tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-59159667522834957032024-03-05T09:46:24.356-08:00EduStankBucky C.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06076289438556471019noreply@blogger.comBlogger83125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5915966752283495703.post-59398456331802231182019-06-24T08:50:00.003-07:002019-06-24T08:50:36.565-07:00Join Doc Carter's Truth-to-Power Army: Raise Your Teacher Voice!<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 100%px;"><tbody>
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<tr><td style="font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; padding: 8px 8px 0px 8px; text-align: center;">Doc Carter's Truth-To-Power Army: Raise Your Teacher Voice!</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="border-top: 1px solid #dddfe2; font-size: 12px; padding: 8px 12px;">Welcome! This group is the social arm of the NCNC Podcast, hosted by your NCNC MC, Doc Carter. We welcome fans of the show and all who are interested ...</td></tr>
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Bucky C.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06076289438556471019noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5915966752283495703.post-81219647065242841132019-05-13T15:29:00.000-07:002019-05-13T15:29:16.233-07:00What is Doc Carter Doing Now? Give a Listen and a Follow<a class="spreaker-player" href="https://www.spreaker.com/show/ncnc-podcast" data-resource="show_id=3511835" data-theme="light" data-autoplay="false" data-playlist="show" data-cover="https://d3wo5wojvuv7l.cloudfront.net/images.spreaker.com/original/3b96c77fb173269033273a3b9c70f4db.jpg" data-width="100%" data-height="400px">Listen to "NCNC Podcast" on Spreaker.</a><script async src="https://widget.spreaker.com/widgets.js"></script>Bucky C.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06076289438556471019noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5915966752283495703.post-49335790010726205092017-08-08T17:46:00.003-07:002017-08-08T17:59:06.622-07:00Welcome to the EduStank ArchiveHello, fellow whiffers of the malodorous. Welcome to the EduStank archive, where I posited news and opinions about education reform initiatives for a couple of years. Having returned to the K12 classroom, my mind is focusing on my students and my next moves, but do not think for a second that I no longer notice or consider issues discussed herein. In fact, I am a constant victim/beneficiary/stakeholder/crusader/slave to them, as are all of us in education or education studies.<br />
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Two areas of which I am especially proud in this blog are the links to other voices considering the current education landscape and my work explicating Robert Putnam's book <i>Our Kids</i>. Please mine those items if nothing else during your time here.<br />
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I remain your Humble Lil' Stinker,<br />
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Dr. James B. Carter<br />
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<br />Bucky C.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06076289438556471019noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5915966752283495703.post-68081046643324685032015-12-31T13:47:00.001-08:002015-12-31T13:47:12.446-08:00Merry New Year in the Era of ESSA<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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May we fight the good fight for the benefit of our children, work to address poverty in and outside of school, avoid hypocritical rustications, stay focused but humble, and change what needs to be changed for the better to preserve life, liberty, and an equitable pursuit of happiness for all citiens, without fear of reprisal for opting out, criticizing Teach For America, Common Core, ESSA, and all that is worthy of pause, redirection, or cessation. </div>
<br />Bucky C.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06076289438556471019noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5915966752283495703.post-67094228205809922412015-12-20T16:22:00.002-08:002015-12-20T16:22:42.091-08:00Merry Christmas, 1979-Style!<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.85px; line-height: 20.79px;">Two-year old me wishes you a happy holiday season via this groundbreaking rap from Kurtis Blow, whom I wouldn't know about for at least another 20 years but would have wanted you to know about had I known about it then. Did you follow that? ;)</span><br />
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The rap reminds me of the time I accompanied my father on a trucking trip through New York State. I was in fifth grade, if memory serves. I remember Ithaca, Syracuse, and a town called White Plains (?) or White Falls. I remember a complete white out while we were on the road and a deer jumping in front of the cab so high into the sky it was on level with the 18-wheeler's windshield. Luckily it made it past us! I recall stopping at a shop and getting a brownie almost as big as my head. I remember flipping of someone in a Camaro who almost ran over me. I remember stopping in a drug store and seeing the Todd McFarlane <i>Marvel Poster Book</i>! </div>
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Dad purchased a truck-stop cassette tape of Christmas rap songs somewhere along the way, which we listened to for as long as we could before tossing it out the window! We were harsh critics. I don't think Blow's rap was on the tape. </div>
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Anyway, happy holidays and Merry Christmas! </div>
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Bucky C.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06076289438556471019noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5915966752283495703.post-8585821931963865452015-11-23T09:35:00.000-08:002015-11-23T09:35:13.523-08:00NCTE 2015 Takes Stand Against Pearson; It's "Bloody"-well Time.There are days when Paul Thomas is my hero. We have many similarities. We're both from working class, Southern backgrounds. We're both educators. We share an acute awareness of when our Southern accents are "showing." We share some thoughts on policy and education reform. We're both poor white boys what done good in edu-macating ourselves and others. We both doubt the existence of real academic and social meritocracies. We both study poverty. We have deep ties to the Carolinas. We both appreciate a good comic book.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>N.o C.omment T.il E.ve of Change is already upon us? </i></td></tr>
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He's a tenured professor at Furman University, though. Currently, I'm a substitute teacher. He's an established member of the National Council of Teachers of English. I protested the organization's involvement in education reform efforts several years ago by no longer giving them my membership dollars.<br />
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In terms of how academia protects its own, Thomas has provisions in place that I do not have and never had when I was a professor, mainly tenure.<br />
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For better or worse, this means he can more confidently say controversial things without serious retribution than can early career scholars or those who want to climb the career ladder in English Education.<br />
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I know I've paid a price in dropping my membership, encouraging others to protest NCTE via doing the same, and even suggesting it is time for a new literacy organization that would be unencumbered by the dirty money and persuasion of well-funded reformer representatives. Less infiltrated, if you will.<br />
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Indeed, when I tried to express my passion, concern, and frustration with Common Core and associated constructs to students, peers, and the senior English Education professor at Washington State University, my most-recent college-level gig, I was labeled "an angry young man." I <i>was</i> angry and still have angry moments regarding what is happening in public education, and surely I wanted my pre-service teachers to be aware of the histories, problematics, and realities of teaching in Obama-era education environs. But the label was slapped onto me as if it was the only word to describe me.<br />
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Interestingly enough, when NCTE members tweeted an advertisement for members to join them on the convention floor this weekend to protest Pearson, one tweet suggested by doing so they could "share their anger." I faced the accusation of being angry as an isolation tactic. NCTE-goers were having theirs appealed to and embraced in an inclusionary, persuasive tactic approach.<br />
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Thomas has some strong words about the protest that took place this weekend, and they are absolutely must-read. See them *<a href="https://radicalscholarship.wordpress.com/2015/11/23/for-sale-public-education/">here</a>*.<br />
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Thomas seems to embrace the protest, but he still feels that NCTE has "blood on its hands."<br />
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Me too.<br />
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While I appreciate the work of NCTE's Conference of English Education Social Justice Committee to organize the protest, I recognize that Pearson's presence has been even more overwhelming on NCTE's convention floors in years past, that NCTE members have had knowledge of the Common Core State Standards since at least 2010, that NCTE accepted almost $300,000 from the Gates Foundation and that the National Writing Project affiliated with NCTE has accepted even more Gates money, and that no protests were organized from 2010-2014.<br />
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My questions regarding the protest are: Why now? Why not in previous years? Who stands most to gain from press about the event? Why was Pearson the only target? Why not protest the whole of Race to the Top/No Child Left Behind reforms, including the Common Core and Gates' control of education policy? Is there a connection between staging the protest this year and it being held during an election cycle (did you know that Chelsea Clinton spoke at this year's NCTE conference?) when President Obama is winding up his last term as president?<br />
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Thomas is still an NCTE insider. Despite sincere efforts to find alternative venues for my on voice and activism, I remain on the fringe. With as many shared members between NCTE and the BATS, with whom I've also had some issues, <span style="text-align: center;">and BATS connections to United Opt Out, perhaps this is not surprising. That's fine, though. It's easy to be brave when everyone is telling you to be brave. When you need to be your bravest, however, is when no one is telling you to be brave. <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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There are those of us who are or were once involved in NCTE who heeded the call to share our feelings without the warm embrace of the organization, who called "BS" years before this weekend, and who may have paid a precious price for it.<br />
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Thomas ends his column with a reference to Frankenstein:<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #5e5e5e; font-family: "roboto" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 25.6px;">I fully accept Pearson et al. are the monsters, but literature shows us we must look at the Drs. Frankenstein for how the monsters came about.</span></blockquote>
Indubitably. To refer to trends in superhero comics, a genre within a medium that Thomas and I both study, not even the bad guys think of themselves as villains anymore. <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Dr. Doom, Magneto, and..... NCTE? </i><br /> </td></tr>
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<br />Bucky C.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06076289438556471019noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5915966752283495703.post-80966719919885980902015-11-15T16:49:00.000-08:002015-11-15T16:56:29.515-08:00What's Wrong With This Image?: NPE's Bill Gates InfographicThe Network for Public Education is circulating an infographic detailing the history of Bill Gates' efforts to influence American schooling. It spans fifteen years in timeline fashion and illustrates a growing presence and ambition. The timeline ends in 2015 with the claim that NAEP scores are flat under Gates-era reforms: "US NAEP scores decline -- Time To End The Experiment."<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>A truly important indicator of our students' intelligence, growth and potential?<br />N.O.P.E.</i></td></tr>
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As infographics go, this one is a telling read. Links to articles act as evidence of the claims made in<br />
most entries. However, there is one flaw. One can read the visual as suggesting that because NAEP scores are not improving, Gates' reform efforts need to end so that someone or something else can come along and get those scores up.<br />
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Those who are resisting current education reform efforts know not to put stock in the NAEP scores as any meaningful indicator. See Diane Ravitch's comments on the test in <i>Reign of Error</i>, for example. I believe what the graphic's creators meant to convey is that middling NAEP scores were part of the "problems" in American education that Gates wanted to "fix." His programs and influence have not accomplished a major goal that Gates focused on as a rhetorical means to gain as much control as he has. Since they failed to do what they said they would do, they shouldn't continue. <br />
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See the otherwise excellent graphic <span style="color: red;"><a href="http://www.networkforpubliceducation.org/2015/11/infographic-bill-gatess-15-years-of-experimenting-on-public-education/">*here*</a></span> to see what I mean. <br />
<br />Bucky C.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06076289438556471019noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5915966752283495703.post-70992994509290252982015-11-04T18:32:00.003-08:002015-11-04T18:32:45.551-08:00Critiquing the Meritocracy: Two Good ReadsI encourage you to read the following two short pieces and consider them in relation to poverty, schooling, and society. One is entitled "<a href="http://www.psmag.com/books-and-culture/dont-give-my-kid-an-award-in-school">Don't Give My Kid an Award</a>." Written by a conscientious mother, this text is an example of someone with privilege explicating that privilege while using her son's schooling experience as a vignetted informal case study. The other, "<a href="http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/33499-how-the-myth-of-the-meritocracy-ruins-students">How the Myth of Meritocracy Ruins Students</a>," reveals how even the most liberal and open-minded "check your privilegers" benefit from embracing the meritocracy mindset, at the expense of more-vulnerable citizens.Bucky C.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06076289438556471019noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5915966752283495703.post-17284149446404402642015-10-16T12:19:00.001-07:002015-10-16T12:19:37.292-07:00_Our Kids_ Reflections, Part 10: Chapter 6: "What is to Be Done?"<div class="MsoNormal">
Part 10, Chapter 6: “What is to Be Done?” Poverty and
Economic Inequity in Putnam’s _Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis_.<o:p></o:p></div>
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After detailing aspects of economic inequity through the
lenses of family, parenting, schools, and community in his book <i>Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis</i>, Robert
Putnam attempts a closing chapter that offers possible actions for addressing
growing economic gaps and opportunity gaps in contemporary American society. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Progress in such equity may be difficult, given “growing
class segregation” which may lead to less<o:p></o:p></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Search "Putnam" to read my other<br />installments on this book, my connections to it,<br />and how it can help you grow a social justice agenda.</i></td></tr>
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empathy than is needed (230) to understand
what less privileged people experience. The bootstrap narrative that once
seemed to serve so many so well also works against mobility equity and empathy,
as many continue to believe, “If I and my classmates could climb the ladder…so
could kids from modest backgrounds today” (230). <br />
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One practical solution that might hit American Capitalists
in their dominating ethos is the notion of “opportunity costs,” a socioeconomic
explanation of how the opportunity gap hurts all citizens, not just the poor,
especially in terms of money spent or wasted (231). Putnam argues that “investment in poor kids
raises the rate of growth for everyone, at the same time leveling the playing
field in favor of poor kids” (231). But is “everyone” a strong enough concept
for Capitalists to embrace reform, especially in America’s hyper-competitive capitalism
that favors notions of winning and losing? In such a system, does anyone who
has more than someone else want to favor the field for someone who has less?
