Education

Education 221

Mid Term Paper

In the New York Times article (Sunday Magazine November 26, 2006), Paul Tough states, “The evidence is now overwhelming that if you take an average low-income child and put him into an average American public school, he will most certainly come out poorly educated.” This quote is powerful because of the truth behind it. Young students who come from poor backgrounds have to struggle with so much more then a rich and privileged student does. Such as school inequalities which range from race, economics and even teachers.

The video on the Staton Elementary School (1991) is a great example of why this quote is true. The school was made up of all African American boys and girls from ages 4- 10 years of age. They all come from poor families and just about all of them come from single parent homes. The reason why so many of the children in the video are poorly educated is because these kids have gone though so much in their lives. Their parents are either drug addicts; too busy to pay them any kind of attention or just do not care. That is the problem is this situation education should never end at the end of the school day. The child should be able to go home and the parent should be able to help them with their homework or any other problems that they have in school or outside of school. But they can’t because either their parent is working two to three jobs, wasted or the child just doesn’t have anyone who could help them. It was sad to hear and see what these kids go though everyday. All the problems these kids face at home and in the streets has an affect on these kids upbringing. Kids learn from who or what is around them. If they see people fighting around them all the time they will start thinking that it is ok to hit people. If they see people doing and selling drugs around them they may think that it is ok. Like I said earlier education should never end at school they need someone at home to tell these kids that they are smart and could do what ever they put their minds to. I believe that if a child has a strong relationship with their parent or anyone that cares for them that no matter in what situation they could over come all odds and excel to the best of their abilities.

Another contributor to the fact that low income students are poorly educated is because of unequal spending. As stated in Teaching TO CHANGE THE WORLD

(Oakes and Lipton, pg# 16) “Most low-income children of color attend schools that spend less on their students than schools serving white students. The Education Trust (Ed Trust, a research and advocacy organization in Washington, D.C., recently found that most states in 2002 provided fewer dollars per student to their highest-poverty districts than to their lowest poverty districts. Most states also spend less on districts with the largest proportions of nonwhites students.” This is how the government says that a school in a poor neighborhood is not worth their money. That the students in that school are not worth new books, computers, desks, chairs and so on. What they do not understand is that it is these kids that need these basic supplies. They need that money for them to learn and grow. The white students have everything that they already need why give them more money then what they need if there are schools that are struggling to stay up.

I did a fieldwork about a year ago in Brooklyn in the East New York neighborhood. They majority in that neighborhood are Spanish and blacks from low income households. The school represented exactly that. The classrooms were bare. I remember that teacher’s desk was uneven she had to a place a book under one of the legs to make it even. The student’s desks were old and on some of the chairs you could see rust. One of the windows was cracked and the teacher placed duck tape to cover it and the hallways and bathrooms were not very clean at all. It was just so sad to see that first hand. I really felt bad for the students because no child should be in an environment like that. Why do some children have the luxury of learning in a safe and clean environment and others have to deal with not enough books, dirty schools and etc. Why can’t it just be equal for everyone? Why can’t the government realize how they are distributing money to schools is not fair or in that matter equal for everyone.

The current and historical educational practices that have resulted in limited opportunities for poor students are the lack of qualified teachers to teach these students, the use of inappropriate teaching practices, and at-risk school environments. In today’s educational practices teachers seem to not care enough. During one of my fieldworks a while ago I remember that the teacher that I was with was one of those teachers that do not care about their student’s education.