My students commonly  insist that family support and family values are major determinants of success in school.  I can’t really argue with that.  We might hope that all kids go home to families who encourage them to  learn and to dream big.

Yet I ask them what would happen if, somehow, we did attain this. If all parents checked homework every day and left college brochures on their children’s  pillows, would children then experience equal outcomes in school?  A new report released by ETS, Parsing the Achievement GapII (pdf attached below) documents that relative to middle-class children and white children, low-income and minority children:

• are less likely to be taught by certified teachers
• are more likely to attend schools with high teacher absenteeism and teacher turn-over
• learn in bigger classes
• report issues of fear and safety in school
• be taught by inexperienced teachers

Data is also reported on low birth rates, access to the internet, exposure to mercury and lead, and hunger.  Low-income and minority kids are at the losing end on all counts.

If learning is highly correlated with values, it would seem that we might do well to  value these children enough to invest in equitable childhoods.  Perhaps we could divert at least some of the energy that we collectively invest in fretting over undone homework worksheets to these bigger questions of basic  health and basic educational quality.

Next year, my students will be reading his report.

Parsing the Achievement Gap (pdf)

Sign their petition if you believe that:

• Every Child Deserves as 21st Century Education
• Every Community Deserves an Equal Chance
• Every Child Deserves a Well Supported Teacher
• Every Child Deserves High Quality Health Care

Created originally within a collaboration on Spanish language instruction between one of my favorite ed tech bloggers Ewan McIntosh and graduates of Marco Torres’ outstanding media program in the San Fernando Valley, these are remarkable, effective accounts of being a young immigrant in the U.S.

Besides all that I have to learn from these young people, there are many reasons that I like this project so much:  the production values are excellent, there is nothing like “first person” storytelling, and these stories are  readily disseminated to a broad audience (you can also subscribe via I-tunes).

I can think of multiple ways to use these in teaching: As examples of ways in which we learn much by listening, as examples of the power of effective video production, of the vital necessity of creating spaces for people to tell their own stories.

I want to find – -and to be part of — more projects like this.

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.

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.

The article, Miseducating Teachers about the Poor:  A Critical Analysis of Ruby Payne’s Claims, by Randy Bomer, Joel Dworin, Laura May, and Peggy Semington is among the most carefully researched, thorough, and detailed analyses of Payne’s writing that I’ve found.

The authors systematically weigh the claims made by Payne against what can readily be found within peer-reviewed research about the causes of poverty and the lives of the poor (their reference list alone runs to five pages), and as others have already observed, Payne comes up very short.

They review research on the lifestyles, values, goals, language, and educational aspirations of the poor.  They find evidence for little of what Payne writes and teaches, and instead cite solid and respected research that directly contradicts much of what she claims.

As I’ve written before here, here, here, and here, this sort of analysis makes it very difficult to understand why schools settle for Payne’s work when there is so little support for her claims, and so little evidence that poor kids are well-served by teachers who have experienced her training.

I’d encourage folks who have dismissed  criticism of Payne’s work as “academic jealousy” (or other personal, rather than intellectual motives) to read this article.

And I’d welcome discussion here — not about the motives of the article authors, but about the research that they cite.

It would be a violation of Fair Use policies to attach the entire article here, but it’s worth the effort to track down a copy.  Readers with access to  academic libraries can find copies there, you can get a PDF (for a fee) from the publisher here , or you might email the lead author, Randy Bomer, at rbomer at mail dot utexas dot edu.

So, are we willing to get past questioning the motives of those who critique her work,  past the “but she seems to make sense” reasoning,  past  anecdotes about ones own family members, and down to the core questions of whether we’re simply settling for Payne rather than bringing all that we know to the education of poor children?

I have no doubt whatsoever that teachers exposed to solid, carefully done research such as that cited in this article can, together, formulate ways to better serve poor children in schools.  Given how this field is developing while Payne’s work stands still, I think that we should be well past the point that we depend so heavily on someone  who just hasn’t done her own homework  to tell us how to do this work.

From the press release

The editors and contributors hope to provide an economic and social context for the necessary discussions on class in education, the definitions of class, an overview of how class defines education and how education defines class, the invisibility of class, and new ways that class should be considered. “Class is the elephant in the classroom, impacting students and teachers alike but little acknowledged and rarely talked about. This special issue makes an important contribution to the ongoing effort to fulfill the promise of equal education for students from all backgrounds,” says Dr. Yeskel.

You can find the full press release here.

And I’d welcome feedback on my article …

[A]uthors Kevin Carey and Marguerite Roza examine two schools that from the outside appear the same but inside are quite different: Cameron Elementary School in Fairfax County, Virginia, and Ponderosa Elementary School in Cumberland County, North Carolina. Both schools educate a large number of low-income students.

Yet, because of a number of circumstances, federal, state, and local policies play out such that Cameron has more than twice the money per pupil than Ponderosa, $14,040 vs. $6,773.

In its straightforward analysis of federal, state, and local policies, this report would make an excellent teaching tool, especially for those looking for non-urban examples of disparities in school funding.

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?

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.