In his book Improbable Scholars, David Kirp examines the steps communities take to make successful education reforms. While describing the particular education initiatives of Union City, New Jersey, Kirp suggests that “[if] we want to improve education, we must first have a vision of what good education is,” (2015). Kirp’s descriptions of Union City certainly support that point, but it’s difficult to claim that that point is generalizable if we do not examine other education initiatives and their approach to reform. In examining how visions of “good education” can guide successful education reforms, one can point to Black communities in Mississippi—whose radical vision of “good education” guided the creation of schools, curricula, and community …show more content…
While Sanders’ narrative primarily focuses on the Child Development Group of Mississippi, Black Mississippians historically valued education and focused careful attention to the construction of education systems that empowered Black children in disenfranchised social systems. Their vision was clear; Black students should have access to high quality, free education that exists outside of white supremacist regulations, but also empowers those students to navigate the volatile systems of power that pervade American society. According to Sanders, “Black parents focused not on the idea of their children sitting in classrooms with white students, but rather on their children’s right to an equal education,” (2016, p. 12). Thus, Black communities in Mississippi understood “good education” not as integrated schools, but schools that directly served the various needs of the children in their …show more content…
To accomplish this, CDGM employed these student’s parents, which simultaneously provided economic opportunity and parental involvement. According to Sanders, employing parents fostered two results. She writes, “[first], parental involvement helped to build trust and respect between children and their families. Second, Head Start employment helped many parents to work their way out of poverty, ensuring that their children had brighter futures,” (2016, p. 37). In having a clear vision of what “good education” is and what the results of a “good education” should be, CDGM was able to expand their conception of what school can and should address. That broader conception of school allowed those schools to better support the students and address social issues that prevent students from accessing their full potential. This conceptual shift can only be spurred by a clear vision of “good education”—which then caused an improvement in their community’s education
The Ocean Hill Brownsville school controversy was a case study of race relations during the 1960’s. This predominantly black area wished to have jurisdiction over their schools’ operations and curricula. In 1967, the superintendent of schools granted Ocean Hill Brownsville “community control” of their district. The Board of Education’s action was part of a new decentralization policy that wanted to disperse New York City’s political powers locally. Once in place, the Unit Administrator, Rhody McCoy, fired several teachers inciting one of the most profound racial standoffs in the city’s history. The evolution of the national civil rights movement parallels the changing attitudes of blacks involved in Ocean Hill Brownsville. In addition, evidence of differing theories concerning assimilation to the American ethnicity is portrayed through the actions of the participants.
There are eleven thousand children in public schools in Detroit. Out of those eleven thousand children, only twenty-six of them are white. Third graders wrote a paper to Kozel on what they think about their school day in and day out. The children wrote back how they have nothing. They don’t have a clean school or a clean place to study.
“The Shame of The Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America,” is a book that tells the story of author, Jonathan Kozol’s, journey through the public school system. He looks deeper into inner-city, low-income schools and the re-segregation that has taken place. Kozol focuses on the struggles those children of poor and minorities face while trying to achieve equal education as those of the middle and upper class. This book gives a vivid description of what is happening in schools across the country and our failure as a nation to provide ALL students with the education that they deserve through the observations, interviews, and experiences of author Jonathan Kozol. Through this book he tries to shed light on what is really going on in schools across the nation and what most people are not aware of. “Many Americans I meet who live far from our major cities and who have no first-hand knowledge of realities in urban public schools seem to have a rather vague and general impression that the great extremes of racial isolation they recall as matters of grave national significance some 35 to 40 years ago have gradually, but steadily, diminished in more recent years (Kozol 18).”
California is one of the largest states in the country and has one of the biggest state budgets, but in the past several years, its school system has become one of the worst in the nation because of enormous budget cuts in efforts to balance the state’s enormous deficit. The economic downturn at the end of the 2000s resulted in even more cuts to education. It is in environments like this one in which students from poor backgrounds become most vulnerable because of their lack of access to support in their homes as well as other programs outside of schools. Their already financially restricted school districts have no choice but to cut supplementary programs and increase class sizes among other negative changes to public schools. The lack of financial support from the state level as well as demands for schools to meet certain testing benchmarks by the state results in a system in which the schools are no longer able to focus on students as individuals; they are forced to treat students as numbers rather than on an individual case by case basis. An article from the Los Angeles Times showed that majority of Californians give California schools “a grade of C or below” and half think that the quality of schools will continue to decline (Watanabe).While the economic downturn affected the public school system in a negative way, it was not the sole root of its problems. It just simply exacerbated already existing issues.
In the book Students On Strike, a group of high school students were devastated at how unfairly they were treated and “It was easy to see that schools for blacks in our county were no equal to those for white children” (Stokes 52).
The gap between the nation’s best and worst public schools continues to grow. Our country is based on freedom and equality for all, yet in practice and in the spectrum of education this is rarely the case. We do not even have to step further than our own city and its public school system, which many media outlets have labeled “dysfunctional” and “in shambles.” At the same time, Montgomery County, located just northwest of the District in suburban Maryland, stands as one of the top school systems in the country. Within each of these systems, there are schools that excel and there are schools that consistently measure below average. Money alone can not erase this gap. While increased spending may help, the real problem is often rooted in the complex issues of social, cultural, and economic differences. When combined with factors involving the school itself and the institution that supports it, we arrive at what has been widely known as the divide between the suburban and urban schools. Can anything actually be done to reverse this apparent trend of inequality or are the outside factors too powerful to change?
