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In terms of college educated white parents. Yes, this happens. I remember the flash cards, the classic literature books, the museum trips, the computer camps during the summer, the music lessons, and the ecology trips. I also had chemistry sets, telescopes, and microscopes. I don't think many people who are not upper middle class realize just how constant it this is. I will be honest, the asian parents kick it up two notches. This isn't a stereotype, and it is largely a class difference.
You will not see this with working class whites, or overly religious ones. But those in the upper middle class, it's there. It is not just the fact the schools are better, the parents create a culture of education.
I had this kind of upbringing as well and I find it highly offensive that everyone just assumes when they see me that I must have come from ghetto trash poverty as a child. Falling into poverty as a college-educated adult after your middle-class parents and family are all dead, is another matter entirely. People think I look black so they're surprised I had a good upbringing and education, and every other assumption about lifestyle, education and behavior falls into place.
I think you can say this about any kids. If you take out the black, you read, "Tony Norman: Biggest gap in kids' learning: parents"
[quote=slavicamerican;33572806]According to the op-ed below from the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, it's the parents. When I read it, I immediately imagined the nuclear explosion such a discussion would cause in DC.
__________________________________________________ ________________________
Tony Norman: Biggest gap in kids' learning: parents:
Judging by recent headlines, the education of public school students in Pittsburgh has finally moved to the front burner of public policy and discussion.
The fact that local leaders are making demands about the education of youth is enormously heartening. Their emphasis on teacher evaluations as the key to closing the education gap and spurring academic achievement is misplaced.
We should all agree that the education of children is of more vital concern to the community than just about any other issue, including police brutality, urban violence and joblessness. It is the root of every malady that afflicts the health, wealth and stability of families and communities.
A child with a desire to learn is going to learn, regardless of structural obstacles such as bad schools, mediocre teachers and negative peer pressure.
The achievement gap and the academic mediocrity of far too many students is not the creation of diabolical teachers unions determined to protect the jobs of unqualified teachers at the expense of children in urban schools. To reduce the complex problems in urban schools to labor contracts and job protection is ridiculous.
That's why the new system for evaluating classroom teaching that will be implemented this year strikes me as a prime example of magical thinking on the part of the Pittsburgh Public Schools. I understand that the balance of a $40 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is predicated on a teacher evaluation system of some kind, but there are questions about the accuracy and practicality of such tests.
There is a more pressing factor in academic underachievement in Pittsburgh Public Schools than whether a given teacher passed a high-stakes test or not. You could transfer the most accomplished teachers from the region's best schools in the North Hills and South Hills to Pittsburgh tomorrow and still face a painful reality -- the bored and unmotivated students counting down the minutes until the end of the school day.
If the absolute worst teachers in Pittsburgh were replaced overnight by an army of MacArthur genius award winners, Nobel Prize recipients, Teachers of the Year from every state and the top scorers in whatever teacher evaluation test you want, it wouldn't impact academic achievement in Pittsburgh in the short run.
Even if the Pittsburgh Public Schools were funded by taxpayers at three times the level of suburban school districts and had more resources in terms of science labs, computers, musical instruments, art supplies, modern infrastructure, sports facilities and motivated teachers, it wouldn't make a difference to students who have not internalized the value of education.
This isn't because there is some defect in the cognitive abilities of students. Education isn't coded to prevent kids from learning the material. The missing element isn't the so-called "right teacher" with the right evaluation standing at the blackboard. The missing element is something far more fundamental.
What's missing is the active, radical involvement of every parent of a child in the Pittsburgh school district.
This goes way beyond showing up for parent-teacher nights. This means supervising homework, modeling an appreciation for learning from the first day that child comes into the world, limiting media distractions that reinforce negative stereotypes and ruthlessly enforcing an ethic of achievement that prevents the pathology of failure from taking root.
This means parents have to stop making excuses. Instead of blaming teachers for intellectually incurious children, they have to become involved in their children's education.
While demanding competent teachers is fine, parents have to demand more from themselves and even more from their children, because they begin life at a disadvantage. Parents of students have to become insistent stakeholders who personally reinforce the value of education even if they're not educated themselves. A home with more video games than books is a home guaranteeing failure.
Once an active partnership built on mutual trust, respect, empathy and expectation between parents, teachers and students is established, there won't be any significant achievement gap to speak of in a few years."
See how that changed? You can use this for any race. Just insert race.
It's like Christian songs. If you take "God" out and replace it with "love" or "her", it'll be a Billiard top 10 hit song. I think some of them are.
The point is this. Has blaming someone or something ever solve a problem? They always say, it's to aware people of what's going on, but trust me, people are aware. The quiet whispers that you hear from different languages, and the silence from other race is just that. But this doesn't answer any questions or solve any problems. Nobody ever solved any problems by blaming anybody. Ghandi never blamed the British people.
