<p>I believe Hispanics have the lowest educational attainment of any major racial/ethnic group in the US. I do think that family expectations have a LOT to do with it. Many, many Hispanic kids who fail even to finish high school have parents who are barely literate in either language and who work many, many hours. On top of that, bilingual kids with learning disabilities are often overlooked. I was told by a principal that federal law requires that the school say, for example, that a language delay not be related to second language acquisition. Well, it’s hard to say that when a child with a real disability is young-- but, as he becomes older, it is obvious that the disability is there in both languages.</p>
<p>I do not deny that lower-income, and some ethnic groups, are at a particular disadvantage. But just keep in mind that there are a surprising number of WASP middle-class families and ORM’s such as selected Asian families which are falling into the same traps that have afflicted other segments for years. It’s very interesting to see a kind of bifurcated dynamic happening: On the one hand, insanely competitive overachieving crowd posting on CC and applying to Ivies; OTOH a sizeable group from similar economic & national backgrounds (to those), doing as much slacking as possible, sometimes to the horror of their parents, sometimes to the indifference of their parents. I’m sure there’s a middle ground; I just apparently never encounter it. :)</p>
<p>I agree that the family’s socioeconomic background is perhaps the single most important factor. That said, I believe that putting most of the blame on the families lets off all of us who make up the rest of the society too easy. </p>
<p>There was a very interesting segment on NPR: a comparative report on educational attainment of children of Chinese immigrants many of whom don’t even speak English well working on a menial job and that of the children of Dominican immigrants: both groups in inner city Boston.</p>
<p>Sadly enough, the outcome confirms the stereotypes: Chinese kids making it to college and moving up and Dominican kids floundering. What was very thought provoking was the discussion on the role of the factors outside the immediate home environment. For instance, the report made a very compelling point about how the teachers’ attitude and expectation regarding the Dominican kids had an self fulfilling effect on the kids. I am not trying to bad mouth teachers. I am sure there are many dedicated teachers. But, let’s not deny that we are all human beings with weaknesses and biases, and sometimes we are influenced by the deep seated perception and bias without intending to.</p>
<p>Anybody who took sociology 101 and psychology 101 should be very familiar with the power of expectation. This goes on a societal scale, not just in school.m Just turn on TV. How do characters from different ethnic groups sort themselves out???</p>
<p>We should all take some responsibility in how next generation of American citizens are being raised. After all, it takes a village to raise a kid.</p>
<p>P.S. I see a ■■■■■ on this thread. The best way to deal with a being like that is to ignore him/her. Don’t feed the ■■■■■.</p>
<p>I heard that report and the section on expectations for Dominicans was hardly convincing. I think it’s just an easy out to deflect the blame from a group the NPR person felt already had enough troubles.
Now this is one of those annoying anecdotes that proves nothing but I was pretty similar to those Dominican kids when I went to school in NJ back in the 50’s–a 99% white school and I was Puerto Rican with two non native English speaking parents. I’d describe us as nearly poor but clean and working. After doing very well on my first Iowa Test way back in 3rd grade the school and teachers were very happy to move me into a higher grade. Just like that–one day I was in 3rd grade and the next moving my desk to 4th grade in the middle of the year. I think most teachers dealing with kids with tough backgrounds are looking for any spark to nurture.</p>
<p>so, your experience is from the 50’??? Since then men went to the Moon, communism fell apart, gay sex is no longer a prosecutable crime, and not only blacks are allowed to drink from the same fountain as whites, we have a black president.</p>
<p>So, how is your “very personal and very anecdotal” experience from the prehistoric era going to shed an authoratative light on this current, 2009 problem??? Tell me what it is that I am missing!</p>
<p>(Geez… I just deviated from my own recommendation…)</p>
<p>But have people really changed–not that much I think. We had EXACTLY the same problems with poverty and educational achievement then as now. Going to the moon solved nothing in that regard. Neither has integrated water fountains or even a Black President in case you have not noticed. Just can’t blame segregation anymore although many city schools are still nearly all minority.
