This is about as close as the NYT has come to ascribing part of the blame for the problem of failing schools to the teachers' unions, but only in the second to last paragraph. How about some competition - charter schools - where the parents get to decide what's right for their children?
17
Northeast liberals like to posit that the red South has discriminatory racial practices, but ignores the fact that Democratic controlled cities and states have far worse outcomes for minorities than in red states. It is likely that minority voter participation is far lower in Buffalo than it is in any state with voter ID laws. Clean your own house before projecting your own prejudices on others.
28
Does anyone ever place any of this responsibility on the parents? Or, in this age of multiculturalism and single parenthood, is this not politically correct?
Furthermore, since when did evaluating students based on test scores be equated to racial discrimination? Unless the NYT makes a connection between capability and race.
Furthermore, since when did evaluating students based on test scores be equated to racial discrimination? Unless the NYT makes a connection between capability and race.
43
Many responses simply want Marxism or a similar philosophical appraoch to the "have and have not" problem that once you get more than three people together begins. New York can certainly accomplish income redistribution by a state income tax of 100% over 25K and then redistribute to all equally. Obviously, all that could leave would leave- redistribution of wealth requires a totalitarian state to go along with the socialistic component. Freedom of choice has a price, you're paying it. If you do not like it move. That's freedom of choice.
4
So how will you attract talented to teachers to Buffalo (and middle class families ) if you are arguing against teacher contracts which have neen deemed too generous"? What teacher in his or her right mind wants to teach where all teachers will be considered ineffective if students'scores don't measure up, especially after having spent years in schools without the proper respurces?
46
What about parental involvement? That is the number one reason for success
37
And if the children bring with them to their new schools the legacy of chaotic homes and means streets, what then? So far, the biggest help for them I have seen has been "broken windows" policing, but you have your predictable cavils about that. Until these children get real support and protection, mixing them with others they can't compete with is no solution.
24
My wife is a NYC public school teacher. When I hear about what goes on on her school, and how so many children are not doing well, can't read, won't graduate, etc., it occurs to me that these kids need intense one on one instruction. But that would cost a lot of money. My preferred knee jerk reaction to any declaration for the need for more money in this country is: "Dismantle the military. We are spending way too much for guns." Then I realize if we did the dismantling, MANY people would be out of jobs, the soldiers and the industries which support them. Big problem. I recently had the idea that if we created a new branch of the services called ..."The Tutoring Corps", and trained people for this work, just as we do for building and running a killing machine, maybe our country would be better off.
19
One might ask which party actually is in control of Buffalo and it's crumbling school system and how long they have had that control.
But then again, the likelihood of getting a coherent answer would be much like William Jefferson Clinton's attempting to find nuance in defining the word "is".
But then again, the likelihood of getting a coherent answer would be much like William Jefferson Clinton's attempting to find nuance in defining the word "is".
7
Just like the debate over Islam and terrorism, this editorial skirts the real cause of these problems and assigns blame elsewhere. Liberals do themselves no favors when they continue to ignore some basic realities that many of us out here experience regularly.
People will not subjugate their kids to an unruly environment for the sake of social justice. Many of these kids are coming to the school house door unprepared, unmotivated and basically not cared for. To put all the blame for their lack of performance on teachers or segregation is simply specious and a dereliction of good journalism.
People will not subjugate their kids to an unruly environment for the sake of social justice. Many of these kids are coming to the school house door unprepared, unmotivated and basically not cared for. To put all the blame for their lack of performance on teachers or segregation is simply specious and a dereliction of good journalism.
49
Just a short distance east on the Thruway will bring you to an identical problem in Rochester, NY. Less than 50 percent of students graduate, New York State Regents has determined that only 5-10 percent are college or work ready, and unlike most systems tracking was done that determined that only 3 percent of students that go through the city school system get a college degree. The schools are administered by professionals and the teachers are certified. The cost per student per year K-12 is around $18K. Something has been done and everything has failed. The only alternative left is to aggressively bus city students to the suburbs and bus suburban students to the city so the problem can be hidden until it returns. The busing won't happen so you are left with a hopeless problem. I wish there was an answer, but there is no answer that will work to overcome failure this deep and persistent. It all has been tried and it all has failed. Welcome to the third world.
5
The entire Public Education system in the USA is slanted toward serving the wealthy at the expense of the poor. Since more poor people are folks of color, this gives the impression that the system is designed to be racist. It is not. It is designed to be elitist. In Delaware County Pa. there is the Chester School District and the William Penn School District, both among the poorest in the nation. Although mostly African American there are many poor white students trapped in that failed system. A few miles away is the Radnor School District. Along with it's "Main Line" neighbor Lower Merion School District it represents some of the wealthiest neighborhoods in America. The system is an educator's dream. The difference lies in where you live, and that of course depends on how wealthy you are. The US Department of Education should pool all school tax revenue collected in the country and distribute it to County School Districts according to numbers of student enrollment. Full equality. If the wealthy want more-they can send their children to private schools. Public should mean just that PUBLIC. Yes, it looks like Socialism. That is what PUBLIC education should be, if it is to be fair. But like everything else in America, the system is tweaked to serve the ones who can contribute more to the politicians.
6
Teacher mobility is the other side of this coin. The "best" teachers can be found in the schools with the "best" demographics, compounding the problem for schools with the most challenging issues.
The public school systems across the country operate this way - perhaps to placate parents in wealthier districts as well as teachers who grow weary from having to be social worker and parent.
Is more money needed? Its hard to say. The US spends more per capita on education than most other countries. But, there are likely issues with allocation of funds as well as regional considerations. For example, 50% of funds for public school employees go to non-teaching positions. Should there be non-teaching positions? Of course. But 50%?
The public school systems across the country operate this way - perhaps to placate parents in wealthier districts as well as teachers who grow weary from having to be social worker and parent.
Is more money needed? Its hard to say. The US spends more per capita on education than most other countries. But, there are likely issues with allocation of funds as well as regional considerations. For example, 50% of funds for public school employees go to non-teaching positions. Should there be non-teaching positions? Of course. But 50%?
10
Does isolation matter? No. Immigrants have been just as isolated in our cities in the past as black immigrants from the South and Africa are today. A large part of the problem is the industrial collapse of the economies of northern cities. We can't just put people on welfare, or think that just throwing money at the problem will fix it (although more teachers of the competent kind will help a lot). We need to put people to work rebuilding our cities' infrastructures, including housing, and we need to tell the Googles and Apples to do what Intel is doing: implement a big plan to hire America's minority kids.
7
I despair of the comments that smugly pronounce with great satisfaction that all families are not middle class. They don't read, don't go to the theater, don't have health care, music, doting grandparents, a grand piano and a chalet in the mountains.... that's why the children fail to perform.
Suppose the United States of America was one giant employer. Some few get all the perqs and high pay while others get low pay and the dirty work. We have an entire class of workers on strike and others on work slow down. Telling them to buck up is not likely to improve production.
How kids perform in school -- how their parents perform on the job -- begins in a pervasive culture that denies them equal respect and standing in the community.
Suppose the United States of America was one giant employer. Some few get all the perqs and high pay while others get low pay and the dirty work. We have an entire class of workers on strike and others on work slow down. Telling them to buck up is not likely to improve production.
How kids perform in school -- how their parents perform on the job -- begins in a pervasive culture that denies them equal respect and standing in the community.
4
'Things went downhill in the 1990s, however, when court supervision ended and Buffalo experienced severe fiscal problems.'
This is it--severe fiscal problems. No money for poor black kids. And yet in the next breath you insist the problem is teachers and their 'generous benefits'. Really?
This is it--severe fiscal problems. No money for poor black kids. And yet in the next breath you insist the problem is teachers and their 'generous benefits'. Really?
13
With Obama and Holder demanding that schools decrease their suspension rate for "students of color", expect things to only worsen.
21
The problem is that there is very little housing integration. Both racial and income group live in separate areas. The schools pull from the local areas. If you want to fix the school integration problem, solve the real estate one first or redraw school lines so that it overlaps both areas and locate new schools on the borders.
7
In the 1960s poverty was said to be the cause of so many social ills. It still is. It's actually gotten worse.
Government programs to reduce poverty and help the poor have helped millions, but have not eliminated poverty, whose causes are complex. Coservatives use this failure to turn Americans away from government solutions. Republican propaganda has convinced a majority that poverty is self-inflicted by lazy minorities who don't deserve free handouts.
Other advanced countries with less poverty and inequality and greater opportunities have higher tax rates, and a commitment to equality and opportunity. Americans on the right denounce these countries as "socialist" and claim everone can get ahead if you just work hard enough.
That'sbfalse. It has become harder to get ahead if you are unlucky enough to have been born into poverty. There aren't enough jobs that pay a livable wage. Schools in poor areas are terrible - underfinanced and faced with students with unmet needs. America has abandoned the less fortunate, blamed them for not doing better, while killing "entitlements."
The only thing that's changed since LBJ's Great Society and the war on poverty is that we've given up trying to address these problems.
Shame on us. Shame on America.
Government programs to reduce poverty and help the poor have helped millions, but have not eliminated poverty, whose causes are complex. Coservatives use this failure to turn Americans away from government solutions. Republican propaganda has convinced a majority that poverty is self-inflicted by lazy minorities who don't deserve free handouts.
Other advanced countries with less poverty and inequality and greater opportunities have higher tax rates, and a commitment to equality and opportunity. Americans on the right denounce these countries as "socialist" and claim everone can get ahead if you just work hard enough.
That'sbfalse. It has become harder to get ahead if you are unlucky enough to have been born into poverty. There aren't enough jobs that pay a livable wage. Schools in poor areas are terrible - underfinanced and faced with students with unmet needs. America has abandoned the less fortunate, blamed them for not doing better, while killing "entitlements."
The only thing that's changed since LBJ's Great Society and the war on poverty is that we've given up trying to address these problems.
Shame on us. Shame on America.
8
As a public school teacher AND a parent with kids in public schools I am forced to live with my own contradictions:
I understand that all classrooms should be mixed-ability to ensure that poor kids don't get "tracked". Every student should have access to high quality teaching.
But unless the funding is available, expecting 1 teacher to manage a classroom of 34 kids with reading levels from 2nd-10th grade is unrealistic and no one wins. As a parent, I want my children in honors classes, where they will be challenged academically and not get stuck doing busy work while their teacher attends to the needs of the lowest-performing students.
The reality is that in an integrated school with honors classes, most of the honors classes will be majority white and Asian kids.
Both my kids went to a K-5 public school that was very racially mixed. Only class and culture can explain the difference in proficiency between my kid and the Latino or Black kid that sat next to him for 6 years, receiving the same exact education. Same school, same teachers, same curriculum. Yet by 5th grade there are widely varying test scores and reading abilities, falling along racial and economic lines (with the exception of Asian American students).
Poverty, no preschool, summer reading loss, cultural attitudes toward education and underfunding of education all combine to create a situation where Black and Latino students fall behind. Public schools on shoestring budgets cannot be the only cure.
I understand that all classrooms should be mixed-ability to ensure that poor kids don't get "tracked". Every student should have access to high quality teaching.
But unless the funding is available, expecting 1 teacher to manage a classroom of 34 kids with reading levels from 2nd-10th grade is unrealistic and no one wins. As a parent, I want my children in honors classes, where they will be challenged academically and not get stuck doing busy work while their teacher attends to the needs of the lowest-performing students.
The reality is that in an integrated school with honors classes, most of the honors classes will be majority white and Asian kids.
Both my kids went to a K-5 public school that was very racially mixed. Only class and culture can explain the difference in proficiency between my kid and the Latino or Black kid that sat next to him for 6 years, receiving the same exact education. Same school, same teachers, same curriculum. Yet by 5th grade there are widely varying test scores and reading abilities, falling along racial and economic lines (with the exception of Asian American students).
