Integrating schools based on test scores and achievement
Part two of the blog on the UGA desegregation anniversary: In that blog, I noted the national retreat from the notion that classrooms need to be a rainbow hue, that the focus now is not whether black, white and brown children go to the same schools, but whether they go to good schools.
But the problem is how to create good schools when schools that are high minority are also often high poverty. And kids from poor families bring far more challenges to the classroom — homelessness, job losses, evictions, nutrition deficits, lack of space for the students to do their homework, parents unable to help kid with school work because they hold two jobs.
A classroom with three or four such children can cope; a classroom with 12 may crumble under the weight of so many kids in crisis.
Speaking to that exact situation, here is a New York Times story on how Wake County, N.C., once considered a role model in school integration, is evolving. (Take a look at the entire story if you have time.)
In 2000, after courts ruled against using race-based criteria, Wake became one of the first districts in the nation to adopt a system of socioeconomic integration. The idea was that every school in the county (163 at present) would have a mix of children from poor to rich. The target for schools was a 60-40 mix — 60 percent of students who did not require subsidized lunches and 40 percent who did.
Then in 2009, a new conservative majority was elected to the Wake school board, and last spring it voted to dismantle the integration plan. Instead, families would be assigned to a school nearer their neighborhood. This meant a child who lived in a poor, black section of Raleigh would be more likely to go to a school full of poor black children, and a child living in a white, upper-middle-class suburb would be more likely go to a school full of upper-middle-class white children.
In most places that would have been it. Not here. This is a well-educated labor force (50 percent of employees are college graduates) that works in the high-tech Research Triangle and is predisposed to finding new ways to solve complex problems.
And that’s just what they set out to do. Two weeks ago, civic leaders here unveiled their proposal for a third generation of integration: integration by achievement. Under this plan, no school would have an overwhelming number of failing students. Instead a school might have a 70-30 mix — 70 percent of students who have scored proficient on state tests and 30 percent who are below grade level.
The plan — believed to be the first of its kind in the nation — was developed by community leaders who sound nothing like the civil rights leaders of the 1960s. They sound more like members of the Chamber of Commerce — which they are. “We believe our proposal is consumer friendly,” said Harvey A. Schmitt, president of the Greater Raleigh Chamber. “We believe it will sell well in a market of high expectations.”
Advocates of the plan believe that schools balanced by achievement won’t look too different from schools balanced by socioeconomics. That’s because there is a strong statistical correlation between wealth and test scores; generally the wealthier a child’s family, the higher the child’s test scores.
Mr. Schmitt thinks that both racial and socioeconomic integration have been proxies for academic integration; that what a parent — white, black, Hispanic, Asian — wants most for a child is to attend an academically successful school; and that race and wealth have been roundabout ways to accomplish that.
He says integration by achievement will be good for business because no matter where a family lives in the county, their children can attend a high achieving school. “Companies can come into this market and not have to pay extra for employees to send their children to private schools,” he said.
–From Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled blog
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72 comments Add your comment
Looking back 50 years at two UGA students who changed history and state | Get Schooled
February 28th, 2011
3:12 pm
[...] See this blog for part 2 of this discussion: [...]
Ernest
February 28th, 2011
3:25 pm
I defintely liked Wake County’s original implementation and was sorry to see it dismantled. If this has the same effect of making schools/communities less ‘achievement identifiable’ on both ends of the spectrum, perhaps it can have the desired impact of lifting more students to realizing academic success.
This is all moot if we don’t address discipline.
Springdale Park Elementary Parent
February 28th, 2011
3:41 pm
Finally: someone’s creating a clever incentive for more parental oversight and involvement. It’s long past time we incentivize well-meaning parents and penalize the do-nothings.
I’d prefer a more direct approach: a Contract with Parents. You want your kids to get into a good school? Sign the contract saying you’ll come to PT conferences, ensure your kids work hard and ensure they follow a strict code of conduct.
But whatever.
If it takes this more oblique approach to navigate racial sensitivities (and I specifically mean the unwillingness of prosperous whites to bus their children to bad schools, which–admit it–is not what you THOUGHT I meant), then fine.
another comment
February 28th, 2011
3:43 pm
My cousin teaches in Wake County NC and as a less than 3 year teacher has been shuffled to two low income intercity schools. All of her classes have been 100% low income, all black, students at both schools.
MannyT
February 28th, 2011
3:47 pm
Good to hear that some places are trying innovative ideas to improve education that are not focused on class/race conflict. Kudos to Wake County NC.
KimZ'spackage
February 28th, 2011
3:51 pm
If education is valued in the home the child will want to work hard to get it. I think Abe Lincoln was mostly self taught. He read everything he could get his hands on. Poor is not an excuse to be uneducated. Funny how kids walk miles and stay at the schools over night in Africa just to LEARN. Kids in the US kill to get to play XBox and sit in the house.
Lake Claire Boy
February 28th, 2011
4:29 pm
I like the concept, but trying to have schools with a 60-40 or 70-30 mix of kids from wealthier homes vs poorer homes only works if the overall numbers for the given school district work out that way. If a school district’s overall mix is the other way, say 70-30 poor vs rich, and you have a handful of schools comprised of kids from predominantly (say 80%) wealthier families, then it seems to me a much tougher sell to tell those parents currently at a school that is 80-20 wealthier vs. poor must change to 40-60 or 30-70 wealthier vs. poor. I think that’s probably what the situation is overall in APS and Dekalb. Plus, given the often very marked geographic boundaries for wealthier vs. poorer in Atlanta, it’s hard to see how implementing something like the Wake County system could be done without significant forced busing, or traveling to further away schools — something that will also be a tough sell for some or in some areas. Again, I like the concept, but it may be tough to do in Atlanta.
