Inequality of Opportunity in Schools

The following quotes are taken from The Shame of the Nation, written by Jonathan Kozol.

“To qualify for admissions to this public school, a child must first be taken to a private testing agency: $165 for the IQ test, she notes. Parents who can’t afford to pay may apply for a free test, she says but many parents are intimidated to make such requests and, more to the point, most of them have never even heard that such exemptions are available.” Chapter 6, Page 138.

This quote is a good example of how privileged families can get ahead in school systems. Families that have the money to pay for certain tests to get their children ahead have a better chance to attending prestigious schools. People with lower incomes do not have the same opportunity as wealthier families because they may not be able to afford testing. The test should be free for all students to take; it is not fair for the people that can’t afford to take it. If this is a public school then why does private testing have to be part of the admissions process?

“Even in a brief recession in the early 1990s when a billion-dollar cut in funding was imposed on New York City’s schools across the board, $150 million was discovered to erect a dazzling new building, the most expensive high school ever built in New York City¸ for the students who attended Stuyvesant. Not a single high school had been built for students in the Bronx since 1973.” Chapter 6, Pages 139-140.

Why did the government of New York build another high end school when there are hundreds of schools in low income areas that need repairs, new buildings, and materials within the school? This makes no sense to me. In this book, Kozol describes on numerous accounts, schools that are located in urban settings that are falling apart, but yet the government still decides to build a bigger and better school for those who already have what they need to get by. What was the government of New York reasoning for this? Do they not care about the students who have no learning materials in their schools?

“Class size averaged 30 students. Thirteen of the 15 teachers were provisional which meant they were not fully certified to teach. Supplies were scarce. Three of my classes don’t have textbooks, said the principle. I have to fight and scratch for everything we get.” Chapter 6, Page 143.

This quote goes along with the one previous. Principals and teachers in poor urban areas have to fight for the supplies and materials they receive. How are students supposed to learn and be successful in school when the schools do not have the resources they need to teach properly? There should be more funding to schools that do not the materials they need. But again this all connects to government standardized testing and increasing scores.

“At that point, his mother agreed to have him transferred to this school in Harlem. When I later asked her why she had agreed to this instead of trying to enroll him in one of the better middle schools that were presumably available under the school choice program in New York, she said that she was given no alternative. I went to the school district office and they gave me that school she replied. If other choices did exist, she said they were not mentioned.” Chapter 6, Pages 143-144.

Why is the district office holding back important information to parents? This is half the reason why poorer families do not get good educations because they do not know what is available to them. It should be a mandated rule that the district needs to come forth to help families and provide them with options and other resources available to them. Holding information can jeopardize a child’s future. In this quote the mother had no idea she could have sent her child to a better school. Instead he see violence every day because the district held information from him and his mother.

The following quotes are taken from American Education, written by Joel Spring.

“Horace Mann believed equality of opportunity would reduce tension between the rich and poor. The poor could believe that their children had and equal chance to compete with the children of the rich. Rather than feeling antagonistic toward the wealthy, the poor could believe that they had the opportunity to join the rich.” Chapter 2, Page 31.

Horace Mann theory of equality means well, but in fact it would never work. There will always be inequality in American society. Some people will always have more opportunities while others do not because of economic statuses people have. Equal opportunity should reduce tension between the rich and the poor. However this is not true because people of privilege backgrounds always will have more resources available to them to get ahead in the competition, while poor families to not have means in obtaining extra resources. Therefore, sadly there will always be inequality between the two.

“Common-school model continues to be plagued by differences in family backgrounds. Children with parents who read to them expose them to a variety of cultural events are probably better prepared to learn than children whose parents are illiterate. Also, wealthy parents can provide their children with special advantages such as tutors and learning aids, while poor parents might have to struggle just to feed their children.” Chapter 2, Page 33.

As much as this model proposes equality for all school systems, our society does not work this way, there is always going to be more advantages for some. It is not anyone fault, it is the way the American society works. Some people are more privileged then others.  If all the schools were set up the same for every child, there will still be students who fall behind and some that achieve great success because of their family’s economic status. This is not fair to the people with fewer privileges, just because they can’t afford tutors and aids for their children, they fall behind in academics.

Standarized Testing in the United States

The following quotes are taken from the book The Shame of the Nation, written by Jonathan Kozol.