If you want something, you have to do it right.
Let me tell you a secret. Any smart government is a government that functions without any priority emergency or attacks. Any smart government will not use idiotic tactics like, "spreading rumors". But any smart government will always use built-in bias that all humans posses from their upbringing. And what this creates is a chaos between people, and not toward government.
Imagine if Blood, Crips, and MS 13 gets together in an organized fashion? Eventually, these guys are going to target the government, because that's what's stopping them from making profit.
Imagine if the Mexican drug cartel got together with Russian Mafia? Eventually, these guys are going to target the government, because that's what's stopping them from making profit.
Imagine having trillions of dollars worth of weapons that can't be used, because world's at peace. As a soldier who's trained to kill, crafted his or her skills in using the weapon can't use it anymore. What happens? If history has proven correctly, the restless army tend to attack the government, and that's why in 200+ years of U.S. history, we've never been more than 4 or 5 years away from a war.
The bigger picture that only few people can imagine that exists, because those few who understands it, understands that it can be possible, and that possibility tend to become reality.
And let me just say, there are a lot of good black single mom's out there, and they do their best to provide for their children. But it's hard, if they're black, white, yellow, purple, or pink doing what they do. This one lady had two jobs, and she does her best to provide for her children. If the problem is the teachers, then you shouldn't focus on the race, you should focus on the administration, and the people who's in charge of deciding where the money goes, because ultimately, there is such thing as bad management (which nobody talks about anymore for some reason).
Also, if you read the original article, then read mine, doesn't it make it sound like there is some issues with the school system, and the parents, more than just school where most black kids go? How is adding black children in the mix make any sense to this particular problem? I know. It's to provoke emotions out of the viewers, to focus more on race than what's really wrong with that entire school system.
Hum.. yep, nope this thread won't evolve into a **** storm.
Well, here is my two cents: more single family homes and low parental education levels, magnified by concentrated poverty and generational disadvantages.
1) All things being equal, two parent families are better for children as there is more parental involvement and income. 2) This is increased by educational imbalances, all parents want want their children to succeed in school. But, well educated parents generally have the resources/skills/habits to help them succeed.
These two factors drive family earnings. Higher income families are more likely to move to better school districts and have more stable employment, own vs. rent, better social networks.
3) These two impacts at the student level become magnified at the community/school level. If a school A is 70% single mothers with HS or less, and school B is only 30% single moms with less than HS the schools are going to have vastly different cultures. Remedial education and discipline issue are going to be much higher are school A. Well qualified teachers are going to prefer school B over A. Even a 2-parent college educated family is going to receive an inferior education at school A, despite coming from a middle class family and vice verse.
Unfortunately, this is a generational cycle which is very hard to break. It is really unclear what the solution is. High salaries for teachers at high income areas, college prep help, enhanced tutoring and after school programs probably help. But, there are such deep community level problems (gangs,single parents, poverty, etc) that they don't seem likely to completely fix it.
Pretty much all conservatives fail to acknowledge these deeper (external) structural issues (concentrated poverty, high crime, historical segregation, current racism, generational wealth/income/education imbalances) and many liberals want to explain way internal self-created issues (like single parent hood, less focus on education, poor choices). Ta-Nehisi Coates, I'm looking at you.
According to the op-ed below from the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, it's the parents. When I read it, I immediately imagined the nuclear explosion such a discussion would cause in DC.
Tony Norman: Biggest gap in black kids' learning: parents
Judging by recent headlines, the education of African-American public school students in Pittsburgh has finally moved to the front burner of public policy and discussion.
The fact that local black leaders are making demands about the education of black youth is enormously heartening. Their emphasis on teacher evaluations as the key to closing the education gap and spurring black academic achievement is misplaced, but at least education is on the radar as the dominant civil rights issue of our time.
We should all agree that the education of children is of more vital concern to the black community than just about any other issue, including police brutality, urban violence and joblessness. It is the root of every malady that afflicts the health, wealth and stability of black families and communities.
A black child with a desire to learn is going to learn, regardless of structural obstacles such as bad schools, mediocre teachers and negative peer pressure. Runaway slaves who "stole" literacy despite laws against educating blacks are proof of that.
The racial achievement gap and the academic mediocrity of far too many black students is not the creation of diabolical teachers unions determined to protect the jobs of unqualified teachers at the expense of children in urban schools. To reduce the complex problems in urban schools to labor contracts and job protection is ridiculous.
That's why the new system for evaluating classroom teaching that will be implemented this year strikes me as a prime example of magical thinking on the part of the Pittsburgh Public Schools. I understand that the balance of a $40 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is predicated on a teacher evaluation system of some kind, but there are questions about the accuracy and practicality of such tests.