Even though much research suggests raising up the bottom will elevate most
everyone, I am not sure American society is willing to give up its fierce
concept of competition and conspicuous consumerism. Even if, as Putnam argues, “Writing off such a
large fraction of our youth is an awfully expensive course of inaction,” it
might be an expense many well-off Americans are willing to absorb to keep their
status, their perceived edge (233). <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
After attending to opportunity costs, Putnam revisits his
earlier chapters in order, providing specific suggestions that would require
the redistribution of tax funds (231) he calls for in this chapter’s opening
pages: <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Family:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l3 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->1.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->Facilitate family planning such that the
American norm becomes “childbearing by design” rather than “by default” across
social strata (245). <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l3 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->2.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->Expand tax credits like the Earned Income Tax
Credit and the child tax credit.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l3 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->3.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->Protec/strengthen social programs like food
stamps, housing vouchers and child care that provide “safety net” services.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l3 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->4.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->Reduce incarceration for nonviolent crimes.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l3 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->5.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->Enhance rehabilitation services (245-248).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l3 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Parenting: <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;">
1.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->More parental leave <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->2.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->Nix welfare policies requiring mothers to work
in the first year of a baby’s life.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->3.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->Provide affordable, high-quality, center-based
daycare for low-income families.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->4.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->Make sure daycare teachers are well-trained and
well-paid. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->5.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->Create “wraparound” family services (248-251).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Schools:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->1.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->Shrink growing residential segregation by moving
kids, money, and/or teachers to different schools.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->2.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->Revisit the negative impacts zoning regulations
and home mortgage deductions have on residential segregation.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->3.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->Publicly subsidize mixed-income housing.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->4.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->Keep high-quality teachers in poor schools.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->5.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->Create school cultures in which such teachers
can teach rather than babysit.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->6.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->Extend school hours to offer more
extracurriculars and enrichment opportunities.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->7.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->Put social and health services in schools
serving poor children.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->8.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->Support the notion of neighborhood schools.*<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->9.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->Reinvest in vocational education at the
secondary and post-secondary levels.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->10.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->Strengthen the abilities of community colleges
to better serve poor communities (251-258).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; text-indent: -.25in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Especially in late 2015, as presidential election season gears
up, many may read this list and connect it to the tone of certain candidates’
agendas. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Reconfiguring the tax code and redistribution of wealth sounds very much
like what we hear from Bernie Sanders, but it also might recollect what we hear
many in the media say will keep him out of the presidency. I hearken back to
Hillary Clinton’s dismissive tone regarding Sanders’ big ideas and her
reiteration of the phrase “I know how to get things done” in the recent
Democratic debate. In that phrase and the disbelief I see surrounding Sanders’
social change agenda, I see those old notions of American Capitalism where it
is just a “given” that big-money interests have to be placated for any sort of
change, and only the modicum of social change can trickle down to those most in
need because big profiteers need to keep profiting, and to do that, some have
to win and some have to lose. I noticed Hillary Clinton using the rhetoric of
the American Dream, the bootstrap narrative, too. To enact many of the social
programs and reconfigurations of tax systems and other systems where private
money is involved (see prisons, and, more and more frequently, public schools),
we will have to acknowledge the myth of the American Dream and stop embracing
as reality something that reifies the old systems of socioeconomic
inequalities. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Furthermore, when we see politicians continue to invest in
the mythos, we need to be especially critical of why they are doing so.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Regarding the “schools” suggestions, I was less fraught over
Putnam’s suggestions than I expected. The community college suggestions seem to
align with President Obama’s push to bolster the import of community colleges. Putnam
does mention charter schools as a possible solution when he talks about
neighborhood schools (*), which can be worrisome if one thinks that is where
the bulk of Putnam’s reform efforts reside. I however, found more promise in
the notion of transforming public schools into bustling community centers.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/people-helping-join-up-ladder-person-friend-partner-to-climb-success-33195029.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/people-helping-join-up-ladder-person-friend-partner-to-climb-success-33195029.jpg" height="200" width="120" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>An image of American cultural values<br />or one which challenges them?</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Imagine a school open
24 hours a day, with a wide range of health care services not housed only in
hospitals, but in clinic spaces on grounds. Imagine, even, cafeterias open all
day and constant access to showers and even sleeping spaces. Surely our
existing budgets and cultural expectations of schooling do not provide for this
sort of scenario, and I would never advocate for teachers’ work days to be
extended such that they see themselves working at a boarding school, but I see
great potential in making every public school more of a support ecology, a
built-in societal safety net, than they currently exhibit. I do not pretend to
have the details worked out – and a lack of practical strategies beyond basic
suggestions certainly dominates this chapter -- but I believe the best transformative
practices Putnam offers reside in the notion of transforming schools into vibrant,
always-active community centers.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Community:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo4; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->1.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->Provide extracurricular opportunities free of
economic hardships via pay-to-play policies. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo4; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->2.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->Fund high-quality mentoring programs, perhaps
via the Ameri-Corps program.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo4; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->3.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->Move poor families to better neighborhoods
(258-260).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo4; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->4.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->Restore working-class wages.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo4; text-indent: -.25in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Putnam closes with a refrain of his key appeal: That if we
want to improve the lives of poor children, we need to see them as belonging to
all of us. All kids need to be seen as “our kids,” as Putnam suggests once
seemed the case. He states that even those who still buy in to Emersonian
notions of self-reliance and other seemingly quintessentially American notions
like manifest destiny, rugged individualism, and the American Dream’s work
rhetoric “should acknowledge our responsibility to these children. For America’s
poor kids do belong to us and we to them” (261). Low on details but full of
possibilities, this final chapter is more guidepost than atlas, but better to
work with scant direction than have no awareness at all of current pathways deleterious
to so many and already closing in on our most vulnerable children and families.
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Bucky C.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06076289438556471019noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5915966752283495703.post-52956765190833946272015-10-04T18:05:00.002-07:002015-10-04T18:05:21.349-07:00On Presidential Endorsements, Neutral Stances, and "New-Trail" StancesThe NEA has joined the AFT in endorsing Hillary Clinton as the choice presidential candidate, <span style="color: red;">*</span><a href="http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/campaign-k-12/2015/10/nea_endorses_hillary_clinton_i.html">despite many members' objections</a>.<span style="color: red;">*</span> Meanwhile, other professional organizations in teaching and teacher education continue to ride out their "neutral" stances on Common Core and associated education reform measures of the Clinton-Bush II-Obama era.<br />
<br />
With so much evidence of cabal/cartel-style, dim-luminati "leadership" at play, what's a dog to do? Education Reform-Critical Boxer has this advice:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1uiHZnOpQY5PBpdY40_V7jqHgObU0btyqqij1_zGhjIf5E7Yntrq65Zd2-fp0LByjx0kWLzN7HFSc1bm6Avk-lAR8MLaMg-D4FbC4UYI9NVGC73Qm2b-PwzOD1wEZHRPo84AIBYCI_8M/s1600/Dues+donts.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1uiHZnOpQY5PBpdY40_V7jqHgObU0btyqqij1_zGhjIf5E7Yntrq65Zd2-fp0LByjx0kWLzN7HFSc1bm6Avk-lAR8MLaMg-D4FbC4UYI9NVGC73Qm2b-PwzOD1wEZHRPo84AIBYCI_8M/s640/Dues+donts.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
<br />
Me? I might advise doing a Google search for "quotes on starting new." Shelley comes to mind as well:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="background-color: #fcf9f9; font-family: 'Poets Electra Web', 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 1.26316em; margin-top: 1.26316em; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”</div>
</blockquote>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://images.rapgenius.com/6e81ba02448da3247afdb605bd838d53.450x233x1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="205" src="https://images.rapgenius.com/6e81ba02448da3247afdb605bd838d53.450x233x1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>"Endorse a presidential candidate without considering the views of my membership?<br />I did it thirty-five minutes ago." </i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />Bucky C.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06076289438556471019noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5915966752283495703.post-77053402899871386852015-10-02T11:32:00.003-07:002015-10-02T11:34:12.718-07:00Ed Reform-Critical Boxer Weighs In on Efforts to Co-opt the Opt Out Movement<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXkAzsdnetHNq_EBmWI7EqhAC0gRKSDs5GEcyWkGgZEkjbWJwElYK1D7j0_5iMvSnRzOnMemNOG3tvQMKyX7tofKqLBcN7BitmVXoP7yY96OYig6kOpWYiRnQzsX2etd786_BNewVJTTU/s1600/UOO+Lead.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXkAzsdnetHNq_EBmWI7EqhAC0gRKSDs5GEcyWkGgZEkjbWJwElYK1D7j0_5iMvSnRzOnMemNOG3tvQMKyX7tofKqLBcN7BitmVXoP7yY96OYig6kOpWYiRnQzsX2etd786_BNewVJTTU/s640/UOO+Lead.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Other organizations' efforts simply want to keep you on their leash.</i> </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />Bucky C.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06076289438556471019noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5915966752283495703.post-59573370230626675472015-09-23T18:42:00.000-07:002015-09-23T18:42:17.807-07:00"Race and Class Collide in a Plan for Two Brooklyn Schools": From The New York TimesKate Taylor, reporter for <i>The New York Times</i>, recently published a story rife with insights in the intersectionalities of prejudice, fear, and segregationist idealisms associated with contemporary American values regarding public schools. As someone deep into the messages in Robert Putnam's <i>Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis</i>, I found the story fascinating.<br />
<br />
Here's its crux: When overcrowding as P.S. 8 in Brooklyn, New York, became a concern, city officials suggested moving students from that school to nearby P.S. 307, which has more than enough space to accommodate the overflow. However, when rezoning to enact this plan was pitched, stakeholders took issue. Some simply do not want the levels of racial and socioeconomic intermingling the move would facilitate in one of America's most segregated school systems.<br />
<br />
Read the article by clicking <span style="color: red;">*</span><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/23/nyregion/race-and-class-collide-in-a-plan-for-two-brooklyn-schools.html?smid=fb-share&_r=0">here</a><span style="color: red;">*</span>. Marvel that some of the people quoted live in the North in 2015 and not Greensboro, North Carolina, in 1965. Note how test scores are a focus regarding defining quality schools and "quality" students.<br />
<br />
Putnam says in <i>Our Kids</i> that growing housing and community segregation between the well-off and the poor presents challenges to empathy, since so few rich kids actually see kids not as well off as they do. In this story, there is a concerted effort to keep well-off children away from poorer children, to keep black and brown kids away from Anglos and people of East Asian decent. There's even palpable concern about busing as a means of achieving a racially and economically diverse student body -- with space to move and mingle!<br />
<br />
The adults in this situation are perpetuating the mentalities that keep the American populus from addressing growing social mobility gaps and opportunity gaps. Taylor's story exemplifies the "I got mine" attitude and growing sense of insularity and "unknowability of the self from the other" that even some liberal-minded social justice groups' members use to defend exclusionary spaces.<br />
<br />
May the members of this community see all the young people at both these schools -- attending now and attending in the near future -- as <i>their</i> kids, every one of them.<br />
<br />
<br />Bucky C.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06076289438556471019noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5915966752283495703.post-47989343873688084552015-09-23T18:18:00.000-07:002015-09-23T18:18:08.293-07:00Bernie Sanders On Growing Economic Inequality<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe width="320" height="266" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/VePpQBCbKBw/0.jpg" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/VePpQBCbKBw?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
<br />
In this video, when Sanders says the middle class is shrinking, he means folks once in the middle class are now living in poverty. Consider this video in relation to the posts on Robert Putnam's <i>Our Kids</i> that I have posted so far.Bucky C.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06076289438556471019noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5915966752283495703.post-50779555485216694612015-09-15T19:50:00.001-07:002015-09-19T15:45:08.780-07:00_Our Kids_ Reflections: Part 9; Chapter 4: “Schooling” – Concatenations & Ecologies; Knapsacks & Echoes – and Bindles & Buses?<div class="MsoNormal">
Part 9; Chapter 4: “Schooling” – Concatenations &
Ecologies; Knapsacks & Echoes – and Bindles & Buses?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p>With great trepidation did I approach the “Schooling”
chapter of Robert Putnam’s <i>Our Kids: The
American Dream in Crisis. </i> I worried
he would echo the rhetoric of current opportunistic corporate reformers. Early
on, he offers evidence that he might do as much. He profiles Troy High School,
mislabeling it as a “public magnet school” (143), for example, despite its
demanding entrance requirements and selection criteria (I define a public
school as one which takes all comers within its district boundaries; others may
find Putnam’s labeling of Troy as accurate).
I did not feel Troy is a true public school, so the description called
into question Putnam’s knowledge of secondary education. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Further, Geoffrey
Canada praised the book on the back of its dust jacket. Canada, president of
the Harlem Children’s Zone, is known as a successful education reformer due to
the type of charter school he helped create in New York. Canada has kept his school
successful in part by finding ways to remove students from the school when they
fail to perform. Both Canada and Putnam
are Harvard men, Canada via graduating from the university and Putnam via
working there. Harvard brazenly positions itself at the intersections of
schooling, corporate initiative and entrepreneurial education, so I worried
Putnam might follow the lead of many other alternative schooling advocates and
place the blame for growing income inequality within and across races squarely
on the shoulders of America’s public education system.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Thankfully, he does not. <o:p></o:p></div>
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He admits that “central question[s]” of the chapter are “Do
schools in American today tend to <i>widen</i>
the growing gaps between have and have-nots kids,” do they <i>reduce</i> them, or do they “have little effect either way?” and if
schools do affect mobility, “are they <i>causes</i>
of class divergence of merely <i>sites</i>
of class divergence?” (160). His findings suggest that many of the elements of
schooling which education reformers are quick to tout as the reasons schools
are failing their communities -- bad
test scores and poorly-educated teachers, for example – are not reasons the
opportunity gap continues to grow. In short, schools reflect growing
socioeconomic stratification, but, generally speaking, are not a cause of it.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Kids are more likely to suffer from extenuating
circumstances affecting their schooling than from schools themselves. For
example, Putnam discusses how kids from more-educated parents might have access
to more “institutional savvy” when it comes to navigating course selection,
extracurricular participation, or knowing what it takes to get into college
(157). <o:p></o:p></div>
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Regarding standardized testing, many conscientious educators
have known for years that such tests’ scores correlate most strongly with zip
code, salary, and education. That is to say that most standardized tests tell
us very little about learning but tell us much about what part of town in which
a kid lives and how much money and education his or her parents might have.
Citing a study by Stanford’s Sean Reardon (For what it is worth, Stanford has a
reputation for entrepreneurial education reform as well as does Putnam’s home
university), Putnam points to a “widening class gap in both math and reading
scores among American kids in recent decades” (161). As with many other aspects
of American living, “this class gap has been growing within each racial group,
while the gaps between racial groups have been narrowing” (161). Unlike many of
the other factors in which this scissor effect is apparent, test scores do not
matter that much in the long run, anyway, though certainly current education
policies push parents and teachers into thinking they are more important than
they are. </div>
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Indeed, Putnam says of Reardon’s study that it suggests “that schools
themselves aren’t creating the opportunity gap: the gap is already large by the
time children enter kindergarten” (162).
<o:p></o:p></div>
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Despite evidence that schools do not seem to perpetuate
mobility gaps, multiple studies suggest “exceptionally wide differences in
academic outcomes between schools attended by affluent kids and schools
attended by their impoverished counterparts” (163). If schools are not
nurturing this inequality, what is? <o:p></o:p></div>
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Putnam points first to “residential sorting” (163), the
housing segregation he mentioned in previous chapters and which I have
discussed in previous reflections. Neighborhood reputations and even housing
costs are associated with “good schools” in the competitive American mindset.
With communities more segregated by income than ever before, so much so that
Putnam claims well-off kids may never see poorer kids and therefore be less
likely to recognize that poverty exists or sympathize with those less
fortunate, compounding social inequities, is it surprising to note that poor
kids and more-affluent kids attend separate schools at greater rates now than
in the 1950s Putnam glorifies (163)?<o:p></o:p></div>
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Anticipating that advocates of school choice might interpret
this information as relevant to their agendas, Putnam states that school choice
would “not likely” make a difference to the lower-class kids he profiles in his
chapters. Yet again my worries that pro-education reform sentiments would
proliferate in this chapter were proved unfounded.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Turning to the work of Orfield and Eaton, Putnam reveals that,
often, “poor kids achieve more in high-income schools” and this phenomenon is a
consistent research finding. Indeed, some studies suggest high school kids’
learning may correlate more strongly with their classmates’ family
backgrounds than with their own (165)! <o:p></o:p></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e9/IC-FE-school-bus-Voluntown.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e9/IC-FE-school-bus-Voluntown.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Immediately, I thought of busing along socioeconomic lines as a possible solution<br />to social mobility inequity. Putnam does not mention it, however. Why?</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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Based on this consistency, I have to wonder if a new wave of
busing regulations need to be introduced in public education. Is it time for
socio-economic busing? <o:p></o:p></div>
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Much evidence suggests busing programs helped desegregate
schools by race, obviously, and that, perhaps less obviously, desegregation was
positive for minority students and for school populations overall. Could
busing poor children to affluent districts and affluent students to less
affluent districts be a concrete means of addressing the growing housing and
community segregation Putnam sees in American society, a means of returning
American adults’ mindsets to those that see all kids as their kids? Perhaps,
but, puzzlingly, Putnam never mentions busing along socioeconomic lines in <i>Our Kids</i>.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Instead, Putnam tries to explain why “the socioeconomic
composition of a school seem[s] to have such a powerful impact on its students”
(165). He assumes some may hypothesize that school financing must offer some
explanation. Since schools in richer districts have more money via higher
<o:p></o:p></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://img.zanda.com/item/88021250000016/1024x768/The_Things_They_Carried.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://img.zanda.com/item/88021250000016/1024x768/The_Things_They_Carried.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Can the most famous part of this text be a means of exploring poverty?<br />Is the parallel to the stresses of war and the stresses of poverty fair?</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
property taxes, they can hire better teachers and offer more programs, right?
