<p>“I DO think we have a huge problem with poverty in this country and until all kids are sent to school well rested, fed, and supported by their parent(s) in a safe home environment, we’ll never succeed in educating everyone.”</p>
<p>Let me disagree. </p>
<ol>
<li><p>Both of my parents are from very poor families, where they had to work to support their families and didn’t have enough food. My father was born almost on the street and grew up in a primitive shack without water or toilet. My mother became orphan as a teenager, her mother worked odd jobs, they moved all the time. Yet, both of my parents (and their siblings) got advanced degrees. Despite extreme poverty.</p></li>
<li><p>Chinese kids, probably, experience more poverty than disadvantage kids in US. Yet, they score better than US kids in international competitions.</p></li>
<li><p>Two generations ago, kids in US experienced more poverty than today. Yet schools had challenging curriculum and advanced math. Actually, education was a path out of poverty. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>Poverty is just an excuse. If you would “lift kids out of poverty” and give an iPhone with unlimited coverage to every poor kid, I don’t think that math scores would improve.</p>
<p>Reading through this thread, I’m suddenly reminded of this excellent documentary by Dan Rather. Growing up in LA, I’ve seen schools almost as bad as the ones shown in the documentary; so the problem is not unique to Detroit.</p>
<p>Growing in another country, my school had no toilet. Just a portable (hole in the ground) outside the school building. We didn’t have computers (not a single one). Just blackboard and chalk. We shared textbooks. Our textbooks were black and white, no color pictures. Some textbooks were 10+ years old, almost ruined by students that used them before. In winter it was sometimes so cold that we had to use gloves to hold pencils. </p>
<p>Yet, education that I got in my school is better than what my D. is getting now in her suburban middle class American magnet school.</p>
<p>I looked at the Dan Rather documentary as you suggested. This Detroit school looks like a 5 star hotel in comparison to my school.</p>
<p>Next they show a student, taller and heavier than me, who is struggling with simple ratios and equations. Math that should be obvious to a 10 year old! Yet this man (I don’t know his grade, but I can’t call him a boy) is full of self esteem. Amazing. Well dressed people. Nice manicures. Many students are overweight (are they really hungry?). Nice hair styles. Yet, not able to make a simple, 5th grade math.</p>
<p>Californiaaa - I don’t disagree with you that some kids in poverty do make it out and do very well. It’s just that the kids who have support at home, a safe place to live, are not hungry, have the latest electronic gadgets, etc. have a huge advantage in school over students who do not have a safe place to live (or even anywhere they feel they can call home), are hungry during school, and don’t have anyone waiting for them at home to help them with their homework (or to even make sure they do their homework). </p>
<p>I’m also sure some cultures value education more than others.</p>
<p>If poverty is just and excuse, how come you can look at schools with high free and reduced priced lunch and they almost always have lower test scores (there are some exceptions here and there) while the schools in affluent neighborhoods have high test scores?</p>
<p>“you can look at schools with high free and reduced priced lunch and they almost always have lower test scores (there are some exceptions here and there) while the schools in affluent neighborhoods have high test scores?”</p>
<p>Want exceptions?</p>
<p>Our neighborhood elementary school has high percentage of free and reduced priced lunch (more than all other schools around), yet the scores are significantly higher than all other elementary schools around. The trick is simple - our elementary school takes kids from “university ghetto” - subsidized apartments for university grad students, PosDocs and employees.</p>
<p>"If poverty is just and excuse, how come you can look at schools with high free and reduced priced lunch and they almost always have lower test scores (there are some exceptions here and there) while the schools in affluent neighborhoods have high test scores? "</p>
<p>Women who had plastic surgery live, on average, 20 years longer than women without plastic surgery. Does it mean that plastic surgery extends life? No, it doesn’t. It means that plastic surgery is a proxy for wealthy women. In other words, you compare wealthy Western women with women from all over the world. Naturally, there is a difference in life expectancy.</p>
<p>Poverty is a proxy for families with poor education. It doesn’t mean that it is the cause of poor performance. It doesn’t mean that money would change performance of kids in school. It’s just a proxy.</p>
<p>In other words, Botox injections won’t prolong life expectancy of Afghan women. Cosmetic surgery is a proxy for life expectancy, but making cosmetic surgeries available won’t change the outcome.</p>
<p>Many Asian kids come from very poor families. Yet in school they outperform many African American kids from middle class families. This is not a single example. </p>
<p>If it would be simple, colleges would admit kids based on their socio-economic status. Instead, they say that race-based admission is the only way to achieve diversity.</p>
<p>I see a lot of variation in our school district, which is very large and very diverse, but with a majority of low income kids. </p>
