Honestly, I don’t have an idea how you get dedicated people to go into the worst schools and try to make a difference. “Teaach For America” is a great idea but they have an apalling drop-out rate. Trouble is “Mr Holland” and “Mr Chips” are fiction. And reality can really bite.

(BTW, I understand from a friend reporting on it that there may be a lot more to that story of the two charter school teachers, and that the LA Times took the easy route and didn’t dig deeper. But I haven’t reported on it myself so I can’t say for sure)

But as for interpretation, you have to read a little more. Yeah, in more affluent areas the scores are better. Gee. How surprising. The schools in richer areas have more resources, more AP classes, more student aids to help teachers in elementary schools, more fully credentialed teachers, an adequate supply of books….yadda, yadda, yadda. The list is long. Some of this is due to the fact that in, the upper income neighborhoods, parent organizations that are very active in raising money to answer their schools’ needs. But the report—and any kind of anecdotal observation gathered by those of us who’ve reported on schools—detailed widespread inequality of allocation of resources across big school districts like LAUSD. (The researchers also pointed out that some schools have been neglected for so long that they’re going to need more money right now to get to the starting line.)

Added to the inequality of resources, is the fact that lots of poor kids, like it or not, live in chaotic, stressed out households—and neighborhoods— that are not conducive to success at school. Many of those kids are amazing and succeed anyway, but it’s an uphill swim. We can sit around and blame parents and/or the poor communities all we want, and that gets us where exactly? There are more productive approaches to take than simply placing blame.

As commenter Professor X said earlier, when poor parents are brought into the process within a smaller school structure, suddenly and miraculously they become involved parents—and their kids do better. Most parents who cross the border from Mexico—legally or no—will tell you they come for two reasons: better jobs AND better opportunities for their kids. They don’t uproot themselves and take incredible risks because they don’t care about their kids’ education. When there is genuine outreach to the parents on the part of an enlightened school administration, this becomes entirely clear. This is why Connie Rice, in her gang report, says that if we are to keep kids out of the street, the schools have to be integrated into the ecology of a community. They can’t continue to operate as separate ivory tower entities that look at the community’s problems and say, “Not Our Fault/Not our problem.” Fault isn’t the issue. We’re all in this together. Until we figure that out as a culture, problems like failing schools and overcrowded prisons will continued to seem “unsolvable” and somebody else’s fault.

Let’s reword that.

Students will be less successful in education if the genes affecting their learning ability come from poor parents who are poor because they are stupid.

Short of sterilizing stupid people, the obvious solution is to have different types of schools and goals for those kids.

“Shows essentially no relationship between funding and student outcomes.”
Oh really? So the fact that they spend more per capita in Beverly Hills or Irvine has nothing to do with their success rates? Jonathon Kozol likes to say that when he hears that from people who live in the suburbs around NYC he responds, “Funny, it seems to work fine in your District!”

“Students of Poor Parents do Poorly”
Alert the media! And, as late as 1960 a majority of Americans did not have a HS Diploma. Yes, I’m sure that
ESL is one of the difficulties but I put it to you that the evidence may suggest that it probably means poor districts need more resources and that means more money.

There is no doubt that reforms have to go along with funding but I find it interesting that these indices all seem to coincide with Prop 13 and that when I was in public schools here (and not in an affluent district but a working class area in SE LA County) the state’s per pupil spending was in the top five in the country.

(BTW the top most of those years was Utah. Guess the Mormons knew that you had to spend a buck or two)

Of course when I was in school we had a pool of very talented people whose optionds were pretty much limited to teaching if they wanted to use their college education. I think they were called “Women”.

Alas those days are gone and it seems strange, to put it mildly, that we treat teachers no better than garbage men (maybe worse actually) and pay starting prison guards (requiring HS Diplomas) more than starting teachers (requiring equivalent of MAs). And we’re surprised that we might get some lemons.

I’m surprised we get anyone good. No one goes into teaching to get rich. But they shouldn’t have to take a vow of poverty either. And they sure as hell shouldn’t be treated like shit!