Perhaps, but Putnam says “school finance is probably not a major contributor to
the growth in the class gap” (165).<br />
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Rather -- recall the quote about kindergarten from above
paragraphs – “the things that students bring with them to school” matter much
more regarding opportunity gaps. The plight of poor American school children is
much less akin to any Jane Austen novel and more akin to <span style="color: red;">*</span><a href="https://secure.ncte.org/library/NCTEFiles/Resources/Books/Sample/54663Chap02_x.pdf">Tim O’Brien’s </a><i><a href="https://secure.ncte.org/library/NCTEFiles/Resources/Books/Sample/54663Chap02_x.pdf">The Things They Carried.</a> <span style="color: red;">* </span></i></div>
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Schools in affluent areas have more
parental involvement and may house kids less affected by drugs, homelessness,
crime and other heavy stresses. This means kids are influenced by fewer
children experiencing these odious aspects as well. Parents in high-income
areas “demand a more academically rigorous curriculum” (168) – probably because of their institutional
savvy! As many as three times the number of AP classes are offered in
higher-income area schools compared to others, says Putnam (168). While state
financing may not exacerbate inequality, what Putnam calls “para-school
funding” does (167). More affluent communities are able to pour more funds not
allocated by the government into schools. In this instance, kids in
lower-income schools suffer because of what they can’t carry: extra income.
Peer pressure is noted as important too. That is, kids contribute to a school’s
culture as one in which there is a drive to do well. But, as Putnam reminds,
this mindset also most likely derives from the standards set by affluent
parents (169).<o:p></o:p></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.autostraddle.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/hobo-stick-bindle.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://www.autostraddle.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/hobo-stick-bindle.jpeg" height="320" width="251" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The In/Visible Bindle as metaphor for the things poor kids<br />
carry and for what they can't carry to school. Too<br />
on the nose or perfect for a poverty-first social justice agenda?</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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A “concatenation of disadvantage” – the things they carry
and the things they cannot carry – keeps kids from doing as well as they could
if they had more access to wealth and opportunity (171). The concatenation of
disadvantage, comprised of multiple stresses, “intrude[s] into the classroom in
high poverty schools,” says Putnam in a particularly poignant and poetic turn
of phrase. Whereas I might continue the O’Brien reference to embrace an
economics-based version of Peggy McIntosh’s invisible knapsack – the binding
bindle? – Putnam rebrands these disadvantages as “ecological challenges” facing
high-poverty schools (173).<o:p></o:p></div>
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These ecological stresses affect teachers too, and Putnam
does parallel the thinking of education reformers who want the public to think
the teacher is the most important element of a classroom in so much as he says
that teachers may contribute to low-income schools’ producing lower-achieving
students, but he does not place blame on the teachers’ shoulders but on the
concatenation, the ecology, the brew of stresses, the “climate of disorder and
even danger” that affects them and their students and contributes to low morale,
burn out, and high turnover (173). <o:p></o:p></div>
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To sum, when it comes to the question of whether schools
contribute to the opportunity gap, <o:p></o:p></div>
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The answer is this: the gap is
created more by what happens to the kids before they get to school, by things
that happen outside of school, and by what kids bring (or don’t bring) with
them to school…than by what schools do to them. The American public school
today is a kind of echo chamber in which the advantages or disadvantages that
children bring with them to school have effects on other kids. The growing
class segregation of our neighborhoods and thus our schools means that
middle-class kids…hear mostly encouraging and beneficial echoes at school. Whereas
lower-class kids…hear mostly discouraging and harmful echoes (182).<o:p></o:p></div>
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Echoes. Loud enough to make one want to scream. Or to start
up some buses, perhaps?<o:p></o:p></div>
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Bucky C.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06076289438556471019noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5915966752283495703.post-48126168127655671562015-09-07T17:08:00.002-07:002015-09-07T17:08:59.521-07:00What You Can Do RIGHT NOW to Address Economic Equity Gaps in Public Schools: Interlude II<b>Reforming Pay-to-Play Policies In Public Schools to Shrink the Mobility Gap, Grow Opportunity Gap</b><br /><div class="MsoNormal">
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As college football revs into high gear and public schools
begin across the nation, one of Robert Putnam’s suggestions for addressing
poverty and economic inequities between affluent kids and poor kids resonates
as particularly timely. In <i>Our Kids: The
American Dream in Crisis</i>, a steadfast Putnam believes extracurricular
activities offer “as close to a magic bullet” for closing opportunities gaps as
Americans are able to find (258). However, currently an odious element inherent
in extracurricular participation in school-based happenings wedges have-nots
from affordances offered the better-off. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.utvolstix.com/images/2015-tennessee-vs-western-carolina.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://www.utvolstix.com/images/2015-tennessee-vs-western-carolina.jpg" height="240" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>High school and college sports season is upon us, including exciting<br />match-ups like this one pitting my Masters-degree-granting institution<br />against my undergraduate alma mater</i>. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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Pay-to-play policies are the culprits, called “perverse” by
Putnam, who matter-of-factly states:</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="margin-left: .5in;">
[I]f you are concerned about the
issues discussed in this book, here is something you could do right now. Close
this book, visit your superintendent – better yet, take a friend with you – and
ask if your district has a pay-to-play policy. Explain that waivers aren’t
worth the paper they’re written on, because they force kids to wear yellow
stars….Explain that everyone…will be better off if anyone in the school can be
on the team or in the band. Insist that pay-to-play be ended (258).</blockquote>
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Putnam suggests offering one’s assistance in serving poor
children better as well, both in class and beyond it. He sees coaches, mentors,
and others serving in extracurricular leadership capacities as offering some of
the best hopes for progress in addressing the opportunity gap. Perhaps this is because
“Involvement in extracurricular activities has been shown repeatedly to have measurably
favorable consequences,” a truth “even after controlling for family background,
cognitive skills, and many other potentially confounding variables” (174). According to Putnam, among the favorable consequences
of engaging in extracurricular goings-on are:</div>
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</div>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Symbol; text-indent: -0.25in;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span></span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Higher grades</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Symbol; text-indent: -0.25in;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span></span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Lower drop-out rates</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Symbol; text-indent: -0.25in;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span></span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Lower truancy</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Symbol; text-indent: -0.25in;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span></span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Better work habits</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Symbol; text-indent: -0.25in;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span></span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Higher educational aspirations</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Symbol; text-indent: -0.25in;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span></span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Lower delinquency rates</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Symbol; text-indent: -0.25in;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span></span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Greater self-esteem</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Symbol; text-indent: -0.25in;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span></span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">More resilience</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Symbol; text-indent: -0.25in;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span></span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">More civic engagement</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Symbol; text-indent: -0.25in;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span></span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Even higher future wages and occupational
attainment (174)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Symbol; text-indent: -0.25in;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span></span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Building soft skills and character (176)</span></li>
</ul>
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Little wonder Putnam calls extracurriculars and those who
support them “magic!”</div>
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Indeed, when kids take on leadership positions within
such activities, research suggests the benefits are even more impressive. While
sure to point out that few studies coming to such conclusions are “true experiments”
in that participants cannot be randomly assigned as a participant or
nonparticipant, meaning there could be other variables correlating success and
involvement in extracurriculars, Putnam sticks to his researcher’s hunch that
enough evidence exists to note the longstanding correlations as pertinent and
important. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/journalnow.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/1/bf/1bfe1dd4-a437-5aaf-92a3-2966a4fbd696/50d1eea93504b.image.jpg?resize=620%2C395" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/journalnow.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/1/bf/1bfe1dd4-a437-5aaf-92a3-2966a4fbd696/50d1eea93504b.image.jpg?resize=620%2C395" height="253" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Does my home-town district have pay-to-play policies? Like many adults, I<br />have no idea, but Robert Putnam says knowing this information and fighting against<br />such policies where they exist is key to addressing mobility gaps for students. </i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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Putnam does not hesitate to state that “extracurricular
participation matters for upward mobility,” but poor kids are between 30%-50%
less likely to participate in sports and/or clubs than more-affluent peers
(176). Indeed, as with so many other social constructs mentioned in <i>Our Kids</i>, richer kids’ rates of
participation are rising at the same time as poor kids’ rates of participation
are falling (177). Surely pay-to-play policies marginalize would-be
participants from poor families. Putnam calls such policies “insidious” (180)
and sees them as indicative of the cultural shifts away from a sense of
communal responsibility toward a community’s young people and toward
segregation and institutionalized, generally-accepted segregation.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Pay-to-play fees take many forms. Some, where pay-to-play is
supposed to be illegal, take the form of donations that are de facto mandates.
Other districts enforce fees to play certain sports or to be in the band.
Equipment costs may be part of the fees or another added expense. While some
schools offer waivers for poorer kids, Putnam claims that the “inevitable
stigma attached to the waiver” (181) may be enough to keep less-affluent
children away. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Given that poor kids are even less likely to participate in
after-school activities that are not school-based, eliminating pay-to-play
policies could facilitate the “modest leveling effect on extracurricular
participation” that public schools can provide (181).</div>
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As a former band geek
from a working-class family, I can attest to the discipline, structure, and
sense<o:p></o:p></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvcD8tOjULjk8kHhqn33zuSBp2gujqnB7rLRYBFL_8_0JoUbp05S4TEy_WfZDSQ4R3GbxdyrzPVMp6ek5UxMgS7_tVWWqq-nZq3UjrL7akLXFlJyB0l-MUw45uwHFk0ZhVXwXwGjOC9KY/s1600/Drummy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvcD8tOjULjk8kHhqn33zuSBp2gujqnB7rLRYBFL_8_0JoUbp05S4TEy_WfZDSQ4R3GbxdyrzPVMp6ek5UxMgS7_tVWWqq-nZq3UjrL7akLXFlJyB0l-MUw45uwHFk0ZhVXwXwGjOC9KY/s640/Drummy.jpg" width="217" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>That's me, leading the band in 1993 or 1994,<br />building my skills with the help of the school<br />community, my band directors and boosters.</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
of place I found in extracurriculars like jazz band and marching band.
While I remember my family purchasing a clarinet for me in middle school via a
rent-to-own program, I do not remember paying any fees for using replacement
instruments or when I switched to bass clarinet, contra-bass clarinet, or alto
and tenor saxophones, all provided by the school. I remember that we had to buy
reeds, but even those costs could get defrayed when it was clear a player
needed one for the greater benefit of the band. <br />
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Our band boosters were busy, to be sure, and we still
scrimped. I remember impressing the band directors when I noticed that if we
cut our music holder folders in half and stapled the loose half along the side
and bottom, we could save by not having to purchase as many over time, for
example. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Surely I felt the sting of not being from the North side of
town (readers from my hometown will understand why I capitalize “North”) and
being known as a weird kid a little rougher around the edges than many. For example, while it was a longstanding tradition
for the drum major to earn the MVP award at the end of the year, that didn’t
happen in my senior year. I know that because that was the second year I was
drum major for the marching band, one of the very first instances in my life of
folks telling me I was “robbed” of a deserved honor.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I remember beating out
every other contender for drum major by a two-to-one margin when try-outs were
held. The entire band voted after seeing us lead a small portion of our band,
which was a diverse unit in many ways. Had it not been socioeconomically
diverse, I doubt I would have won despite a superior performance. As evidence of my prowess, I do not mean that
I beat the second place finisher by twice as many votes. I mean I outscored the
entire field by twice as many votes. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Still, I seemed an unlikely outsider by the two directors,
both of whom seemed to want to talk me out of the position at times. I recall a
trumpet player encouraging me to use the whistle one director had given me at
our first football game, resulting in a desired rejection from the stadium that
the football coaches were able to talk officials out of enforcing in favor of a
fifteen yard penalty. That director must have just assumed I knew not to blow
the whistle during a game. Obviously (perhaps very obvious to the trumpeter) I
didn’t have that cultural cognizance yet!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I remember the other director asking
if I really thought I could direct music after I showed her my skills and misdirected
beats two and three of a four-four stroke, taking beat two to the outside of my
body and beat three to the inside. Generally, though, once they saw I had a
fire and mettle, they supported me as peer leader of the band.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Most of all, regarding the process by which I became drum
major, though, I recall creating and practicing my kata, calling commands and
executing them in reverse, on an empty red-clay field beside our trailer home,
drawing the attention of a nearby neighbor who wanted to know why I was yelling
and refused to chain the pit bull who accompanied him and who the neighbor made sure to inform me I was disturbing. It was under that
pressure and duress that I honed the sequence that won me that two-to-one
margin. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.banpitbulls.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Pitbull-dog-pitbull-wallpapers-pictures-new-fresh-images-of-pitbull-dog-free-download.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://www.banpitbulls.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Pitbull-dog-pitbull-wallpapers-pictures-new-fresh-images-of-pitbull-dog-free-download.jpg" height="320" width="314" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>I know it's all in how you breed them, but I had no idea<br />how my curious neighbor had bred his pit bull. </i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As well, when our high school band was chosen to visit
Paris, France, for a New Year’s parade, family and boosters and other donors
made sure I was able to go, though I did have to remind one director, who asked
me why I thought it was more important for me to attend than it was for others
in the band to attend, of my position. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Overall, my ability to participate in band in high school
and the influences that facilitated my full participation helped instill a
confidence in me that I could not only do well in life, but that I could lead
in my own way. While currently I’m at a low point in my career and personal
life, still not fully employed and an outsider to my chosen fields in academia
and struggling to find my place again, the discipline, resiliency and
character-building I learned through this extracurricular forged my previous
success and will have instilled in me the stuffs I need to be successful again. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Had my district enforced pay-to-pay policies, I might never have thought I was
worthy enough to lead peers, to march to my own beat while fully capable of
leading the beat of others. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
I join Putnam is asking you to address opportunity gaps in
your children’s schools by eliminating pay-to-play policies in favor of
strategies that embrace an “our kids” mentality. Putnam is short on specific
strategies, but he appears to see parental and community activism as the start
of alternatives to these insidious, segregationist requirements. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
For more on pay-to-play in public schools, including concrete suggestions, see <span style="color: red;">*</span><a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/01/the-activity-gap/384961/">"The Activity Gap"</a><span style="color: red;">* </span>and resources<span style="color: red;"> *<a href="http://education-law.lawyers.com/school-law/pay-to-play-at-schools-has-some-crying-foul.html">here</a>* </span>and <span style="color: red;">*<a href="http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/schooled_in_sports/2011/08/districts_get_creative_to_avoid_pay-to-play_fees.html">here</a>.*</span></div>
Bucky C.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06076289438556471019noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5915966752283495703.post-24273923795597974552015-09-01T15:15:00.000-07:002015-09-01T21:14:13.801-07:00Pavement, Principals, Police and Privilege: My Days Taking My Education Reform Resistance Agenda Away From the Internet and Onto the Street<div class="MsoNormal">
Over the last ten days, I have taken my advocacy agenda
regarding reform in public education out of the blogosphere and onto the
streets. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As a current exiled academic in the field of education studies (I hold a
Ph.D. in English Education), a father of two elementary school students, the
husband of a public school teacher, and a former middle school and high school
English teacher and English Language Arts professor, I try to do my part to
spread the word about the troublesome nature of current corporacratic education
reforms harming our children and putting their personal data at risk. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Staunchly anti-Common Core, anti-SBAC, anti-PARCC, anti-TFA,
and anti-VAM, I have blogged, tweeted, forwarded links and Facebooked regarding
education reform policies since 2013, first at <span style="color: red;">*</span><a href="http://www.ensaneworld.blogspot.com/">http://www.ensaneworld.blogspot.com</a><span style="color: red;">*</span>
but eventually here at <span style="color: red;">*</span><a href="http://www.edustank.blogspot.com/">EduStank</a>.<span style="color: red;">* </span>In the fall of 2013 at Washington State
University, I even attempted an all-education-reform-centric section of
Freshmen Writing 101. For the most part, though, my anti-education reform
agenda has been relegated to the Internet. Last week, I decided that needed to
change.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So, over the last two weeks, I’ve spent several mornings and
afternoons on the sidewalks across from high-traffic areas in Pullman,
Washington’s school district, focusing on the elementary schools and the one
middle school, picketing toxic standardized testing and supporting parents’
rights to opt out of the state tests. My goal was to appear pro-parent,
pro-child, pro-opt out, advertise for United Opt Out.com, and give the
impression I just wanted to inform parents of their rights to refuse the tests
for their children even if they do not care to do so. Or, my goal evolved as such, anyway. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The push to move beyond the keyboard and onto the streets
was the result of several factors. For one, I had car trouble on a day I needed
to be at a job interview and felt a need to salvage my day, given I was unable
to make the interview. The day coincided with my kids’ first day of school, so
I missed their first day photos and well-wishes for the first time since they’ve
been attending school. The day felt like a major loss in its early going. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As well, recently I
had sent a tweet to Washington State University’s College of Education
encouraging students to<span style="color: red;"> *<a href="http://edustank.blogspot.com/search?q=major+">ask their methods professors to answer these questions regarding their role in current education policy</a>.*</span> I had
sent the same request to dozens of university twitter accounts last year, but,
perhaps since I focused on the local university alone this year, my last university
of employment, I fantasized that some students had read the tweet and heeded my
advice, only to be told by a professor or two, “Well, you don’t exactly see him
out on the streets protesting these policies, do you?” Even in make-believe, I
couldn’t let that stand. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Furthermore, I live within easy walking distance of my kids’
elementary school, also where my wife works, and knew if I didn’t take the
opportunity to act on this first day of school – when parents would be more
attentive to their children and more likely to be the ones dropping them off
and picking them up compared to the coming days – I might not ever have the
courage to act on a first day of school again. I could have protested at the
start of the previous school year, after all, and considered it but chickened
out. As well, if I were to do this now, I felt it would show cowardice to start
anywhere except at my own kids’ school.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So, I crafted a hastily-made sign and hit the pavement,
noting the traffic patterns and smiling and waving at parents as they drove
into parking lots and loading zones to pick up their little scholars. That was
last Wednesday. Since then, I’ve visited every elementary school and the middle
school in the Pullman district. To date, I’ve avoided the high school because opting
out of the tests at the sophomore- and junior-levels could keep students from
graduating, whereas there are no penalties to that degree for opting out in
grades 3-9.<o:p></o:p></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivdB6UP0s-YJm0d8WXq7IR9KE1pFH0qwDDho6LDTiXJ36gZeszzdBbIwRG9fJD-UWH6f2wz3TtIyh2Q4oUPZmgfCGbauAqxskLxniDaEjBQTsVffze_LzJUp_ie0xhcGIc8exV59M7wjo/s1600/UOO1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivdB6UP0s-YJm0d8WXq7IR9KE1pFH0qwDDho6LDTiXJ36gZeszzdBbIwRG9fJD-UWH6f2wz3TtIyh2Q4oUPZmgfCGbauAqxskLxniDaEjBQTsVffze_LzJUp_ie0xhcGIc8exV59M7wjo/s400/UOO1.jpg" width="225" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Baby's first protest sign. And my feet.</i> </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
What I learned from my first day of giving my agenda a
physical presence is as follows. I seemed to have pissed off the school’s
principal, who called me on my cell phone almost immediately after I had
vacated the premises, referred to me by my first name even though we are not on
a first-name basis (She should have referred to me as Mr. Carter at the least; Dr.
