Education and Class

Science (and so much more) blogger Joe Henderson tells it like it is in his link-rich post as he invites us to “enjoy” class matters that have been crossing his radar.

He writes:

It seems to me that [class] is the most salient issue facing social systems right now. My sense is that we’re beginning to enter a time that might finally be right to have the “courageous conversation” about social class. I hope we’re capable of having this conversation… I hope…

So, who’s ready to move this conversation forward?

Richard Rothstein has an excellent article, Whose Problem is Poverty, in the current issue of Educational Leadership. The article is also available on the ASCD webite.  He writes:

Promoters of the myth that schools alone can overcome social and economic causes of low achievement assert that claims to the contrary let schools “off the hook.” But their myth itself lets political and corporate officials off a hook. We absolve these leaders from responsibility for narrowing the pervasive inequalities of American society by asserting that good schools alone can overcome these inequalities. Forget about health care gaps, racial segregation, inadequate housing, or income insecurity. If, after successful school reform, all adolescents regardless of background could leave high school fully prepared to earn middle class incomes, there would, indeed, be little reason for concern about contemporary inequality. Opportunities of children from all races and ethnic groups, and of rich and poor, would equalize in the next generation solely as a result of improved schooling. This absurd conclusion follows from the “no excuses” approach.

Writing specifically to teachers of poor children, he argues:

Educators cannot be effective if they make excuses for poor student performance. But they will have little chance for success unless they also join with advocates of social and economic reform to improve the conditions from which children come to school.

Many other authors admonish teachers  to take up the cause of justice and  equity.  Rothstein simply continues to  make these arguments more coherently and clearly than just about anyone else.

Thanks to Brian at In Practice for the link.

In the State of the Union Address last night, Bush proposed a new “Pell Grants for Kids” program that would provide $300 million for poor chidren to attend private and religious schools, just as the “regular” Pell Grant program has enabled poor college students to “reach their full potential” via tuition support.

And the blogosphere has begun to weigh in:

The Mirror of Justice applauds the program as potentially stemming the closure of inner-city faith-based schools due for “financial reasons”, schools that he sees as providing vital alternative to children in chronically under-performing schools.

Other bloggers are far more critical:

The Carpet Bagger Report notes the obvious: that this is a voucher program that can’t be called a voucher program because the term “vouchers” does not poll well. He continues:

it’s ironic that Bush talked about the success of the Pell Grant program in helping “low-income college students realize their full potential,” given that his administration has repeatedly scaled back funding for regular ol’ Pell Grants.

The International Reading Association draws on the NYT’s reporting (as does The Education Policy Blog) that critics of the proposal wonder why, if NCLB is so successful, poor kids would need a program like this.

Greg Palast notes that given that there are 15 million poor children in this country, the $300 million for this program would provide only $20 per child. Accordingly,

George Bush’s alma mater, Phillips Andover Academy, tells us their annual tuition is $37,200. The $20 “Pell Grant for Kids,” as the White House calls it, will buy a poor kid about 35 minutes of this educational dream. So they’ll have to wake up quickly.

And The Engaged Intellectual asks whether this new initiative is intended to divert attention from the failures in NCLB in her scathing critique of each.

I’ll compile more here as bloggers continue to weigh in.

I skimmed this this op-ed piece on the insidious side of PTA fundraisers over a rushed breakfast this morning, and then read it more carefully tonight.

I always have very mixed feelings when I hear that one of our strongest teacher ed grads has been hired as a science/art/reading/technology specialist in a school in which such positions are funded by PTA auctions, as if students in these schools are entitled to the particularly focused and skilled instruction of “specialists”.

One the one hand, I know that these teachers will give these kids a good sense of the world beyond their subdivisions.

On the other hand, I know that children attending other schools in the same district will bounce in their seats with joy to have science instruction once or twice a month, after the Spring testing season.

A few years ago, I did research in a school in which young children had decided that it was cool to ride the bus. Their stay-at-home moms supported their choice and dutifully put them on the bus each morning. At the end of the day, though, the SUVs would line up in the school driveway. The moms were there not to pick up their now-independent children, but instead to pick up their children’s backpacks so that the young ones would not be burdened by carrying them on and off the bus.

Fiercely competitive fundraisers. Chauffeurs for backpacks. And auditing the PTA’s budgetary bottom line before enrolling one’s children in an obviously otherwise excellent school.

When do we say enough?

UPDATE:

Jeanne notices that the link is no longer active. I’ve provided Cliff Notes below in a comment.

 The Ya Ya Yas have started a great discussion about social class in Young Adult literature, with commentors generating an ever-growing list of recommended  books (and questions about how class is and isn’t depicted and about how class and race intersect in literature for young people).

Thanks to Liz B. at the Tea Cozy blog for the link to the Ya Ya discussion and to Little Willow’s list of fiction about social class.

Has anyone been using any of these books (or others) to teach young people to think more deeply about class issues?