Yesterday, I posted a note and a link to a new study that indicated that the quality of a student's school was less of an indicator of success than the student himself (and his parent's emphasis on school).
This post was picked up and misinterpreted by a couple of other sources.
My point was to never say (or imply) that the KCMO school board is doing a great job. Yes, the school board, and past superintendents have historically been a disaster.
But it's way too easy for us to sit back and blame the KCMO school boards and superintendents for the mess that is the KCMO public schools.
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Little Rock School Crisis...and Time Magazine recently did a followup of the landmark event. According to their numbers, American Schools are nearly as segregated now as they were 50 years ago. Nearly 75% of Blacks currently attend schools that are predominantly Black and Latino -- while the average white student goes to a school that is over 80% white.
"White Flight" started this trend based largely an racial motivations...but even more recently "black flight" has occurred and left many inner city school districts filled with mostly minority students from financially poor families. Many of these inner-city schools now have declining test scores and have the reputation of being "bad schools".
However, research shows that these schools are less "bad schools" as they lack good students. Because of their reputations, most parents that have the means -- regardless of race -- take their kids out of these struggling school districts and moved hem to "better" schools. However, there is little evidence that these schools "plus up" the students or that the schools are simply starting with better students.
The same is true in many colleges and universities - -that due to their reputations they have a great demand for students to go there, so they have very high standards to get in. So these schools continue to graduate great students. Is it because they continue to be great schools? Or is it because they started with stronger students to begin with?
The point is, and the research shows, that good students can (and do) quite often get a good education from "bad" schools. It is often way too easy to blame "bad schools" for a child's poor education -- or as a reason to move to the suburbs. It's then easier to blame the school board for the school's lousy test scores. It's much more difficult to look at ourselves and our own decisions that have cause the school to have lousy test scores Be it our racist or classist decisions to move to the suburbs. Or our lack of desire to work with our kids and put an emphasis on learning, allowing them to succeed even if they aren't in the "best' schools.
In a society where it seems it's always someone else's fault...it's time we start looking at ourselves and our decisions and the affect they have had on our schools. While there are a lot of factors to blame, you're either part of the solution or part of the problem. Which are you?
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