Carter to be most accurate), accused me of being on school property, and
informed me that it was illegal to be on school property doing what I was doing
and if I wanted to continue my protest – Well, I didn’t let her finish. Her
hectic, berating tone and lack of respect in addressing me was too much. I took
a page out Marjane Satrapi’s <i>Persepolis </i>and
yelled louder than my accuser. “You do what you have to do. Rest assured I’ll
do what I have to do. Goodbye,” I told her. But, she was right. After school
was over and all traffic had dispersed, I <i>did
</i>walk across the school parking lot as doing so was a shortcut to my home.
Whether she was referring to seeing me do that or accusing me of stepping on
school property via the adjoining sidewalks, I do not know.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I assume I frustrated some parents too, who did not appreciate
seeing a protester on their kids’ first day of school and may have tipped off
the principal, but, as I mentioned, the first day of school only comes once a
year and is prime time for getting parents’ attention. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Lessons learned? First off, I needed to contact my wife to
let her know her principal might be talking to her. Text message sent. Warning
delivered. Next, having said, “I’ll do what I have to do,” to be a man of my
word, I had to figure out what that meant. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I decided it meant researching protesting protocols and knowing
my rights – where I could be and should be to avoid problems, how to talk to
police who might approach me, and which Constitutional rights protect
picketers. I found the<a href="https://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights/demonstrations-and-protests"> <span style="color: red;">*</span>American Civil Liberties Union’s Guide to Demonstrations and Protests </a><span style="color: red;">*</span> and learned that so long
as I was on the sidewalks and caused no disturbance, I had a right to protest;
I seemed even more protected as a protester of one if I were picketing. So, I
decided I would call myself a picketer if asked. As well, I sent the link to
the ACLU guide to the Pullman School District’s twitter account, just in case
they needed reminding of citizen’s rights and who is available to defend them
when they are violated. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Becoming a picketer meant changing my sign. My first effort
commanded readers to opt out of toxic testing, was small and obviously unkempt.
While still crowded and messy, my second sign is large, colorful, and more
informative than demanding. I hoped to appear less threatening to parents with
my second sign, less “anti-testing” and more “pro-parents’ rights.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsyn1VIBQ6zAXSyDcnWBTUrzdM6WUVZUzaa5lBExAbxseAJ58aCgoVZOT7C8mEBTNGnUskPCR7P5jBdiYztUCu3uwtgH63-UFBLUyd9og6UZTZh5dSdUpaLIZDjSmfbwgbzgB0X0TtdD4/s1600/UOO2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsyn1VIBQ6zAXSyDcnWBTUrzdM6WUVZUzaa5lBExAbxseAJ58aCgoVZOT7C8mEBTNGnUskPCR7P5jBdiYztUCu3uwtgH63-UFBLUyd9og6UZTZh5dSdUpaLIZDjSmfbwgbzgB0X0TtdD4/s400/UOO2.jpg" width="225" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The degree to which you approve of this<br />design correlates with how much of it<br />I'll tell you my kids created. </i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
To be safe regarding trespassing illegalities, I decided to
stand only on sidewalks across the street from area schools rather than on the
sidewalks abutting school property. This proved fortuitous on my second day out
at another area elementary school when one of Pullman’s Finest, Officer Bedford
(a pseudonym), approached me from his patrol car and asked me what I was doing
and what my sign was “all about.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
He asked what the SBAC was as well. I informed him about the
SBAC and that I was alone and had no sound system or leaflets to pass out but
had only my sign, was picketing to draw attention to parents’ rights (sharing a
positive message rather than an accusatory one), and was doing so as per my
First Amendment and 14<sup>th</sup> Amendment rights. (I may need to review
which Amendments support which rights).
I told him I would stay on the sidewalks and only talk to people who
asked me questions. He agreed that was the thing for me to do and asked my
name. I offered it, though I didn’t have to (again, I wanted to appear friendly
and accommodating) and confidently asked him his. He asked if I wanted a card,
and I took one. He then drove away and we were both left having an
exceptionally friendly and positive experience. I even tweeted about the kindness of the officer via the Pullman Police Department’s twitter account later that
night.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If that seems odd, keep in mind I wanted to be seen. I
wanted to be known, and I wanted to be considered a friendly, informative
source. The teachers and administrators in those school buildings are not evil,
and, as far as I know, not my enemies.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Many most-likely want kids to opt out of
testing too and would rather not have to deal with the burden of the abusive
standardized testing for they are forced to prepare and administer regardless
of their belief systems. Hell, that principal from day one might only have
called because a central office member was on hand or to offer evidence to an
irate parent that she’d made an effort to talk to the protester even though she
despises the state-mandated testing too. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I wanted to seem as though I was fighting their fight too. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I feel it is important to say I was rarely as aware of my
privilege as a white person and member of the Pullman community as when Officer
Bedford approached me. I smiled, waved, and even walked toward his approaching
car when it was clear the officer was coming to check in with me. As well,<o:p></o:p></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://oi50.tinypic.com/25fn3g7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://oi50.tinypic.com/25fn3g7.jpg" height="194" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Though it hardly seemed invisible as the cruiser approached me.</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
since the principal from my first day of picketing had mentioned illegal
positioning, I assumed I might see a police officer on my second day out. But,
my interactions with the local police have been wonderfully positive. So, I walked
toward the squad car with confidence and affability. My youngest son’s scout
leader is an excellent role model for youngsters and a member of the force, and
one day this summer a colleague of his was shopping at a local grocer at the
same time as the scout master’s family and my family were shopping, and the
scout master’s kids were equally thrilled to see this friend of their father’s
and my boys, so the group of us all talked. My boys inquisitively asked this
other officer about his gun, and he spent five minutes talking about gun
safety, why police wear guns, and how they receive special training to know
when and how to use them.<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
To a small degree, when Officer Bedford approached me, I
already felt like I had an “insider” relationship with the local police. “Hey,
how’s Officer So-and-so?” or “Do you know Officer This-Guy?” I could have
asked. As well, I was armed with my
rights as per the ACLU information. Furthermore, I had and have access to
stakeholders and education organizations such that I could share the story of
our encounter, as I’m doing now. I knew if I were arrested or even sent away
from the picketing site, I’d have a Hell of a story to share with a nationwide
audience of bloggers, tweeters, and writers willing to help spread the news of
what happened, if not immediately, as soon as I was freed. I did not feel
threatened nor did I approach my picketing as someone wanting to appear threatening.
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I do not in any way want to suggest that my local police
force holds prejudices, but given recent and<o:p></o:p></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://news.wsu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/pullmanbadge300px.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://news.wsu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/pullmanbadge300px.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The PPD has served me and my family exceptionally well.</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
ongoing altercations with racial
ramifications, I do not know if I would have felt as confident and safe if I
were a person of color. To be sure, being a relatively young male, on my own, choosing
to spend time with a colorful sign near young kids could be enough to make some
suspect (Another good reason to choose high-visibility spots, smile, and wave
at parents; indeed, avoiding the children and getting out of their way – even if
it means you have to be the one to step closer to the road than they have to so
they can pass behind you – is a smart decision), but I felt my whiteness and
what it seemed to afford me profoundly.<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
To that end, I felt the responsibility to share my sense of
white privilege with my white sons. After detailing my first day out, they were
surprisingly excited. They wanted to join me in protest—er, picketing – and they
even helped me make my replacement sign. My wife and I had opted out our oldest
from SBAC testing last year, and we plan to do so again this year, and since
she is a K12 teacher and I have been a teacher educator with strong opinions on
how education reforms are needed but few, if any, of the current spate of
reforms change schools for the better (by making them more equitable, friendly,
diversity- and culturally-affirming places to learn critically), “education
talk” permeates our household. But, my latest actions had opened new
possibilities. After their initial excitement wore down, I called my boys to my
computer and shared some information from the ACLU guide. I focused on rights
and how to act when approached by police. As hard as it was to tell my elementary-aged
kids to always keep their hands where officers can see them, do as they
request, and do not argue, among the
other advice offered, it felt like a necessity.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
My boys began daycare, pre-school, and – for my oldest –
formal public education in El Paso, Texas. It is a point of pride between my
wife and me that they are comfortable around people of color and make friends
with kids of color with ease and without any sense of tension that I might have
felt growing up in the 1980s in rural North Carolina. My kids have been the
minority population for much of their lives, and their earliest friends
constitute a multicultural cast of children. My guess is that they’ll have a diverse
friendship for as long as they live, especially considering how often
brown-skinned girls seem drawn to them! <span style="font-family: Wingdings; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;">J</span>
(Let a father brag for a moment, will you? My boys got game and don’t even know
it. Heck, that’s WHY they got game).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i0.wp.com/watercoolerconvos.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/nametag-white-people-water-cooler-convos.jpg?resize=390%2C280" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://i0.wp.com/watercoolerconvos.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/nametag-white-people-water-cooler-convos.jpg?resize=390%2C280" height="229" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Capitalizing on this possibility, I informed my sons that
sometimes police treat brown people differently than they do white people, and
this meant that if they are ever hanging out with a diverse group of friends
and an officer approaches them, they need to be willing to take the lead in
modeling good behavior with the officer because doing so could help them
protect themselves and their friends.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Perhaps this sort of active allying
constitutes the 21<sup>st</sup> century version of the “White man’s burden.”