There is a more pressing factor in black academic underachievement in Pittsburgh Public Schools than whether a given teacher passed a high-stakes test or not. You could transfer the most accomplished teachers from the region's best schools in the North Hills and South Hills to Pittsburgh tomorrow and still face a painful reality -- the bored and unmotivated African-American students counting down the minutes until the end of the school day.
If the absolute worst teachers in Pittsburgh were replaced overnight by an army of MacArthur genius award winners, Nobel Prize recipients, Teachers of the Year from every state and the top scorers in whatever teacher evaluation test you want, it wouldn't impact black academic achievement in Pittsburgh in the short run.
Even if the Pittsburgh Public Schools were funded by taxpayers at three times the level of suburban school districts and had more resources in terms of science labs, computers, musical instruments, art supplies, modern infrastructure, sports facilities and motivated teachers, it wouldn't make a difference to students who have not internalized the value of education.
This isn't because there is some defect in the cognitive abilities of black students. Education isn't racially coded to prevent minority kids from learning the material. The missing element isn't the so-called "right teacher" with the right evaluation standing at the blackboard. The missing element is something far more fundamental.
What's missing is the active, radical involvement of every parent of a black child in the Pittsburgh school district.
This goes way beyond showing up for parent-teacher nights. This means supervising homework, modeling an appreciation for learning from the first day that child comes into the world, limiting media distractions that reinforce negative stereotypes and ruthlessly enforcing an ethic of achievement that prevents the pathology of failure from taking root.
This means parents have to stop making excuses. Instead of blaming teachers for intellectually incurious children, they have to become involved in their children's education.
While demanding competent teachers is fine, parents have to demand more from themselves and even more from their children, because they begin life at a disadvantage. Parents of black students have to become insistent stakeholders who personally reinforce the value of education even if they're not educated themselves. A home with more video games than books is a home guaranteeing failure.
Once an active partnership built on mutual trust, respect, empathy and expectation between parents, teachers and students is established, there won't be any significant racial achievement gap to speak of in a few years.
I used to live in a Chinese-American neighbourhood.
Study centres and tutoring labs on every corner.
Hard-core parents screaming at their kids to study harder.
No non-academic activities allowed.
They didn't just talk the talk...they walked the walk.
With such a gap in effort DC black kids don't stand a chance.
[quote=Plokivos;34529716]I think you can say this about any kids. If you take out the black, you read, "Tony Norman: Biggest gap in kids' learning: parents"
Quote:
Originally Posted by slavicamerican
According to the op-ed below from the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, it's the parents. When I read it, I immediately imagined the nuclear explosion such a discussion would cause in DC.
__________________________________________________ ________________________
Tony Norman: Biggest gap in kids' learning: parents:
Judging by recent headlines, the education of public school students in Pittsburgh has finally moved to the front burner of public policy and discussion.
The fact that local leaders are making demands about the education of youth is enormously heartening. Their emphasis on teacher evaluations as the key to closing the education gap and spurring academic achievement is misplaced.
We should all agree that the education of children is of more vital concern to the community than just about any other issue, including police brutality, urban violence and joblessness. It is the root of every malady that afflicts the health, wealth and stability of families and communities.
A child with a desire to learn is going to learn, regardless of structural obstacles such as bad schools, mediocre teachers and negative peer pressure.
The achievement gap and the academic mediocrity of far too many students is not the creation of diabolical teachers unions determined to protect the jobs of unqualified teachers at the expense of children in urban schools. To reduce the complex problems in urban schools to labor contracts and job protection is ridiculous.
That's why the new system for evaluating classroom teaching that will be implemented this year strikes me as a prime example of magical thinking on the part of the Pittsburgh Public Schools. I understand that the balance of a $40 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is predicated on a teacher evaluation system of some kind, but there are questions about the accuracy and practicality of such tests.
There is a more pressing factor in academic underachievement in Pittsburgh Public Schools than whether a given teacher passed a high-stakes test or not. You could transfer the most accomplished teachers from the region's best schools in the North Hills and South Hills to Pittsburgh tomorrow and still face a painful reality -- the bored and unmotivated students counting down the minutes until the end of the school day.
If the absolute worst teachers in Pittsburgh were replaced overnight by an army of MacArthur genius award winners, Nobel Prize recipients, Teachers of the Year from every state and the top scorers in whatever teacher evaluation test you want, it wouldn't impact academic achievement in Pittsburgh in the short run.
Even if the Pittsburgh Public Schools were funded by taxpayers at three times the level of suburban school districts and had more resources in terms of science labs, computers, musical instruments, art supplies, modern infrastructure, sports facilities and motivated teachers, it wouldn't make a difference to students who have not internalized the value of education.
This isn't because there is some defect in the cognitive abilities of students. Education isn't coded to prevent kids from learning the material. The missing element isn't the so-called "right teacher" with the right evaluation standing at the blackboard. The missing element is something far more fundamental.
What's missing is the active, radical involvement of every parent of a child in the Pittsburgh school district.