Poverty, no preschool, summer reading loss, cultural attitudes toward education and underfunding of education all combine to create a situation where Black and Latino students fall behind. Public schools on shoestring budgets cannot be the only cure.
34
instead of overcrowding the successful schools, how about putting resources into paying the teaching staff more, thus attracting more candidates. Probably less than the cost of the consultant.
6
That won't solve the root problem which is poor parenting. How many of these under-performing students have ever had a book read to them by a parent? How many have ever been taken to a library by their parents? How many have ever been taken to a museum or stage play? How many of them have parents who help them with homework? How many of them have both a mother and father at home to nurture them? Until you solve these problems, pumping more money into schools is a waste.
26
Rather than using cash to attract mercenaries, using it to reduce class size, provide for more counselors and health care professionals might get a better result. All teachers deserve better pay. Like most jobs it is harder than it looks.
12
Once again, I don't think this is just about race. It's about people who have children, but can't or don't will to care for properly. They don't read to them at night, they don't prepare breakfast or good lunches for school. Such 'parents' don't usually sit with their children and don't help them with their homework. They do not visit the school or meet the teachers. If so,then there must be no wonder the child ends up 'lost' and alone and searching for some contact with someone who cares, attaching to other 'lost' children in groups and gangs. "Middle-class families" means intact families with parents who do engage with their children and the schools. It's not race, it's responsibility and nurturing that make all the difference. The billions poured into education will continue to have little effect as long as parents don't do their parental job properly.
43
You should understand that low wages force parents to choose between second part time jobs and being unable to afford a safe housing situation. Some parents need to take the marginally higher pay of off hour work. An hourly wage earner loses money when they come to school for a meeting, but a salaried person usually doesn't. All these things and inexperience in getting the most out of education contribute to the discrepancies you stated.
9
The myriad challenges facing school age kids low on the socioeconomic spectrum have been covered by others. Schools seem to have a tipping point such that when these kids become x% of a school's population parents with the means will either move or put their kid in a private school, because their kid has one shot at a excellent education. How many of your kid's friends do you want to come from families where education is not a priority - where there are few if any books - where homework isn't checked etc. Creative solutions need to be prototyped to help parents likely to struggle with their role from the day their child is born. Birth to age three is a critical time for every child. Lose it and that child has a poor educational prognosis.
10
Here's an idea. Use the budget to pay the irresponsible parents to get their kids to both behave and do their homework. They may not value education for their kids, but they do value money. There is nothing wrong with instilling an education = income link at the earliest stages of education. 50 years of ineffective platitudes and choosing to be willfully blind to the cultural problems that exist is why progress is so slow.
If you continue to repeat the same actions and expect a different outcome, the taxpayers have a right to think you are insane.
If you continue to repeat the same actions and expect a different outcome, the taxpayers have a right to think you are insane.
16
It took 10 paragraphs to get to it, but it was there. The consistent marker of the republican/corporate propaganda. Blaming the teachers and their "unusually generous" pay and benefits for the problems within the school system. It's discouraging to see the editorial section of the NYT slipping this in. Ii makes it seem like just another wing of the corporate raiders party. I'm sure, if you just reduce teacher's pay and benefits to the level of walmart employees, you'll get so much better results.
A lengthy study was done in the 60's about how to best integrate public school without causing "white flight". The research found that as long as the ratio of 30/70 was not passed, the neighborhood schools would remain stable.
When I began teaching 45 years ago, I chose to always work in low income schools to try to make a difference. As a poor white, I had not learned to read at school by 3rd grade. My grandmother, using her measly pension, paid for me to attend Catholic school because she was so worried. She could not read or write, my parents had only attended school until 8th grade. She wanted my life to be different. As a child, I immediately noticed a difference at my new school. The nuns had absolute control over our behavior. Children who did not want to behave were kept after school, in the classroom, writing, writing, writing filling pages for 1 hour. Those who didn't do it were sent to public school.
A lengthy study was done in the 60's about how to best integrate public school without causing "white flight". The research found that as long as the ratio of 30/70 was not passed, the neighborhood schools would remain stable.
When I began teaching 45 years ago, I chose to always work in low income schools to try to make a difference. As a poor white, I had not learned to read at school by 3rd grade. My grandmother, using her measly pension, paid for me to attend Catholic school because she was so worried. She could not read or write, my parents had only attended school until 8th grade. She wanted my life to be different. As a child, I immediately noticed a difference at my new school. The nuns had absolute control over our behavior. Children who did not want to behave were kept after school, in the classroom, writing, writing, writing filling pages for 1 hour. Those who didn't do it were sent to public school.
26
As someone who has lived in the South all my life, I can tell you that the introduction of forced racial busing destroyed the public schools. White and middle-class African-Americans fled to the suburbs and countless private schools sprang up.
14
In 2010 Buffalo spent $27,000 per student making it the third highest cost per pupil in the country for large school districts. Put aside your social engineering beliefs and aspirations and just think about that number. You could afford to hire a senior college student as a tutor, have lunch at a restaurant and pay taxi fares for every pupil in the system. When you have reached that level of absurdity, anger should demand that the existing educational system be destroyed.
14
As a retired NYC teacher who toiled at all levels of the system, it is disheartening though not surprising that the challenges of educating low-income children have eluded the best-intentioned efforts of legions of educators and policy makers. It is a truism in education that there is a direct correlation between income level and educational achievement. It is not so much that students are trapped in schools as they are trapped by poverty itself. Just as their communities are bereft of high-quality services, so the schools they attend. With the Bloomberg administration the teachers and their union was seen as the principal impediment to reform: market-driven methods were the new panacea. The union relented on seniority, and the system was flooded with newly-minted novices. Experienced teachers were marginalized and sometimes forced out. Recent results showed that the entire set of reforms under Klein were an unmitigated wholesale disaster. Poor schoolchildren are part of the oppressed underclass. No piece-meal reform will alleviate their plight. Only massive infusions of multi-layered services will compensate for the systemic impoverishment of our communities and schools. it is time to recognize that the persistence of the issues lie not merely within a "system" but within ourselves, and our failure to be brutally honest with the true causes of the poverty that bedevils so many of our communities and the schools within them.
26
The current model of public education hasn't changed in well over fifty years if at all. The teacher unions, which clearly don't represent any child's interest whatsoever, inattentive and non-caring parents and an inflexible school tax structure are all to blame.
It's time to give vouchers a chance. Let those who wish to succeed become armed with just that opportunity.
It's time to give vouchers a chance. Let those who wish to succeed become armed with just that opportunity.
8
I agree with your suggestion for vouchers, but it's unfair to blame teachers for the real problem which is poor parenting and broken, dysfunctional families.
8
"Things went downhill in the 1990s, however, when court supervision ended and Buffalo experienced severe fiscal problems."
It just goes to show that during hard times, the "have-nots, the ones with the least representation, will always have whatever gains they've won taken away during hard times unless someone or something is looking out for them. Bring back court ordered supervision and I'll guarantee a turnaround.
It just goes to show that during hard times, the "have-nots, the ones with the least representation, will always have whatever gains they've won taken away during hard times unless someone or something is looking out for them. Bring back court ordered supervision and I'll guarantee a turnaround.
2
I was a white kid in 4th, 5th and 6th grade in classrooms that were 50% African-American in the 1970's. The teachers simply didn't teach anything. In the same school were other, mostly white classrooms, where many students went on to colleges such as MIT and Princeton. They had teachers who taught their students how to study, learn and be successful.
It's as simple as that. Children learn when they have quality teachers. Minority students are not getting quality teachers often enough.
Learning is like exercise. It needs to be a consistent routine through the entire process. Give a child a few years with poor-quality teachers and they can be off-track forever. For me, I wasn't able to excel until after a few years in a non-selective college. It took that many years to figure out how to perform well in school.
It's as simple as that. Children learn when they have quality teachers. Minority students are not getting quality teachers often enough.
Learning is like exercise. It needs to be a consistent routine through the entire process. Give a child a few years with poor-quality teachers and they can be off-track forever. For me, I wasn't able to excel until after a few years in a non-selective college. It took that many years to figure out how to perform well in school.
10
My charter school is in a high poverty/minority area of L.A. Going charter does not work everywhere, but it worked for us (we have a 94% graduation rate). Some factors:
1) We have many single mothers, but there is a extended family system that is part of Latino culture. This makes it easier for the school to partner with the family. If Buffalo should work on supporting family culture. 2) We look at and use the "positives" of the community (while being realistic about the deficits). 3) We work hard to help teachers be strong both in classroom management AND curriculum/instruction. 4) In each grade at our school, at least half the teachers are Latino and at least a fourth come from a similar economic background as our students. One factor that helps is having highly qualified male teachers. For Buffalo, the challenge would be to find more African-American teachers. 5) The school budget is always a source of stress for us - we are very lucky to have a school principal who is able to navigate to get more funding. Buffalo must work find a way to work through it's budget quagmire. 6) When the teachers voted to go charter in 1994, the teacher's union adopted punitive policies. It was a second bureaucracy that needed constant placating; breaking away from them made it possible to focus our energies/collaborate on a system that works for all our teachers and staff.
7) All programs have to have a plan for sustainability & keeping expert teachers.
1) We have many single mothers, but there is a extended family system that is part of Latino culture. This makes it easier for the school to partner with the family. If Buffalo should work on supporting family culture. 2) We look at and use the "positives" of the community (while being realistic about the deficits). 3) We work hard to help teachers be strong both in classroom management AND curriculum/instruction. 4) In each grade at our school, at least half the teachers are Latino and at least a fourth come from a similar economic background as our students. One factor that helps is having highly qualified male teachers. For Buffalo, the challenge would be to find more African-American teachers. 5) The school budget is always a source of stress for us - we are very lucky to have a school principal who is able to navigate to get more funding. Buffalo must work find a way to work through it's budget quagmire. 6) When the teachers voted to go charter in 1994, the teacher's union adopted punitive policies. It was a second bureaucracy that needed constant placating; breaking away from them made it possible to focus our energies/collaborate on a system that works for all our teachers and staff.
7) All programs have to have a plan for sustainability & keeping expert teachers.
4
8) Kids and parents know the student can be expelled and sent back to a regular public school.
Can you name the charter school so the 94% graduation rate you cite can be fact-checked? I'm also curious to know the number of kids in 1st grade vs the number of kids who graduate. In other words, do you start with 100 kids in first grade but whittle down to senior classes of only 40 where 94% graduate? Just trying to understand the numbers.
Can you name the charter school so the 94% graduation rate you cite can be fact-checked? I'm also curious to know the number of kids in 1st grade vs the number of kids who graduate. In other words, do you start with 100 kids in first grade but whittle down to senior classes of only 40 where 94% graduate? Just trying to understand the numbers.
8
In many cities across New York the public schools are for minorities, with a few whites, while many whites remaining in those districts attend private schools, no matter what their financial status. That is why NYS has the most segregated schools in the nation. Shame on New York.
1
Who can blame parents who want to put their kids in schools where the other kids are interested in learning and supported by their parents?
17
And should parents, too, be shamed for sending their children to private school?
4
Until parents and students are given the option of choosing any public school in for their children rather than being forced to use only the school near their home, poor families will be trapped in an apartheid school system. It is only an intransigent political system caught in old school ways that would seek to limit choice for parents. Further, schools must be allowed to innovate. Imagine if our university or health system insisted that you only go to a school or hospital within blocks of your home. When poor parents are given the option of going to high performing schools, they will.
3
How about we strengthen and empower the neighborhood schools so kids and parents can walk to school, remain in their community and form long-term relationships?
How about we let real public schools do all the things charter schools or schools of choice are allowed to do?
How about we let real public schools do all the things charter schools or schools of choice are allowed to do?
6
There's a difference between "Cause" and "Responsible" -- the latter is just a handy spot for rational blame under the principle of Chain of Command.
We need to get past the blame game and do some real analysis. I'm not talking about statistics; I am talking about actual counting of actual cases that have actual barriers to learning.