Perhaps you are appalled I had this conversation with my sons when they are so
young and had positive impressions of the police beforehand. Perhaps my notion
of the white males’ modeling “submissive” behavior for their POC friends
infuriates you to no end.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I will have to live with my decision to share such
information with my young boys, but, at the moment, I wanted them to know why I
was doing what I was doing, how I was doing it and how I had informed myself on
how to act, and I wanted them to know how to act too. Again, it was just a day
later that I was indeed approached by an officer. While I reiterated that the
police we know are nice and would never want to harm us, I felt a
responsibility to let them know not everyone is afforded such courtesies. To my
thinking, they needed to know about their white privilege as a means of
protecting themselves but also as a means of protecting their future friends.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’ll have to wait to see if there is fallout from our conversation. Or, at least I hope I have to
wait. I saw our talk as preluding their teenage years and possible exigencies
in which they are with a group of boys who might appear rowdy or suspicious to
some. My youngest asked, “But what if the police person is brown too?” I
explained that that does not always make a difference in how police sometimes
treat citizens of color. I hold on to the belief that his interactions with his
scout master and other police officers in the community is enough to keep his
trust and faith in them. But, he will not live in Pullman forever, and even if
the information I shared jarred him, I hope it sticks with him. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Even if demographic trends evolve such that my sons are no
longer the privileged majority when they become teenagers or adults, even if
current minority advocacy groups look upon my advice to my sons as more “white
savior” racist rhetoric, even if their friends call them pussies or sell-outs
for modeling peaceful behavior when it comes to police interactions, I have the
feeling that part of white privilege in their near futures means knowing how to
work that privilege to the benefit of all people. To be sure, I hope to have
worked in that regard by picketing near those schools in the first place.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Most likely, I will not pound the pavement again until
testing season draws closer and parents and teachers are seeing clear evidence
of the miasma that such testing makes of their schools. Given that the national
parent-teacher groups have offered support for Common Core, I may see if I can
speak on behalf of United Opt Out at one of their meetings – or at least keep
an ear out for any information that suggests there is a movement to convince
parents that opting out is detrimental to the school or their children. Given
the complexities of opting out at the high school level, I may decide not to
picket near the high school. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I end this reflection with one more acknowledgement of my
appreciation of our friendly local authorities and with a set of challenges:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->1.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;"> </span><!--[endif]-->If you are a university or college education
professor or someone in the Humanities who teaches teaching methods courses,
get away from the computer, stop writing your articles and blog entries, and
show your support for parents’ rights to opt out by doing exactly as I did:
Make a sign and take to the sidewalks. Share and reflect on your experiences as
have I. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->2.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->If you are a parent of kids in state testing
grades, opt out and organize with like-minded parents to spread the word about
opting out or refusing these tests for your children. See all the kids at your
child’s school as your kids, as worthy of protection from abusive testing
policies as your birth-children.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->3.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->Join or educate yourself about organizations
like<span style="color: red;"> *</span><a href="http://unitedoptout.com/">United Opt Ou</a>t<span style="color: red;">*</span>, <span style="color: red;">*</span><a href="http://www.fairtest.org/">FairTest</a><span style="color: red;">*</span>, the <span style="color: red;">*</span><a href="http://www.networkforpubliceducation.org/">Network for Public Education</a><span style="color: red;">*</span>,
and maybe even the <span style="color: red;">*</span><a href="http://www.badassteacher.org/">Badass Teachers Association</a><span style="color: red;">*</span>. You are not alone. In my current
home state of Washington, <span style="color: red;">*</span><a href="https://seattleducation2010.wordpress.com/2015/08/25/48000-students-refused-the-testocracy-in-washington-state-by-opting-out-this-isnt-an-anomaly-its-an-uprising/">nearly 50,000 kids opted out</a><span style="color: red;">*</span> last year. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->4.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->If you think there is a better way to talk about
white privilege and the responsibilities white people have in using it to the
benefit of all people than the approach I took with my sons, let me know kindly
and respectfully. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->5.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->Know that if the current slate of harmful
education reforms is to be defeated and we are to pave the way for needed and
helpful public education reforms, parents will have to do the heavy lifting. Professors, principals and teachers may have
their hands tied regarding their levels of public advocacy. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://tribwgntv.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/school-empty-classroom.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="220" src="https://tribwgntv.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/school-empty-classroom.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->6.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->Know this, parents: States are required to
administer the standardized tests, but it is perfectly legal for them to administer them to
empty rooms. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Bucky C.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06076289438556471019noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5915966752283495703.post-50495714891948999872015-08-27T12:04:00.000-07:002015-08-27T12:04:09.689-07:00Studying Robert Putnam's _Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis_: Part 8 -- Explaining the Specters of Poverty<div class="MsoNormal">
Part 8; Chapter 3: “The American Dream: Myths and Realities”
– Explaining the Specters of Poverty<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: center;">
"The fundamental
social significance of the neurobiological discoveries that I’ve just
summarized is that healthy brain development in American children turns out to
be closely correlated with parental education, income, and social class"</blockquote>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So begins the second half of Robert Putnam’s “Parenting” chapter
from <i>Our Kids: The American Dream in
Crisis</i>. Having shared <a href="http://edustank.blogspot.com/2015/08/studying-robert-putnams-our-kids_19.html">*in earlier pages*</a> the Adverse Childhood Experience
scale and introduced the John Henry Effect, wherein even those who seemed to
escape poverty and other stresses still deal with “adverse physiological
effects” due to the “wear and tear of chronic stress” (113), Putnam piles on
more evidence that the trace of poverty is at least as difficult to escape as
poverty itself. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Kids in poverty “are at greater risk for elevated levels of
cortisol,” a stress hormone that “impinges” health; emotional regulation in the
brain is influenced by stress; and, some research suggests that the reason poor
kids seem to have more trouble concentrating on a single task is because they
are struck in a sort of constant fight or flight reflex: “Their brains had been
trained to maintain constant surveillance of the environment for new threats”
(116).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Imagine being a poor student in the current age of
corporacratic education reform, with new threats of high-stakes standardized
tests, stressed-out teachers, and the constant peril of school closures! Those
of us parenting and teaching in the era of education reform need to pay close
attention to what Putnam and his colleagues’ research tells us about poverty,
stress, and growing socioeconomic gaps.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Simply put, “kids from more affluent homes are exposed to
less toxic stress than kids raised in poverty” (117), and while day-to-day
interactions among kids from different economic strata are rarer than they used
to be, do parents really want to accept a “I’ll take care of mine; you take
care of yours” approach? If we are in an age of self-interest=best-interest
parenting within the affluent classes, is such an approach truly in the best
interests of even wealthy kids? If the answer is “yes” – and it very well may
be – aren’t poor families and poor children simply out of luck? <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Perhaps knowledge of the “class-based gap in parenting
styles, which has been growing significantly during recent decades,” could
offer some hope (117) – if less-affluent parents were able to take on traits of
more affluent parents, a big if given the realities of current resource
stratifications.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Citing ethnographer Annette Lareau, Putnam mentions two
distinctive parenting styles: Concerted Cultivation and Natural Growth
(118-121).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<table border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoTableGrid" style="border-collapse: collapse; border: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-padding-alt: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-yfti-tbllook: 1184;">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td style="border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 233.75pt;" valign="top" width="312">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
CONCERTED CULTIVATION/AFFLUENT PARENTING<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
<td style="border-left: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 233.75pt;" valign="top" width="312">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
NATURAL GROWTH/LESS-AFFLUENT PARENTING<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 233.75pt;" valign="top" width="312">
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"> ·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]-->Child rearing investments in time, activities,
etc.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"> ·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]-->Autonomy <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"> ·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]-->Independence<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"> ·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]-->Self-direction<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"> ·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]-->Choices<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"> ·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]-->Roughly 6:1 Encouraging/Discouraging
statements<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"> ·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]-->Family dinners<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"> ·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]-->Spending per child +75% since 1980s<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"> ·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]-->Significant time w infants/toddlers<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"> ·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]-->Kids get more “face time” <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"> ·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]-->More common among affluent families<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 233.75pt;" valign="top" width="312">
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"> ·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]-->Development left more to kids’ own devices<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"> ·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]-->Discipline<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"> ·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]-->Obedience<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"> ·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]-->Conformity to pre-established rules<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"> ·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]-->Roughly 1:1 or even 1:2
Encouraging/Discouraging statements<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"> ·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]-->Family members do not or cannot eat together<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"> ·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;"> </span></span>Spending per child -22% since 1980s<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"> ·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]-->Half as much time w/ infant/toddlers<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"> ·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]-->Kids get more “screen time”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"> ·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]-->More common among poorer families<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Putnam dismisses notions that child-rearing between classes
is cultural. Brain science, he says, indicates that poor parents are more harsh
and punitive in their styles “because they themselves experienced higher levels
of chronic stress” (121). Today’s poor kids are more likely than they have been
in a long time to be poor parents despite their efforts. By the time they are
parents, imagine the stress that comes from a system that seems designed to
keep one where one is rather than offers mobility for effort. Even parents who
try valiantly to embed or embody Concerted Cultivated aspects may have to live
with the knowledge that the specter of poverty is too great a haunt to
overcome. With such knowledge, though, where is hope? Without the knowledge?
Imagine a young driver learning a clutch transmission system. The one fortunate
enough to have access to the car grinds the gears. The car’s gears grind, but
it goes nowhere. If the privileged party doesn’t do something to change his or
her operating procedures, the car will grind its gears unwittingly until the
stress of the frictions wear it down and it becomes broken, sometimes beyond
repair, and not completely because of its own actions. <o:p></o:p></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://allstarbreakers.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Grinding-Gears.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://allstarbreakers.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Grinding-Gears.png" height="240" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Is being poor in America like being a manual transmission? You move or grind to a halt<br />at the whim of the driver, but still take the blame if they wear you out?</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Regarding family dinners, we know that conversing around
food offers a means of communal rapport humans have known and valued for
thousands of years. However, poor parents often cannot “make eating together a
priority” (123) even if they wanted to. While admitting eating together is “no
panacea for child development,” Putnam asserts that “it is one indicator of the
subtle but powerful investments that parents make in their kids (or fail to
make)” (123). <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Stressed parents are both harsher and less attentive
parents,” says Putnam (130), but we must realize that very few parents actually
seek to be harsh and inattentive. Whereas affluent parents have resources,
poor, stressed parents live with scarcity. Via a book by that name,
Mullainathan and Shafir influence Putnam’s understandings:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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Under conditions of scarcity, they
write, the brain’s ability to grasp, manage, and solve problems falters, like a
computer slowed down by too many open apps, leaving us less efficient and less
effective than we would be under conditions of abundance (130).<o:p></o:p></div>
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Those not as familiar with scarcity (or computers) might better
understand the world poor parents inhabit via thinking about sleep. Or, the
lack of it, actually. Any adult professional will tell you that even if they
work long hours, there comes a time when their body and mind is just worn down
by the grind of being too active for too long to try to meet a goal. Even
affluent parents should admit to not making the best parenting decisions when
they are sleep-deprived. In no unrealistic manner, less-affluent parents live
their lives in a metaphorical state of sleep deprivation, able to perform
better if only they could meet their own needs and rest easy.</div>
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But, as Putnam’s
amalgamation of the research shows, since families are less able to get out of
the cycles of poverty than in decades past, they never get that rest. They may
have been on high alert as kids, remained on high alert as adults, and are on
high alert while raising kids who are on high alert too. </div>
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<a href="http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/still_no_sleep.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/still_no_sleep.png" height="142" width="400" /></a></div>
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Not only do specters of poverty remain, but
they compound and form boggish quagmires. Acting more like affluent parents without the resources is not be enough to resolve mobility issues. Indeed, the inverse is more likely: Solving mobility issues is likely to help less-affluent parents act more like those use the Concerted Cultivation style of parenting. </div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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Indeed, worth noting is that favoring the habits of college-educated (remember: this is the criteria Putnam uses to describe affluent families) parents and their "results" -- the behaviors and dispositions of their children -- may only be seen as healthy or the preferred model because the power of opinion is in the hands of the wealthy. Given that so few affluent American kids interact with poor kids now compared to the 1950s, when social mobility was high within and among classes, perhaps affluent parents are producing hyper-coddled, egotists with no internal coping mechanisms once they see they're not as perfect as they might have thought. Many of us know of one or two kids from well-educated families who are over-confident assholes in no small part due to their parents' particular blend of Concerted Cultivation or meshing of the worst iterations of the two styles.</div>
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I think of some (certainly not all) of my students at Washington State University, who seemed to have left the country club of high school social life for the resort and spa of WSU. While they were eager to call foul regarding many social ills and inequity, rarely were they able to articulate their own economic privilege, except through conspicuous consumerism. Even among those who were first-generation college students or who identified as from working-class families, many admitted to me that the campus seemed to support a social pressure toward entitled that seemed to emanate from those who were economically privileged and did not have the worry of paying their own tuition bills. I remember how uncomfortable I felt on the beautiful grounds of the University of Virginia, earning my doctorate as a North Carolinian with roots in poverty but now walking among the popped collars and BMW's of nineteen-year-olds eager to get to some horse race or show off their latest dress shirt and bow tie. I think of a professoriate at large also willing to point out many inequities and inequalities but less willing to acknowledge that most of its members are from the upper-middle class, so economic value system may perpetuate in colleges. I think of helicopter parents' children who are so afraid of letting go of their support systems and bolstering resources that they have trouble with independence. I consider the push from some college kids for the coddling of required trigger warning policies and how some resist the notion of college as a place where their ideas and preconceived notions should be challenged. </div>
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But I digress...</div>
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Regardless of my extrapolations, important questions remain: If rich kids only see and interact with other rich kids, how can <i>their </i>mindsets be challenged? Does class segregation yield parenting with self-perpetuating pampering which reifies paupering? Surely some American kids are living the dream; others seem stuck in a dream state in which neither rest, sleep, nor comfort are afforded them, certainly not offered to them by the dominant discoursers of affluent dreamers either obtuse or unsympathetic to their realities. </div>
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Bucky C.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06076289438556471019noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5915966752283495703.post-72154953844706640782015-08-25T19:21:00.002-07:002015-08-26T20:27:30.060-07:00Teacher Shortage "Dash-Off" Thoughts<div style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17.5636348724365px; margin-bottom: 6px;">
I find it interesting to note how both ed reformers and resisters are appropriating the most-recent iteration of the "teacher shortage" phenomenon. Ed reformers use it to suggest TFA solutions, nix certification requirements, and usher in a cheap and compliant labor force. Resistors say ed policy has become so toxic, people just don't want to be teachers anymore. They point to certain cities and dropping numbers in teacher ed programs and "teacher flight."</div>
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The truth is somewhere in the <span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;">middle, but there are truths both sides are ignoring as well. For example, in citing Albuquerque's teacher shortage, no one has reported that other local districts have laid off good teachers due to budgets but that Albuquerque may not have hired those experienced teachers even though they live nearby. I only know about it due to having a former student teaching in the area.</span></div>
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Another reality that ed professors, school administrators, resistors and reformers do not want to acknowledge due to nuance is that there may be many applicants for positions in certain areas claiming a teacher shortage, but the admins in those districts don't want to hire people who they see as problematic to the ed reform agenda. To my mind, this would be anyone who is a graduate from a teacher ed program worth its salt.</div>
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So, while some districts might experience a genuine teacher shortage -- and might have done so for years in certain content areas -- others are most likely experiencing a self-induced hiring shortage instead to help their overlords reward the types of people who will serve them best in teaching positions while they turn away well-trained, educated, even experienced and licensed applicants.</div>
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Bucky C.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06076289438556471019noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5915966752283495703.post-32873939563814652312015-08-24T16:04:00.003-07:002015-08-24T19:41:50.424-07:00_Our Kids_: Interlude I; Introducing "White Status" and "White Skew"<span style="font-family: inherit;">As I annotated my copy of <i>Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis</i>, I thought about many of its findings and precents related to constructs of white privilege and white superiority. Two specific ideas for new(?) terms formulated, or swirled roughly in and out of tangibility, as I read. Given the economic opportunity gaps between the poor and the rich -- within and across races -- why aren't more academics and activists focusing on a poverty-first or socioeconomic equity-first social justice agenda that encapsulates race and gender rather than focus specifically on race? Even in the weeks since I completed my reading, there is evidence of these "race vs class" tensions in policy problem-solving and analyzing current events. The BlackLivesMatter movement has helped Bernie Sanders reframe his talk on financial reform as one in which economic and race issues run as parallels, for example. This new position could constitute kowtowing, given Sanders seems to know that many race issues are rooted in economics first. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">But why do Americans have so much trouble acknowledging that virtually all oppression in American society, certainly in contemporary American capitalism, is economic-based, from slavery to assimilation to manifest destiny to anti-desegregation, anti-suffrage, and anti-gay marriage efforts?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I offer two terms from my inchoate-made-almost-palpable to help explain it. The terms reside below white superiority, or, since I *do* see issues as economics-based first, just Superiority, and are possible subsets of white privilege. Please offer me feedback if other authors have already named these constructs. They're more formulating than formulaic right now, as I continue to learn and grow my own social justice agenda rooted in mobility inequality. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">1. "White Status" -- a construct residing between white supremacy and white privilege, but in a spectral, trickster sense. White status can be observed living in language via phrases like "That's mighty white of you" and "Thank God I'm white!" even when used ironically or to draw attention to white privileg<span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;">e. Most acutely, white status is the sense of class and race superiority that poor, working-, and lower-middle class whites might have which keeps them separate from, "above" or more fortunate than (in their own minds) POC. White status is a specter, a folly of a false ghost, because for the majority of those who might claim it, it offers negligible benefits at best and actually reinforces wedges between groups of people who have much in common regarding socioeconomic inequities, thereby serving white supremacy/socioeconomic stratification by ensuring that POC and poorer whites do no work together as much or as well as they could to bring about economic revolution. So, white status may appear to be a blessing to poor whites, but it actually serves the Economic Masters.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">2. "White Skew" -- whereas white status might be a construct most apparent among poorer whites, White Skew may be more apparent among POC and especially prevalent among well-off whites. White skew is the notion that because of white supremacy or white privilege,or, worse, because of whiteness itself, white people can't really be poor. Intensified by growing socioeconomic segregation in housing, schooling and other cultural and social constructs, white skew is racism when coming from POC but also reveals a hidden racism toward POC from well-off whites. Whiteness equates to privilege, to access to success. So, if a white person is poor, it must be *their* fault and their fault alone because whites can't be poor because they are white. Regarding segregation, white skew might reveal itself when whites of a certain socioeconomic class assume they are the baseline for all of the white experience and simply do not believe that there are white under-classes or white people who struggle with poverty. Regarding racism toward POC, inherent in white skew mindset is that only POC can be poor, so white skew is part of the very worst ways in which white supremacy can be defined. Ironically, white skew might be found most among whites who identify as liberal and be so embedded that it only rears its head when said liberals actualize race-based activist efforts at the expense of all-inclusive socioeconomic equity activism, working for the lesser races who because of their lesser races (usually brown races or ethnicities) can't help themselves.</span></div>
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So, am I on to something? Do analogues of these constructs already exist in critical race theory, social justice theories, etc.?</div>
</span></div>
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<br />Bucky C.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06076289438556471019noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5915966752283495703.post-42101408260295816412015-08-19T18:40:00.000-07:002015-08-19T18:54:17.253-07:00Studying Robert Putnam's _Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis_: Part 7 -- Stress and Parenting <div class="MsoNormal">
Part 7; Chapter 3: “The American Dream: Myths and Realities”
– Stress and Parenting <o:p></o:p></div>
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Putnam begins “Parenting,” the third chapter of <i>Our Kids</i>, with eighteen pages devoted to
profiling African American families from different socioeconomic strata in
Atlanta, Georgia. He chooses Atlanta because it has the “largest, most rapidly
growing gap between rich and poor of any American city” (81). He admits the gap
deserves studying along racial lines, but notes “within the black community
itself, class and income differences have also grown” (81), and the black
community as a whole is becoming “increasingly polarized along economic lines”
(82). Combined racial and economic
segregation means that in Atlanta, as in many American cities and towns, “the
black upper class and middle class…are increasingly separated from their white
counterparts and from poor blacks” (82).
