Good point. After all, it’s well documented that it’s the rich who can afford Costco. Poor people don’t have the disposable income to buy $50 worth of Ragu on sale or in bulk. However I fear we are going well off topic.
@muchtolearn, no, actually, I didn’t have to make sure they read. They wanted to read, and they wanted to read a lot more than the school required, so even if I had made sure they read their homework, it would have been a drop in the bucket. Yes, if they had not read on their own, I would have made sure they did their reading homework, like the rest of their homework.
I certainly never asked for any math packets to do over the summer and their school didn’t give any. I said I didn’t and I find it interesting that you can’t even imagine that most parents are not sitting their kids down with summer math packets or breathing down their necks while they read.
My kids weren’t interested in rockets or trebuchets. They spent their time playing imaginative games. I didn’t direct what they were doing or have any outside of school curriculum.
It’s interesting, listening to the philosophical differences on this thread. On the one hand, you have those who say differences in schools don’t ultimately matter, it’s all about the parents, so something needs to be done about them. On the other hand, you have those who say that the parents are the parents and nothing can be done about them, so something needs to be done about the schools. (And then that splits into two, with one group saying that the way to fix the schools is to hyperfocus on core academics, and another group saying the way to do it is to loosen up and allow more imagination and academic—or maybe curricular?—freedom for the students.)
So do I have it right, with the proviso that this is quite simplified, and there are important shades of difference between and within these approaches? I think so.
It occurs to me, though, that part of the problem with this whole debate is that there may actually not be a solution. That is, not saying that it isn’t possible to fix the problem, but that there might not be one eternal single perfect way to do it. It may be that the best solution is different for each school district, or each school, or perhaps—most difficult of all—for each child.
And once you get to having to develop local solutions rather than one across-the-board approach, you start talking about things that are going to cost real money to implement, even if they’re inexpensive fixes, because you have to have some way at the front end of figuring out what the right thing to do is in that specific context.
(p.s. @GMTplus7: Not $50k, but a bit over $44k last year. And yes, @Pizzagirl’s right, food prices in Alaska are…interesting. Our grocery bill effectively doubled overnight when we moved here from a fairly cheap-food part of Florida.)
Especially in urban areas, there’s also the factor those on the lower end of the economic spectrum may not have the physical space and/or secondary fridges necessary to store up the foods after each large stock run to a Costco’s or warehouse store* as upper/upper-middle class suburbanites…or a car/stationwagon/SUV necessary to haul them.
One thing which astounded me when I visited relatives in upper/upper-middle class suburbs was their shopping patterns. Most would make one shopping trip every month or two, fill up the car/stationwagon/SUV, and bring it home to store in their more spacious homes and second/third fridges.
In contrast, most neighbors and friends in my old NYC neighborhood or even now do shopping at least once a week. This is especially the case with friends and neighbors living in tiny cramped apartments where even the thought of stocking up on stuff is foolhardy. Also, with everyone having different schedules and high neighbor turnover** in many areas of the city, coordinating shopping trips with different neighbors is often a non-starter.
Also, food prices tend to be higher in larger cities and food deserts. The latter mostly due to lack of competition and lack of reasonably viable transportation options for lower-income residents to go outside their area to shop.
Even in rural/suburban areas like the Midwest college town where I attended college, not everyone could afford to buy/maintain a car in workable condition. And when I attended, the public transportation options were limited to an unreliable bus system which schedules its last run to leave the town at ~5:30 pm on the weekdays.
- There's also the factor that while $30-50 a year may not seem like a lot for many here on CC, it's such a prohibitively high amount for many lower-income families that the annual fee for shopping in warehouse stores like Costco's acts as a substantial financial barrier.
** Due to skyrocketing rents and gentrification in lower income/formerly lower income areas.
“The Thirty Million Word Gap” is likely the biggest issue for bringing up low performing districts. That’s part of why I’m skeptical that the extra $3,000 per student at Oakland Unified will move the needle. But I can be swayed with evidence. Meanwhile regarding our school “Ce n’est pas tes oignons.”