When you know actual cases with specific barriers, you know something.
We need to get past the blame game and do some real analysis. I'm not talking about statistics; I am talking about actual counting of actual cases that have actual barriers to learning.
When you know actual cases with specific barriers, you know something.
2
Countless studies have been done on educational success, and they consistently find that quality parenting that engenders an interest in learning and responsible behavior is the most important factor.
14
Not only are the schools racially segregated, within the schools the classes are tracked. You see almost no students of color in upper level classes.
2
In saying that minority students "are trapped in schools that lack teaching talent" - you not only demonstrate a complete lack of understanding of the problem but also manage to insult nearly half of the public school teachers in the state. Buffalo. Syracuse, Rochester, Poughkeepsie, Yonkers, NYC, and the dozens of small city schools across the state are overwhelmed by the debilitating effects of generational poverty, dangerous neighborhoods, and family dysfunction. Instead of addressing these underlying issues you once again choose to blame the hard working, and talented teacher of New York. If the editors of the NYT spent a few weeks walking the halls and observing the classrooms you would be embarrassed about your level of ignorance regarding poverty, family dysfunction, and school success.
63
"the most segregated in the nation." Wow! Seriously, how is that accusation proved, or disproved. New York - Liberal bastion more segregated than Burning Mississippi? Who knew?
Poor Upstate, Buffalo especially (where - we all know - suicide is redundant), is an economic wasteland. Lack of job opportunity and private industry growth are the single biggest factors behind white flight from Upstate - leaving poor minorities to fill most school systems. That's not to excuse New York's archaic organization of towns and school districts which play an unrecognized and huge role in school's racial disparities.
New York has 800 school districts, while Maryland, for example, has 24. There is tremendous waste in that alone with each district having its own unionized Supervisor who out earns Cuomo. The benefit of this system of small school enclaves - from the resident's viewpoint - is that their children are not exposed to and protected from any level of racial mixing. So kids living in Dix Hills (high income) not fear sharing school rooms with next door Deer Park (middle income), or God forbid, Brentwood (low income Hispanic).
Reducing New York's multitude of districts by 90% would go a long way towards eliminating de facto racial separation.
Poor Upstate, Buffalo especially (where - we all know - suicide is redundant), is an economic wasteland. Lack of job opportunity and private industry growth are the single biggest factors behind white flight from Upstate - leaving poor minorities to fill most school systems. That's not to excuse New York's archaic organization of towns and school districts which play an unrecognized and huge role in school's racial disparities.
New York has 800 school districts, while Maryland, for example, has 24. There is tremendous waste in that alone with each district having its own unionized Supervisor who out earns Cuomo. The benefit of this system of small school enclaves - from the resident's viewpoint - is that their children are not exposed to and protected from any level of racial mixing. So kids living in Dix Hills (high income) not fear sharing school rooms with next door Deer Park (middle income), or God forbid, Brentwood (low income Hispanic).
Reducing New York's multitude of districts by 90% would go a long way towards eliminating de facto racial separation.
19
@tom paine, while I agree Western New York has way too many districts, having lived there for many years, Buffalo is certainly not an economic wasteland, but a thriving diverse metropolitan region. There is poverty, and an underclass, and the city schools have been a problem forr decades, due, in no small measure to incompetent,angry School superintendents and School Boards, elected by the community. Poverty is the underlying problem, and the values that accompany it. Money and busing alone won't fix that, and blaming the teachers is ridiculous when more than half the kids don't even show up.
3
How about providing the basic fact of per pupil spending in Buffalo schools? Is it well above $20,000 per student? That is cost in Newark, Trenton and Jersey City, NJ and it hasn't overcome the problem. The money IS already there! What about the student-teacher ratio? Is is under 20 just as in NJ?
9
No matter what you spend, no one has come up with a mechanism to make up for parents who are just too tired to be a consistent part of their kids lives. Schools have kids 6 hours a day. The remaining 18 are at home. No matter how brilliant the teacher the simple act of asking about homework counts for a great deal. When people are just getting by, working 2 or 3 jobs its really hard to put in the hours necessary to ensure a child succeeds.
4
When is the New York Times editorial board going to realize that growing segregation is THE RESULT of school choice? We have been running this experiment for almost two decades and the outcomes have been predictable. What is needed is a push to make zoned (neighborhood) schools more like community centers, where children and their families can go for after-school art and sports programs, and community organizations can meet and plan, say, to build a community garden, etc. What school choice has done is rent the fabric of local communities -- and this is true for middle class ones as well as poorer communities. What if a local school in a poorer neighborhood also offered wrap-around services like eye exams and check-ups, etc. like Geoffrey Canada set up with the Harlem Children's Zone? What the promoters of choice have succeeded in doing is dividing communities and, yet, segregation increases -- layering a new problem on top of an old one.
12
Amazing that the Editorial Board can write sternly about an abysmal public school system without once considering or even mentioning alternatives to those public schools themselves. If the noted track record was that of a private school, you would be demanding that it be shut down immediately. And that all those involved in running that school should lose their jobs. Rather than just tweaking its performance.
If you were honest, you might admit that, to "..ensure that as many children as possible escape failing schools.." means to allow any & every child the opportunity to escape the failing public school system itself. Liberal & aggressive expansion of charter schools and/or vouchers for private eduction would be better than continuing to try to fix a long term problematic public school system. And probably resolve the issues more quickly.
The proposal to expand & improve access to the "criteria" schools sounds like a worthwhile idea on the surface. But, even with greater access, what happens to the students in the rest of the system ? Shouldn't their lot improve as well ? And, if you expand the criteria schools to be every school, you just end up with the same existing school system.
It's unfortunate that the editors can't even envision the possibility that better public education should mean maximizing school choice way beyond the existing rigid public school system paradigm.
If you were honest, you might admit that, to "..ensure that as many children as possible escape failing schools.." means to allow any & every child the opportunity to escape the failing public school system itself. Liberal & aggressive expansion of charter schools and/or vouchers for private eduction would be better than continuing to try to fix a long term problematic public school system. And probably resolve the issues more quickly.
The proposal to expand & improve access to the "criteria" schools sounds like a worthwhile idea on the surface. But, even with greater access, what happens to the students in the rest of the system ? Shouldn't their lot improve as well ? And, if you expand the criteria schools to be every school, you just end up with the same existing school system.
It's unfortunate that the editors can't even envision the possibility that better public education should mean maximizing school choice way beyond the existing rigid public school system paradigm.
6
The problem, at least historically, is not segregation between schools. When I was in high school in NYC in the 1960's and my children were in school in Massachusetts in the 90's, the schools were integrated, but within the schools African American students were either segregated into "modified" classes or noticeably absent from the AP classes. I'm wondering whether this pernicious practice of "subtle segregation" still exists, either in Buffalo, NYC or elsewhere and would be curious to know from readers or staffer if there are any stats or studies on it.
3
Are you arguing for putting students who can't handle the material into a classroom where they will either be guaranteed of failing or be dragging the level of the class down to the lowest common denominator?
That's not education. That's pandering.
That's not education. That's pandering.
8
Education problems start in the home with a lack of proper parenting. My daughter in law left public school teaching (third grade) for a private school at 2/3 the salary because of lack of parenting: children who would go home to empty homes, parents out until midnight, having to teach to a class with disruptive children whose parents told her that their child was her problem when at school, the list goes on. Teachers have to teach to the lowest common denominator which deprives other children of an education. That, too starts at home. Parents who care frequently send their children to non public schools, hence the proliferation of academies, Christian schools and even home schooling. That takes the better students out of the public school, further driving down the success rates in public schools. It all starts at home with uncaring parents. As with many societal ills, others are always the cause: blame the teacher, blame the administration, blame the state, blame whomever. But don't blame the shoddy parenting. Someone may have to take responsibility for their actions - or lack thereof.
19
There was something to be said for all of those parochial schools that used to dot the landscape of our cities...
They turned out high school graduates that knew how to behave and understood more than just the basics of reading, writing, and 'rithmetic
They turned out high school graduates that knew how to behave and understood more than just the basics of reading, writing, and 'rithmetic
3
Its not so much racial separation as it is being separated from an effective standards based teaching & learning environment. From: a high quality, high expectations, efficacy rich educational experience... Some districts have already perfected the technique (in response to court orders) of having Black and White students in the same building, but providing them with a demonstrably different educational program.
1
Instead of Race to the Top, I wish the president and his secretary of education, would have a Race to Equality. The entire Race to the Top strategy rest on testing, firing, and closing--as if low performing schools is the fault of poor administration, poor teachers, and tenure. No, the source of low achievement in poor communities, is poor communities. What a waste of money hiring a consultant to articulate what three decades of social science research of concluded---integrated schools move tests scores. If we had only followed the logic of Brown v. Board of Education and made the tough decisions to create an integrated infrastructure---scattered site housing, magnet schools, regulate red-lining, etc.---we would not be talking about the wide achievement gaps we in effect created through policy and avoidance. Of course, the single best strategy are decent paying jobs. Instead Mr. Duncan and the President spin their tired mantra of more standards, more testing, more school closings.
5
Separate but equal is just as much of a fantasy today as it was in 1954. There is no evidence that people can attend separate school systems, with vastly different community resources, but end up with the same quality of education. In addition, the separation breeds the us-versus-them mentality so prevalent in the U.S. What is the likelihood that Darren Wilson would have shot dead the son of someone with whom he attended high school? Note that we have never seen the headline "Policeman Shoots Son of Best Friend."
2
I am disappointed with this editorial which once again puts blame on teachers getting paid a decent wage and getting benefits that apparently should only go to the wealthy in society. It failed to describe how the charter school movement has accelerated desegregation, or how over reliance on a standardized test for math and English has resulted in many low income students losing social studies and science classes.
The loss of science and social studies occurs when teachers are told to spend more time on English Language and math in the elementary schools and when students are assigned additional math and English classes at the cost of missing middle school science or social studies. That discrimination can occur in a school that appears racially balanced; is harder to identify; and results in students not prepared to succeed in high school.
The loss of science and social studies occurs when teachers are told to spend more time on English Language and math in the elementary schools and when students are assigned additional math and English classes at the cost of missing middle school science or social studies. That discrimination can occur in a school that appears racially balanced; is harder to identify; and results in students not prepared to succeed in high school.
7
What is glossed over in this op-ed is the incontrovertable fact that only poor people--mostly people of color--are left in cities like Buffalo once the good jobs and the middle class have fled. You can't have good schools in a place with a tax base of people who earn minimum wage or bring in no income at all. Pardon the cliche, but tinkering with the school system is simply rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. Children who live in urban ghettos suffer not just from poor education but usually poor nutrition, familial disarray, and early psychological problems. These problems tend to go away when their parents are well employed and life improves in their home environments. What is New York State doing to fix the larger problems of its big cities (I can tell you that New Jersey has exactly the same problem in its biggest cities)? All the hand-wringing in the world isn't going to make education better when generation after generation of children--who quickly become adults--in these hollowed-out cities.
15
As I pointed out before, the Buffalo schools are spending $22K per year per student, which is much higher than the surrounding suburbs.
8
When I attended elementary school in the early1970's there were kids being bussed in as a result of the desegregation movement. I have always felt blessed to have been exposed to kids of various ethnicities and backgrounds at that early age, it truly set the stage for success in life.
During this time there were always a few kids who came to school unkept and had some behavioral issues. There were only maybe two to three in each class and the teachers would discipline them so that they could then continue with their work.
Currently the percentage of these kids has grown to a point where they are the majority. They are being raised by indigent parent(s) whose purpose for having them is so that they can receive benefits that are not then used for the kids, they are are used by the parent irresponsibly. This is a terrible problem that no school district will be able to solve without some forced responsibility being bestowed on the parent which is not likely to happen in our state.