Hm?
February 28th, 2011
4:30 pm
This is yet another one of those great ideas in theory only. I would really appreciate statistics to show that this plan not only helped the lower income students achieve more but also helped continue to educate and challenge the rest of the students.
1. What were the graduation rates before and after the plan?
2. How many went on to attend college? How many poor before 2000 vs now attended college?
3. What was the average commute time for students/parents having to attend schools out of their neighborhoods?
4. Were the “rich kids” adequately prepared for college?
5. What was the parent involvement ratio?
There are so many questions that come to mind and while I am not saying that I am against this idea, I would just like to see the numbers on it actually working for both sides.
Relax man
February 28th, 2011
4:31 pm
Atlanta…Imagine if we could buy alcohol on Sunday
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TOM_UuQzc0
FBT
February 28th, 2011
4:32 pm
I am curious how the 30% below grade level will be distributed among the classes. I think it is time for students to be placed in classes based on ability rather than all abilities in the same room. If the lowere achieving students need to increase their test scores, the teachers will spend the majority of their time on these students. Once again, the average and above average students are not as important as the below average.
KimZ'spackage
February 28th, 2011
4:41 pm
Nothing like being the smartest or richest guy in the jail pod.
Not Yet There
February 28th, 2011
4:46 pm
I am not convinced this is the solution and here is why…
I used to live in NC in one of those “mixed income” communities. I thought it was a wonderful idea to help develop an area of the city without displacing the previous residents. I saw it as a great investment opportunity and a way to meet and live with a variety of different people. Plus I thought it would be a great way to help invest in the under-served part of community and give them the opportunity to acheive more.
However, it became very clear within the first 6months of living there after they opened the door for low-income families that I made a bad choice. First of all, my car was stolen from the “secured” garage within the first month. My single female neighbor was robbed in the hallway at gunpoint by another resident and while I wish that these were isolated incidences, they were not. My house was robbed once more before I put it on the market and got the heck out. Unfortunately, my property valued plummeted due mostly to the location of my condo. A quote from my real estate agent, “Your unit is going to be a very hard sell at 180K when you share walls with residents who are low-income and their property has been subsidized by the government. Nobody is going to buy this.”
Lesson learned: Yes, we would all like to even the playing field for all and help those that want more out of life. However, in my experience (on and btw I am now a hs teacher in Atl) many of these people do not want help. They want things handed to them and will pull all those around down to their level. It did not occur to my neighbors to work harder and use their free housing to educate themselves…they instead bought expensive clothes and electronics and then stole mine.
Well Said FBT
February 28th, 2011
4:48 pm
You nailed it on the head FBT – Seems like a really good idea for the underachievers but what about the average and above average? And I am with you Hmm…where are the numbers showing this works for either side?
Maureen Downey
February 28th, 2011
5:05 pm
This video, while clever, has nothing to do with education. But I will leave it up for a while for those who are interested in the Sunday alcohol sale debate.
Maureen
Top School
February 28th, 2011
5:32 pm
I am not sure Northside APS schools will go for this. How will they compete? It is all about which school makes the highest test scores that gets them into the Buckhead circles.
What would Debbie Snack Cake moms talk about? All the schools would be equal? No competition?
http://www.TopPublicSchoolCorruptionAtlanta.com
Dekalbite@Maureen
February 28th, 2011
6:06 pm
That would most definitely not work in DeKalb County. Look at the fit Fernbank threw when some of them might be redistricted to Briar Vista, a school BTW in which if you are Black or White, your achievement scores are virtually the same – extremely good (so your academic achievement for these two groups are virtually identical between the 2 schools). Briar Vista does have a substantial portion of ESOL students, mainly Hispanic, who have good scores but not exceptional which makes the average lower.
The Fernbank PTA pays for yoga classes (I’m not making this up – look on their website) for every child, gardening classes, chess club, etc. and the Fernbank Foundation pays for a Science Teacher (certified teacher) who gives special science labs for all children, and an Art teacher – freeing up per pupil funds for a Spanish teacher, PE, Music, etc. Fernbank has so many gifted students, they get enough extra gifted funding that they can get extra teachers (almost all Fernbank teachers are certified in gifted) – thus lowering the grade level class sizes for their kids and assuring their students have all the “special” teachers. Do you blame them for wanting to keep Fernbank ES as a wealthy community? They are not the only wealthy community in DeKalb who wants to stay intact. Did you ever read some of the posts on Dekalb Watch from the Dunwoody schools? Such an argument about the apartments that might be zoned into the schools!
As an aside and to their credit, the Fernbank parents involved in the PTA and Foundation are very good stewards of the money – accounting for every penny and investing in enrichment and remedial materials – too bad the DCSS Office of School Improvement which allocates literally hundreds of millions of dollars meant for our lowest income schools is not as innovative or circumspect.
Lee
February 28th, 2011
6:30 pm
You can dress it up and call it a fancy name all you want. It is still socioengineering by the politically correct. Worst part, they are still using children as pawns in their perverse game.
