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Alice Mercer
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Alice commented on the article |
I've done my own post on how this plays out, but there is also some stuff from Deven Black (spedteacher) too. Basically, we're ALL right, the problem is having stupid blanket policies and approaches, instead of looking at each child as an individual.
http://mizmercer.edublogs.org/2009/05/23/stupid-esl-and-special-ed-tricks/ -
Alice commented on the article |
Could you kindly provide some studies that proof your vacuous statement that if poor students had better school choices that would improve their condition?
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Alice commented on the article |
You know that's really cute to SELECTIVELY read my citiation and when I call bullshit on your broad banalities, you ASK me to cite my sources, look BELOW this thread. If you had read that entire that you "pulled" that quote from, and understood it, it would have told you WHY offering choice alone would not be enough.
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Alice commented on the article |
To which I would say, as long as they are poor, and dealing with ALL the problems that come along with that, they will not "perform" better, and your smoking grass if you think education alone will help with that. It never has, it never will. You need to change POVERTY, not just education. You can give poor parents LOTS of choices, many will take them, but most won't for a variety of reasons.
This is different version of the same argument that led me to write my piece which is WHAT the heck do we do to build a sense of community and belonging and SUPPORT for parents so we can improve our public schools to that I would now add AND make sure that some of the charters are inclusive so we can see if the experiments they are doing work with a variety of student? Saying something, like "more choice" is simplistic and banal. Saying, we go out into the community and participate in the local institutions, like churches, etc. and get to know the community and make ourselves part of the community, now that's a useful suggestion. When you say, "choice" is the answer, that's braindead without consideration of the context that those choices will be made in. -
Alice commented on the article |
Actually my piece was a three-parter in response to that (agreeing, btw), you might want to read through my work for context.
You are missing a subtle but important point which is this, Ruby Payne believes that the poor are retchid so we have to fix them in schools. KIPP fits well in that model. I believe the are doing the best they can, and to fix them, we need to fix poverty. Karelis, the economist agrees with me. Offering school choice to these families is like offering a 50% coupon to a steak house. Many aren't in a position to use it, and to pretend otherwise is, how can I put this kindly, flying in the face of their reality.
You still haven't answered my question, how do charters reach the lowest families and students? I think there is an answer to this myself, so this isn't a bait question. What's your answer to this? -
Alice commented on the article |
Sorry, the link in 3. didn't work out:
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/eduwonkette/2008/07/cool_people_you_should_know_st.html -
Alice commented on the article |
There is a lot of assumption about choice in the work cited in this piece, that many charter models, seem to predicated on. The assumption is that parents, like shoppers, will maximize their economic interest when given choices in the schooling of their children. I've blogged about the fallacy of this here:
Choice is nice, but... I'll make the following points here:
1. A large percentage of U.S. children are from families that are poor.
2. When you are poor, you aren't in a position to make rational choices, and there is economic theory that supports this.
3. There are also studies of school/neighborhood choice programs.
Choice works for some families, it even works for some poor families, and it's less likekly to be seen as attractive by most families, and most poor families.
You are not offering it as a large scale solution (something KIPP and TFA have done), and that is to your credit, but how can it be an incubator if you aren't reaching the lowest students in terms of both education level and socio-economic status. If you try to scale up what works in that system, it may not work for all.
I think you are right that things need to change, but I'm not sure that what was attractive about the WalMart retail experience, (cheap, standardized, and almost entirely self-directed), will be attractive even to middle class parents. Both the charters you offer, KIPP and Green Dot, seem to be aimed clearly at low-income/minority neighborhoods. Green Dot seems to take a stab at parent organizing, but based on what I read, and my experience, I doubt it will move large numbers of parents in poverty. I wonder how many middle class kids go to Green Dot and KIPP schools? -
Alice commented on the article |
Clay, I'm usually with you on this, but I'm sorry, when my students end up coming out of second and third grade not reading, they're screwed. We have a sixth grader like this, cannot read, and is working on decoding at age 12. He should have been identified LONG ago for services. He may go to college one day, but it'll be a minor miracle if he does. See, there is a big difference when you are the un-schooled child of a minister with a masters degree, and the son of a drunk, semi-itirent worker without papers. Somewhere between Waldorf, and Success for All there lies a solution, but I think the commenters hit on something, that it won't be the same for all kids.
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