<p>Elementary school was pretty affluent, but was an ESL school, more for refugees than regular immigrants. Achievement was high, but I felt like there was a cap put on it by those NCLB tests. Creativity was stifled by the tests, </p>
<p>Middle school was almost Title I. A number of rich families fled the district until high school, which didn’t help the environment. I felt like socially it was good: kids learned self control, organization, and how to get along with people who weren’t like them. Academically they were largely treading water. Math was good, one history teacher was good, but the sports and the music were the highlights. </p>
<p>High school is huge and very diverse. Many of those rich kids came back for the sports, music, and APs. Yet the educational experience was quite varied depending on whether a kid was in regular or AP and on which teacher he had.</p>
<p>Not to derail this thread, but that is a very strange and interesting statistic, if true. I have a hard time believing it. I suppose it depends on how you define plastic surgery, but I would think that the risks of anesthesia, tissue/organ damage etc. would have some slight effect on mortality rates. Also, plastic surgery can hardly be considered a proxy for healthy lifestyle practices. I suppose that women who have plastic surgery (as it’s generally not covered by insurance) might have more disposable income, which might be correlated to life expectancy.</p>
<p>I’d ask for proof, but every time I do you just change your story so…
Just on its face, that’s an absolutely ridiculous statement. The average lifespan of a woman is in the US is just under 80 years old. Do you really want us to believe that the average women with plastic surgery lives to be ~100? C’mon now. </p>
<p>The first school district that I lived in was terrible, but when I moved to another district, the high school was fantastic. No, it doesn’t top any lists or anything like that, but I had great teachers. It was in a pretty diverse area, but skewed towards the higher end of the SES scale. My high school was HUGE which people complain about, saying that you get lost, but I loved it because the opportunities were nearly endless.</p>
<p>However, I lived in poverty on and off. I would’ve succeeded with or without a great school district IMO because I had great parents and am naturally intelligent and driven (not bragging, just true). My friends who were in the crappy school district weren’t as lucky as I was on either count.</p>
<p>In one column you have population of high income women from United States, Europe, Japan, etc. Please notice that all these women are over the age of child mortality. Obviously, infants didn’t have plastic surgery, especially infants that are at high risk of mortality.</p>
<p>In the other column you have women all over the world, including Africa and Afghanistan. You compare average life expectancy of all females, all ages, including death in childhood. Add women killed in wars and during childbirth, etc.</p>
<p>This is a good example of potential fallacy of statistical analysis. :)</p>
<p>"Just on its face, that’s an absolutely ridiculous statement. The average lifespan of a woman is in the US is just under 80 years old. Do you really want us to believe that the average women with plastic surgery lives to be ~100? C’mon now. "</p>
<p>romanigypsyeyes , you are a true humanities person :)))</p>
<p>The average lifespan of a woman is in the US is just under 80 years old. Life expectancy is of women in Afghanistan is 44. If you compare life expectancy of American woman who made plastic surgery, with Afghan woman who did not, you get probably 30 year difference. :)</p>
<p>This is a classic example of statistical manipulation :)</p>
<p>Absolutely, HI. I had a lot of friends in UG that came out of Detroit Public Schools- arguably one of the worst school districts in the country. What did every single one of them have in common? At least one parent that was 100% dedicated to their success.</p>
<p>"great parents/family and high native intelligence can make up for a lot of deficits. " - at the age of online education, I’ll say that it can make up, probably, all deficits.</p>
<p>I grew up in a nice suburb in NJ and in hindsight had a very rigorous, high quality public education. My h can tell horror stories from his WV schooling.</p>
<p>My kids who went to a very expensive private school did not have the quality education I did. I had memorized math facts in 4th grade, learned a lot about my community, had to diagram sentences, write formal papers, do science labs and I had teachers who were passionate about learning and I don’t recall taking standardized tests except one or two years - which were no biggie. I read a wide variety of books my kids never touched. I don’t think my kids did much of that at all.</p>
<p>Everyone touts our public schools here, which I found horrendously lacking, and the school they attended was the best we could find in the area. I hire these local graduates who prove my point on how doomed those in the middle of the spectrum are in the public schools. How my county will be able to afford their portion of common core is beyond me.</p>
<p>I don’t think poverty is the main issue. The value placed on education, hard work and determination to succeed, and individual intelligence are much more important.</p>
<p>“had memorized math facts in 4th grade, learned a lot about my community, had to diagram sentences, write formal papers, do science labs and I had teachers who were passionate about learning and I don’t recall taking standardized tests except one or two years - which were no biggie. I read a wide variety of books my kids never touched.”</p>