If you are the parents of an average to above average student, these politically correct pathogens do not care about your child. They will bus them halfway across the county to attain their racial utopia.
And make no mistake, they can call it socioeconomics, or achievement balancing all they want. A few years ago, they called it Majority to Minority. Before that, it was Minority to Majority. The reality is that white children will be underserved in any integration plan they devise.
Everybody knows which schools are the worst and which side of town they are located. It’s just that their politically correct dogma will not allow them to admit the truth of the real root cause – the racial distribution of IQ.
catlady
February 28th, 2011
7:07 pm
Lee, I disagree with you for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that your proposed racial distribution of IQ gives parents of those you claim are “less able” a pass on working with their kids, seeing that they get proper nutrition, sleep, stimulating activity, etc. I am not willing to do that.
I work in a place where there are no black students. We have an overwhelming preponderance of kids to whom you would attribute your racial stereotype, yet they are quite white!
ken
February 28th, 2011
7:37 pm
Can we send Chip Rogers and his voucher buddy, Eric Johnson, to a private middle school far away? Chipper has got an infatuation with vouchers. Someone please vote this guy out of office. He won’t stop until he’s destroyed public education.
KimZ'spackage
February 28th, 2011
7:42 pm
Ken
Govt education is destroyed already and the only way people see to fix it is to spend more money. To hell with Govt. schools give me my money back and let me spend it on the school I want my child to attend not the Junior Prisons that Govt. schools have become.
Dekalbite@Lee
February 28th, 2011
8:05 pm
“It’s just that their politically correct dogma will not allow them to admit the truth of the real root cause – the racial distribution of IQ.’
Totally agree with catlady. My nephew teaches middle school math in a rural area with only one Black student in his classes (BTW – he is one of the top students my nephew has). The same problems with student achievement and lack of parental involvement are every bit as prevalent in his virtually all white school system. Student apathy, parents who have literacy and numeracy problems of their own, students marking time while waiting to drop out, generations depending on food stamps, welfare and Medicaid, students who drop out to have babies, students arriving in 8th grade math classrooms without mastering even the most basic of math facts (don’t know their multiplication tables while my nephew is told he is responsible for his students mastering abstract algebra concepts), and so forth. This is clearly a socio-economic issue – not a racial issue. My nephew as a teacher is at the tip top of the economic and professional scale in his county. African-Americans account for only 12% of our population. If you came from the poor rural background I come from, you would realize that this socioeconomic problem is definitely all about color – the color of green – as in green MONEY – who has it and who doesn’t. I don’t know the answer. All I know is pinning this on race is erroneous and obfuscates the real issues.
FBT
February 28th, 2011
8:20 pm
I live in a community that had a minority to majority plan. After being sued, they tried a controlled choice model. Neither worked, and the community has returned to a neighborhood school model hoping to encourage the middle class families to remain in the public schools. The latest effort is the introduction of an IB program.
I listen to two of my friends with kindrgarten children raving about the inclusive class their children are in this year. How they have three on the Autism spectrum, two with Downs Syndrome, two who only speak Spanish and one speaking Chinese. They rave about the diversity their children are experiencing. Not a minute later they are complaining about how noisy the class is and how they get daily calls about their children’s aggressive behavior. Two highly educated women who can’t see a cause and effect.
Finally, I have worked with a private sports program with half the children coming from private or home schools and the other from the poorest area of the community. The program has seen a major decline in the private/homeschool crowd. I can’t say I blame them. The other children are poorly behaved and not respectful of adults or property.
Life isn’t fair, and we certainly don’t make it fair for those who are doing what they are supposed to be doing by making it fair for those who can’t or won’t.
Dr. Craig Spinks/ Augusta
February 28th, 2011
9:19 pm
Were many of our school systems really interested in helping our under-achieving kids learn what they’ll need to know to be responsible, contributing citizens, the systems would be providing competent teachers and administrators the freedom to do what was necessary to help these kids learn and incentives for their students’ achieving learning goals.
Based upon what they do, many of our systems seem to be interested in submitting the paperwork necessary for the checks from the GDOE and the USDOE to continue arriving on time, in avoiding unflattering publicity, and in staying out of federal court.
Dekalbite@Dr. Craig Spinks
February 28th, 2011
9:38 pm
So true. Look at this post from DeKalb School Watch – Probably true of most of our school systems:
http://dekalbschoolwatch.blogspot.com/2011/02/too-many-chiefs-and-not-enough-indians.html
Lee
February 28th, 2011
9:38 pm
So, a 70/30 ratio seems to be the magic number. The racial makeup of Wake County is 70% White/Asian, 20% Black, 9% Hispanic. Funny how that works out.
What Wake County did is to tell the successful people, it doesn’t matter that you choose to move to a neighborhood with good schools. We’re going to ship in enough dunces and ship out enough white/asians that all schools will be the same.
A politically correct mediocratic utopia.
BTW, isn’t this similar to what Cobb County did with McEachern a couple years back?