One thing that I have noticed while driving through the city on Sunday's is that there are strong church congregations present in these neighborhoods. Perhaps some coordinated effort between the school districts and the churches, where indigent parents are identified by the district and then contacted and brought into the churches where some oversight could be administered would give these kids a chance.
Solutions that involve the community could work.
During this time there were always a few kids who came to school unkept and had some behavioral issues. There were only maybe two to three in each class and the teachers would discipline them so that they could then continue with their work.
Currently the percentage of these kids has grown to a point where they are the majority. They are being raised by indigent parent(s) whose purpose for having them is so that they can receive benefits that are not then used for the kids, they are are used by the parent irresponsibly. This is a terrible problem that no school district will be able to solve without some forced responsibility being bestowed on the parent which is not likely to happen in our state.
One thing that I have noticed while driving through the city on Sunday's is that there are strong church congregations present in these neighborhoods. Perhaps some coordinated effort between the school districts and the churches, where indigent parents are identified by the district and then contacted and brought into the churches where some oversight could be administered would give these kids a chance.
Solutions that involve the community could work.
10
no matter how much income redistributed money you throw at this problem it will never get any better. Education is either a priority at home (whether that home is a one parent or two parent home) or it is not. The motivation to learn and do well must be learned at home and communicated from parent to child. The elephant in the room is that white middle class college educated parents are almost always forcefully telling their children that doing well in school is an absolute imperative. Obviously there are individual cases that differ, but overall in poor African american homes it is not taught that doing well in school is an imperative. No amount of well meaning, throw money at the problem, liberal initiatives can fix that underlying problem.
25
As a black student who went to a all white wealthy school district in central Pennsylvania I saw firsthand the disparity between the haves and have nots. I had teachers who cared and passionate about the students they taught. The school I went to had first class course offerings in A.P. Chemistry to outdoor archery for phys ed. My point is this..funding makes difference for students to able to compete at the next level. Funding is only one pillar of the problem. The harder aspect is good parenting in the child's life to push him or her to succed in school. If parents are missing from this eqaution no amount of money or busssing will make a difference.
33
Once again, the NYT, in its desire to dictate equal outcomes rather than equal opportunities, is suggesting to implement policies that will cause even more deterioration in school quality. Eliminate using an objective basis for determining who is accepted to the higher quality schools? why don't you recommend that Harvard and Columbia stop accepting only the best applicants.
The reasons for the poor quality of the city school systems are myriad. However, the left and the teacher unions do their best to block one solution; charter schools. And there is an issue of parental responsibility. In Rochester, one quarter of incoming students were the children of single mothers that were teen moms. Think that leads to high achievers? And on any given school day, 20% of the school is absent. Think about that. Elementary schools also. And school administrators continue to tolerate troublemakers that prevent serious students from learning. Absolutely it 5% of the students in Rochester schools account for 80% of suspensions. So teachers spend their time on the one student in class instead of the other 20. And it is not spending. The Rochester school district spends more per student than any other school district in the area, and has the lowest achievement level and graduation rate of any district.
Perhaps the editorial board should be required to put their children in public schools rather than the very expensive private ones that no doubt most of them use.
The reasons for the poor quality of the city school systems are myriad. However, the left and the teacher unions do their best to block one solution; charter schools. And there is an issue of parental responsibility. In Rochester, one quarter of incoming students were the children of single mothers that were teen moms. Think that leads to high achievers? And on any given school day, 20% of the school is absent. Think about that. Elementary schools also. And school administrators continue to tolerate troublemakers that prevent serious students from learning. Absolutely it 5% of the students in Rochester schools account for 80% of suspensions. So teachers spend their time on the one student in class instead of the other 20. And it is not spending. The Rochester school district spends more per student than any other school district in the area, and has the lowest achievement level and graduation rate of any district.
Perhaps the editorial board should be required to put their children in public schools rather than the very expensive private ones that no doubt most of them use.
24
Charter schools get to pick and choose their students. Parents who can't be bothered to fill out an application (or don't speak the language or don't even know about charter schools) end up at public schools. Students who are very far behind academically and disruptive students eventually end up back in regular public schools.
And then we blame the failing public schools and their teachers.
And then we blame the failing public schools and their teachers.
7
Charters can kick kids out and dump them back on the public school.
Charters are not the solution, but they are expensive and drain funds from public schools and they do enrich their owners.
Charters are not the solution, but they are expensive and drain funds from public schools and they do enrich their owners.
7
It would be difficult to find a better topic for raising blood pressure and total ire: blaming the schools and teachers for these ills is a lazy approach.
The kids who, with their parents, opt for escapist schools, those that take some effort to get into, are not a particular problem. It's the higher numbers of less-motivated that are, and indeed are hard to bring to better levels. In other words, here's where the action is.
We ran into a kg. teacher in the supermarket the other day. She was bright, enthusiastic, indeed everything you would want in that position. She was buying stuff for her classroom, using her own money (hint?). However, she did describe an atmosphere where a goodly number of her charges arrived unaware of the existence or use of such high-tech tools as teaspoons; their only method of eating was with their fingers. It would be folly indeed to try to introduce the lethal fork or table knife.
What we're describing is a kid five years old and behind more than five. These needs are not something that should be imposed on an educational system; they belong at home. With a domestic atmosphere that could produce such kids, support for the school is unlikely.
Throw up our hands? That's more unrealistic yet, but the problem isn't something to be dumped on the schools alone - it's indeed sociological.We might consider putting more money where the problems are, where the needs are greatest, indeed, where the action is.
The kids who, with their parents, opt for escapist schools, those that take some effort to get into, are not a particular problem. It's the higher numbers of less-motivated that are, and indeed are hard to bring to better levels. In other words, here's where the action is.
We ran into a kg. teacher in the supermarket the other day. She was bright, enthusiastic, indeed everything you would want in that position. She was buying stuff for her classroom, using her own money (hint?). However, she did describe an atmosphere where a goodly number of her charges arrived unaware of the existence or use of such high-tech tools as teaspoons; their only method of eating was with their fingers. It would be folly indeed to try to introduce the lethal fork or table knife.
What we're describing is a kid five years old and behind more than five. These needs are not something that should be imposed on an educational system; they belong at home. With a domestic atmosphere that could produce such kids, support for the school is unlikely.
Throw up our hands? That's more unrealistic yet, but the problem isn't something to be dumped on the schools alone - it's indeed sociological.We might consider putting more money where the problems are, where the needs are greatest, indeed, where the action is.
24
"Minority children are disproportionately trapped in schools that lack the teaching talent, "
About this claim: As a current classroom teacher, and as someone who was an adjunct in a Graduate program training teachers, I'm always annoyed by this belief. While it is true that among minority children there are unacceptablly high levels of underperformance, the claim that the main reason is lack of teaching talent seems unfounded, if not unproven. As is said in the research world: Coorelation does not mean causation. As an adjunct training teachers with provisional licenses (that is they had Bachelor's, but had to get Master's degrees) and many of them in schools in the South Bronx, I found these teachers as highly dedicated and motivated to working with minority students with the hopes of improving their lives. And the graduate program of which I was part of turned out well trained reading teachers. I cannot say how well (and how many) of their students actually performed in school, but if those students did not do well, it wasn't necessarily because their teachers lacked talent.
About this claim: As a current classroom teacher, and as someone who was an adjunct in a Graduate program training teachers, I'm always annoyed by this belief. While it is true that among minority children there are unacceptablly high levels of underperformance, the claim that the main reason is lack of teaching talent seems unfounded, if not unproven. As is said in the research world: Coorelation does not mean causation. As an adjunct training teachers with provisional licenses (that is they had Bachelor's, but had to get Master's degrees) and many of them in schools in the South Bronx, I found these teachers as highly dedicated and motivated to working with minority students with the hopes of improving their lives. And the graduate program of which I was part of turned out well trained reading teachers. I cannot say how well (and how many) of their students actually performed in school, but if those students did not do well, it wasn't necessarily because their teachers lacked talent.
23
The answer is obvious. It is unacceptable to blame the students for their dysfunction. The teachers are used as a scapegoat for student under-performance just as the police are blamed for violence in high crime areas.
10
The problem with evaluating a student from a lower income neighborhood based on test scores is that statistics show that students from lower incomes are more likely to have much lower test scores. This problem is exacerbated in lower income neighborhoods, where the education of the populous is usually lower than it is in higher income neighborhoods. I have seen this first hand living in and going to school in Boston. The kids with the highest test scores are mostly whites from higher income neighborhoods, such as Beacon Hill. The ethnically diverse neighborhoods, Roxbury and Jamaica Plain come to mind, have the worst test scores. Therefore, it is necessary to change this fact in order to create a level playing field in this area of education. Test scores, especially the SAT and the ACT, have become so important in getting into college and pursuing a career that they need to be stressed throughout a student's middle and high school years. In the situation with Buffalo, I think the city needs to take steps to afford more funding for schools in lower income neighborhoods.
6
"The problem with evaluating a student from a lower income neighborhood based on test scores is that statistics show that students from lower incomes are more likely to have much lower test scores."
Doesn't that imply that they are less likely to succeed in the more rigorous schools and AP classes? What happens to a classroom of high-performing students with good test scores when you introduce students who can't keep up?
Doesn't that imply that they are less likely to succeed in the more rigorous schools and AP classes? What happens to a classroom of high-performing students with good test scores when you introduce students who can't keep up?
6
When I studied Sociology in college, much of the literature seemed to suggest that the worst teachers were concentrated in under-resourced schools. After spending a year working in a South Bronx elementary school, I know that it's not that simple. The teachers I observed each day were intelligent, dedicated, and attuned to their students' unique needs. However, the students came to school with such high needs that two wonderful guidance counselors and one school psychologist simply did not have enough hours in the day to meet those needs for such a large amount of students. After reporting suspicions of learning disabilities for one student, I was told that his mother would have to take him to Pelham Bay to be properly evaluated. Many times, it's not the case of schools being "under-resourced", it's the fact that they need so many more resources than the "typical" school for the students to succeed to their full potential.
42
Finally, a rational explanation for underperforming schools. It never made sense to argue that schools in high poverty districts had all the incompetent teachers and schools in high wealth districts had all the "great" teachers. In education, as in any other profession, the vast majority are average. Nor can it ever be any other way. if you switch the teachers from these districts the results will still be the same. Hence the folly of standardized testing.
4
Your point is well-taken. A critical error is the assumption that the schools can do it all. They can't. Parents are half the equation.
4
"It has a moral obligation to ensure that as many children as possible escape failing schools for ones that give them a fighting chance."
Short of - you know - actually closing down "failing" schools or offering the parents Charter Schools as alternate choices.
Short of - you know - actually closing down "failing" schools or offering the parents Charter Schools as alternate choices.
1
Racial isolation in public schools is an endemic enduring national problem. Socioeconomics plus politics and race and law are the sources of the problem.
Part of the problem rests in the legal rationale used to win in the SCOTUS case Brown v. Board of Education. Until Brown the "separate but equal" doctrine supported continuing segregation. Reversing that precedent required some showing of injury which was supposedly based upon the harm to black kids from their inability to learn without white kids. And the result was that integration instead of quality became the goal.
The socioeconomic problem is that with Blacks race and class are inextricably intertwined by the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow into a unique physically identifiable lower caste. And since most school funding comes out of local city or county taxes geography is educational destiny. Housing segregation ordains school segregation and sorts political power.
Ultimately the real issue is whether or not we believe in a providing quality public school education as a righteous societal necessity. Based upon the record in New York and elsewhere the answer is clearly no. American kids lag behind other nations in math and reading. Even those from the upper white class socioeconomic echelons going to the best schools are relatively mediocre.
We need to find a solution that separates education from commerce, unions and politics which focuses on providing a quality public school education to all of our kids.
Part of the problem rests in the legal rationale used to win in the SCOTUS case Brown v. Board of Education. Until Brown the "separate but equal" doctrine supported continuing segregation. Reversing that precedent required some showing of injury which was supposedly based upon the harm to black kids from their inability to learn without white kids. And the result was that integration instead of quality became the goal.
