Friday, March 21, 2014

Brown v Board of Education: Connections

"The current obsession with firing teachers, attacking unions and creating ever more charter schools has done very little to improve the academic outcomes of poor black and Latino students. Nothing has brought about gains on the scale that is needed."
   I always thought charter schools were a better alternative to public schooling in lower income neighborhoods. However, after doing some research it was clear why many education reformists can't stand them.  "The original purpose of charter schools were to recruit the weakest students, the dropouts, and identify techniques and methods to help public schools to do a better job with those who lost interest." This would work to end the cycle of educators not knowing how to help their students and to show them how they can improve and to make every student in their classroom successful. However, charter schools took a turn for the worst. They became private organizations and an opportunity for wealthy individuals to start an entrepreneurship. Not only would they use it as a way to make money, they would segregate against the students they would enroll. Since charter schools use state and public funding, their standardized test scores had to be high in order to receive the highest amount of funding. They would enroll only small numbers of English language learners and students with disabilities so their test scores can be the highest possible. In a way, charter schools are public when it comes to public funding, but they call themselves a private corporation.

"If you really want to improve the education of poor children, you have to get them away from learning environments that are smothered by poverty."
   This reminds me a lot of the reading we had in the beginning of the semester by Johnathan Kozol. Kozol gave us an inside look into one of the most poverty stricken areas in the United States. He showed us how when the government puts people in the same close quarters that are all impacted by the same issues of race, poverty and misfortune, their is no room for anyone to succeed. This relates directly with education.   "There is very little evidence that you can have success when you pack all the low-income students into one particular school." There is many factors to this point. Herbert discussees in the article how the best teachers tend to avoid applying for positions in these poverty stricken schools because it is a difficult environment and a tough task to make a change in a broken system. He also discusses the fact that the expectations are a lot lower in these types of schools and the lower levels of parental involvement.

   In the videos, Tim Wise discusses how "Old School" racism isn't as popular as it used to be. However, people of color, African Americans in particular, are being held at a certain standard to prove themselves to society. Time Wise calls this Racism 2.0 or "Enlightened Acceptionalism." "This allows folks to support Obama because they view him as being different than the black and brown norm and my fear there is that if the black and brown norm is considered any negative light the fact that we can carve out exceptions for certain people of color that make us comfortable is not going to get us anywhere to racial equity." Wise argues that we need a truly equal opportunity society which is just as important as a truly equal opportunity for education.

-S

   


4 comments:

  1. hey! liked your post! the quotes you chose were great. nice job working in connections about Kozol as well when explaining your quotes!:)

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  2. I really liked the way you explained the connection between our research and Kozol! I also found a connection with him. The quotes you chose to highlight were great, and really made the entire thing easier for me to comprehend! (I read your blog yesterday) Awesome job, and great points made!

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  3. Hey! I realty really liked your post! the quotes that you chose were great! They were really impacting to me as well especially the one about charter schools. Nice job!

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  4. Hey Shannon ! I really enjoyed your post this week ! I loved your thoughts on charter schools and the quotes you chose to support your post were awesome ! great job girl !

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