“The immense differences in communication styles found along socio-economic lines are of far greater consequence than any parent could have imagined.”
@dfbdfb “It’s interesting, listening to the philosophical differences on this thread. … might not be one eternal single perfect way to do it.”
The thing that I find beyond disturbing, is that we are not discussing some abstract concept. These are real children. The Detroit Public School’s buildings are a disaster. Some of them should be condemned. The high school dropout rate is through the ceiling. ACT scores are in the mid-teens. The city government is a bankrupt disaster, the parents are largely poor and uneducated, there are lots of broken families, there is poverty, kids are going hungry, and there is a lot of violence, kids do not understand why education matters, and students are more likely to go to prison than college, so we will all pay eventually.
In these disaster situations, the parents, the school board, the city government, the state government, and the teachers’ union, all blame one another, and their predecessors, but nothing of substance really changes. Everyone has so many rights that nothing can get done. Everyone has a “philosophy.” Making matters worse, both political parties are in the pocket of the Teachers Union.
Fixing things in this case will take a clear decision that the kids have to come first. It would require a cooperative decision at the federal, state, and local level to establish one entity with authority and control over the district. It would have to have a single mandate to improve reading, writing, and math scores significantly. They will need discretion and control, and they will need money. Essentially starting from a clean slate.
They will need the ability to improve or close buildings so that they are clean, safe and functional (not new ones unless they are so bad that new is cheaper). They need to be able to ensure that students are fed. They need the budget and authority to attract and retain strong administrators and teachers who get results. They need to be able to replace teachers who do not. Results have to be transparent, and spending has to be transparent. The organization in charge has to be results/metrics oriented and incorruptible. I would think the Gates Foundation would be a good example.
We have spent trillions on two wars, but we can not fix the worst big city school district in the country. It would cost almost nothing in comparison. The biggest decision is not the cost at all, it is the decision to give one organization that has the expertise, discretion to run the school system with a singular focus on getting results for these kids.
This is not rocket science. It is getting classrooms functioning effectively. Getting students from a 14 or 15 ACT score up to a 19 or 20 ACT score would be a huge success. It does not require a perfect solution. It requires action. Unfortunately, no one with authority in either party is willing to do what needs to be done for these kids.
I could and did feed my family of 3 on less than the SNAP allowance for years, but I admit I had many more advantages than most SNAP families. I had a car to go to the grocery store. I had a fridge and stove, as well as a microwave, to prepare almost anything from scratch. I had storage. I had a supply of staples and didn’t have to buy them every week. I had coupons from the paper and knew how to use them, knew the sale cycles at my store. We like to eat very simple meals. I was feeding younger kids, not football players (although I did notice that when my kids became teens, the 1 lb box of spaghetti only lasted one meal, not a meal and 2-3 lunches). When they were younger I’d spend about $65/wk on groceries, but as teens it went to about $90 (inflation and bigger eaters).
Living on the SNAP budget can be done, but it takes a lot of planning and a little luck with stores and coupons and transportation.
“Many people living in poor areas live in food deserts. They can’t run over to the local grocery store and stock up on Ragu when it is on sale because it is not necessarily on sale at the local bodega and they don’t have a car in which to carry heavy jars nor the storage space to keep a years supply of spaghetti sauce. In many cities, the cost of food is much higher than in the suburbs and it certainly is at the corner store compared to a suburban supermarket. There are no Costcos or Walmart supercenters in the poor areas of NYC for example.”
“Especially in urban areas, there’s also the factor those on the lower end of the economic spectrum may not have the physical space and/or secondary fridges necessary to store up the foods after each large stock run to a Costco’s or warehouse store* as upper/upper-middle class suburbanites…or a car/stationwagon/SUV necessary to haul them.”
