Isn't It Time to Do Something?

A few days ago, Public Agenda released its latest Reality Check survey, this one showing (among other things) that minority students are significantly more likely than white students to say their schools lack resources and fail to provide  even a basic atmosphere for learning. Nearly half of Hispanic students say their schools have a "very serious problem" with kids dropping out. About three in 10 black students report very serious problems in their schools with fighting and weapons, drugs and alcohol, kids cutting class, disrespect for teachers, and teachers spending more time keeping order than actually teaching.  In our press release on the study, we raised this question – could an adult learn in a place like this?

More than any research we’ve done lately, the findings here seem to cry out for discussion and action. With all the leadership focus on closing the achievement gap, with so much attention to upgrading the curriculum, obtaining better data, developing more useful tests, improving teacher certification and so on, why is there seemingly so little discussion about the climate schools provide for teaching and learning. Perhaps this is considered a local issue or just a facet of school leadership or teacher training. But the problem surfaces repeatedly in our surveys of both students and teachers. Given the student and teacher views, I think it's hard to dismiss the importance of this issue.   

So I would really like to know -- what should we ( all of us who care about the schools and providing equal opportunity in our society)  be doing about this issue? What are the best, most effective policies? What does the research show? What schools have made headway on this, and how did they do it? I for one haven’t really heard much serious discussion of how to fix this problem. Yet, from what we see in our surveys, millions of young minority students are asking for an answer.

-- Jean Johnson

Comments

[Sherry]

Students deserve an answer, and the public needs to be part of this conversation. I know of an organization that works on changing the climate of schools called challengeday.org by empowering and mentoring the students. This organization has worked all over this Nation and in Germany and Japan, only to find that students everywhere are having to deal with issues about school climate that breakdown learning potential. As a child I went to many schools because we traveled all over America for my Dad's job and rarely spent a year anywhere from grades K-2, and then from grades 3-4 (we settled in central California), I went to a very low income area school with mainly black and hispanic students, and I was stunned at the lack of teacher professionalism, textbooks, friendliness, cleanliness, care and the difficult race relations even as a child.
Later I attended a private school in a Hispanic community, and found much more care and professionalism. After one year of private high school(on the wealthy side of town), I transfered to the local High school in that same neighborhood as the low-income area from 3-4, which had race riots, gangs, cliques, and it was a tough place. I did most of my learning in junior high because the really rich school taught above my level, and the really low income school, didn't do much teaching that I can remember. Sadly, I agree with your article, we do not have equity in education, and it is harder in the tough neighborhoods to get good teachers, have enough supplies, or to cope with the social economy amongst students. By the way, I have a degree in Music, a BA in Liberal Studies with an Option in Child Development and a Dual-Teaching Credential in General and Special Education. It is time for our Nation to think about equity.

[Bob]

As a functioning middle agged white guy, I look at the schools that are "failing" our kids, and I offer up no solutions. Everyone looks at the under performing schools in minority communities and they see poor facilities, teachers with bad attitude, high dropout rates, student apathy, drugs, and criminal behaviors. And any right thinking person is appalled. When I went to school, we students didn't wreck the place, kids that were found with drugs (cigarets) were kicked out, kids that threatened violence were kicked out, kids who got kicked out or dropped out went on to fail at life, and everyone knew it was their own darn fault. Now many schools are wrecks, cause the kids wrecked em. The teachers fear for their lives, because the kids threaten them. Many kids drop out, go on to fail at life, but no one blames them. This survey shows that the kids that want to do well in these schools cannot, which is a darn shame, but why does no one, especially no one within the affected communities, place the blame where it belongs? There are a whole bunch of bad kids wrecking these schools, and thus wrecking the education of the kids who want to do well, and the communities do nothing to stop this. This is not the fault of the teachers, the schools, nor the "system". It is the fault of the communities, the same communities that seem so often to blame everyone else for all the other problems plaguing them. I have no solutione for this. But I also wonder why I am somehow expected to fix it. Somebody has to clean their own house.

[Don Langenberg]

Just one comment on an extremely important and complex issue. The question about whether this is about race or income is an example of what I have called "The Tyranny of 'Or'" By that, I mean our obsession with discussing complex issues in terms of artificial bipolar alternatives like "race" or "income." Almost always, that's a false dichotomy that leads to counterproductive arguments. Race and income are very strongly correlated. We would be well advised to quit debating which is the "real" problem, and get down to dealing with the socially harmful educational consequences of both!