“At P.S. 65, during the three months prior to the all-important state exam, fifth grade teachers had to set aside all other lessons from 8:40 to 11:00, and from 1:45 to 3:00, to drill the children for their tests. In addition to this, two afternoons a week, children in the fourth and fifth grade had to stay from 3:00 to 5:00 for another session of the test preparation. They also have to come to school on Saturdays to get three hours more of this during the last four weeks before exams.” Chapter 5, Page 113.

This quote gives a good example of how much school administrators want their students to do well on the tests. Students for several weeks and hours spend time practicing for state exams. The administrators in the school systems are very willing to give up time for students to practice for the test because all they care about is funding. Once the tests are taken, many students fall behind and lack skills for their age. This has become a major problem in school systems because teachers have to give up their daily lessons and teach to the tests.  

“Test results will help to show their teachers where the children’s weaknesses may lie, so that they can redirect the focus of their work in order to address these weaknesses. However, because of the long lapse in time between the taking of these tests and the receipts of scores.” Chapter 5, Page 115.

I think that when standardized testing was first produced it was supposed to be a good way to help teachers to know where their students are developmentally. However, because testing has changed so much in the past years, teachers do not get the tests results back right away. By the time the test results come back to the teachers, some of the students have moved up to the next grade or it is too late in the year to address the problems.  Students start to fall behind little by little because they are not working on their areas of weakness. If teachers are going to be spending most of their time focused on practice tests, then they should at least get their test results back within a few weeks, so they can help the children improve for the text year.

“Every time we hold a child over, we are substantially reducing the odds of that child graduating anytime in the future. When that child is held back twice, the likelihood that he or she will never graduates increases by 90 percent.” Chapter 5, Page 117.

When I first read this quote, I could not believe that the percentage was so high! But then I thought that 90 percent made sense because, a child can get really low self-esteem about themselves and school. Instead of focusing all our time on standardized testing, we teachers need to focus on the students more. Children are clearly not learning because lessons that are made by teachers that help them develop proper skills for example, social and cognitive are not being taught. All of the classroom time is focused on drilling students to increase their last year test scores.

“In some schools art and music are excluded from the organized curriculum because these subjects are not tested by the state examinations. The banishment of recess from the normal school day is perhaps the ultimate penurious denial.  Recess has been abandoned to secure more time for test-related programs.” Chapter 5, Page 119-120.

Again, like the quotes above this, clearly show that standardized testing is taking over schools. I feel like the administrators are focused on one thing, one thing only, and that is improving and increasing test scores from year to year. This is no way to run a school. How do these school systems expect students to learn when they have no fun activities? Extracurricular activities can be sometimes the most important classes a child can partake in. When a child is struggling with academics he or she looks to other classes such as art, music, and gym. Kids need other outlets in school to help them learn. Drilling and testing is not going to benefit the students or the school, students will only become frustrated and this will show in test results.

The following quotes are taken from the book American Education written by Joel Spring.

“These researchers found that some immigrant cultures in the United States retained their parental culture in their private lives while taking on the values of the host culture in their public lives.” Chapter 5, Page 121.

I think it is important for teachers to study and discuss other cultures in their classrooms. All cultures should feel welcomed, especially in the classroom. Students need to understand diversity and that everyone is different. But also that it is okay to be yourself, people do not have to conform to society. I think immigrants should not have to confine their cultures to only their private lives. They should feel proud where they came from, and teach others about their culture.

“The Teaching Tolerance Project is to provide resources and materials to schools to promote interracial and intercultural understanding between whites and nonwhites. There also have been decisions to include materials dealing with cultural tolerance, homelessness, and poverty. The Teaching Tolerance Project is the only one of the many educational attempts to end racism in the United States.” Chapter 5, Page 130.

The Teaching Tolerance Project should be something that every school should participate in. I believe its really important to teach students to be open about these kind of issues. It also spreads awareness throughout the community.  Using this project in schools would help promote cultural understanding, but also maybe put a stop to bullying. Much of today’s bullying happens because of the lack of understanding from culture to culture. If students learn from each other they will be more sympathetic to each other.
 

Diversity, Difference, and Privilege Continued...

The following quotes were taken from The Shame of the Nation by Jonathan Kozol.