Yes, that’s exactly what was said in the paragraph right above yours. No car, no storage space.
It’s another datapoint to add further support to the first post.
Especially considering some earlier comments blithely assume people can live on SNAP benefits* by “stocking up” on sale items at Costco’s remind me very much of how some suburbanites, especially those in upper/upper-middle class areas tended to offer advice without understanding their reference point of living in an upper/upper-middle class suburbs where even the smallest homes are often larger than some urban apartments which would be considered large by that urban area’s standards and easy access to a reasonably large car/stationwagon/SUV is not the reality for most…especially those on lower-incomes.
- SNAP benefits also have strict rules on what can or cannot be bought with some variances depending on the state. Some of those rules mean families are consigned to buying less nutritious foods as the restrictions mean denial of fresh foods. An explanation of many accounts from a few childhood/HS classmates and friends in social service fields who work with low-income families on why they often bought day old/practically stale bakery items or meat items which are nearing the date supermarkets/stores are mandated to toss by food safety regulations.
It wasn’t another datapoint, it was a repetition, but whatever. And don’t lump me in on this one as is your stereotype of me, as I explicitly said that I was quite aware urban / low SES families can’t drive off to Costco and buy items in bulk. Believe it or not, not every suburbanite is unaware of what real life is like.
cobrat, that just isn’t true. SNAP allows the beneficiary to buy any fresh foods and even seeds if they want to grow their own food. Prepared food (like deli fried chicken) is sometimes not allowed, and more and more states are starting to restrict candy and soda, but please tell me one state that restricts fresh food. In fact, many farmers’ markets are now taking SNAP payments.
Fresh food and meat cost more, and therefore many families don’t buy them. That is the education that the administrators are trying to give to their clients. They are trying to get clients to buy the fresh foods, to cook and prepare as much as they can, but often the clients have no means to cook except a microwave, and that makes frozen or other ‘instant’ food easier.
There’s a program (I think it’s a NYS thing) that is specifically for people to get vouchers for Farmer’s Markets. That said, I don’t think it’s easy to eat well on what SNAP gives you.
Are people allowed to rent apartments that do not come furnished with a stove/range? I have never heard of a city housing code where that is allowed.
People live in motels sometimes.
@waitingtoexhale I think people can rent apartments or houses that are completely unfurnished; no appliances whatsoever. While perhaps not the norm, a lot of people have their own appliances.
I can’t imagine why it would be a code violation. There’s nothing wrong with requiring people to buy their own stove.
Yes, @OHMomof2 , motels. That is something I had not considered, giving families food allowances while they are living in emergency or long-term temporary units. In that light, the comment from twoinanddone makes more sense to me. And one does have to have a residence to receive food benefits, so a shelter it may well be.
@EarlVanDorn : I had to look up codes in different cities. One can write the rental agreement such that it is known and established that the renter provide all appliances, though the basic power lines, water, etc., have to be in place and operable.
On the main topic, our public-private has definitely folded to political and moral pressure to reach out to the neighboring school and help with tangibles, such as those mentioned by someone up-thread. The district had not yet put in place policies for ensuring a distribution of all site-specific fundraising funds across the district when, about two years before I arrived, the school created its own foundation which funneled monies to the PTA and to the school in excess, of course, of the local taxes which went to education.
With impending efforts to force the foundation to be found in violation of the equal distribution mandate under which the public schools in the district operate, someone floated the bright idea to install water, soda and juice vending machines in the lunch room to circumvent the revenue allocation rule, and that riled me for the open manner in which people were speaking of making sure the other schools did not benefit from the generosity of those at our school. Vending machines, really? Scurrying the funds away so our kids could have what, exactly?
One year the carnival outlay was probably 2K less than what was taken in, so I have no idea why it was put on, other than to be an item the PTA president could put down on her list of accomplishments. (Actually, I think she was good friends with the guy who owned the company which was slated to install the vending machines, as well. They were never installed.)