The socioeconomic problem is that with Blacks race and class are inextricably intertwined by the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow into a unique physically identifiable lower caste. And since most school funding comes out of local city or county taxes geography is educational destiny. Housing segregation ordains school segregation and sorts political power.
Ultimately the real issue is whether or not we believe in a providing quality public school education as a righteous societal necessity. Based upon the record in New York and elsewhere the answer is clearly no. American kids lag behind other nations in math and reading. Even those from the upper white class socioeconomic echelons going to the best schools are relatively mediocre.
We need to find a solution that separates education from commerce, unions and politics which focuses on providing a quality public school education to all of our kids.
2
" American kids lag behind other nations in math and reading. Even those from the upper white class socioeconomic echelons going to the best schools are relatively mediocre."
I have read that upper-class, white American students do very well on international standardized tests.
I have read that upper-class, white American students do very well on international standardized tests.
7
I have taught in many different situations and on the elementary, secondary and university levels for over 30 years. My experience has shown me that for us to successfully educate our young people in this country, it will require at least three things: First, public officials, teachers' unions, and public schools as a whole must lose their fear of and undue prejudice against other types of schooling. Some movement has been made towards cooperation, but not nearly enough. There is pedagogy, innovative curriculum, and effective teaching activities to be shared amongst all. Second, American parents from all classes must come to grips with the fact that a good education, whether private or public, costs money and time. Too many of them claim their children are their most valuable resource, yet at the same time are unwilling to pay what it takes, while going into debt for technology and cars. Too many of them also refuse to take the amount of time needed to train their children at home in ways that would build a healthy and whole human being. Again, I find this across the socioeconomic and racial spectrum. Third, and this goes in conjunction with parents paying more: public elementary school teachers should be required to have a bachelor’s in a specific discipline and a master’s in teaching. Their pay should be increased so that teaching is competitive with other industries such as medicine and technology (before you protest, remember our primary resource!).
15
"Third, and this goes in conjunction with parents paying more: public elementary school teachers should be required to have a bachelor’s in a specific discipline and a master’s in teaching. Their pay should be increased so that teaching is competitive with other industries such as medicine and technology (before you protest, remember our primary resource!)."
Thanks for your proposal! I would place your third as the first, because kids naturally want to learn. IF they can find learning interesting and making sense, they are more likely to focus on education. Yes, "public elementary school teachers should be required to have a bachelor’s in a specific discipline" that they teach.
Thanks for your proposal! I would place your third as the first, because kids naturally want to learn. IF they can find learning interesting and making sense, they are more likely to focus on education. Yes, "public elementary school teachers should be required to have a bachelor’s in a specific discipline" that they teach.
The solution is complicated, although the problem is merely complex. We live in a meritocracy society and what are the two salient qualities that give each of us an "edge" in this society? Nature and nurture. If a human being from the early days in the mother to the first five years of life is not exposed to a loving, intellectually stimulated environment the chances for "success" in our society are diminished greatly. In addition, we are witnessing the greatest sexual propagation of well-educated partners in history. Our society has developed into a system where the Ivies and other right-of-center bell curve humans are creating a schism from the remaining population. Those first five or six years determine - to a great extent - the trajectory of a person's life. Our society should emphasize the profound significance of this fact. The complex solution to our complicated problem requires honest and compassionate conversation along with thoughtful, responsible behavior. It will take generations of a new consciousness to create this change.
7
Racial isolation in public schools cannot be fixed so long as neighborhoods are racially isolated. If New York's schools are considered racially isolated, you should come to Kansas City.
Around 1980, a judge ruled that the school district was unfairly segregated. The district had 75,000 students at that time. We spent something like $1.4 billion (in 1980's money) to tear down buildings, build super fancy dream schools, install a magnet school program, and bus kids all over town. Result: the white kids left and now attend private, or charter schools, number of enrollees dropped to 17,000, and the district lost state accreditation. What was once a thriving, quality school district fell apart. As far as segregation goes, it is probably at least 95% non-white. A few mostly white schools in the northeast part of town left and joined the neighboring Independence school district. Things are that bad.
Schools are the number one public institution that serve as anchors in communities. They pull people together. They are social glue. Bussing kids all over the place removes that cohesiveness.
Forced desegregation just doesn't work as evidenced by the experience here. Schools are neighborhood things. Kids should be able to walk to school. Desegregating schools is a desirable goal, but it wont happen until neighborhoods desegregate, which is a much, much bigger problem.
Around 1980, a judge ruled that the school district was unfairly segregated. The district had 75,000 students at that time. We spent something like $1.4 billion (in 1980's money) to tear down buildings, build super fancy dream schools, install a magnet school program, and bus kids all over town. Result: the white kids left and now attend private, or charter schools, number of enrollees dropped to 17,000, and the district lost state accreditation. What was once a thriving, quality school district fell apart. As far as segregation goes, it is probably at least 95% non-white. A few mostly white schools in the northeast part of town left and joined the neighboring Independence school district. Things are that bad.
Schools are the number one public institution that serve as anchors in communities. They pull people together. They are social glue. Bussing kids all over the place removes that cohesiveness.
Forced desegregation just doesn't work as evidenced by the experience here. Schools are neighborhood things. Kids should be able to walk to school. Desegregating schools is a desirable goal, but it wont happen until neighborhoods desegregate, which is a much, much bigger problem.
25
We can all give outsider opinions and teachers opinions but I'd like to hear from the underperforming black child's parents. (Why and how did your child get to this point....what are your challenges? Why isnt your child getting to school everyday. Why arent you monitoring his/her homework.) Public education is an opportunity not a guarantee for success.
20
The NYTimes listing of Buffalo’s “wasteful, outmoded teachers’ contract that provides unusually generous benefits and makes it difficult to manage the teaching force” is a gratuitous swipe at teachers. Union contracts have nothing to do with the problem at hand, which is the admissions process at magnet schools that results in civil rights violations.
6
A study prepared for the New York City School Construction Authority in February 2013 contained the following breakdown:
"Hispanics continue to be the largest ethnic group in the school district, representing 40.5% of the student population in 2011-12, while Blacks comprise 27.7% of the student population. Asians/American Indians currently represent 16.6%, while Whites, the smallest ethnic group,
represent 15.2% of the student population."
A representative school in New York City would be about 85% minority based on these statistics.
"Hispanics continue to be the largest ethnic group in the school district, representing 40.5% of the student population in 2011-12, while Blacks comprise 27.7% of the student population. Asians/American Indians currently represent 16.6%, while Whites, the smallest ethnic group,
represent 15.2% of the student population."
A representative school in New York City would be about 85% minority based on these statistics.
1
Blame everything except the reason. Most of the people that surround these schools do not value their childs education. These children grow up to be the thugs of the world. Yet people like the author and liberals want to bring these unruly children to the schools that care or bring decent children to these schools. Sorry blame the people not society, teachers, politicians , etc...Stop your PC correctness and look at problem.
18
IMHO IF you Charles lived in Buffalo you would be part of the problem. We can never give up on these children as they are our future, whether they live in Buffalo or any major city. One of the major ways we can change future thug into future model citizens is through education. If that is harder to accomplish in the inner city then we try harder. The results are our future. I must also say that I sense a bit of bigotry in your comment as well as others. We are all God's children and deserve love and understanding. Signed, a while, middle class man from Westchester County
2
Triage. The enlightened progressive mind can't deal with triage. It will take the cold stern hand of conservative thought to fix this problem. But because the enlightened largely control the media and schools, the problem will just never be solved. Sad.
The problem of underachieving poor its not a racial problem it's an economic and cultural problem. And cannot be solved outside of solutions that deal with those two factors. As long as the enlightened liberal cultivates the poor with excuses and guilt payoffs, they will flourish but fail.
Harsh policy has been on order for some time. But with the massive "poor industrial complex," too many now rely on their suffering and misery for purpose and livelihood.
The problem of underachieving poor its not a racial problem it's an economic and cultural problem. And cannot be solved outside of solutions that deal with those two factors. As long as the enlightened liberal cultivates the poor with excuses and guilt payoffs, they will flourish but fail.
Harsh policy has been on order for some time. But with the massive "poor industrial complex," too many now rely on their suffering and misery for purpose and livelihood.
7
Sorry, but the"cold stern hand" of the conservative is responsible for the disparity we see today: social and economic decisions made by conservative parents, buttressed by fear of the other and capital flight to private learning institutions have left the majority of school systems with an unattainable task of educating non-elite students without the tax base, and reduces those same teachers and students to begging for equivalent opportunities. Every"cold and stern conservative" response I've heard over the past thirty years has been some version of"why should I help? I hate paying taxes, I've got mine and I'm doing fine." Look in the mirror, and see the problem in first person.
3
"the Buffalo school system has been hobbled by a wasteful, outmoded teachers’ contract that provides unusually generous benefits and makes it difficult to manage the teaching force. The district has also suffered from inept leadership that has not met basic obligations. It has failed, for example, to file acceptable, legally required plans with the state for turning around low-performing schools"
The problem doesn't look like it is racial isolation and disparity. It wouldn't matter what the diversity of students is if we have inept leadership and an inability to manage the teaching force. While the "solution" you propose might improve educational opportunities for some minority children wouldn't it also increase the diversity of children in the schools that aren't performing? To the detriment of their education? Someone has to go to the non "criteria schools".
How about this? Fire the leadership and hire people who know what they are doing. Then fire all the teachers while allowing all who were fired to interview for jobs but start from scratch.
The problem doesn't look like it is racial isolation and disparity. It wouldn't matter what the diversity of students is if we have inept leadership and an inability to manage the teaching force. While the "solution" you propose might improve educational opportunities for some minority children wouldn't it also increase the diversity of children in the schools that aren't performing? To the detriment of their education? Someone has to go to the non "criteria schools".
How about this? Fire the leadership and hire people who know what they are doing. Then fire all the teachers while allowing all who were fired to interview for jobs but start from scratch.
1
My children go to a mixed race and income elementary school. The children from disadvantaged backgrounds are sometimes disruptive and prevent the teacher from teaching. At other times my daughters are bored because the level of instruction isn't quite high enough. However, coming from an Ivy League educated and in-tact family, they will do fine. They are also learning at an extremely early age about empathy and inequality. When my older daughter learned that the girl in her class who often bothers her lives in a homeless shelter, her jaw dropped--and she began to think differently about the situation. I think that counts for a lot.
7
"More recently, the Buffalo school system has been hobbled by a wasteful, outmoded teachers’ contract that provides unusually generous benefits and makes it difficult to manage the teaching force."
Sure, let's slash teacher salaries and benefits! That'll attract quality teachers to Buffalo!
Sure, let's slash teacher salaries and benefits! That'll attract quality teachers to Buffalo!
11
It is moronic for all to not grasp the problem. Private schools, Magnet schools, charter schools, Religious schools, home Schooling siphon off the best and brightest of our teachers, administrators, students, parent advocates, infrastructure monies, and aid of all varities. It is highly inefficient, it segregats our nations culture of America the Beautiful, and is harmful, no ifs, ands, or buts about it.
2
Are you proposing to take away a parents' right to place their children in the best school they can?
6
This comment thread is so atypical of the usual that I have to wonder if Fox News told its viewers to come on over here and vent.
3
I am willing to wager that Cuomo and Tisch will "rescue" the Buffalo schools by placing them in receivership, gutting the teacher's contract, looting any union pension and benefit funds, and turning the operation of schools over to for-profit charter schools. This will put an end to "mismanagement" of the schools and the "wasteful, outmoded teachers' contract" that makes it difficult to make changes to the schools. I hope that the editorial board will look at how this "solution" played out in NJ, PA, MI, WI and other states where governors replaced "failing schools" with deregulated for profit schools and "union teachers" with at will employees.