Progressive Humanist
February 28th, 2011
9:42 pm
Seven years ago Newton High School was about 55% White and 45% Black. The other high school in the county, Eastside, was probably 65% White and 35% Black. When the new high school, Alcovy, opened about 5 years ago the school district lines were redrawn. Newton became the “all-Black school” (upwards of 80%) and Eastside became the “all-White school” (about 90%), while Alcovy had a more even mix. This move towards more segregated schools was immediately noticed and questioned by many people. The superintendent’s response was always that they had followed federal guidelines in drawing the new maps. While I do not advocate busing students long distances and sending rural kids to inner city schools and vice versa just to do it, I do believe schools should be as diverse as practically possible. I have never understood how a modern school district with a mixed population could legally or ethically literally segregate their schools in this day and age. As could have been predicted based on previous demographic models, the two segregated schools’ achievement statistics have been going in two different directions. One school looks likes it’s been improving and the other looks likes it’s been declining if you just look at the numbers. It’s sad what they’ve done to the schools and the students.
Larry Major
February 28th, 2011
9:47 pm
Even if the Times spun this one hard, it doesn’t make any sense.
If you use test scores to determine attendance, every school will rate the same. There will be no Title I schools and there will be no schools that score above average because, by design, they will have the same test scores. The logic for doing this reads, “no matter where a family lives in the county, their children can attend a high achieving school. “
No they can’t. You have eliminated high and low achieving schools.
If you are in the camp that believes IQ is somehow contagious, why wouldn’t the 70 percent get lowered to the level of the 30 percent?
Lee
February 28th, 2011
9:51 pm
Since Dekalbite and Catlady don’t think race and IQ are related, maybe they could cite a school that went from large majority white to majority minority and the quality did not decrease significantly.
Dekalbite@Lee
February 28th, 2011
10:11 pm
Well, the county my nephew teaches math in is 99% White which is what most of the U.S. still is, especially in most of rural America. Your myopia tells me you weren’t raised in the country like I was – we had people go blind from drinking moonshine – now meth is the drug of choice. My sister stayed in that area and taught Kindergarten there. She once had two kids with different mothers but the same father and both carried the father’s first and last name + the moniker of Jr. One of the mothers was in her late teens and fought with her 5 year ole son to play with his toys. I went through school with kids that had poor backgrounds. Only 4 of my graduating class of 96 went to college (I was one of them). The difference was my parents were educated, hard working, very involved parents and instilled in me a love of learning. Sure I was behind in many areas when I went to college, but I quickly caught up because they had given me a terrific work ethic. My parents didn’t think about a PC utopia – they liked Ike and Nixon. They had been raised in the country in farming families so they didn’t look down on people who couldn’t read or write fluently. They just expected my sister and I to make the most of our education. The city school had most of the rich kids. They went to college in greater numbers. It’s class not race, but involved parents can overcome almost anything.
janet
February 28th, 2011
10:16 pm
First and foremost. I feel so sorry for white kids in this day and time. The reason being is that the black kids come from homes where they are not taught manners, morales, or discipline. I’ve seen it over and over in schools. The black kids are mean and disruptive. It’s just very unfair for white kids to have to be put in these situations. It’s unfair and I thank God I never had to deal with black kids when I was a youngster. Also it’s well known in all schools that the little white girls are pressured into liking black boys, if not they are chastized and picked on constantly. I have 3 grandchildren and the tales they tell me about how some black kid did this or that and how they bully others it’s just sad. I will be so glad that my grandkids don’t have much longer and they will be graduating. But for all the young little white kids coming up and beginning school, God bless you. It’s rough on whites now. And another thing with black kids is you have to dress in name brand clothes or you get picked on. We never had these problems until they forced integration on whites. It is totally wrong and needs to be reversed!!! Whites are fed up with it!!!!
Dr. Proud Black Man
February 28th, 2011
10:21 pm
Lee are there ANY black people that you know who are right of the bell curve? Or are we all stereotypes to you?
ScienceTeacher671
February 28th, 2011
10:29 pm
…trying to figure out why most of the top 5 kids in my classes are black, and most of the bottom 5 are white.
I think it mostly has to do with work ethic and parental expectations, but maybe Lee knows?
Lee
February 28th, 2011
10:30 pm
@PBM, of course there are. Just as there are whites and asians on the left of the Statistical Normal Distribution. Your point?
Dekalbite@Lee
February 28th, 2011
10:39 pm
And where do you place yourself Lee? LOL
Toto: Exposing naked body scanners...
February 28th, 2011
11:19 pm
Here’s a little encouragement for the most discriminated group:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1361139/Texas-group-launches-scholarship-white-men-ONLY–need-equal-shot.html
Paulo977
February 28th, 2011
11:24 pm
TopSchool “It is all about which school makes the highest test scores that gets them into the Buckhead circles.” No mention of EDUCATION …we have fallen so low from what we were before Reagan’s onslaught on real education (High test scores=EDUCATION)that I think it will be almost impossible to climb out of the ‘mud’!!
Springdale Park Elementary Parent
February 28th, 2011
11:46 pm
Black and minority children in Atlanta public schools ARE disproportionately the troublemakers and thugs-in-training (to borrow John Trotter’s phrase), and you don’t have to be afraid to say that in Obama’s 2011 America. So I’m saying it. You want to come after me, you squishy-soft, thug-enabling “progressives?” Bring it.
I want to help those unlucky kids (you can’t choose your parents) by refusing to allow them to behave this way; by setting a standard of behavior (because their parents won’t) that’ll allow these children to straighten up, have a shot at a good education and wind up with a better future.