“The names of the children and their tasks were posted on the wall, an ordinary thing to see in classrooms everywhere. But in this case there was a novel twist: All the jobs the kids were given were described as management positions! They were intended to teach values of responsibility for…jobs” Chapter 4, Page 90-91.
I think it is important for children to have specific jobs in a classroom setting. It teaches students to work together as a community and also as a team. Teachers that use job charts are helping to teach children responsibly, which I think is very important. Learning responsibility helps children grow as individuals because they are learning to take accountability for ones actions. I realize that teaching responsibility will one day help in their careers, but I never thought about using the term management positions. Using the term management gives students an earlier idea about the different positions there are in the workforce. At young ages these educators are teaching their students that hard work will place you higher in the working field.


“It’s a medical school, another child, named Tamika, told me when I asked her why she had applied there. I wanted to be a baby doctor she explained….Tamika went from Robeson to another of those industry-embedded schools, a 97 percent black and Hispanic school called Health Opportunities in which only one in five ninth graders ever reached twelfth grade and from which Tamika dropped out in eleventh grade.” Chapter 4, Page 101.
This quote made me really think about the high dropout rate in schools. I feel like because Tamika and her fellow classmates were required to choose a career at an early age, it might have burnt them out before they even started. I think it’s important for teenagers in high school to start thinking about their future, but any age before that is too early. I remember being a child and going through different phases of wanting to be an artist, to a veterinarian, to an actress. I believe it is important for kids to be kids. We should not pressure them to start thinking seriously what they want to be for the rest of their lives too early or they will get burnt out. Burnt out meaning they will get bored or the opposite be to intense in their schooling before they even start the career, which will result in dropping out like Tamika did.


“Students, she explained, were required to decide on a career path at the end of freshman year and once you do this, your entire program is determined by that choice. Technically, she said, a student could select a college education as a career path, but this option, she reported wasn’t marketed to many students at the school as forcefully as they were the job-related programs.” Chapter 4, Page 102.
This quote really frustrates me! I think that it is so important that college be an option for students, especially in today’s world. I cannot believe that college was not a path that was not marketed more. Was it because this school was located in a poorer community? Even if this is so, there are scholarships and financial aid to help people. I think it is important for every person to have some kind of degree whether it is from a college or a tech program ect. Why would teachers not support the path of college in this school system? Did they think it was not a good option for these teens?

The following quotes were taken from the book American Education, by Joel Spring.


“The refusal of the San Francisco school district to provide special help learning, English to Chinese immigrant children with limited English ability. The Court ruled that for limited-English-speaking students, schools must provide aid in learning in English so that they could participate in learning in English-speaking classrooms.” Chapter 4, Page 107-108.
It is baffling to me, that one time in American History, that school systems in the United States denied aids to immigrants that were trying to learn English. This confuses me because I thought that the government required schools to teach immigrants English because they wanted them to conform into American society, but yet they denied it. Not until the courts made it a rule that all limited-English-speaking students be provided with an aid to learn English. Why did the schools deny it in the first place? How did they expect students to learn English without an aid?



“A major problem for schools is finding teachers who are trained to teach students who have limited English proficiency (LEP).” Chapter 4, Page 109.
I can see where this can be a problem for schools. Teachers are not required to learn different languages for our jobs. If a student were to walk in my classroom and only know the French language, I would be puzzled on what to do, because I do not know any French. I’m not sure if making a requirement for teachers would solve this problem. A possible solution would be hiring aids that spoke the same language as the students learn the English language. But I am not sure what the best solution would be for this problem.



“After the conquest of Northern Mexico, state governments tried to use their school systems to replace the speaking of Spanish with English. In 1856, two years after the Texas legislature established public schools, a law was passed requiring the teaching of English as a subject.” Chapter 4, Page 89.
After reading this quote, I did not realize how far back the controversy of teaching and speaking
English went. I do not think it was right for American courts to change school systems in Mexico. The schools were not even located in the United States. This particular requirement I feel is taking away from the Mexican culture, because we are taking away their native language in their own country. However, I believe even today it is important for any immigrant from any ethnic group, whether they are from Europe, Latin America, or any another country, should all learn to speak English if living in the United States. I believe this because English is our national language, to have success in our society immigrants need to understand others and have a basic knowledge of how to speak our native language. I would expect the opposite too, if an American were to move to Mexico, they too would be expected to learn Spanish.

Diversity, Difference, and Privilege

The following quotes are taken from the book The Shame of the Nation, written by Jonathan Kozol.