You observed that "things went downhill...when court supervision ended and Buffalo experienced severe fiscal problems." Cuomo and Tisch should:
(1) Get to the root of the "fiscal problems" and limit their oversight to the BUSINESS side of the schools
(2) Make certain that the "failing schools" are sufficiently resourced
(3) Expand the number of seats in its magnet schools
(4) Insist that the district change its magnet admissions standards by using a criteria other than standardized test scores
(5) Provide technical assistance to the Board and administration in place now an insist that they submit acceptable action plans for improvement.
(6) Make sure that Buffalo (and other economically challenged districts) is getting its fair share of state funds.
Privatization without oversight will NOT solve Buffalo's problems.
You observed that "things went downhill...when court supervision ended and Buffalo experienced severe fiscal problems." Cuomo and Tisch should:
(1) Get to the root of the "fiscal problems" and limit their oversight to the BUSINESS side of the schools
(2) Make certain that the "failing schools" are sufficiently resourced
(3) Expand the number of seats in its magnet schools
(4) Insist that the district change its magnet admissions standards by using a criteria other than standardized test scores
(5) Provide technical assistance to the Board and administration in place now an insist that they submit acceptable action plans for improvement.
(6) Make sure that Buffalo (and other economically challenged districts) is getting its fair share of state funds.
Privatization without oversight will NOT solve Buffalo's problems.
6
Item 6: Buffalo schools are funded to the tune of $22,000 per student. That is well above average and more than enough to cover 1-5. Let the union manager the schools with the funds provided if they are not the problem.
3
The middle class will always move away from outdated teacher contracts, unmanageable staff and mismanagement by administrators, therefore leaving low income students behind in dysfunctional schools. Throwing more money at it will not fix the problem. Well managed schools with effective administrators and reasonable contracts that reflect today's realities regarding retirement pay and healthcare will draw the middle class back. I sincerely believe this is not about race, but rather about the failure of the educational system to keep up with our changing world.
3
There are a few larger issues this article needs to address, in order to accurately assess what has been happening here in Buffalo, NY.
The flow of capital from Buffalo (the city) to the suburbs of Buffalo. This is not necessarily a racial issue, it is more so a cultural phenomena experienced decades ago when those who had the economic means to leave the city, sought better lives in the suburbs. Coupled with fiscal mismanagement, a shrinking tax base, and lucrative teaching contracts, these schools are already being set up for failure.
The children currently in the Buffalo public school system are victims, but their parents are not. You can spin it however you want, but these kids are victims of their parents choices. I've seen every color in Buffalo schools, some more disproportionally represented than others, and these kids are far from ideal students. Where do I place the blame? The systematic break down of the family unit, especially in the inner city. Similarities can be drawn between many rust belt cities; when the steel industry died decent paying jobs vanished. Now this cycle is coming full circle.
How do you fix it? Well you could have the best schools in the world and if the kids go home to decrepit houses, degenerate families, etc... it won't help on a large scale. If your aim is to push up graduation rates you need jobs, community improvement, and families that care. In Buffalo, it's anyone's guess which will come first.
The flow of capital from Buffalo (the city) to the suburbs of Buffalo. This is not necessarily a racial issue, it is more so a cultural phenomena experienced decades ago when those who had the economic means to leave the city, sought better lives in the suburbs. Coupled with fiscal mismanagement, a shrinking tax base, and lucrative teaching contracts, these schools are already being set up for failure.
The children currently in the Buffalo public school system are victims, but their parents are not. You can spin it however you want, but these kids are victims of their parents choices. I've seen every color in Buffalo schools, some more disproportionally represented than others, and these kids are far from ideal students. Where do I place the blame? The systematic break down of the family unit, especially in the inner city. Similarities can be drawn between many rust belt cities; when the steel industry died decent paying jobs vanished. Now this cycle is coming full circle.
How do you fix it? Well you could have the best schools in the world and if the kids go home to decrepit houses, degenerate families, etc... it won't help on a large scale. If your aim is to push up graduation rates you need jobs, community improvement, and families that care. In Buffalo, it's anyone's guess which will come first.
14
I agree with your assessment. However, how do we fix a bad family situation? Are we willing to pay for the necessary support systems? It will cost money that the right and extreme right wing will scorn. Are we ready for a Progressive agenda? We probably need another Lincoln, TR, FDR, eisenhower. Obama has grown alligator arms while attempting to grasp the progressive agenda.
1
This is the truth. But in the end, it's easier, and cheaper, to simply blame teachers. Apparently, all the incompetent teachers are teaching in high poverty areas and all the good teachers are teaching in high wealth areas. But I have news for you. Swap them and the results would be the same.
4
Stop blaming teachers for things which are entirely beyond their control.
Teachers may, through heroic effort, move the success needle for children from broken circumstances. But they cannot be expected to repair broken lives, dysfunctional families, corrosive cultures and a whole host of social ills that have nothing to do with the classroom.
I guess we'll just have to be happy with your incremental admission that New York's schools are the most segregated in the nation.
Who knew?
Teachers may, through heroic effort, move the success needle for children from broken circumstances. But they cannot be expected to repair broken lives, dysfunctional families, corrosive cultures and a whole host of social ills that have nothing to do with the classroom.
I guess we'll just have to be happy with your incremental admission that New York's schools are the most segregated in the nation.
Who knew?
13
Two schools in the same school district, one with professional parents earning an upper middle income, the other school with students from low income families. Not only are the parents who have had experience getting into and through college going to have a different perspective on the importance of education at every grade level, which will reflect in their diligence at keeping their child academically competitive, but they can also contribute finances through parent organizations or private gifts. This translates into better libraries, school trips and funding into classes.
Consider how it is reasonable that the parents in the first school might gift the teacher more and better supplies for the room. As a classroom teacher who prefers working with multicultural low income families, I know that it is hard for my students families to fund a field trip in town, while my peers in other schools are planning field trips across country. Equal funding to a school is not always equitable, but which of these two schools is more likely to have political clout in Board of Ed meetings?
IF you want to reduce discrimination in public education, reduce the income gap in our society and the poverty it creates.
Consider how it is reasonable that the parents in the first school might gift the teacher more and better supplies for the room. As a classroom teacher who prefers working with multicultural low income families, I know that it is hard for my students families to fund a field trip in town, while my peers in other schools are planning field trips across country. Equal funding to a school is not always equitable, but which of these two schools is more likely to have political clout in Board of Ed meetings?
IF you want to reduce discrimination in public education, reduce the income gap in our society and the poverty it creates.
29
Only those with a good education can expect a good income. So the cycle continues until parents place emphasis on their children's education.
3
Amazing! The article does not mention the word "union" once yet has the following passage.."More recently, the Buffalo school system has been hobbled by a wasteful, outmoded teachers’ contract that provides unusually generous benefits and makes it difficult to manage the teaching force." If you want to discuss the truth, then lets do so...if not, don't blame it on segregation or lack there of.
4
Education is the best a country can and must do for their children, the future depends on them. That many students are not advancing in knowledge as expected is a complex issue where the global community must be considered, as each and every member is essential in grasping the need to change for the better. Poverty, hunger, isolation, despair, crime and drugs, are among the ills that may contribute to our ignorance and its attendant prejudices. Under such adverse circumstances, how could we possibly expect to draw excellence, the grasp of reality as we wish it were and not as it is? Government's priority is to serve its people the best it can, financial support and otherwise, so we have the basic structures to build upon. How can we wish something we don't know or, if we do, 'know' it can't be had? Early child education must look into each household and create awareness of how important it is to educate our kids; the rest, hard work, dedication and perseverance, are a given if we can walk the talk.
1
Why do you assume that these schools "lack teaching talent?"
13
"...discriminating against nonwhite students in admissions to the better schools — those that choose students based on test scores and other screening."
When did it become racist to evaluate school/college/university applicants based on test scores? Is it also racists to evaluate job candidates based on skill and experience?
When did it become racist to evaluate school/college/university applicants based on test scores? Is it also racists to evaluate job candidates based on skill and experience?
22
It's called dumbing down the system. Everyone loses here...
5
It is very much SES based.Looking at the jobs people had in the 50's and 60's there was one job, paying a decent wage and you worked a 40 hour week. As good paying jobs have evaporated, the same families now have BOTH parents working, usually holding down more than one job. These aren't jobs to buy luxury item, they pay the rent/mortgage(maybe) and keep the family fed and clothed. I spent 9 years on a school board in a poor rural area of upstate NY. It was the same parents, the same kids for every activity. The rest were just trying to get by. Parental participation is absolutely vital to a good education. Unless we can up with a model that works around the declining incomes of families, accommodates them as best we can we will not see any improvements.
25
1981-2014
A few highlights of the Republican /social/economic restructuring strategy: (with help from centrist Democrats:
1) Apply economic pressure on the middle class forcing both parents to work. No one is at home attending to the kids, the community schools, etc., because they can't be civic minded.They are working just to get by.
2) Bid all government services to "private", inferior, less professional companies (fire, paramedics, mail delivery, etc.).
3) De-fund, dismantle, ridicule public education.We don't want an educated populace! Then they'll know we aim to solidify wealth at the top; also play the race card because the lower/middle class will blame each other or immigrants; this will prevent them from uniting over economic issues. Don't offer civics courses, drivers education, vocational education. Attack unions. Privatize, privatize, privatize. Collective good: what's that?
3)95% of American school children go to public schools. EVEN with all the social, emotional pressure brought on by this economic revolution public school kids in middle class/affluent districts STILL excel.
4) The poverty (Buffalo) in urban districts is the problem. But don't say that! Drain resources from middle class schools to try and "fix" it.
5) Where possible, de-professionalize teaching; simultaneously reduce all learning to "fill in the bubble" testing. Steer tens of millions to testing companies. They are private, they know the most about teaching (?) and learning!
A few highlights of the Republican /social/economic restructuring strategy: (with help from centrist Democrats:
1) Apply economic pressure on the middle class forcing both parents to work. No one is at home attending to the kids, the community schools, etc., because they can't be civic minded.They are working just to get by.
2) Bid all government services to "private", inferior, less professional companies (fire, paramedics, mail delivery, etc.).
3) De-fund, dismantle, ridicule public education.We don't want an educated populace! Then they'll know we aim to solidify wealth at the top; also play the race card because the lower/middle class will blame each other or immigrants; this will prevent them from uniting over economic issues. Don't offer civics courses, drivers education, vocational education. Attack unions. Privatize, privatize, privatize. Collective good: what's that?
3)95% of American school children go to public schools. EVEN with all the social, emotional pressure brought on by this economic revolution public school kids in middle class/affluent districts STILL excel.
4) The poverty (Buffalo) in urban districts is the problem. But don't say that! Drain resources from middle class schools to try and "fix" it.
5) Where possible, de-professionalize teaching; simultaneously reduce all learning to "fill in the bubble" testing. Steer tens of millions to testing companies. They are private, they know the most about teaching (?) and learning!
3
Why does the Times always conflate poor student performance and teacher quality. I teach in a poor and segregated nyc public school with excellent teachers. The students who routinely fail do so because of so many reasons outside the control of teachers.
Study after study has shown that what happens in school isn't even among the top ten reasons for lack of student success. Yes, teacher quality is number one for IN school reasons. But you simply cannot ignore the myriad other factors.
The public school in the affluent town where I live has an incredibly strong teachers union. But it also has an incredibly active PTA and a locally elected school board. The teacher quality is about the same, maybe even not as good because children will achieve via tutors and parental support when the teacher is not as strong. The resulting gap in academic achievement has nothing to do with teacher quality.
Study after study has shown that what happens in school isn't even among the top ten reasons for lack of student success. Yes, teacher quality is number one for IN school reasons. But you simply cannot ignore the myriad other factors.
The public school in the affluent town where I live has an incredibly strong teachers union. But it also has an incredibly active PTA and a locally elected school board. The teacher quality is about the same, maybe even not as good because children will achieve via tutors and parental support when the teacher is not as strong. The resulting gap in academic achievement has nothing to do with teacher quality.