When I think about the value of education, I first begin to think about the connection it brings between that and it’s community. The strength of the education in a community is directly responsible for how strong a community will be in the present and future, as does the efforts parents make in the learning processes of
The education gap between the north and the south has many roles in the African American community. The north has always been industrial while the south was agricultural, many of these children who was suppose to be attending school was helping on farms working and helping their parents throughout the day instead of getting an education. “The percentage of all schools with so called racial or socio-economic isolation grew from 9% to 16%” Today students still experience or has been a victim to social and racial differences. When segregation was abolished it allowed students to be in the same classroom together, be able to eat and go to the same bathrooms, also being taught by the same teacher. However many teachers failed to realized or wanted to teach these students based on the color of their skin, causing many students to drop out of school because of not being heard. The black community has a low rate of graduation rates in the south than the white community “In the last four years more than 69 percent of white louisiana males graduated making for a 16 point difference, while 59 percent of black louisiana males graduated” These school systems doesn’t care that they’re not being taught or graduation. Based on race in louisiana it’s a 10 percent difference that causing them to less likely become successful. Still causing the social differences teachers refused to teach an African American student
In his speech, Obama says,” Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools; we still haven 't fixed them, fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, and the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the pervasive achievement gap between today 's black and white students.” Obama is saying that because of the effects of separation in the past, it still affects children. By having parents who have little interest in an education since they did not receive one. Lindsey Cook, a writer for U.S News, says “Black parents, most of whom are less educated than their white counterparts, don’t expect their children to attain as much education as white parents expect. Lower expectations become self-fulfilling prophecies, contributing to lower expectations from the student, less-positive attitudes toward school, fewer out-of-school learning opportunities and less parent-child communication about school.” This shows that because of 50 years ago, by having parents who did not receive a good education, are more likely to not provide their children a good education. The article Cook wrote continues to show how black students do poorer in all aspects than their white counterparts. With these issues since childhood, it is harder for blacks to get into a top college and a high paying job. Therefore there is a need to
This book is an absolutely phenomenal first-hand account of Horton's and Freire's progress in educational reform and social change. From descriptions of Horton's Highlander school and its contributions to the civil rights movement, to Freire's philosophies on education and civic duty, this book was captivating in every sense of the word. Freire and Horton instill in the reader the values of both educational and civic responsibility that are found in few books today. The interview format made the book very easy to understand. Both men were obviously committed to making their views clear to the reader.
Through programs that directly fuel desegregation in schools, our educational systems have become a melting pot of different races, languages, economic status, and abilities. Programs have been in place for the past fifty years to bring students that live in school districts that lack quality educational choices, to schools that are capable of providing quality education to all who attend. Typically the trend appears to show that the schools of higher quality are located in suburban areas, leaving children who live in “black” inner-city areas to abandon the failing school systems of their neighborhoods for transportation to these suburban, “white” schools. (Angrist & Lang, 2004). This mix of inner-city and suburban cultures creates new challenges for students and teachers alike.
America’s school system and student population remains segregated, by race and class. The inequalities that exist in schools today result from more than just poorly managed schools; they reflect the racial and socioeconomic inequities of society as a whole. Most of the problems of schools boil down to either racism in and outside the school or financial disparity between wealthy and poor school districts. Because schools receive funding through local property taxes, low-income communities start at an economic disadvantage. Less funding means fewer resources, lower quality instruction and curricula, and little to no community involvement. Even when low-income schools manage to find adequate funding, the money doesn’t solve all the school’s problems. Most important, money cannot influence student, parent, teacher, and administrator perceptions of class and race. Nor can money improve test scores and make education relevant and practical in the lives of minority students.
...hould serve as a guideline not only for teachers but also for parents. I also believe parents should be held accountable for their children’s successes. As with most government funded programs, in order to be eligible parents must meet a financial criteria to participate in head start, I believe there should also be a required class or number of classes that parents must also participate in if their child is in the head start program. This serves as a reinforcement for the child, and helps the parents become active in their child’s development in and outside of the classroom. Often children struggle because they don’t have access to constant support and education. I feel as though if parents know better they can do better, and because often these cycles tend to repeat themselves, I do feel as If educating parents is also a step towards ending the cycle of poverty.
Education is an integral part of society, school helps children learn social norms as well as teach them how to be successful adults. The school systems in United States, however are failing their students. In the world as a whole, the United States is quickly falling behind other countries in important math and reading scores. The United States ranked thirtieth in math on a global scale and twentieth in literacy. This is even more true in more urban, lower socio-economic areas in the United States. These schools have lower test scores and high dropout rates. In Trenton Central High School West, there was an 83% proficiency in literacy and only 49% of the students were proficient in math. Many of these students come from minority backgrounds and are often from low income families. There are many issues surrounding these urban schools. There is a severe lack of proper funding in these districts, and much of the money they do receive is sanctioned for non-crucial things. Schools also need a certain level of individualization with their students, and in many urban classes, this simply does not happen. While there are many factors affecting the low performance of urban schools, the lack of proper funding and distribution of funds, the cultural divide between teachers and students in urban districts, along with the lack of individualization in urban classrooms are crucial reasons to explain the poor performance in these districts. Through a process of teacher lead budget committees and further teacher education, urban schools can be transformed and be better equipped to prepare their students for the global stage.
...her ups, and then once their ideas of education update, so can school systems, then teachers themselves. Maiers “Keys to Student Engagement” shows the raw potential that school systems already have. It also shows that students need the drive and ambition to succeed. Tristan’s article on edutopia provides ideas that are already in motion. His ideas and tips have already started to work in public high school in his community. With the guidance and vision of these three authors public school issues could cease to exist. Even though there’s a lot involved getting administrators (and some teachers) on board, it is possible, and in the near future, a reality.