“Very little teaching took place in Pineapple’s class during the time that I was there…Nearly two hours had elapsed between the time Pineapple’s classmates formed their line to go to lunch and finally returned.” Chapter 1, Page 14.
As I was reading this particular story about Pineapple, I couldn’t believe that she and her classmates had to wait around every day for two hours. All sorts of questions popped in my head like, why was forming lines so important to the faculty at the school, how many hours did these students spend on academics, and why did transitions take so long in the school? In my past experience in schools, transitions to the cafeteria, recess, and other classrooms took around five minutes. Now that people are aware of this problem in Pineapple’s school changes should be made by the administration. Instead of waiting outside the lunchroom for thirty minutes, teachers should keep the students in the classroom learning.

“Pineapple had four different teachers in a row. One of them was apparently a maladjusted person who, Pineapple said, used swear words to subdue children. One was fired for smoking in the building.” Chapter 1, Page 14.
As a future elementary teacher, this quote made me quite irritated. Teachers are supposed to be positive role models and set good examples for their students inside and outside school. Does this school system look into the backgrounds of potential teachers before they hire them? What is the administration doing to make sure they provide their students with the best possible teachers? Looking at backgrounds and making sure potential teachers have certifications would make for a lesser teacher turnover rate at Pineapple’s school.

“In a Seattle neighborhood for instance where approximately half the families were Caucasian, 95% of the students at the Thurgood Marshall Elementary School were black, Hispanic, Native American, or of Asian origin. An African American teacher at the school told me of seeing clusters of white parents and their children on the corner of a street close to the school each morning waiting for a bus that took the children to a school in which she believed that the enrollment was predominantly white.” Chapter 1, Page 22.
Why are parents busing their children to different schools and is it really because of race issues? I think that schools are definitely segregated in some areas of our nation. In the book, Kozol notes different schools in urban and suburban areas and the demographics, and it clearly shows that there is always a majority of Caucasians, or a majority of African Americans and Hispanics. It is never really equal between the two ethnic groups. Kozol gave many examples of this in schools all around the Unites States, but the it still varies. The Civil Rights Movement purpose was to intergrate whites and blacks together, but now we are moving backwards and becoming segregated again.  

“In one make-shift elementary school housed in a former skating rink next to a funeral parlor in another all-black and Hispanic section of the Bronx, class size rose to 34 and more; four kindergarten classes and a sixth grade class were all packed into a single room that had no windows. Recess was impossible because there was no outdoor playground and no indoor gym, so the children had no place to play.” Chapter 2, Page 41.
As I was reading this section from chapter two, I noticed how different it was from reasoning behind Pineapple’s experience in school. Whereas Pineapple spent two hours of her day at lunch, at recess, and in lines and these children do not have any time to play. Sitting in a crowded classroom must be very difficult to teach in. It is crazy to think that this classroom setting takes place in the twenty-first century in the United States. Schools all around our nation are becoming more and more overcrowded; the government needs to make changes so schools will get more funding. Children should not have to learn in these conditions. Teachers should not have to teach in these conditions.

“A good deal of private money ,moreover as The Times observed, was being collected under the table because parents sometimes feared that they would otherwise be forced to share these funds with other schools.” Chapter 2, Page 48
I did not realize that private funding could be that much beneficial to schools. I agree and disagree with both perspectives on funding. I see the unfair and fair side to parents raising money to better their child’s education experience. However, communities that have more poverty do not have the opportunity to raise as much money. Sharing money with other schools would be helpful because then schools would be able to pay better salaries and provide newer materials to lower economic communities.

“Anxiety, for the children was intensified, according the a fifth grade teacher, by the ever-present danger of humiliations when their reading levels or their scores on state examinations were announced….Children who are labels in this manner soon begin to use these labels to refer to one another or themselves….She wrinkled her nose and looked at me unhappily, I’m just a Level Two.” Chapter 3, Pages 73-74
Children should never feel down about where they are in academics, especially at young ages. In this school system they labeled every student publicly. I don’t think this will help students or the school in receiving better test results. If students have a low self-esteem, they will start to believe they cannot do things and not try as hard. Teachers are supposed to help motivate students not make them feel worse about their academic abilities, which is clearly done with the girl at the end of the paragraph.

Foundations of Education

http://educationfoundationsccsufall2010.wikispaces.com/