35
Once again the New York Times expresses its profound belief that social engineering, despite vast evidence to the contrary, can overcome cultural deficiencies. The editors' stubborn refusal to listen to reason, sticking instead to cherished articles of liberal dogma, puts their ideas squarely in the realm of faith. Also reminiscent of religion is their hypocrisy: what's good for their children (homogeneous, exclusive private and public schools) is not good for the public.
It's time for the Times to put this tired old catechism to rest and come up with some original ideas.
It's time for the Times to put this tired old catechism to rest and come up with some original ideas.
13
To think that "Minority children are disproportionately trapped in schools that lack the teaching talent" and this accounts for the educational weaknesses of many students is delusional and ignores the crux of the problem.
Learning is stifled when too many other students in a school have little interest and motivation to learn.
The problem is the culture of the community not the quality of the teachers and the resources.
The same critics of the quality of the public education offered, are the advocates for not removing disruptive students from the classroom.
No one can learn in a classroom disrupted by others who have no interest in learning.
Learning is stifled when too many other students in a school have little interest and motivation to learn.
The problem is the culture of the community not the quality of the teachers and the resources.
The same critics of the quality of the public education offered, are the advocates for not removing disruptive students from the classroom.
No one can learn in a classroom disrupted by others who have no interest in learning.
49
The absolute truth. But it's easier, and cheaper, to blame teachers.
4
I think New York -- and in particular New York City -- needs the opportunity to experience forced radical busing which they cheered when it was forced on the South.
9
Schools don't fail. Such a notion is a philosophical fallacy. Students may fail to complete an assignment or fail a test. Teachers can fail in their efforts to teach. Parents can fail in their efforts to parent. Legislators and Administrators can fail in their efforts to promote positive change. But focusing on closing "failing" schools is a red herring fallacy. I expect more from the NYT Editorial Board. I suppose that since so many problems that you address in your NYT editorials still persisit one could argue that you have failed--and shouild be out-sourced to a magnet-charter-Board of Editors. ;~)
22
Look at the underlining problems with those schools. The reason why these schools fail is because the majority of these schools are in low income neighborhoods, which means that the parents of these students don’t have jobs which pay enough, which means that most probably didn’t go to college. Essentially, it is the racial/economic divide in these neighborhoods that create the “failing school”. Schools need to be integrated both racially and economically for all students to succeed. Politicians place way too much stock in the ‘education’ that schools provide. Most people are educated by the interactions that they have with people around them. When low-income minority students fail, it is because they are around other low-income minority students. The language and knowledge acquisition of the white upper middle class doesn’t happen in schools, it happens at home and with friends. Yet, we expect the lower classes to be on par with them with just schooling. This is not how learning happens. Instead of trying to break down schools, while maintaining middle class schools as separate, schools need to be restructured to have a mix of income and racial groups. Kids interact with other kids far more than they do with teachers. Stop looking at this in terms of just closing and reopening schools under different names… Or options to send token kids to ‘better’ schools, while leaving the neighborhood school to ‘fail’. That’s only marketing. You will only end up with the same result.
8
I think they tried this in the past and it didn't work.
3
Look to Vermont. Children in the Northeast Kingdom were in awful schools, while children in districts with tax-producing expensive homes near ski areas thrived. The state imposed a statewide tax that brought those rural schools up to par. That, plus parental involvement, did the trick. One without the other will never work.
14
Look to New Jersey. The Abbott Ruling dd the same thing - equalized funding between the poorest and the richest districts (as for the middle districts, they just have to fend for themselves). In NJ, it did no good. The performance of the Newark and Camden city schools are as bad as ever (despite having per pupil funding equal the wealthiest enclaves of the state). And, "getting parents involved," is often just an excuse for teachers not to do their job, and force parents to spend hours at night trying to teach the subjects that the teachers failed to teach in class just so kids can do their homework. And, with the fragmented families of the "inner cities," the parents are in no position to to do this.
So, no, money is not the answer in most places. Nor is parental involvement.
So, no, money is not the answer in most places. Nor is parental involvement.
1
Exactly, but how often is parental involvement even brought up? You cannot expect to teach the kids what the parents fail to do!
1
The students make the school, the school does not make the students. Kids from dysfunctional and poor families will always struggle and it doesn't have anything to do with race. I have students from intact African families who do very well at the rigorous public school where I teach. They are black and their families are refugees or recent immigrants. I have African American and Appalachian students from single parent families who come with a myriad problems related to their socioeconomic background and family dysfunction. They struggle. I have middle and upper middle class African American students from two parent families and they do well. Money and funding has nothing whatsoever to do with it.
60
If this is true then why do so many wealthy families waste their money sending their kids to expensive private schools?
Their kids come from two parent upper income families, and according to you will do just fine in the local public school and at no cost.
Also, how do you explain the exceptions? The kids from poor single parent families that do well in school? According to you they haven't got a chance. By the way, two of those kids went on to become the 42nd and 44th presidents of the United States.
Their kids come from two parent upper income families, and according to you will do just fine in the local public school and at no cost.
Also, how do you explain the exceptions? The kids from poor single parent families that do well in school? According to you they haven't got a chance. By the way, two of those kids went on to become the 42nd and 44th presidents of the United States.
3
A blanket statement like, "The students make the school, the school does not make the students", is factually wrong. Many students are given an advantage by their family situation, and many more are disadvantaged by theirs. But no matter the family situation is, many children can be given a better chance in life by better schools--and it is the children from the worse off family situation who will benefit the most from that. Money and funding has everything to do with this--though its not the only thing. Sad to see that a teacher, down fighting this fight in the trenches, has been overwhelmed, turned cynical, by the fight... its a good fight. It has to be fought. Sad to see America loosing this battle the past 20 years because of white flight-- and because we have refused to fund public education with something other than property taxes. A Federal Corporate Education tax-- a tax on Corps making more than X Billion-- could help turn this around
3
For some reason ( a not very good reason) integration ceased being anyone's priority. Too bad. There's no such thing as separate but equal. Let's go back to bussing. It was good for everyone, the bussed kids and the kids whose day now included the bussed kids. Everyone has something to contribute. Children need to learn that. Let's mix it up, stop teaching to tests and create great schools.
6
Forced busing to achieve desegregation was a grand national experiment that failed everywhere. If it were to be reinstituted it would, most likely, fail again. Those (both black and white) who can afford it move to the suburbs to avoid their children being bused to dangerous high crime areas. Those who are wealthy enough who wish to stay in their cities enroll their kids in private schools which proliferate and prosper in the cities That's the situation we have now, a natural socio-economic segregation. Busing won't fix anything. It will take a dramatic cultural change in child raising, although how to achieve such a lofty goal is quite the mystery.
5
Let's go back to busing? It was good for everyone? And this is an NYT pick?
Busing was a DISASTER. It fueled white flight, which fueled suburban sprawl, loss of habitat for animals, and urban decay.
Busing was the brainchild of men who owned lots of farmland in suburban areas and needed demand for the houses they built on that land.
Good luck with busing. The only babies who will endure the long bus rides far from their homes are the babies with the least caring, aware and stable parents. The rich white kids? They'll all be in private schools.
Busing was a DISASTER. It fueled white flight, which fueled suburban sprawl, loss of habitat for animals, and urban decay.
Busing was the brainchild of men who owned lots of farmland in suburban areas and needed demand for the houses they built on that land.
Good luck with busing. The only babies who will endure the long bus rides far from their homes are the babies with the least caring, aware and stable parents. The rich white kids? They'll all be in private schools.
8
Busing may have been good for bus driver employment rates but it led to " white flight " and the subsequent decline of public education into sloth and violence.
3
Suggesting that one of the problems is "outmoded teacher contracts that provide unusually generous benefits..." is part of the problem, again reflects the lack of respect for the teaching profession in our society. Yes, proven incompetent teachers must be dismissed but a teacher's abilities cannot be judged on the performance of one year's students compared with another year's students.
13
"Proven incompetent teachers must be dismissed," and they can be, regardless of union or tenure status. If they're not, it's a failure of leadership, not a result of unionization or tenure (which is actually a rule that specifically allows the firing of bad teachers but not good ones). "Tenure reform" has mostly made it easier to fire GOOD teachers, since they were the ones protected by tenure, and the NYTimes has been a loud supporter of that bad policy change.
3
The elephant in the room that won't go away is that parents who can do what it takes to support their kids will keep doing it. So solutions of any kind cannot ignore these kids.
It a tough quandary.
It a tough quandary.
17
I have heard this song sung before in the 1960's. The remedy back then was busing. The result was white flight to the suburbs, the academic deterioration of the entire system, and schools that were filled with students who had to endure long bus rides to neighborhood far from home. As I recall, the NYT was a big advocate of that process.
Now it seems that our local politicos (Cuomo) who like making speeches,, and who are short of educational ideas, are playing the reform game again. The result will be the same as before- the few functioning schools will deteriorate, and the system will become more segregated.
Now it seems that our local politicos (Cuomo) who like making speeches,, and who are short of educational ideas, are playing the reform game again. The result will be the same as before- the few functioning schools will deteriorate, and the system will become more segregated.
29
" It has a moral obligation to ensure that as many children as possible escape failing schools for ones that give them a fighting chance. "
And yet no mention of charter schools as a possible solution. Amazing. And so sad.
And yet no mention of charter schools as a possible solution. Amazing. And so sad.
15
Why call for charter schools? Why not call for 100% vouchers so kids can attend any school that will accept them?
Charter operators don't want you to have vouchers. If you have vouchers, you won't choose test-prep factories/charters. You will choose private schools like the one Obama sends his kids to.
Watch what people do; don't listen to what they say. Look at the schools the very rich choose for their children…they ain't charter schools.
For that matter, WHY can't public schools have what private schools have? Private schools don't spend billions on standardized tests and all of their kids go to college; they spend the money on the classrooms instead. WHY don't we try that in public schools?
Charter operators don't want you to have vouchers. If you have vouchers, you won't choose test-prep factories/charters. You will choose private schools like the one Obama sends his kids to.
Watch what people do; don't listen to what they say. Look at the schools the very rich choose for their children…they ain't charter schools.
For that matter, WHY can't public schools have what private schools have? Private schools don't spend billions on standardized tests and all of their kids go to college; they spend the money on the classrooms instead. WHY don't we try that in public schools?
As if moving to some other school is a magic bullet that fixes everything. How foolish!! It is the raw material, the teachers, the parental and cultural support that makes the difference. Not the school.
1
Not sad at all. The more we wake up and realize that charters are usually a scam, not a solution, the better our education system will be.
2
Recent history has shown (New Orleans, Newark, York) that putting a district into "receivership" is a fast track to a state appointed bureaucrat turning the school system over to privately and opaquely run charter school corporations, many of which are operated by for profit entities. While many of these schools boast of high test scores, they actively try to prevent communities from noticing that even with open lotteries, they then push out students who will jeopardize those scores.
You mentioned that such schools often lack "teaching talent" but failed to explain that a core reason for that is the lack of stability among the faculty of schools in high poverty districts where it is typical for half of new teachers to leave their positions well before they have made it through the critical induction phase of their careers. Teachers leaving such schools most frequently cite working conditions - inability to collaborate with peers, leadership that provides little support, lack of resources - as their reasons for leaving. These are conditions that are within the control of the state to rectify, but Albany, especially Governor Cuomo and Chancellor Tisch, show zero interest in improving what it is like to work in high poverty districts, and their chosen solutions (linking even more of teacher evaluations to standardized test scores) will actively make it worse to work in schools where children struggle with the negative impacts of poverty.
