Learning Your Way Into the Middle Class?
July 31, 2008
Lane Kentworthy, over at Consider the Evidence, has been doing a series of posts here, here, here, and here on economic mobility and income inequality in the U.S. The news is not good. In his latest post in the series, he writes:
The median income of [sample] families increased by about $12,000 between 1964 and 1994. Between 1974 and 2004, in contrast, it increased by only $4,500. The gain from generation to generation declined. And this is despite the fact that a growing share of these families have two earners rather than just one.
Public rhetoric would suggest that this is, in essence, an educational problem: That we’re not adequately preparing kids for high paying jobs so that employers then reluctantly move those jobs elsewhere.
Yet the data that he cites suggests that declining mobility may be attributable not simply to a slowing economy (as is assumed in much educational policy making), but instead to growing income inequality.
As he notes, the “American ethos” is enveloped in a deep belief in the chance to move up — in large measure, through doing well in school.
It seems unfortunately clear, however, that poor and working class kids cannot simply learn their way into the middle class in these troubled economic times .
New Blog on Working Class Issues
July 31, 2008
The Center for Working Class Studies at Youngstown State University has launched a new blog, Working Class Perspectives. With an impressive roster of contributors and the legacy of the Center’s work, this one’s going to the top of my (too often overloaded) aggregator.
The Tour de Test Scores
July 28, 2008
The Tour de France ended yesterday. We’re huge Tour fans in my house. We’re talking lycra-clad fans at 5:45 a.m., huddled around our TV to watch live.
So attribute this post to sleep deprivation and croissant overload.
Coming in last of the 145 finishers yesterday was Wim Vansevenant, a Belgian rider for the Silence- Lotto team.
And I assure you, gentle readers, that if 99.9% of you went out to test your meddle against the 145th ranked rider in this competition, he’d kick your butt. Leave you in the dust. Humble even the fittest of you. Cause you deep pain.
And after 28 days of riding in one of the most grueling sporting events in the world, the distance between #1 and #145 was merely a matter of a few hours. And Wim is and remains an incredibly talented cyclist. And he’s ranked last today.
So I believe, deeply, that discourse about public education in the U.S. would be well-served if we moved far beyond the often dire ranking of the average kid in the U.S. with the average kid elsewhere, as in this PSA that’s getting a lot of press this week:
CEOs are not sitting around looking at the relative test scores of 15 year olds as they develop their strategic plans. Rankings tell us next to nothing.
But those CEOs may well be devising ways to increase profit margins by, say, cutting employee medical benefits, leaving five year olds without medical care.
So speaking of Finland: If we’re concerned about test scores, why are we not talking about high quality medical care for everyone; universal, high quality preschool; and a system of schooling that understands that a well prepared teacher with professional autonomy will take kids places that weeks and weeks of testing every year never will? Do we really believe that those things are inconsequential in the relatively high achievement of kids in Finland?
Good jobs moving to Finland, with a population lower than that of New York City?
Come on.
American “schools” are not failing our kids. Poor kids in this country go to poor schools. They go to school sick and hungry. They go to school having been shut out of preschool that is the birthright of middle-class kids.
The Finns understood years ago that they couldn’t rely on schools to level playing fields rendered so uneven by unemployment, illness, housing, and discrimination.
We think that we can get to #1 through school alone.
Wim Vansevenant only finished 145th, but he finished an unbelievably challenging race in no small measure because he had access to some of the best support available to professional athletes anywhere. He had personalized medical care (just skip the doping smirks, ok?), a nutritionist, a comfortable bed every night, sponsors who provided him with the very best equipment available regardless of his ability to pay for his bike himself.
You don’t finish the Tour on your own- even when you finish 145th.
So if we’re worried about the Finnish kids getting all the good jobs, we really shouldn’t expect poor five year olds in the U.S. to navigate school essentially on their own either. Because Finnish kids are enshrouded in layer upon layer of support as they make their way through school.
Much like professional cyclists.
Even the cyclists who come in dead last.
Because the rankings tell us next to nothing.
Working Class Families in Books for Kids
July 21, 2008
My librarian friend and sometimes commenter on this blog (Venta, I’m talkin’ about you) have talked often about how rare it is to find literature for children and young adults that includes poor or working class characters that are neither victims nor on the inevitable road to self-improvement.
So, much gratitude to Stephanie Jones who is on the hunt for exactly such books and seems to be hitting paydirt.
Is there other such literature out there to be found?
Know Your Place
July 17, 2008
I’m working on a collection of narratives written by education faculty from poor and working class backgrounds. As I read these, it’s impossible to miss the profound sense of place in many of the essays.
For the most part, we are not people who moved around a lot (from home to home, perhaps, but not from place to place), so in ways that may be unusual in these highly mobile times, most of us have grounded our experiences of class and education in particular geographies.
I was fascinated, then, to read of this Australian project in which literacy and architecture people in a university are working with poor and working class kids to “know their place” and to act within the spaces in which they live as they develop critical literacy skills.
As the authors of the book I’m editing and the authors of this project so vividly observe, critical pedagogies tied to locality could be potent for poor and working class kids who may be uniquely immersed within particular social and physical spaces.
Thanks to the literacies log blog for the link to the project.