This goes way beyond showing up for parent-teacher nights. This means supervising homework, modeling an appreciation for learning from the first day that child comes into the world, limiting media distractions that reinforce negative stereotypes and ruthlessly enforcing an ethic of achievement that prevents the pathology of failure from taking root.
This means parents have to stop making excuses. Instead of blaming teachers for intellectually incurious children, they have to become involved in their children's education.
While demanding competent teachers is fine, parents have to demand more from themselves and even more from their children, because they begin life at a disadvantage. Parents of students have to become insistent stakeholders who personally reinforce the value of education even if they're not educated themselves. A home with more video games than books is a home guaranteeing failure.
Once an active partnership built on mutual trust, respect, empathy and expectation between parents, teachers and students is established, there won't be any significant achievement gap to speak of in a few years."
See how that changed? You can use this for any race. Just insert race.
It's like Christian songs. If you take "God" out and replace it with "love" or "her", it'll be a Billiard top 10 hit song. I think some of them are.
The point is this. Has blaming someone or something ever solve a problem? They always say, it's to aware people of what's going on, but trust me, people are aware. The quiet whispers that you hear from different languages, and the silence from other race is just that. But this doesn't answer any questions or solve any problems. Nobody ever solved any problems by blaming anybody. Ghandi never blamed the British people.
If you want something, you have to do it right.
Let me tell you a secret. Any smart government is a government that functions without any priority emergency or attacks. Any smart government will not use idiotic tactics like, "spreading rumors". But any smart government will always use built-in bias that all humans posses from their upbringing. And what this creates is a chaos between people, and not toward government.
Imagine if Blood, Crips, and MS 13 gets together in an organized fashion? Eventually, these guys are going to target the government, because that's what's stopping them from making profit.
Imagine if the Mexican drug cartel got together with Russian Mafia? Eventually, these guys are going to target the government, because that's what's stopping them from making profit.
Imagine having trillions of dollars worth of weapons that can't be used, because world's at peace. As a soldier who's trained to kill, crafted his or her skills in using the weapon can't use it anymore. What happens? If history has proven correctly, the restless army tend to attack the government, and that's why in 200+ years of U.S. history, we've never been more than 4 or 5 years away from a war.
The bigger picture that only few people can imagine that exists, because those few who understands it, understands that it can be possible, and that possibility tend to become reality.
And let me just say, there are a lot of good black single mom's out there, and they do their best to provide for their children. But it's hard, if they're black, white, yellow, purple, or pink doing what they do. This one lady had two jobs, and she does her best to provide for her children. If the problem is the teachers, then you shouldn't focus on the race, you should focus on the administration, and the people who's in charge of deciding where the money goes, because ultimately, there is such thing as bad management (which nobody talks about anymore for some reason).
Also, if you read the original article, then read mine, doesn't it make it sound like there is some issues with the school system, and the parents, more than just school where most black kids go? How is adding black children in the mix make any sense to this particular problem? I know. It's to provoke emotions out of the viewers, to focus more on race than what's really wrong with that entire school system.
You can randomly replace any race in the story but you can't randomly adjust real life test scores to suit a desired outcome in a discussion of educational failings.
why is this in DC if its about Pittsburgh? And why are so many posts about race in the DC section?
Its not a matter of color. Its a matter of poverty.
Because the underachievement of black kids is a major issue in DC (even more than in Pittsburgh), yet it is questionable whether an article like Tony Norman's would ever see the light of day in this town due to DC's racial sensitivities.
As another poster mentioned, Asians come to this country poor and not speaking English and yet demand excellence from their kids, including by often not letting them engage in non-academic activies. So it's also an issue of culture shared often by color.
400 years of oppression to be frank. We live in a society that made African American people a permanent underclass nationwide. Do people really think that 400 years of oppression is going to be undone in 50 years? There are generations and generations of oppressed families trying to come out of their situation and sometimes not trying to come out probably because they don't think it's possible. At the end of the day, it will take another 100 years for the cycle to begin to shift. More and more black people are going to college every year. It's going to take time though.
Because the underachievement of black kids is a major issue in DC (even more than in Pittsburgh), yet it is questionable whether an article like Tony Norman's would ever see the light of day in this town due to DC's racial sensitivities.
As another poster mentioned, Asians come to this country poor and not speaking English and yet demand excellence from their kids, including by often not letting them engage in non-academic activies. So it's also an issue of culture shared often by color.
Those children are way ahead of American children. The issue is the cycle. Ambition is not standard. Everyone doesn't have it. Having the ability to immigrate to this country is already taking initiative and making sacrifices. Would Americans of any race do that? Immigrate to another country if they are poor? I don't see our population being able to do that. We are almost helpless because of our culture. We create awful habits. The stats for poor white students is the same as poor black students. This is a class issue not race issue.
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