While Putnam never treats racial segregation and subjugation with disbelief,
he works to reveal that “class disparities within each race” and across races
re important to acknowledge as well (83).<o:p></o:p></div>
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The different affordances of wealth regarding parenting
spring from this racially-charged backdrop, though, and the chapter’s conversation
gets more disconcerting as it develops. Explaining serve-and-return cognition,
a construct in which a preverbal child sends forth a signal and learns or gains
impressions via adult response, Putnam reaffirms what many early childhood
experts and educators have known for years: “Cognitive stimulation by parents
is essential for optimal learning” (110). What contingent construct makes a
difference in cognitive stimulation? Stress. Or the type and amount of stresses
parents face and to which kids are subjected, anyway.<o:p></o:p></div>
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As one might figure, homes in which parents are struggling
to get ahead are homes in which levels of “toxic stress” may be elevated. Toxic
stress may “impede successful development” of children and can include physical
abuse and neglect, the failure to send <i>any</i>
signal to a young serve-and-returner. This kind of toxicity, perhaps the result
of worn-out parents who cannot move forward despite their efforts, might be
worse than physical mistreatment (111). Deficits from neglect impair brain
development, says Putnam, and are difficult to repair (112). <o:p></o:p></div>
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So many adverse childhood experiences can affect the neural
pathways and emotional development of children that scientists have created a
scale in their name (though Putnam doesn’t distinguish what kinds of
scientists, presenting a rare moment of the sophomoric): The Adverse Childhood
Experiences Scale lists ten realities which correlate with some form of
damaging stress. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCwCXduiZflPuOfhAlmkiHqHNiXCdvzjx5hFzGg-TccSDZ6HjdLfVcyX9l-w6R-puHgNB57rB9dGGMeDi4EDSfnNb_xXfStTruOTNaxLCyDysGL2OA6kK-haUQOGH4kjoAa1ijyrzCoRY/s1600/Our-Kids-Adverse-Childhood-.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="335" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCwCXduiZflPuOfhAlmkiHqHNiXCdvzjx5hFzGg-TccSDZ6HjdLfVcyX9l-w6R-puHgNB57rB9dGGMeDi4EDSfnNb_xXfStTruOTNaxLCyDysGL2OA6kK-haUQOGH4kjoAa1ijyrzCoRY/s400/Our-Kids-Adverse-Childhood-.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>From page 113. And to think: Some think rigor is the most important thing teachers<br />can provide for their poor students and students dealing with major stresses. </i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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Even for resilient children – those who seem to thrive
regardless of the many stresses in their lives – the “wear and tear of chronic
stress” may create situations in which they are “living on borrowed time”
(113). Putnam explains that even for resilient kids, the “John Henry effect” is
hard to escape. That is to say even if kids seem to do well in escaping poverty
and hardship early on, research suggests it is only a matter of time until the
piling on, the cumulative affect catches up to them and negatively influences
their lives. </div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://b-i.forbesimg.com/harrybinswanger/files/2013/11/JohnHenry-300px.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://b-i.forbesimg.com/harrybinswanger/files/2013/11/JohnHenry-300px.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Except that it caught up to you, John. That ended badly for you.</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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If such children run forward early on, the monsters chasing them
eventually overtake them, and they too become rhizomed into the cycle of moving
backwards even as they attempt to move ahead. The specters of poverty may be
more difficult to escape than poverty itself, and once the ghosts have caught
up, the hopeful striver may not be able to stave off the haunting any longer
and tumble back into that from which he or she strove toward liberation. Toxic
stresses linger like absent presences, part of one’s history eager to make
themselves known. And lived. Now. <o:p></o:p></div>
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As someone who experienced several stresses on the scale as
a kid and who has found himself dealing with career and familial burn-out, having
reached a nadir of trying to balance financial, family, and especially toxic
working conditions in my field and in the English departments at UTEP and
Washington State University, Pullman, (and at the University of Southern
Mississippi before that), Putnam’s chapter speaks to me. As I look back on all
the accomplishments for my family and myself I’d hoped for versus the resources
– fiscal, physical, mental, political, emotional; support systems and fallbacks
– I had or didn’t have to actualize them, I
think it is little wonder I have felt and still feel spent. <o:p></o:p></div>
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At twelve and sixteen and eighteen and twenty-four and
twenty-eight, I was one of those resilient </div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://naturalhistory.crowspath.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/sedgerhizome1.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://naturalhistory.crowspath.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/sedgerhizome1.jpeg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Do mobility studies and rhizome theory intersect? When it comes<br />
to improving one's socioeconomic status, escaping one's roots<br />
is more difficult than many Americans want to acknowledge. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
kids, even with a set of adults
cheering him on. By thirty-eight, with two kids of my own and a working-class
penchant for speaking my mind against ignorance and injustice (especially as
perpetrated by the educated “intelligent”) and an intolerance for bullshit, academia’s
upper-middle class ethos seemed strange, hard to navigate, at loggerheads with
my strong values, and certainly less like a meritocracy than my
bootstrap-believing mind had ever thought it was.<br />
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<div class="MsoNormal">
Adding on a K12 and higher
education system steeped in neoliberal values, policy-making, and counterintuities
regarding helping kids and producing valued work, and interlacing them with the
peculiar “gold” that is departmental dysfunction, I reflect and wonder why I’m
still standing. Given the financial stresses in place as we struggled (and
struggle) with student loans (Yes, I was on fellowship at UVa, but…), preschool
costs, medical bills, and basic costs-of-living as a family with two parents
from poverty (though more so for me than for my wife) still running from their
own specters and that all of this was happening in what should have been my
formative tenure-“earning” (academia is no meritocracy, though surviving its bureaucracy
entails pretending like it is. Hence my quotation marks) years, perhaps I
should be surprised I lasted as long as I did in academia. </div>
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And, let’s face it:
By the time one nears his or her 40s, the cheering crowds of supporters eager
to see a young person like me make good dwindle away with the addition of years
which themselves strip one from title of “young person.”</div>
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Surely there are those
who experienced worse than I did growing up and who have earned tenure and have
happy, content lives. I think of them and remind myself that part of the
problem with having Americans acknowledge mobility inequality is American’s penchant
for letting exceptions act as the rules. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.minnpost.com/sites/default/files/asset/s/s5f6az/s5f6az.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="301" src="https://www.minnpost.com/sites/default/files/asset/s/s5f6az/s5f6az.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>"Check your economic privilege, Scrooge!"/"I'll not take that from someone<br />literally as white as a ghost, Marley!"</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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As a father, the chapter makes me more cognizant of my
failings or potential failings as well.
Those who are considering divorce, have a tendency to yell, and are still
battling the ghosts of the past in the present are not offered much hope beyond
Jacob Marley-like, forewarning knowledge, however. Marley helped transform Scrooge
into a more sympathetic person, though, right?<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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With that tinge of hope in mind, I continue my reflections
on “Parenting” soon.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br />
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Next: Parenting, Income and Class: Explaining the Specters
of Poverty <o:p></o:p></div>
Bucky C.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06076289438556471019noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5915966752283495703.post-37121668706774375462015-08-10T14:53:00.000-07:002015-08-11T00:16:44.499-07:00Studying Robert Putnam's _Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis_: Part 6 -- Families (2 of 2)<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: inherit; font-size: 13.1999998092651px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;"><i>Below is the latest installment of my series of reflections on Robert Putnam's 2015 release </i>Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis. <i>It represents the second of two reflections on the book's first body chapter. I invite you to read my previous four installments on the book's introductory chapter. Access them here: </i></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17.5636348724365px;">Part 1: </span><a href="http://tinyurl.com/pavebjj" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17.5636348724365px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">http://tinyurl.com/pavebjj</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17.5636348724365px;"> </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17.5636348724365px;">Part 2: </span><a href="http://tinyurl.com/pxxoejv" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17.5636348724365px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">http://tinyurl.com/pxxoejv</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17.5636348724365px;">Part 3: </span><a href="http://tinyurl.com/o7od67w" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17.5636348724365px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">http://tinyurl.com/o7od67w</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.1999998092651px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;"> </span><span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #141823; display: inline; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17.5636348724365px;">Part 4: <a href="http://tinyurl.com/poaa345" rel="nofollow" style="color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">http://tinyurl.com/poaa345</a> </span><br />
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.1999998092651px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;">
<span style="color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 17.5636348724365px;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 13.1999998092651px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;"><span style="font-style: italic; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;">As well, scroll below this entry to read the first of two segments on Putnam's "Families" chapter. I see </span><span style="line-height: 18.4799995422363px;">Our Kids</span><span style="font-style: italic; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;"> as central to understanding contemporary exigencies regarding education policy and essential to building and actualizing an egalitarian social justice agenda. I see and hope to reveal connections </span></span><i style="font-size: 13.1999998092651px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;">to education and schooling, education reform, and my own experiences.</i></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.1999998092651px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;">
<i style="font-size: 13.1999998092651px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;"><br /></i></div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.1999998092651px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #222222;">
Part 5; Chapter Two: “The American Dream: Myths and
Realities” – Families (2 of 2)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #222222;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #222222;">
As if aware of possible imbroglio regarding traditionalist
and sexist undercurrents in the first two-thirds of the “Families” chapter of <i>Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis</i>,
author Robert Putnam offers an admission of the perplexing connections among
poverty and women’s health issues. “Whatever the reasons,” he says as if doing so
might offer a tabula rasa, “children of less-educated parents are increasingly entering
the world as an unplanned surprise…while children of more educated parents are
increasingly entering the world as a long-planned objective” (65). This
difference, Putnam feels, affects the resources a parent or parents have to
raise those kids. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #222222;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #222222;">
Regarding non-marital births, Putnam informs that numbers
remain low for college-educated women and that “the racial gap within classes
has narrowed, while the gap within races has widened,” echoing overall trends
in American economic mobility. Putnam also explicates issues of cohabitation,
divorce, and multi-partner fertility, which is a term to describe “blended
families” (68).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #222222;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #222222;">
Apparently, less-educated families are more likely to have
elements of the “impermanent structure” of multi-partner fertility. My own
childhood can act as an example of what this means. From the time I was nine
until I was nineteen, I saw my mother marry twice after divorcing my
birth-father. I saw my father marry three more times. Along the way, I picked
up and kept two half-brothers and a step-sister on my mother’s side. I caught
and released, so to speak, three step-brothers from one step-mother and have
retained two step-sisters and a step-brother from my dad’s current marriage. I “lost”
a step-dad and two-step mothers along the way, though I hardly regard them as
losses. </div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="color: #222222; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://boutique.tibetart.fr/WebRoot/ce_fr/Shops/279904/4B5C/3734/E06A/6514/8CF2/C0A8/8007/9CE9/CAL240110.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://boutique.tibetart.fr/WebRoot/ce_fr/Shops/279904/4B5C/3734/E06A/6514/8CF2/C0A8/8007/9CE9/CAL240110.jpg" height="400" width="281" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Buy this representation of impermanence here:</i> <a href="http://boutique.tibetart.fr/Impermanence/en">http://boutique.tibetart.fr/Impermanence/en</a> </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #222222;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #222222;">
Among siblings with the same mother, I count a set of twin boys with
whom I share a father, one half-brother half my age whose dad was my second
step-father, and a half-brother whose dad is my current step-father and who is
two decades my junior. Our family rule is to count half-brothers as brothers,
but given we were close to grown when the latest “steps” entered our parents’
lives, we tend to see them and their children as relatives but not necessarily
brothers and sisters. In between the courtships that lead to marriages were
itinerant partners, flings, cohabitators, false starts and mistakes. As the
oldest child, I am witness to them all and often had to intervene in some way
for some manner (I know that’s vague, but even I deserve my secrets). One can
imagine the uncertainty and instability surrounding my our childhoods. Male figures in particular,
given our mother had custody of us, were ephemeral presences and not always
good role models.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #222222;">
In this regard, I lived like many kids, “especially from
less affluent, less educated backgrounds” in that my father<o:p></o:p></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="color: #222222; float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://images.mentalfloss.com/sites/default/files/styles/article_640x430/public/familymatters_0.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://images.mentalfloss.com/sites/default/files/styles/article_640x430/public/familymatters_0.jpg" height="268" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Family matters when it comes to upward mobility.</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="color: #222222;">
wasn’t always
around (69). He was somewhere, though, and often telephoned if he was not
nearby. Putnam informs that many men who have children with whom they do not
live have “no contact with their children” (69).</div>
<div style="color: #222222;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #222222;">
All the changes to the family structure have resulted in a “class-biased
decline in the number of children raised in two-parent families” (69). Notice
within this quotation Putnam does not define “two-parent” to signify
heteronormativity, per se. However, he later states that “College educated moms
are also more likely to have a male breadwinner in the household” (71), even if
they work too, and this results in “a substantial class disparity in the
financial resource available for childrearing” (71). Readers will have to draw
their own conclusions about whether Putnam’s research and explanations skew
toward a prickly conservativism, but he admits to a messiness considering
family factors’ impact on poverty and mobility:</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="color: #222222;">
[C]ause and effect are entangled here: poverty produces
family instability, and family instability in turn produces poverty. A similar
kind of mutual reinforcement occurs between affluence and stability (75).</blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #222222;">Moving from cultural shifts as explicatives for “family
breakdown” to policy shifts, Putnam says three “probably” contributed (76): The
War on Drugs, 3-strike legal proceedings, and increased incarceration. Having
just heard Bernie Sanders reveal *</span><a href="http://thinkprogress.org/election/2015/08/10/3689728/after-repeated-protests-bernie-sanders-releases-racial-justice-platform/"><span style="color: red;">his plan</span></a><span style="color: #222222;">* for racial justice and equity, I can’t
help thinking about these three factors and how they have affected the lives of
people of color and poor Americans of every color. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #222222;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #222222;">
The “two-tiered family pattern” (77; also see my previous blog post on "Families") has consequences for
children. Affluent kids tend to live in two-parent homes and have access to the
resources two incomes affords. In the lowest third of poor American families,
most kids live with only one parent or in the “kaleidoscopic” realities I
mentioned in part 1 of this chapter’s reflection and in this installment’s
paragraphs detailing my own upbringing. Even within the kaleidoscopic mode, the
dominant theme is that only one person has an income (76-78). <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #222222;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #222222;">
Divorce and absent birth-fathers take their tolls on
children. Regardless of race,<o:p></o:p></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="color: #222222;">
Children who grow up without their biological fathers perform
worse on standardized test, earn lower grades, and stay in school for fewer
years....They are more likely to demonstrate behavioral problems such as
shyness, aggression, and psychological problems such as increased anxiety and
depression (78).</blockquote>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="color: #222222; float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.gettingagile.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Stability.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://www.gettingagile.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Stability.jpg" height="200" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>So does stability.</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #222222;">
Again, problematics are apparent. Many education experts
know better than to rely on standardized test scores as meaningful metrics of
anything more than poverty and/or parents’ income or educational background.
