kids in a school that isnt the greatest. Who determines a) how many and b) which of the 1200 end up going to the better school.

I'm still not 100% convinced that even if the student is in a better school, that they'll do better, especially if they never get any motivation from home, to do good. Kids learn what they live. That being said, if dad isn't in the picture, mom is an addict, and the kids siblings are all drop outs....well, I think you can see what motivation he'll have. But hopefully yes, being in a better school, would have a positive effect.

 

[billc]

I have heard that the documentary film "waiting for superman," is a good film that looks at the problems with the educational system. It was made by the guy who helped Al Gore make his global warming movie so there isn't a "Right" bias as some might expect from one of my recomendations. You can pick it up at redbox I think.