Prehistoic–that’s funny. An obnoxious dweeb is still the same too. Would it have mattered if I has said the 90’s?? How?? If you had applied some thought to my post you might have deduced that times were even tougher for minority kids back then but there were still people who were happy to help and cared–well before do gooder liberals even became a major subgroup.</p>
<p>Who’s “blaming” anyone? I don’t think it is at all a matter of “blame,” particularly since there is no legal or moral requirement than anyone actually enroll in college in this country. I think it’s a matter of realism, of understanding that money alone, for those unwilling & uninterested, is not a sufficient motivator – while OTOH, it can be the essential factor for those motivated but without wherewithal.</p>
<p>(If I didn’t believe in people outside the family exerting motivational influence on students, this wouldn’t be my profession. ) But ultimately, in this culture – not necessarily in all other cultures – family attitudes exert more influence, passively & actively, than most people realize. Again, this is based on experience, which often conflicts with passion & idealism.</p>
<p>you are quoting what I said out of context. I started my post saying I do believe that parents & family have the MOST influence. So, you and I are in agreement. Go back and read what I said. I was simply pointing out that there are other factors we should all take responsibility for such as general bias and preconceived notion from the rest of the society that ends up having a self fulfilling effect on the way kids turn out. I never said other factors are more of an issue!!!</p>
<p>Also, the choice of the word “blame” is a semantics. I was mostly responding to another poster who was using very “unsubtle” tone and language in attributing most of the causal factor to the mircro environment (e.g., family/parents) to explain the problems we find among kids without a benefit of educationally driven parents.</p>
<p>The Boston Hub is ringed with Chinese language schools going out to Route 495. Our kids attended two of these schools. Some of the teachers were immigrants as were some of the parents. The schools were highly supportive of the students though. There were many parents that didn’t speak english that well. They actually had an advantage in the classes if both parents were native Chinese speakers. I assume that there are supports in Boston too. Boston does have a distinct Chinatown. I am unaware of something similar for Dominicans.</p>
<p>So there may be other supports for Chinese students besides parents.</p>
<p>There are other asian groups in Massachusetts that do quite poorly in school and so the hypothesis that teachers look at asians and expect success may be a little stained.</p>
<p>It wasn’t until I got to college from my prep school that I realized that there were kids for whom it wasn’t assumed that they would go to college! My parents went to college, we did and our kids will undoubtedly go. It makes me sad that there kids who don’t know about all the opportunities available to them.</p>
<p>mimimomx3: I had a strange experience with regard to this. My sweetie is a talented software engineer. He never went to college. When he and I talked about this, he said that no one in his family <em>ever</em> mentioned college, that he was not encouraged by his school, and that he thought that college was going to be like four more years of high school. He was miserable in HS (picked on for being geeky, a longer, etc), so he didn’t want that at all! But far from the usual stereotypes about poverty and college, his extended family, while blue-collar, is relatively affluent. They own their own homes, own a vacation home, have several cars, low debt, etc. It’s just that they don’t value college or education in general. They don’t trust or respect people in management or white collar jobs. </p>
<p>Anyway, my sweetie never took an AP course, or an honors class, never took the SAT. He is entirely self-taught, in part because at the time, there were not classes in the sort of work he felt passionate about. (He works in the space between hardware and software, in device drivers and stuff like that.) I’ve had some pretty awkward conversations with his family, because they find my focus on college for my children very strange and unfamilar.</p>
<p>And to give just another perspective. Im another Hispanic immigrant who grew up poor. However, my parents valued education and instilled that in me. I didnt take APs, aspire to go to an Ivy, and looking back now, I was pretty uninformed about higher education. If only CC would have been around then! </p>
<p>The important thing is that in the 70s, I experienced some of the same opportunities that barrons talks about, (including moving to a higher grade!) and I took advantage of them. Just like three decades ago, there are plenty of opportunities today for those who have the initiative to find them. It all starts at home, so I 'm not so quick to blame society in general.</p>
<p>But have people really changed–not that much I think. We had EXACTLY the same problems with poverty and educational achievement then as now. Going to the moon solved nothing in that regard.</p>
<p>so if " people" haven’t changed
why is it that marriage rights for all- are law in many countries.