To accomplish this, we’ll have to convert many schools to parent-run charters so we can insist on a code of conduct our urban public schools will never be willing to enforce, and so we can stand our ground against the loudmouth, do-nothing parents who only show up when they must defend their child’s indefensible behavior at school.
Those of you who insist that it’s a racist stereotype to characterize these young thugs as young thugs –you’re all Beverly Halls, in a way–you talk the talk but what you actually DO cripples the very children you claim to support. I’m looking at you, PBM–you find a racist motive wherever you look for it. You probably think of yourself as a champion of poor, persecuted black people, but you’re just an angry enabler. Your rhetorical, always-raised fist doesn’t pack much of a punch.
A sentient progressive (as opposed to the majority of progressives) would never claim the tragedy of the large and growing black underclass is a fiction spread by racist whites, or worry more about who’s saying it’s true than whether it actually IS true.
Cast the old teachers out
March 1st, 2011
2:34 am
Boy my head hurts. I am so very proud to be an intelligent Black person. It all begins in the home. A black 14 year old in my class had to leave to see about ger baby at home. She told the class, “see, a parent can leave early.”. Another student, Black, 14 and male said, “that’s nothing to be proud of.”. The girl said, “it’s girls younger than me having babies.”. They had a few more colorful exchanges and I had to intervene because the girl was threatening to beat the boy she had just cursed out 2 or 3 times.
Typical Black 9th grade classroom in a typical Black high school in metro Atlanta. Both kids scored in the genius range on testing. Imagine that.
Cast the old teachers out
March 1st, 2011
2:37 am
It’s late..,correction, “to see about her baby”
Cobb History Teacher
March 1st, 2011
5:23 am
In Cobb we have something called school choice which allows students from schools who didn’t make AYP got to schools that did make AYP. The only problems I’ve had with the program is that there is no student or parent accountability. Many of the students that came to my school earned D’s or F’s and a few were behavior problems. Without parent accountability where they must come to PTSA meetings, conferences and maybe even do some volunteer hours you basically get what you got in your home school. I have no problem with moving children from under achieving schools as long as both the child and the parent buy into it and they become productive members of the school community. Unfortunately I feel we get a lot of well if they just go to another school they’ll get better grades.
red ryder
March 1st, 2011
5:43 am
birds of a feather stick together—you can make us work with them, live with them, go to school with them, eat with them BUT you can’t MAKE us LIKE them, so quit trying!!!
catlady
March 1st, 2011
7:06 am
Lee, you gotta be able to parse out SES. There is the burden, because in the US a high proportion of black kids are low SES.
Now, where I live the low SEs kids are white and Hispanic. You’d think with no black kids, our test scores and college-going rates would be so high–no black kids to “lower” the bar. Even many of the Hispanics, who are 1st generation English speakers, outscore and out grade many of the white kids. Why? Their parents VALUE education, and support the efforts of the schools. Many of the white kids’ parents simply do not. School is where you go to get fed and get you out of the house and out from underfoot for awhile.
Lee, I can’t buy your thesis at all. Race is tangential to this discussion. I believe the variable is NOT genetic; it is much more cultural. You have to have parents who value education and who support the efforts of the school. If you drive north from Atlanta into the extremely white parts of North Georgia, you would be able to see this.
I agree with Springdale Parent: We don’t do those kids or their prospective children any good by making excuses for them, or for not requiring them to maintain civilized behavior. The only way to help them (and to help the rest of the class as well) is to hold them to the behavior and achievement standards we expect, those standards that they need to be successful, those standards that they can pass on to their children in the next round of breeding.
Education has to be seen as an opportunity to “get somewhere,” but in many schools it is only an enabler to allow more disfunctional, unhelpful behavior to be replicated. Even more important than literacy is the behavior that allows literacy to be developed. Until we realize that and support teachers in enforcing correct behaviors in the classroom, we are spitting into the wind.
ken
March 1st, 2011
7:17 am
Can’t the government solve dysfunctional families??? I’ll bet the voucher sisters, Chipper Rogers and Eric Johnson, have a solution.
www.honeyfern.org
March 1st, 2011
7:46 am
Had to chuckle: “It’s rough on white kids right now.” That is the funniest thing I have heard in awhile.
Also funny is how this discussion has nothing at all to do with educating kids. Thought this was a blog on education, but it seems to be more about reinforcing racial and income-based stereotypes, at least in the commentary. Makes it difficult to get anything changed in education when you only care about people that look, think, and act just like you.
Lee
March 1st, 2011
7:57 am
“You can ignore reality, but you cannot ignore the consequences of ignoring reality” so sayeth one of my favorite quotes by Ayn Rand.
Race and IQ is a controversial subject. I understand that. Google the subject and you can find tons of articles on the issue – some confirm, others deny. Here is a good primer on the subject: http://www.news-medical.net/news/2005/04/26/9530.aspx
Personally, I think there is a difference between the races with regards to IQ. I also think that IQ is a significant contributing factor in other areas such as behavior. People mention low socio-economic condition as a variable affecting education, but ignore the reality that a low IQ person is limited in their income earnings potential.
What has happened for the past 35-40 years is that politically correct dogma has prevented discussion related to this topic. They lament about things such as the black/white achievement gap, but never try to get to the root cause – which IMHO is related to IQ.
Whenever I mention IQ and race, I get the Pavlov-esque response of calling me racist and also the anecdotal stories of a)the smartest kid in their class is black, or b) the dumbest is white. Such remarks demonstrate a limited grasp of the concept of a statistical normal distribution.
