During slavery, under some of the worse conditions known to man, slaves taught their kids to read by candlelight under the threat of death. And those kids learned.
On the heels of the great depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt's new deal invigorated educational opportunities for poor white kids in places like Appalachia. And those kids learned.
Following the Vietnam War, thousands of Vietnamese refugees came to our nation. The vast majority of those children came to America unable to speak English and often lived with several families under one roof. And those kids learned.
In California, folks like Cesar Chavez fought for better working conditions for Latino migrant workers. While those families struggled to make ends meet, many strived to put their children in schools that would meet their needs. And those kids learned.
Throughout the history of our country, the unifying promise of America has been the hope for a better life for one's children through education. Especially those children trapped in poverty. At every turn in our history, kids in poverty have demonstrated their ability to learn and succeed.
Today, as we struggle with what ails many of our schools, more and more emphasis is being placed on the linkage between poverty and education. It seems as though each week there is a new study trumpeting the difficulty of teaching low income children and; the fact that poverty needs to be taken into account when we delve into tissues pertaining to teacher effectiveness and the quality of a school's overall performance.
I get all that. And I do agree that there must be better coordination of services between schools and those entities that help families in poverty. Without question, Geoffrey Canada's Harlem Children Zone should be replicated all over America. Geoffrey understands the need to take a holistic, community wide approach to health care, poverty and education. From his innovative Baby College for expectant mothers to his successful charter school to his offering of adult centered services, Geoffrey fills a much needed gap for thousands of Harlem families.
But poverty cannot be used as an excuse for bad teaching or our failure to better educate children who live in poverty. Frankly, some of the growing articles and studies on this topic often times engage in excuse-making and justify the 'throwing up of the hands' as it relates to trying to teach kids in poverty. Isn't it curious that we are hearing more about poverty being a factor in a child's educational experience as we talk more and more about linking teacher evaluations to their students performance? I discussed this issue with a terrific school leader in St. Louis who bemoaned the fact that far too many people blatantly say to her things like "It's impossible to educate poor black kids," and "You need to change your school's demographic to have any real success." To me, this line of thinking is ridiculous. All kids can learn. But all kids cannot learn in the same way. It is incumbent upon us to meet these kids where they are and utilize the approach that best serves them, including offering more quality options for them. There are many teachers who have worked their magic with kids who come from the most challenged environments imaginable. From my vantage point, as opposed to using poverty as the easy reason why some kids in poverty can't learn, let's put an excellent teacher in the classroom of every low income child in America and see what happens. And once and for all, let's stop talking about poverty being a barrier to positive educational outcomes for our kids.
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Commentary: In education reform plans, poverty has been left out of the picture
You are correct; kids in poverty can still learn, but it takes more than just a single individual to make that happen.
That, however, would expose the fallacy of the 'bad' teacher and enlighten the masses to the reality of the selfish, narcissistic [primarily] men of privilege, and the millions of minions who dream of being just like them or 'near' them, those who earn 400+% more than the average worker and own more than 150,000,000 of us combined, to the fact that they pay no taxes and use our infrastructure to support their 'pet' projects as only ALEC can do - which is where this notion of blaming teachers comes from. Shame on this black man for promoting segregation and the dismantling of Brown v. Ed in the name of corporate profits and graft at the expense of our children, our democratic institutions, and our country.
When teachers mention the effects of poverty on children's learning, they are talking about the children with untreated chronic illnesses, the ones without glasses or hearing aides, the ones who come to school without breakfast, the ones who don't come to school at all. We are talking facts and not excuses, and we are asking for extra help for these children. Can the richest nation in the world provide glasses for the nearsighted, medication for the asthmatic, social workers for the neglected? This is what teachers want; they don't make excuses for their students. All children can learn and no one knows it better than the people who elect to be with them each day.
If the author of this article is honest, he will admit that he read about teachers who say "Poor kids can't learn" but never heard a teacher say such a thing. And he never will.
No, it's not curious at all. Linking teacher evaluations to students' performance makes no sense for a number of reasons, but the fact that poverty is a major factor in children's educational success is certainly one of them. And when people like you couch your arguments in terms that imply shady dealings on the part of the teachers trying to help those needy students, you do damage not only to the teachers but to the students as well.
Obviously, all children can learn. But equally obviously, we're not likely to see the same degree of learning from groups of kids who don't have their basic needs met that we see in groups that do. Teachers need to provide opportunities for those kids so that they've got the best chance possible, and the ones who don't do that should lose their jobs. But they can't be held responsible for the lower success rate that results from factors beyond their control, and an "author and national school reform leader" who forgets that fact, or tries to hide it, should certainly lose his.
Nice ad hominem.
And bad teaching cannot be used as an excuse for students not learning.