Standardized test scores may reveal more about zip codes, given increased
segregation among class lines, than they do about intelligence or ability.
Further, neither a proclivity toward shyness nor an assertive nature need
labeling as problematic except in extreme examples. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #222222;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #222222;">
Of all the body chapters in <i>Our Kids</i>, “Families” reads as
the one with the writerly voice most different from the others. Putnam reveals
his book is influenced and informed by a team of researchers. While the book
lists him as the single author, I hear someone else’s imprint in this chapter’s
tone and penchant for entering a quagmire while trying to top-toe in and out of
damning quicksand. To be sure, liberal, vociferous social justice warriors may
struggle to remain objective in reviewing this chapter’s timbre. Throughout, though,
the veteran scholar’s voice remerges to soften claims with qualifiers, as in
this summary from the penultimate paragraph: <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #222222;">
<br /></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="color: #222222;">
Since family fragmentation is, as we have seen, powerfully
fostered by economic hardship, in one important sense family structure can be seen
as merely an intervening variable between poverty in one generation and poverty
in the next. Nevertheless, it is a prominent part of the picture (79).</blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #222222;">
While definitions of family evolve and the importance of a “birth-mother-and-birth-father-centric”/neo-traditional
model of the two-parent home faces multiple critiques and interpretations, one
thing is clear: When it comes to poverty, affluence, and economic mobility,
family matters. When family is defined with
stability, it encompasses better affordances for children than when it is not.
Regardless of whether or not Putnam and/or other speakers in this chapter are justified
targets for critique for cis-centric, heteronormative, traditionalist
definitions of family and marriage/healthy pairings, smart readers can, at
least, agree on that. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 107%;">Next: “Parenting”</span></div>
</div>
Bucky C.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06076289438556471019noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5915966752283495703.post-2659772075903281612015-08-09T14:02:00.003-07:002015-08-19T20:58:07.637-07:00Studying Robert Putnam's _Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis_: Part 5 -- Families (1 of 2)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51ca7cbc35L._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51ca7cbc35L._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg" height="200" width="131" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: inherit; font-size: 13.1999998092651px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;"><i>Below is the latest installment of my series of reflections on Robert Putnam's 2015 release </i>Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis. <i>It represents the first reflection on the book's body chapters. I invite you to read my previous four installments on the book's introductory chapter. Access them here: </i></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17.5636348724365px;">Part 1: </span><a href="http://tinyurl.com/pavebjj" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17.5636348724365px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">http://tinyurl.com/pavebjj</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17.5636348724365px;"> </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17.5636348724365px;">Part 2: </span><a href="http://tinyurl.com/pxxoejv" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17.5636348724365px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">http://tinyurl.com/pxxoejv</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17.5636348724365px;">Part 3: </span><a href="http://tinyurl.com/o7od67w" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17.5636348724365px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">http://tinyurl.com/o7od67w</a> <span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #141823; display: inline; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17.5636348724365px;">Part 4: <a href="http://tinyurl.com/poaa345" rel="nofollow" style="color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">http://tinyurl.com/poaa345</a></span><br />
<div>
<span style="color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 17.5636348724365px;"><br /></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: inherit; font-size: 13.1999998092651px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;"><span style="font-style: italic; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;">I see </span><span style="line-height: 18.4799995422363px;">Our Kids</span><span style="font-style: italic; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;"> as central to understanding contemporary exigencies regarding education policy and essential to building and actualizing an egalitarian social justice agenda. I see and hope to reveal connections </span></span><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.1999998092651px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;">to education and schooling, education reform, and my own experiences.</i><br />
<i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.1999998092651px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;"><br /></i>
<i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.1999998092651px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;"><br /></i>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Part 5; Chapter Two: “The American Dream: Myths and
Realities” – Families (1 of 2)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Families,” the second chapter of Robert Putnam’s <i>Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis</i>,
unfolds via the formula established in chapter one: People and families from
the same area are profiled and extrapolations to national trends are made based
on what the case studies reveal at the local and national levels. Putnam leaves
Ohio to focus on Bend, Oregon, in the early going. Bend experienced rapid growth,
especially between 1970 and 2000, and segregation in Bend “is mostly economic,
not racial” (47) as Putnam says it is in many other cities. In the east of
Bend, child poverty rates are ten times what they are to the west. Bend’s
disparities appear to be the results of the housing bubble. Putnam transitions
from the city’s history to talk about the current “life chances” afforded Bend’s
children and the structures of many of its families (49). “Family differences,”
he says, “produce very different starting points for rich and poor kids” (49)
in Bend and nationwide. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/92/Nelson_family_1960.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/92/Nelson_family_1960.JPG" width="265" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Putnam extols the stability of 1950s American marriage and life,<br />but they were not without their problems. </i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Indeed, a major point in this chapter is that “poverty
produces family instability, and family instability produces poverty” (74).
Likewise, affluence and family stability appear to correlate. Putnam sets the
framework for an important discussion on the role that stress plays in keeping
poor Americans moving backwards even as they strive to move toward greater
social mobility and economic opportunity, but that component comes to a head in
later chapters. Nonetheless, the undercurrent’s import merits attention. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In further discussion of the history of changing family dynamics,
which have “restricted along class lines over the last half century” (61), Putnam
comes dangerously close to suggesting a politically conservative ethic that
could distance him from liberal or progressive readers. He notes the 1970s as a time when “family
structure suddenly collapsed” (62) and informs that this was when the Baby
Boomers were coming of age. Among the factors challenging previous family
dynamics are a delinking of sex and marriage, the feminist revolution, women
entering the workforce, and increased attention on the individual and “self-fulfillment”
at the expense of community (62). While scholars are of multiple minds about
the exact causes of the transformation, an “unexpected outcome” has been the
emergence of familial trends along class lines. Putnam calls this a “two-tier” (63-64)
structural pattern:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->1.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->Neo-traditional Pattern: <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 1.0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level2 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->a.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->Generally the college-educated “upper-third of American
Society” <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 1.0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level2 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->b.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->Both partners work outside the home<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 1.0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level2 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->c.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->Marriage and childbearing is delayed until
careers are started<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 1.0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level2 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->d.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->Domestic duties are more-evenly shared than in
the 50s. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 1.0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level2 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->e.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->Divorce rates have fallen and stabilized since
the 70s<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 1.0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->2.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->Kaleidoscopic Pattern/”Fragile Families” Pattern<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 1.0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level2 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->a.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->Generally the high-school-educated “lower third
of the population”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 1.0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level2 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->b.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->Less likely to have two-parent households<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 1.0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level2 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->c.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->Two-parent households often include
step-relatives<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 1.0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level2 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->d.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->Childbearing and marriage disconnected; children
may be born before or without partners marrying. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 1.0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level2 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->e.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->Sexual partnerships less durable<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: 1.0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level2 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->f.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->Marriages less durable; divorce rates rising<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: 1.0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level2 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<br /></div>
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One might easily consider these lists and wonder about
access to contraceptives and cultural value systems regarding their use. “Delayed
parenting helps kids because older parents are generally better equipped to
support their kids, both materially and emotionally” (64), says Putnam. Early
sexual activity may be the brew in which future family poverty stews.
Non-college educated women are sexually active earlier than their
college-educated peers but do not seek to have more kids than those peers; they
are less likely to use birth control and to have abortions and have more unintended
pregnancies.</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://theovercast.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/O7osg2W.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://theovercast.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/O7osg2W.png" height="231" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Could a class-centric approach to sex education revolutionize how it is taught? Likewise, can a sex education approach to examining social class and economic inequity afford a means of examining pertinent topics with American teens?</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In the same way that one might read this chapter as a wholesale endorsement
of 1950s American family life – not without its own problematic patterns and narrow-mindedness
– one might read part of this chapter as placing the blame for class divisions
on women. Neither assumption reflects an accurate representation of Putnam’s
goals, but those who are invested in nontraditional notions of partnership and
marriage and those who advocate for women’s rights may work to trust in that
fact throughout this chapter. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
What I see, however, is the need to have conversations in
the secondary classroom on the facts and conjectured facts this chapter offers,
perhaps as part of sex education, perhaps as part of current events or American
History. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As a lifelong educator reading about the confusion among
researchers regarding what to make of the breakdown of family structures and
all the emphasis/potential responsibilities placed on girls and/or elements
within young women’s control if they are empowered enough to note these trends
and possible causes, I can’t help but think that part of the problem in not
changing these inequities is that schools do not talk about these issues enough
(or at all) , and abstinence-only programs in schools seem all the more blind
to realities – and worse, instruments that reify the class patterns. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I admit it seems unfair to women to draw conclusions that
put so much of a burden on their shoulders, but it is true that childbirth is a
universal burden particular to women’s lives and bodies, so perhaps this is a
logical weighting. As the father of young sons – and as someone who entered the
word as the son of a teenage mother and father – I know boys need to hear these
facts and be cognizant of all the ramifications of how they treat young women
and can influence their bodies and lives. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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While educators and teacher educators work admirably to
craft conversations about race, gender, ethnicity, and sexuality into K12
classrooms, they often struggle about how to talk about class and socioeconomic
divisions. Teachers know how to make classes multicultural spaces regarding
color and gender and have learned how to have conversations in which a person
with certain demographic traits is not seen as representing all people with
those similar traits.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.leeandlow.com/uploads/article_category_hero_image/2981/image_race.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="113" src="https://www.leeandlow.com/uploads/article_category_hero_image/2981/image_race.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">One's economic class is a cultural element of one's life too, but are Americans<br />
too afraid or ashamed to talk about poverty and socioeconomic diversities and inequalities<br />
in K12, higher education, and teacher education settings? Are we better equipped to talk about<br />
race, gender, ethnicity and sexuality than we are to talk about upward mobility and economic equity?<br />
Of course, all these issues are inter-related. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Teachers are less educated and less comfortable
discussing realities of poverty, especially in the face of actual poor students.
Such is the stigma associated with being poor in American society and the
schools which represent and recreate it. It’s hard to know how or where to
start.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
My advice to teachers is this: “Families” and the information
within it offer excellent points of entry into discussions on poverty, family,
class, and burdens of responsibility among young people and society. Find ways
to integrate this chapter into your curriculum. This chapter represents a great
place to start. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Educators, share <i>Our Kids</i> with <i>your</i> kids. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Next: Whatever and Ever, Amen?<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
Bucky C.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06076289438556471019noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5915966752283495703.post-5663261508953639212015-08-06T23:16:00.001-07:002015-08-07T16:08:26.019-07:00Studying Robert Putnam's _Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis_: Part 4 -- A Conceptual Note to Ruin It All?<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Below is the last installment of my series of reflections on the first chapter of Robert Putnam's 2015 release </i>Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis. <i>I hope to offer commentary on the remaining chapters as well and invite you to read my previous three installments. </i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: italic; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;">I see this book as central to understanding contemporary exigencies regarding education policy and essential to building and actualizing an egalitarian social justice agenda. I see and hope to reveal connections </span></span><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.1999998092651px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;">to education and schooling, education reform, and my own experiences.</i><br />
<i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.1999998092651px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;"><br /></i>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Part 4; Chapter One: “The American Dream: Myths and Realities”
– A Conceptual Note to Ruin It All?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In the latter pages of the first chapter of Harvard public
policy professor Robert Putnam’s <i>Our
Kids: The American Dream in Crisis</i>, the author defines his research terms
and discusses his methods. Two worrisome facets emerge which could be enough to
turn some readers away or to call his work into question.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Putnam mentions that many who study socioeconomic mobility use a “lagging
indicator” (43) approach in<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/sites/default/files/book-review-our-kids-by-robert-d-putnam.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/sites/default/files/book-review-our-kids-by-robert-d-putnam.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
which they compare children’s income and education
to those of their parents when all parties are or were in their 30s or 40s. I
worried Putnam used a similar method. The result would be that we couldn’t
really know what “now” looks like for several decades. So, Putnam’s work would
feel dubious and conjectural. I was vexed critics and the reading public would
look at his work in such a way that it might actually increase a sense of “inequity
disbelief” among powered, like-classed cross-sections of the population. <br />
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Luckily, Putnam does not use the lagging indicator model of
research, instead “examining directly what has been happening to kids the past
three decades – the family into which they’ve been born, the parenting and
schooling they’ve received, the communities in which they’ve been raised” (44).
He does, however, use an indicator of social mobility that might be seen as
flawed as researchers apply their lagging indicator- or “rearview mirror”- (44) approach to <i>Our Kids</i> in the coming years. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Generally, when Putnam speaks of class breakdowns, he uses
education alone as a delineator, or, sometimes, a composite model based on
income, education and occupation (44). The latter is more appropriate, as
education does not automatically signify higher salaries and thereby more
economic mobility. One need have only a baseline awareness of the
adjunctification of the professoriate to know this. Unfortunately, he appears
to rely more on the former:</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
So when I speak of kids from “upper-class” homes, I simply
mean that at least one of their parents (usually both) graduated from college,
and when I speak of kids from “lower-class” homes, I simply mean that neither
of their parents went beyond high school (45).</blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
He explains that in the book, “poor” equates to those who
are high-school-educated (or have less than high school educations, one presumes);
“college-educated” and “rich” refer to those with college degrees.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I have apprehension that these criteria aren’t accurate
enough for 2015 realities. I find It odd that, given his position as an Ivy
League professor, Putnam fails to consider his set terms as flawed, especially
given the plight of many doctorate-wielding individuals scraping and clawing to
put enough adjunct work together each semester to make a decent but many-times
still poverty-level wage. Certainly outliers exist to suggest Putnam uses a faulty
system. Perhaps too few outliers exist to make a difference statistically
(which would fit a denotative definition of “outlier”); perhaps Putnam makes a
mistake via his defining terminology. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If further analysis of the issues he raises reveals that –
as I am experiencing and as I have a hunch a significant amount of others are
experiencing, especially those with terminal academic degrees – he has
overlooked the poor who (though I hate this term) “over-achieved” to get to
college only to remain poor or return to poverty upon graduation or later in
life, I fear the entirety of <i>Our Kids</i>
can be called into question in ways that might undo the good I assume Putnam
wants to enact via writing on the subjects. Ironically, the model of research he
disfavors, one using lagging indicators, might be what helps cement the book’s
validity or seriously challenges its credibility. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I admit a sensitivity to this possible methodological blemish.