No, Wake County’s approach fixes nothing. It merely dilutes effects of the poor students and gives the illusion that all schools are successful. The poor students still learn nothing, are passed along from grade to grade, and graduate semi-illiterate.
Inman Park Boy
March 1st, 2011
7:58 am
Is the theory here that whatever it is that makes smart kids smart will rub off on the less smart klids?
Lee
March 1st, 2011
8:04 am
@Cat, and what is “culture”?
Double Zero Eight
March 1st, 2011
8:17 am
Parental involvement is the key. Discipline begins at home.
Without parental involvement and discipline, everything else
is an exercise in futility. When “kids have kids’, the problem
is augmented. It is time to stop making excuses. We have
all heard of examples of children in urban schools from
low income families that have achieved succees.
Many teachers in APS have posted they spend
an indordinate about of time on discipline issues.
Attendance is also a problem in urban schools.
A child that is already behind can ill afford to be
out of school excessively.
Integration by achievement is a new version
of “forced busing”, and would be a bureaucratic
and administrative nighmare to implement in
APS, Fulton, Dekalb, or Clayton systems.
Michael Moore
March 1st, 2011
8:17 am
It’s not theory it’s research and it’s not current research but research that’s been around for decades. When you put the low achieving kids together that’s what you get. The first notion to dispel is that kids learn from teachers. Kids learn more from each other than from their teachers. When there is a range of ability, it’s not going to adversely affect those at or above levels. It’s going to positively affect low achieving students. There is a range of response that didn’t exist before. Schools still using whole group ability grouping are condemning those kids to the label you’ve already hung around their necks. All kids need exposed to wide ranges of vocabulary levels, wide ranges of written expression and wide ranges of critical thinking and comprehension.
Interested Educator
March 1st, 2011
8:33 am
@Michael Moore – well stated and quite an educated response.
Dr. Craig Spinks/ Augusta
March 1st, 2011
8:37 am
Ernest and Cast the old teachers out,
How many minds are being wasted because of the disruptive and disrespectful school climates in which many of our kids of all hues matriculate?
How many minds are being wasted because our popular culture and some subcultures denigrate self-discipline, civility, parental responsibility and the intellect?
How many minds are being wasted because educrats are paid whether or not our kids learn what our kids will need to be responsible, productive citizens?
do the math
March 1st, 2011
8:54 am
“Since Dekalbite and Catlady don’t think race and IQ are related, maybe they could cite a school that went from large majority white to majority minority and the quality did not decrease significantly.”
Lee, you are obviously confusing correlation with causation.
V for Vendetta
March 1st, 2011
9:07 am
Lee,
Now you’ve got my hackles up, quoting Ayn Rand to somehow justify your racist perspective. Ayn Rand also wrote heavily on the subject of racism, which she called the lowest form of collectivism in her amazing book The Virtue of Selfishness. Your antiquated view of race ignores the largest factor in the distribution of IQ: SES. There is simply no objective evidence to support a meaningful (meaning more than ten points) difference in the IQ variations between races. SES (i.e., social class) is the single biggest variable in determining educational achievement–which, by the way, is a lot different from IQ. I have known plenty of people who have relatively high IQ scores (above 120) who failed to attain success commensurate with their perceived intelligence.
Please refrain from dragging Ayn Rand’s name through the mud in support of your simple-minded and racist rhetoric. Those of us who read and understand her philosophy would appreciate it.
What's best for kids?
March 1st, 2011
9:24 am
We need to look at this from Maslow’s perspective. If a child does not know where his next meal is coming from; if his parents are away most of the time; if he isn’t sure that his home will be his home for more than three months, education is not a priority for him. Survival is.
Dr. John Trotter
March 1st, 2011
9:24 am
Discipline. Discipline. Discipline. MACE has been right about all of the corruption and systematic cheating in DeKalb and Atlanta (talked about it openly long before the traditional media picked up on it). MACE is right about discipline (or lack thereof) too.
Focus on discipline, and you will get better academic achievement. Focus on academic achievement with no regard for discipline, and you will get a complete mess. Try to ride a bike with only a back wheel. You’ll end up in a ditch. The front wheel is essential. It guides the bike and provides for your safety. The front wheel (discipline) is essential for any potential power (academic achievement) which comes from the back wheel. In the public school setting, the front wheel is discipline. This is what is missing. It doesn’t matter what potential power (academic achievement) is in the back wheel if the front wheel (discipline) is missing. You end of with utter chaos. Go ahead. Try to ride a bike with just the back wheel. Try it.
Aim at discipline, and academic achievement will increase. (c) MACE, March 1, 2011.
KimZ'spackage
March 1st, 2011
9:35 am
Why the more white kids hang around the black the white kids speak like they are black and the black kids don’t start speaking good and proper English like the white kids? If you have 30 kids in a class and 10 are black the black children will learn to speak properly, but when the % gets closer to 40% black or higher the white kids start speaking more ghetto.
Dr. John Trotter
March 1st, 2011
9:49 am
Dr. Spinks: You are always on target.
Larry Major
March 1st, 2011
9:52 am
Those decades of research directly conflict with everything I’ve seen locally.
GSMST is geared toward kids with both a high IQ and exceptional drive. It took time for the notion to catch on and the first two years about 30 percent of their students returned to their home school for “academic” reasons. The 70 percent there didn’t change the 30 percent – they went back to their home school, where they probably ran 3.5 GPAs.