Where are African Americans segregated to the “back of the bus” or have to use separate facilities?</p>
<p>Did these things happen by themselves or did " people" make them happen?</p>
<p>You might come down from your planned community once in a while and go across the bridge and see that the high school that parents are taking their kids * out of private school for * and is not only public, but in the " inner city".</p>
<p>However, I don’t think at all that most educators have a “preconceived bias.” If anything, I have seen the opposite operating – again because it is human nature to see others through our lens of hopeful expectation: what’s right and natural to us should be similarly desirable to others, we assume. And that is not necessarily so. This is particularly true if one is saturated in such a (positively assumptive) environment and spends most of one’s time within it. Post 52 affirms the same, and I definitely understand the sentiment. It doesn’t mean that people in education – & others in society using educational incentives – such as scholarships from private foundations, etc – don’t continue to assume & accentuate the positive & encourage the seizing of opportunity, but it should be no surprise to anyone if a student fails to respond because of lack of enthusiasm at home.</p>
<p>WRT educators and bias: my daughter attends a top-performing public charter high school. The larger high school district hates charter schools and has gone to court repeatedly to challenget state laws about charter schools. Recently when the same charter school was seeking to open another school, we got to hear a lot of pretty ugly stuff from educators and staff at the other schools in the district. The issue was about minorities going to college – the charter school is all college prep, all AP, but attracts many minority and first gen college-bound students. </p>
<p>Anyway, we had teachers, staff, and administrators from the district high schools going on record at town meetings to say that the proposed school didn’t meet the needs of Latino students because those students families DID NOT want them to go to college, that those students did not value education, that it was mean to hold out the promise of college to students who had families who had not attended college historically. Teachers actually argued that it was disrespectful of hispanic culture to encourage students to attend college. Also, a number of teachers went on record as saying that only a small minority of students could handle AP level coursework, and that Latino students were not “culturally prepared or interested” in challenging coursework. </p>
<p>In these schools, there aren’t enough seats in AP, honors or college prep courses for everyone who wants to attend, so only a small minority of students are <em>allowed</em> to take that coursework. Those students are disproportionately white. Students my daughter goes to school wtih at her charter school have horror stories about middle school and high school administration pushing them into coursework that would not qualify them for state universities, on the grounds that they would be “happier” with a more “relaxed” course plan. Many of these students have parents who don’t speak English, or even if they do, do not understand the complex state system for qualifying for state university – so they may want their children to attend college, but don’t have the information to advocate for them. </p>
<p>Until I attended these meetings, I had no idea that teachers who had such low opinions of students really existed anywhere other than as villians in movies. What I learned, to my shock, is that the schools push students who could succeed in college into non-qualifying courses because they don’t have the manpower or resources to allow more students in college qualifying courses. This isn’t about students not being motivated, or parents not stressing college – it’s about the high schools themselves “tracking” many students, especially minority students – into coursework that will not challenge those students or give them opportunities beyond high school.</p>
<p>Added: I should be clear that one of the other things that happened at these meetings was having an amazing diversity of students talk about what it meant to be at a school that believed in their ability to attend college, after having been in schools where that wasn’t true. The students themselves were articulate and passionate about education in a way that contrasted with the teachers talking about lack of interest in education. It was an amazing thing to witness.</p>
<p>WOW WOW what can I say! this was a sad story to hear!!! I hope they decided to go ahead with another charter school!</p>
<p>My S1 just graduated from a public magnet school of only 60 kids per grade - out of these, close to half will be attending top 15-20 schools on the USNWR ranking. There are three or four more country magnet schools not as competitive to the same degree as my son’s but definitely cut above from the rest of the public school system. We live in a large affluent NJ county with very high educational standard to begin with so the kids chosen out of this population tend to do very well.</p>