Three years ago I was was earning approximately $66,000 annually (base salary
plus summer teaching) in a tenure-track position in the English Department at
the University of Texas at El Paso. When
five years of dirty politics, shaky leadership (I worked under three department
chairs in those five years) and departmental backbiting at UTEP became untenable
to my mental health and the health of my family, and I felt I might be denied a
fair tenure process after publicly calling into question the methods my
colleagues took in ousting the second chair under whom I worked and abstaining
from the final vote to expel him, I took a significant pay cut by moving
cross-country to Washington State University – Pullman. My position in WSU’s
English department was a visiting assistant professorship with a salary in the
$40Ks. I hoped to reinvigorate my career and outlook, only to find a new breed
of toxicity and mismanagement at my new employer.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://adask.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/rules.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="224" src="https://adask.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/rules.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Now, having left two academic positions -- albeit obviously noxious
ones – in two years (not to mention that WSU fired me when me cleaning out my
office and informing the departmental secretary I’d done so and where she could
find my office keys, after having completed all duties assigned to me, was not
considered a formal enough resignation notice!) of my own accord blends with my
public criticism of the current education reform movements, Common Core State
Standards, Teach for America, Value-Added Models of teacher evaluation, do-nothing
professional organizations, excessive and harmful standardized testing, and
colleagues taking the “C.Y.O.A.” approach to dealing with these things that they
know are detrimental to children and students to make a perfect storm of
unhirability (or so it seems) in my field of preparation (teaching/teacher
education). <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I am a first-generation college student who rose from
divorced parents, neither of whom completed high school, to not only complete
college but to earn a doctorate from a Public Ivy and earn a tenure-track
position at a university ranked in the top echelon of <i>Washington Monthly’s</i> college rankings. But I am also a person
who had to look at the life he had at that institution and the one that came
after it and let it go, once again in hopes of more stable, positive environs.
Having spent a year on the job market and getting only a nibble or two at K12
positions and university positions, I have to wonder if that quotation
attributed to Voltaire isn’t spot-on: “To determine the true rulers of any
society, all you must do is ask yourself this question: Who is it that I am not
permitted to criticize?”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
By Putnam’s definitions, I came from a background of
poverty. By his definitions, I was poor, but I am no longer poor and will never
be again because I am educated. Educated, indeed. Putnam makes no room for the
Icarus crowd in <i>Our Kids</i>. Further,
academic neoliberalism embraces concepts of white privilege and white
superiority which suggest I truly screwed the pooch in my recent decisions to
seek better working conditions/leave my academic positions, and American
exceptionalism, Rugged Individualism. Bootstrapping and American Dreaming
suggest the weight to make it work, to remain successful, was on my shoulders
and mine alone. I made my decisions to relocate, criticize, and quit bad jobs
to look for better jobs. My new economic status reflects a self-made
individual. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Further, regardless of my possible current poverty (luckily
I have a working spouse, but she’s in K12 education too, so you can image how
tight our budget is for our family of four), strings of critical race theory,
probably misapplied, suggest that as a white, straight, male, I was born rich
and privileged. Putnam does, at least, offer a decent job of revealing that
white privilege only gets poor whites so far. As well, he reveals that white
superiority could be rebranded accurately as class superiority, since the
opportunity gap within races has widened too and middle and upper-middle class
people of color are pulling ahead as their poorer peers fall further behind,
just as is the case among and within white populations.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I suppose my reach exceeded
my grasp – my grasp of what it took to stay in the middle class once I got
there; my understanding of upper-middle class culture and the upper-middle class
culture of academia; my (mis)understanding that a doctorate in education and an
established record of scholarship and publication granted me enough authority
and security to speak out against K12- and higher education ills. Well-educated
scholars and researchers might look at me and see the “White Supreme,” and
notions of individualism suggest that I must have messed up handily to feel
like a pariah or reject or object of erasure <i>and</i> be straight, white, and male. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Putnam helps me see – could help
any willing reader see—that white supremacy seeks to keep many more of us under
thumb than critical race theory or theories on gender and sex inequalities
might allow. White supremacy is not the domain of whites; it is the domain of
the small, exclusive white ruling class – and of the people of color in those upper
classes too. </div>
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<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.best-gif.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/funny-gifs-Bambi-meets-Godzilla.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://www.best-gif.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/funny-gifs-Bambi-meets-Godzilla.gif" height="247" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>American Supremacy Systems vs. Upward Mobility?</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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To affect social change,
people of color and those advocating for specific marginalized groups rather than for wholesale socioeconomic reform will need to decide if that is a reality they can accept; if
acknowledging their own socioeconomic privilege and the growing class gaps
positively changes their perspectives and benefits. Ideally, a Putnam-informed
perspective would help whites and people of color work together to the mutual
benefit of all regarding upward mobility and a reconsidering of “Supremacy.” </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When the stakes are so high that one risks
returning to poverty and hardship upon critiquing the systems of socioeconomic Supremacy
<i>and </i>being erased as a recognized poor
person due to limiting definitions, and so much weight is on the individual’s
shoulders in terms of culpability within America’s mobility apparatus, can
those on the precipice of privilege or comfortably within it find ways to
answer the call of addressing inequities without being crushed by the machine
that gave them the silver spoon-, or perhaps just the sliver-, of-a-chance to
do well? <o:p></o:p></div>
Bucky C.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06076289438556471019noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5915966752283495703.post-25245192168595494612015-08-05T22:22:00.002-07:002015-08-05T22:43:29.924-07:00This American Life Covers Schooling, Segregation<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.thisamericanlife.org/sites/all/themes/thislife/images/logo-v5.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.thisamericanlife.org/sites/all/themes/thislife/images/logo-v5.png" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The July 31, 2015, broadcast of <i>This American Life</i> covers issues of schooling and segregation by race and poverty. The topic connects well with my discussion of <i>Our Kids</i>, so I want to share the link to the broadcast, "The Problem We All Live With." Find it <span style="color: red;">*</span><a href="http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/562/the-problem-we-all-live-with"> here</a>.<span style="color: red;">*</span> </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Nikole Hannah-Jones talks with Ira Glass about busing, integration, why segregation stopped, and why it might work again. </span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">While there are many problematic aspects to the conversation -- a focus on improving schools rather than communities, favoring of white/black notions of diversity at the expense of attention to other enthicities, relying on test scores as a metric, to mention a few -- I still recommend it, especially if paired with a reading of Putnam's <i>Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis</i>. (Or braided with that book and Coates' latest<i> Between the World and Me</i>). </span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">As well, <span style="color: red;">*</span><a href="http://www.vox.com/2015/8/3/9092299/this-american-life-explains-why-school-segregation-still-exists-and">here's</a><span style="color: red;">*</span> some commentary on the broadcast from <i>VOX</i>.</span></span>Bucky C.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06076289438556471019noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5915966752283495703.post-11843427967446633252015-08-03T14:24:00.002-07:002015-08-24T19:40:00.988-07:00Studying Robert Putnam's _Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis_: Part 3 -- The New(est?) Segregation<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.1999998092651px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;">Below I offer the third in a series of posts reflecting on my reading of Robert Putnam's 2015 </i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.1999998092651px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;">Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis</span><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.1999998092651px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;">.</i><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.1999998092651px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;"> In this and coming posts, I examine </i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.1999998092651px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;">Our Kids</span><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.1999998092651px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;"> in digestible chunks, offer critique, and attempt to expound upon connections I see to education and schooling, education reform, and my own experiences.</i><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.1999998092651px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;">I see this book as central to understanding contemporary exigencies regarding education policy and essential to building and actualizing an egalitarian social justice agenda. </i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Part 3; Chapter One: “The American Dream: Myths and Realities”
– The New(est?) Segregation</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I wonder if America is in segregation denial. So few seem to
realize the civil rights battles from the 1950s and 60s did help to desegregate
the American South, but many U.S. communities and social institutions across
the nation were then and remain now segregated by color or ethnicity. Churches
are prime examples. Housing communities too. In the North and elsewhere,
communities remain deeply segregated, even more so than in the South, but this
fact is one of many regarding sociocultural dividing lines to which Americans
seem oblivious or simply don’t want to believe. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
After all, slavery and racism
were only constructs of the confederate states, and reconstruction took care of
all that, right? Of course not, but when it comes to addressing the realities
of seclusion and exclusion, it seems to me Americans either turn the blind eye
or don the rose-colored glasses.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.horror.land/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/They_Live_Poster_v01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://www.horror.land/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/They_Live_Poster_v01.jpg" height="400" width="280" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Americans need more revealing lenses when it comes<br />to acknowledging segregation by income. (Not these, though).</i></td></tr>
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In the latter pages of the first chapter in <i>Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis</i>, Malkin Professor of Public Policy at Harvard
University Robert Putnam reveals more disturbing trends regarding growing
opportunity and social mobility gaps. Not only are more affluent families
pulling further away from less-fortunate peers in terms of accumulated wealth,
but “the ballooning economic gap has been accompanied by growing de facto
segregation of Americans along class lines” (37).<o:p></o:p></div>
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Putnam says contemporary exigencies differs from past
decades in which social mobility was more equally distributed in that fewer
people are exposed to people beyond their own “socioeconomic niche” (37.)
Simply put, the well-off are disappearing the rest of us, and it may be that
this disappearing continues to happen at whatever other marked class delineations
exist. Class segregation is “pervasive,” says Putnam, and housing communities
offer evidence to that affect: “More and more families live either in uniformly
affluent neighborhoods or in uniformly poor neighborhoods” (38).<o:p></o:p></div>
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Putnam labels this phenomenon “geographic polarization,”
though I prefer his other descriptor, “incipient class apartheid” (39). </div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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Lest one thinks Putnam ignores racial and ethnic segregation
while favoring income data, note he offers evidence that “race-based
segregation has been slowly declining” while “class-based segregation has been
increasing” (38). <o:p></o:p></div>
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What are ramifications of the “incipient class apartheid” linked
with my worries about Americans’ foggy vision? If the rich no longer live among
the rest of us, and we live only among those in our own income and housing
brackets, how do we develop and sustain authentic empathy for those who are
less fortunate than ourselves? If the benefits of living with the like-incomed
are such that living in a mixed-bracket community actually seem to hurt a well-off
family’s networking and ability to sustain their own lifestyle or support their
progeny to the best of their ability, why would anyone seek to economically
diversify communities? <o:p></o:p></div>
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Similar anxieties permeate Putnam’s thinking too: He worries,
for example, that kids from different economic strata are not considered “our
kids” anymore, that there is no longer a sense among elders that everyone in a
community wants to see all young people, regardless of their economic station,
do well and grow their economic progress.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Stratification seems
to perpetuate not even a “You do you; I’ll do me” attitude and necessity, but a
“We’ll do us. No one else exists” mentality among the economically empowered
which should concern even the most hardcore American capitalist. Not only is “trickle-down”
not working; families at the top may be so cut off from realities beyond their
own there isn’t even thought given to trickling. Don’t believe me? Try
discussing poverty and housing with your peer groups. Note instances of denial
and discomfort. Time the conversation to see how long it takes someone to
mention that by global standards, Americans in poverty are the envy of the
world. For those in poverty, the notion of bootstrapping may seem like a
perverse like more than even a fading dream. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Other segregations stem from residential segregation. Putnam
examines several:<o:p></o:p></div>
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1.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span>Schooling segregation: private vs. public<br />
2.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span>Schooling segregation: public school districts<br />
3.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span>Schooling segregation: schools within districts<br />
4.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span>Education segregation: AP enrollment vs. general
enrollment<br />
5.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span>College segregation: Elite vs. less-elite<br />
6.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span>Marriage endogamy<br />
7.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span>Social segregation: Friendship networks and
other social resource<o:p></o:p></div>
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Affluent kids are more likely to attend good schools and
have more choices regarding education; are more likely placed into advanced,
college-readying classes; are more likely to attend top-tier universities; are more
likely to have two parents who are both well-off; and more likely to benefit
from tapping into a vast network of influential and powerful peers and parental
peers than are their less-wealthy counterparts. <o:p></o:p><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://nwboatschool.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/PT-11-Nesting-Dinghy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://nwboatschool.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/PT-11-Nesting-Dinghy.jpg" height="206" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>In both absolute mobility (which Putnam describes as a situation in which "a rising tide lifts all boats")<br />and relative mobility ("dinghies doing even better than yachts," or the ability of less-privileged folks to surpass the more-privileged and networked) , "American youth now have the worst of both worlds</i><i style="font-size: 12.8000001907349px;"> -- low absolute mobility and low relative mobility" (42). Even if a non-affluent somehow gets a dinghy </i><i style="font-size: 12.8000001907349px;"> </i><i style="font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">they may find themselves rowing in a situation like this fellow's.</i></td></tr>
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I worry, since affluent
people may see less of those not like themselves regarding these segregations,
they may even be less likely to even acknowledge “counterparts” exist. As a first-generation college student who grew
up with family unrest, an economic base teetering at best, and many mitigating
stresses when it came to doing well and fully participating in school, I worry
especially about the friendship network and social resources gaps between the
affluent and the poor. Had it not been for the support mentors and caring
individuals outside my own socioeconomic strata, I am sure I would not have
survived as well as I did as a conscientious but resource-limited student. I
had people – teachers, friends, and parents of friends -- believing in my
abilities to overcome. But Putnam suggests that sort of cross-class
humanitarianism is at risk. Before delving into chapters on families,
parenting, schooling, community, and, finally, suggestions, Putnam sums his
book’s findings and concerns: <o:p></o:p></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Ultimately, growing class segregation across neighborhoods,
school, marriages (and probably also civic associations, workplaces, and
friendship circles) means that rich Americans and poor Americans are living,
learning, and raising children in increasingly separate and unequal worlds,
removing the stepping-stones to upward mobility – college-going classmates or
cousins or middle-class neighbors, who might take a working-class kid from the neighborhood
under their wing. Moreover, class segregation means that members of the upper
middle class are less likely to have firsthand knowledge of the lives of poor
kids and thus are unable even to recognize the growing opportunity gap (41).</blockquote>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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When it comes to acknowledging socioeconomic inequality,
perhaps rose-colored glasses keep their tint because they disappear all but
those in the same economic situation as the wearers. For the affluent, this possibility
can screen people from the needs and well-being of the less-fortunate. For the
less-fortunate, it reveals the mockery and manipulation of <span id="goog_578603949"></span><a href="https://img1.etsystatic.com/000/0/5415573/il_570xN.209825493.jpg">Hope</a>.</div>
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/"><o:p></o:p></a></div>
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<span id="goog_578603950"></span><br /></div>
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Next: A Conceptual Note To Ruin It All?<o:p></o:p></div>
Bucky C.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06076289438556471019noreply@blogger.com0