GCPS has 33 Title I schools on the DOE’s Title I Distinguished Schools list. Although a school has to make AYP for “only” three consecutive years to get on this list, most of these 33 schools have seven and two have nine consecutive years. The 4 to 38 percent of kids in these schools who DIDN’T qualify for subsidized meals and the 49 percent of NON-ESOL students (these are the actual numbers) weren’t mentioned as the way they achieved this.
Still, I’m not a teacher and it’s possible my life is so completely abnormal that I’ve never seen typical – so let’s ask the teachers who read this blog.
Teachers, consider 90 kids – 60 ready for new material and 30 below grade level. Which is the more efficient way to educate all 90 kids?
A) Two classes of 30 kids each ready to move on and one class of 30 that need extra help.
B) Three classes, each with 20 kids ready for new material and 10 who are not.
I’ll defer to the real life experts on this one.
What's best for kids?
March 1st, 2011
9:57 am
Option A. No doubt.
Talk about your minorities
March 1st, 2011
10:16 am
It is ridiculous to say Blacks and Hispanics can’t perform as well as Whites and Asian/Asian Americans. My husband and I are both white and have Ph.Ds. Several of my neighbors and friends are of other races or cultures and have Ph.D.s, M.D.s, J.D.s, MBAs (the husbands AND the wives). They are no less horrified about what goes on in public schools than we are, and they fight every day to insure that their children will not be drawn into the glamorous thug/ho culture of low income middle and high school. This is a prevalent black and Hispanic teen and young adult subculture in our area where 60% of children in public school are on free or reduced price lunch.
These parents are less concerned about having their children at the top of their class than they are about getting them through school without an unwanted pregnancy or an arrest record like so many of their childrens’ peers. These parents are as involved in the school as we are, if not more so. Their children show up with homework completed, and prepared for learning. One could argue that the stakes are much higher for them to get their children through college, especially their son, so that they can show that they are “middle class material.”
There unique problems facing middle class racial minorities in public education. When there aren’t that many middle class nonwhites in a school, the children have to choose between having friends of the same race who are low income, often unsupervised, low achievers and friends of a different race who are middle income, but may not understand their interests, their TV programs, their music. I’ll give the example of two families I have know personally for years in which the parents have Ph.Ds in the sciences and value education, travel, and middle class lifestyle. My neighbor told me in 5th grade, his daughter who is black was in a very friendly multiracial group, but on entering 6th grade, the groups split completely along racial lines and she was literally told “choose.” What would you tell your child in that case? These parents figured they could offset the negative effects of the “ghetto culture” but wanted their daughter to be comfortable with her racial identity so they left her in public school. She has gone through school on Step Team and cheerleading for majority black sports teams, dated and attended parties with black classmates, has black teacher-mentors, and watched several classmates drop out with pregnancies and arrests (which her parents constantly point out as negative examples). Another black friend told me his wife insisted they enroll their children in a Christian private school to avoid the ghetto culture. As a result their children’s friends are all white and Asian (they are the only black family in the school), and he is concerned that they have been too insulated from black music, art, writings, etc. and will be at a cultural loss when they are old enough to marry. Also, he worries that when they are faced with the unique pressures on young blacks, they will be poorly prepared to counter the effects. Despite this, his children are very happy at the school and are going to be well prepared for college – the fact that all their friends assume a college education is part of their future makes it easy to encourage them to study and prepare for tests.
The talk of improving schools should address the needs of the children to be in “like” groups and to feel accepted.
ABC
March 1st, 2011
10:38 am
To talk about.. : so what are you saying? The choice is either do well in school, be well prepared for success in life OR become friends with people of your “own” culture and risk it all????? yeah right, my child will be choosing being the only minority in a group of friends if that were the case.
Talk about your minorities
March 1st, 2011
10:48 am
@ABC. I should have been clear. Both the families’ children are doing very well. The daughter who stayed in public school is college-bound next year (nursing is the planned degree, economic realities will determine which school she attends). The son in this family starts high school next year coming out of advanced/gifted programs in middle school. Both kids expect and are expected to complete college and go on to an advanced degree if it is required for their chosen fields. The children in the family that chose the private school route will definitely matriculate to college. The private school is not exceptional; it has no accelerated programs in middle school and limited AP selections, so the kids will go to college, but unless they do extremely well on the SAT (historically good scores, but not amazing scores, coming out of that school) or in one of the upscale sports offered at the school (fencing, anyone?), they will not “wow” any of the big colleges in the state. I guess one could say both will end up in about the same place, academically, mainly due to the influence of well-educated, committed parents and comfortable, if not lavish, secure two-parent households. But, culturally, will one set of kids be better off than the other? All I know is that the family with kids in public school is not worried about their children’s ability to withstand pressures in the university to do drugs, drink, have unprotected sex, but the parents with kids in the more sheltered private school are very nervous about sending their kids out into the world.