<p>I am also told that most of the teachers and educators throughout the county are very much against these schools and there is a constant tension between the educators involved in these magnet school and those out side of this select crowd. It looks like those in other public schools feel that these magnet schools are somehow “damaging” the rest of the schools in the county. Well, to a certain degree I can see why but as a parent, I am so GRATEFUL that S1 got this opportunity.</p>
<p>By the way, I have NOTHING against teachers in general. I hold in same regards as the rest of us: none of us are completely free of ingrained bias and pre conceived notions. When I examine my own thinking and attitude, I feel there is a whole load of “baggages” of my own: I strive daily to make sure that I don’t unknowingly act upon them, but I don’t think I will ever be free of all of my own bias.</p>
<p>hyeonljee: Here’s a portion of an editorial that the district superintendent wrote: </p>
<p>“Like most school districts, the majority of the our district’s students who score low on state-mandated tests are English-language learners and special education students. [Proposed Charter school] is clearly not designed for low-performing students, and in fact [it] focuses selectively on high-achieving, privileged students. [Proposed school] proposes offering a solely college preparatory curriculum to prepare all its students for enrollment in a four-year college. The rigors of advanced placement-level coursework and required mastery of Mandarin [the sister school requires 4 years of Spanish from all students, this school would have 4 years of Mandarin!) would pose significant, if not insurmountable, challenges to many special ed and English language-learning students. In addition, [proposed school]'s expectations of parents would represent considerable challenges to many lower socioeconomic families.”</p>
<p>Here’s the thing. The school does not hand pick students, they’re admitted by lottery of applicants, which is anyone in the district. 100% of the graduating classes go on to 4 year college, and close to 100% of students admitted graduate. So in those admitted students are many students with learning disabilities and English language learners. They all take the SAME AP course load – by senior year, it’s all AP courses. The school has some of the highest scores in our geographic area on the state testing, even though many students arrive testing far below average. </p>
<p>This is the superintendent of the whole school system, saying that students shouldn’t aspire to college-prep curriculum, and further, that their parents cannot or will not contribute a (voluntary) 40 hours a year volunteering for the school. And that, too me, is incredibly sad – someone in charge of thousands of students believes that large numbers of them shouldn’t and don’t want a college prep curriculum. </p>
<p>In the face of that, it’s no wonder that fewer students of these students go on to college.</p>
<p>In my area, and having worked in charter schools and in promoting charter schools specifically and in general, this is not at all the way charter schools are born (or die), nor the thinking of anyone in education. In fact, it’s quite the opposite: it’s the educators who push when it comes to achievement, the families who resist. Further, charter schools do serve segmented needs (as described in the quote above); they were not meant to be one-size-fits-all. Hence, there are charter schools, for example, mostly <em>for</em> English-language-learners. Unfortunately the big caveat on that is that in my area these schools are NOT working. Why? Again, because the parents have third-grade equivalent literacy in their own language and have not the tools or interest in the school’s charter mission (learn English!). Parents not learning English, teachers not teaching English (and rarely, in English), students not learning English. (Surprise!) But no one jinxes the charter effort before it gets off the ground. In fact if anything there is not <em>enough</em> oversight before & during implementation. (Who will staff the charter school? What benchmarks of success will be used, and how measured? When exactly will the students begin to learn English?) I’ve taught in these schools and observed absolutely no commitment to the learning of English or learning in English in some of them, particularly the ones with mostly Hispanic students. (Those with mixed immigrants from south of the border and from the Middle East operate differently and have higher success.) </p>
<p>So even IF the expectations of the superintendent (above) have been accurately understood in context, those expectations, biased as they would be, are immaterial in that charter schools, again, are in response to community interest & commitment. They are grass-roots. They have nothing to do with egalitarian inclusiveness per se. In fact, the bigger problem in my area is that poor non-immigrant, English-speaking children are currently the least-serviced, most shut-out students in the public schools in general because of population shifts. They are not served by “special-interest” charters, and often their site schools have become defacto special-interest because of population & immigration patterns.</p>
) But ultimately, in this culture – not necessarily in all other cultures – family attitudes exert more influence, passively & actively, than most people realize. Again, this is based on experience, which often conflicts with passion & idealism.</p>