The local elementary is now in a sister-school relationship with one school where there are no extra parental funds.
“An explanation of many accounts from a few childhood/HS classmates and friends in social service fields who work with low-income families on why they often bought day old/practically stale bakery items or meat items which are nearing the date supermarkets/stores are mandated to toss by food safety regulations.”
Actually for many food products sell-by dates have very little to do with food safety; they are determined by the manufacturer and are there to show optimized taste. The food taste may degrade after those dates, but safety has nothing to do with it. The organisms that cause safety problems can just as easily be found in within-code stuff as out-of-code stuff. My source is that I (me personally - not “third-hand anecdotes from cousins and friends”) worked for a major food company for 16 years. Day-old bread isn’t going to harm anyone and if it’s being tossed it’s because the store wants to preserve a certain image, not because it’s death on wheels.
I don’t think warehouse shopping is required to stay in budget. Buying and running a second freezer is costly and unless you are a hunter, I doubt it saves that much. Unlike cobrat, I don’t know anyone who has 3 (!) fridge/freezers, not even people living in semi-rural areas with no stores within 20-30 minutes drive. There is also the significant risk of loss of all the food when the unit breaks or the power goes out for a few days, not very often but when it happens it wipes out years of small savings. In my own experience, the warehouse stores are over-rated and I stopped shopping at them years ago because the savings were just not there. Yes, I could get 12 cans of Dole pineapple at a good price for a brand name, but I could also pick up the one can of the house brand of pineapple that I actually needed, for a comparable price without the hassle. I could get a 5 lb hunk of cheese but unless you have 6 kids it will get moldy before you finish it.
I think it’s interesting hat no one has remarked on Jay Greene’s observation from the article (paraphrased), “compared to the $600B used for public schools, the money raised (estimated to be about $1B) is a drop in the ocean.”
Reich’s response (paraphrased), “well, it’s concentrated in wealthy districts and contributes in unequal outcomes.” While I agree the first statement is almost assuredly true, I’d argue that the second isn’t. Doing a mind experiment where we remove this extra-curricular funding from the wealthier district, how much of your own money would you bet on the gap closing? For my bet, I’m conflicted between taking “clearly doesn’t affect outcomes at all” to “the effect was unmeasurable.” Likewise, I’m amused the academics from the article think the outcome of disallowing enrichment would be the alpha parents heading to Trenton or Albany to advocate for additional funding. Instead of charging off to Olympia, I’d just add another $1000-1500 annually to an investment or UGMA account and, law of unintended consequences, the rich just got richer. If I can’t give my kid a larger ice cream cone, I’m way more likely to choose the path of least resistance and stick to the small one instead of advocating for more cones for all.
On the other hand, I’d be less willing to bet my own money that the parent volunteers who head to school a couple of times a week don’t have a significantly disproportionate effect. Without having an articulate, logical reason for my intuition, I believe committed adults are a much stronger amplifier than the additional dollars. Given Reich’s prescription of better teachers in underperforming areas, I suspect he does too.
There are no easy answers for improving schools. But as Much2learn says, we can start by making sure that all kids go to a functional school building that will not harm them with teachers that teach. There are so many problems that it is easy to decide there are no solutions. And that is one big reason why parents (to get back to the original point) are more willing to give money to their own schools, where they can see the result, than to schools in areas that have real problems. Unfortunately, in certain cities and school districts, the donated money may not make its way to the classroom. It is also true that even with shiny new facilities, students may not perform as expected due to family situations, grinding poverty, and learning disablities. However, it certainly seems logical to anticipate that more kids will succeed if they go to a school that is a good place to be, with teachers that care, rather than to schools like those highlighted recently in Detroit.
And mathyone I agree about warehouse shopping. I am not a big fan and beyond a few items, think I do just as well at my local supermarket, especially shopping the sales. I tend to go occasionally with friends, usually to buy items for a party or school function.