Dr. John Trotter
March 1st, 2011
11:03 am
Over thirty years ago, I did research at the University of Georgia on peer pressure perceptions among academically able black male adolescents, the results of which were published in The Journal of Negro Education (a referee journal) in the Winter edition of 1981. The findings showed that many times, academically able black male adolescents felt that they had to cut themselves off from their peer group if they wanted to succeed in school. This is sad. My daughter experienced the same peer pressure in high school. Some students kidded her, saying, “You talk white.” She later admitted that she made lower grades on purpose to fit in with her peers. Our First Lady, Michelle Obama, discussed the same disgusting peer pressures with author David Mendell in his book, “Obama: From Promise to Power.” She stated that “there’s frustration of feeling like you have to camouflage your intellect in order to survive in your own community.” The First Lady said that she and her brother experienced this anti-intellectual culture while in school.
The peer pressures that our children experience in the public school setting are usually negative in nature, especially for children of color. This is a strange phenomenon in our culture because in other cultures around the world, peer pressure at school works in a positive direction as far as academic achievement is concerned. (c) MACE, March 1, 2011.
Toto: Exposing naked body scanners...
March 1st, 2011
11:29 am
Return ownership of child’s education to parents. Overturn the compulsory education law. The only education options will be parent driven. If parents screw up, their children will suffer, AND SO WILL THEY. That is as it should be. Now, the parents screw up, public education makes it worse, AND EVERYONE ELSE SUFFERS. The bad parents get off scott free.
catlady
March 1st, 2011
12:09 pm
janet, obviously you have not eaten out at many “family restaurants” lately. I see many, many white kids without speck o’ raising!
Lee: Disfunctional (unhelpful for school success) culture: Putting coke in the baby’s bottle, your five year old not being able to count to 20, your child not knowing what a napkin is for, having a child with a “daddy of the week”, having your child’s first sentence “Get outta my face, you %$$#&,” your child answering to “Dammit,” parking you child in front of the TV while you go on a date, your child coming to school reeking of the dope you have been smoking, not knowing which school your child goes to, or what grade they are in…need I go on? No race involved in any of these.
Not My Job...
March 1st, 2011
12:17 pm
@Catlady. Your last statement resonated with me. The department head I know at UGA has no idea how old his kids are or what grade they are in. He does not know the name of the school they attend, nor has he ever been to a Parent-Teacher Conference. This Hispanic Floridian has a Ph.D., so it is not ignorance per se, but a cultural bias. His wife “handles all that family stuff.” If your culture is for the man to work outside the home and the woman to work inside it, you better hope that woman has an interest in education and a clue how to make it happen.
Bothered
March 1st, 2011
5:41 pm
@ Dr. John Trotter – Your studies are unfortunately true and something that has bothered me for years. As a white female that came from a predominantly white high school, I often experienced reverse discrimination…
Why? My best friend was an over-achieving black student who was discriminated against on a daily basis from other black students. They called her “white washed” and said she was a disgrace to “her community.” I never understood why anyone who was educated, an incredible athlete and valedictorian would be considered a disgrace to their community. She went on the graduate with honors from Stanford. Some disgrace right?
With that said, my opinion on this article is this, I think education has little to do with money or race. It has to do with parents. We both came from lower middle class families, maybe even poor by today’s standards, but we had parents that cared. We came from families that supported us, made us do homework, made us want more than what they had. We were taught the value of work and taking pride in your actions. I do not think that busing students all over the county will really back that big of a difference because at the end of the day, what matters most is family values. Not money. Not race.
So how about instead of busing students we start a huge campaign against teenage pregnancy? We start a huge campaign about accountability? You want a nice car? Work for it, don’t steal it. How about we teach manners and simple human decency?
Levin
March 1st, 2011
6:33 pm
Great idea! Let’s punish the high achieving kids by putting them with the low achieving ones. Once again the smart kids get the shaft. How about we set up a system where we reward achievement? Instead we have a system where teachers spend most of the there time with kids who don’t achieve. Just think how high our highest achievers could climb if we actually rewarded them with the increased instruction time they’ve earned instead decreasing their instruction time because they achieve?
Lee
March 1st, 2011
7:50 pm
@V, so…. I can’t quote Ayn Rand because you don’t like what I said after the quote.
Interesting concept……
Oh yeah, thanks for the Pavlov like response of calling me racist and proving my point…. I knew I could count on you…
Lee
March 1st, 2011
7:52 pm
@Catlady, and all this time I thought culture referred to the Arts, Literature, and Bar-b-que.
(Drive 50 miles and the BBQ changes, sorta like those wine regions in France and Italy)
amazed
March 1st, 2011
11:22 pm
How do they propose to do this? Rejuggle where kids go every year? Sounds better in theory than practice. But it is a good effort to try to deal with a culture of failure in some schools where education is devalued.
@Lee Modern geneticists (try Spencer Wells) will tell you that race is a cultural concept and has nothing to do with genetics. BBQ is only considered culture in the southeast where they also have these outmoded concepts about race. However, BBQ can be an art form.
V for Vendetta
March 2nd, 2011
8:51 am
Lee,
You can quote whoever you like. It just seems to me that if you believe in the pseudoscience that supports your obviously racist agenda, you probably also fundamentally misunderstand Rand’s philosophy.
“Pavlov like”? There’s nothing Pavlovian about identifying someone who is disciminating against a group of people based solely on their race as a racist. catlady is correct: there are many detestable behaviors to be found in poverty; few of them have to do with race. (Though I would argue–which I’m sure you, Lee, would enjoy–that the preponderance of such behavior in certain cultural groups is precisely what holds them back in education. However, as you so astutely observed, the culture of poverty changes from region to region.)