You mentioned that such schools often lack "teaching talent" but failed to explain that a core reason for that is the lack of stability among the faculty of schools in high poverty districts where it is typical for half of new teachers to leave their positions well before they have made it through the critical induction phase of their careers. Teachers leaving such schools most frequently cite working conditions - inability to collaborate with peers, leadership that provides little support, lack of resources - as their reasons for leaving. These are conditions that are within the control of the state to rectify, but Albany, especially Governor Cuomo and Chancellor Tisch, show zero interest in improving what it is like to work in high poverty districts, and their chosen solutions (linking even more of teacher evaluations to standardized test scores) will actively make it worse to work in schools where children struggle with the negative impacts of poverty.
41
You said it beautifully. It is actually education all over the United States. Even national standards. which I highly believe in, will not work without the structure of collaboration, contiued training of all staff and parents, financial resources and the commitment to excellent education. The parmount need that is lacking is the constant respect, and love for the clients who are our children.
Thank you so much for your comments. We educators know how to do it right, but we lack the commitment and dollars for constant excellence.
Thank you so much for your comments. We educators know how to do it right, but we lack the commitment and dollars for constant excellence.
1
Please watch the film "Freedom Writers". It is old, but illustrates the problems that poverty presents to children with learning.
My ancestors were immigrants from Ireland. They all had occupations when they arrived. Corporations that are outsourcing jobs need to be paying more in taxes to fund education here at home.
My ancestors were immigrants from Ireland. They all had occupations when they arrived. Corporations that are outsourcing jobs need to be paying more in taxes to fund education here at home.
2
Well gee use basic quality process, if you don't control your raw material and allow not so competent raw material into your process you get bad quality. Now reforming the quality prior to allowing it in the process works, try that will the students. The problem is materials can be fixed much easier than students, and you can't just reject students like you can material. Throwing the less competent in with the more competent will just pull down the competent.
1
Here is an experiment: Take the faculty of a "bad school" and "switch" it with the faculty of a "good" school. See what happens after a year. I suspect that things will stay much the same. There are many reasons for this that have nothing to do with teachers.
Here is another experiment: Allow non charter "bad" schools to follow the same rules as charter schools. there will be uniforms, self-selected students, no tolerance for misbehavior and required parent involvement. Teachers remain unionized. What will happen after a year?
Here is another experiment: Allow non charter "bad" schools to follow the same rules as charter schools. there will be uniforms, self-selected students, no tolerance for misbehavior and required parent involvement. Teachers remain unionized. What will happen after a year?
85
It would be a great reality show, take a teacher from Choate or PEA and switch with a teacher from a poor urban school area. I might even watch.
3
Easy answer: the unionized public schools will still have better results overall than the charters (as they do now), but being allowed the charters' advantages, they'll increase their lead.
4
The reasons that we label some schools as "better" is almost entirely due to the students they enroll, not anything about their instruction. Expand the "better" schools to let everyone in, and they'll no longer be "better."
Which is not to say that desegregating schools doesn't reduce gaps in achievement. It does, but the evidence we have suggests that it does so by offering better peers and reducing the negative effects of concentrating poor students to the degree that the behavioral issues more prevalent in that population become a barrier to learning. School districts aren't usually intentionally denying course offerings to poor students; they just aren't funded to offer calculus in schools where only five students are at that level.
The problem is complicated, and could probably be solved in multiple ways, but you're not going to solve a problem if you persist in misunderstanding it. The Times misinforms its readers about education frequently, and by insisting that the problem with poor schools is bad instruction and/or teachers who are underpaid by a smaller margin than is usual, rather than concentrated poverty, the Times is once again guilty of that. Even if the sort of desegregation that happened in the past is politically more difficult now than it was then, there might be other ways to address the problem--so long as we don't persist in misunderstanding the problem.
Which is not to say that desegregating schools doesn't reduce gaps in achievement. It does, but the evidence we have suggests that it does so by offering better peers and reducing the negative effects of concentrating poor students to the degree that the behavioral issues more prevalent in that population become a barrier to learning. School districts aren't usually intentionally denying course offerings to poor students; they just aren't funded to offer calculus in schools where only five students are at that level.
The problem is complicated, and could probably be solved in multiple ways, but you're not going to solve a problem if you persist in misunderstanding it. The Times misinforms its readers about education frequently, and by insisting that the problem with poor schools is bad instruction and/or teachers who are underpaid by a smaller margin than is usual, rather than concentrated poverty, the Times is once again guilty of that. Even if the sort of desegregation that happened in the past is politically more difficult now than it was then, there might be other ways to address the problem--so long as we don't persist in misunderstanding the problem.
73
Eric, I agree 100%. I think you could even go a bit further. We label some schools as "better" almost entirely because of the parents of the students they enroll, not because of the instruction at those schools. And the NYT is a major source of obfuscation on this important issue, committed to avoiding candor at seemingly all costs.
9
Good thoughts except the idea that the problem has many possible solutions, it might have many ways to improve but solutions are basically impossible.
A visit to the Buffalo public schools district website illustrates why this is a difficult problem. Noteworthy is the attendance data summarized monthly and YTD. Most Buffalo public school children just don't go to school often enough to learn anything.
Satisfactory attendance of K-8 students is 47% of children; the remainder are at risk (27%) or chronically absent (26%).
Satisfactory attendance of 9-12 students is 35%; at risk (20%) and chronically absent (45%).
Interestingly enough, the school district website purports to have college prep courses, advanced placement courses, etc. in most of the high schools. Perhaps the courses have no content, but that would be easy enough to find out with some investigative reporting. Obviously, if the kids don't go to school, the availability or content of the courses doesn't matter.
So what is the root cause of their non-attendance? Is it is a lack of teaching talent? Past discussions on this topic inevitably bring out the war stories of good teachers who just do not want to teach in urban public schools because of the safety issues, lack of parent or student involvement. The teachers that stay are reminiscent of the teacher union issues confronted by Michelle Rhee in DC for which she was demonized.
Perhaps the key issue is the editors' call to attract large numbers of middle class families to the public schools. Is it possible that supportive family structure is the key to children's behavior and learning?
Satisfactory attendance of K-8 students is 47% of children; the remainder are at risk (27%) or chronically absent (26%).
Satisfactory attendance of 9-12 students is 35%; at risk (20%) and chronically absent (45%).
Interestingly enough, the school district website purports to have college prep courses, advanced placement courses, etc. in most of the high schools. Perhaps the courses have no content, but that would be easy enough to find out with some investigative reporting. Obviously, if the kids don't go to school, the availability or content of the courses doesn't matter.
So what is the root cause of their non-attendance? Is it is a lack of teaching talent? Past discussions on this topic inevitably bring out the war stories of good teachers who just do not want to teach in urban public schools because of the safety issues, lack of parent or student involvement. The teachers that stay are reminiscent of the teacher union issues confronted by Michelle Rhee in DC for which she was demonized.
Perhaps the key issue is the editors' call to attract large numbers of middle class families to the public schools. Is it possible that supportive family structure is the key to children's behavior and learning?
37
Good teachers as with almost all productive individuals want good raw material to work with. Students that are motivated, parents that assist, and a process that produces quality results. Almost nobody wants to struggle to produce quality work.
3
The only place you go off the rails is when you seem to suggest that the teachers who stay in high-poverty schools do so because of "teacher union issues," and that Rhee was unfairly demonized. Most teachers overall, in high-poverty schools or not, are there to help kids, teachers unions are in reality an overwhelmingly positive factor for schools, and Rhee deserved far more blame than she's ever received.
3
We need to remember that the poor in places like Buffalo are at the bottom in all manner of outcomes, not just education. That is they are worse off in terms of life expectancy, substance abuse, being involved in criminal activity and so when their schools fail. Ok but what did we expect.
None of this negates the concern over inadequate funding, or union contracts that make it hard to manage teachers, but the main problem is poverty. Most large cities have the same problems, even if funding is better.
So let’s tweak the policies, but if we don’t do more to creates stable homes (can we succeed) then it becomes a matter of shoveling more cash at a problem that cash can’t solve.
None of this negates the concern over inadequate funding, or union contracts that make it hard to manage teachers, but the main problem is poverty. Most large cities have the same problems, even if funding is better.
So let’s tweak the policies, but if we don’t do more to creates stable homes (can we succeed) then it becomes a matter of shoveling more cash at a problem that cash can’t solve.
20
The NYTimes has a history of describing teacher contracts in the most misleading, negative light possible; I don't know specifically what they're referring to, but if their past practice is any indication, there's no reason to believe there's any problem with Buffalo's contract. "Making it hard to manage teachers," in NYTimes-speak, often means "having rules that let you fire bad teachers, but not good ones."
4
Being poor doesn't mean that a child is stupid
2
We might be better off thinking of it as the result of economic problems, rather than race, and instead of providing escape routes for those that can afford it, try looking at how schools are funded and correct the imbalances that currently exist and lead to poor schooling. Public money should not be used to fund private schools, period. It just leads to further imbalances, as the history of Buffalo shows clearly. It might be a short term fix but not a long term fix, and certainly neither a short or long term fix for all. It is wrong for some to be driving around in Cadilacs while others are peddaling broken down Chevy Novas. We need something economical but substantial that serves all.
7
That's nuts. If I can afford a Cadillac through my hard work and savings why is it wrong that I have one? Likewise, funding is not the major issue here, America outspends just about every other industrialized nation and we have absolutely abysmal results. Find another hobby horse, this one is kaput!
3
We don't have "public churches" like some countries had established religions; why have "public schools"? We used to have "public baths" (I saw some old such buildings in Albany, NY). We still have "public libraries". We need a total rethink of schools. Let's start with Obama, who sends his children, of course, to the finest private schools while singing the praises of public schools; like a lot of other politicians beholden to the teachers' unions.
11
Gee we don't have public churches because in history one became the standard that the government forced people to belong to. We eliminated (mostly) this issue. We have public schools because it is believed that having an educated population is valuable to society. The problem is that some don't really believe that being educated is valuable to them enough to do the tough things to become educated. Simple to say, almost impossible to fix.
2
The teachers' unions are on the right side of nearly every education policy, and Obama is almost always opposed to them. "Beholden to the teachers' unions"? Nobody who knows what they're talking about would give you any credibility given that statement. But sadly, there are many people who have no idea what they're talking about and will agree with you.
4
Public schools have historically been the place where the vast majority of children are taught not only didactic subject matter but also absorb the notion that while we are one nation individual opinions and rights matter, that civic participation matters, etc. To conflate public bathhouses - which had their purpose when homes lacked those amenities - or 'public churches' which, among other things, this country was founded in order to get away from - with public schools is absurd.
In the end, though, your post comes down to a rant about Obama as if the problems with public education are his personal fault and that sending the Obama daughters to independent schools is somehow not what he and Michelle should do. Where should they go? To some low-achieving DC public school? Do you think the ability to provide security has anything to do with the choice? Maybe you think they're racists?
If I lived in DC now as I did many years ago I'd bloody well send my kids to private school. The problem of poor scholastic achievement among non-white public school students has socio-economic roots; the schools are the stage on which the manifestations of those problems play out with enormous visibility. Communities and their schools need uplifting, done concurrently.
In the end, though, your post comes down to a rant about Obama as if the problems with public education are his personal fault and that sending the Obama daughters to independent schools is somehow not what he and Michelle should do. Where should they go? To some low-achieving DC public school? Do you think the ability to provide security has anything to do with the choice? Maybe you think they're racists?
If I lived in DC now as I did many years ago I'd bloody well send my kids to private school. The problem of poor scholastic achievement among non-white public school students has socio-economic roots; the schools are the stage on which the manifestations of those problems play out with enormous visibility. Communities and their schools need uplifting, done concurrently.
4
Maybe, and this is just thinking outside of the box, New York should abolish public schools. Then parents who care about their kids will choose the best private schools they can find within their budgets for the quality of education they want to get. Parents would stop paying the taxes - both state and federal - that would support public schooling. They could use those dollars that aren't taken out of their wallets and purses for any purpose they choose.
Oh, wait, yeah, the state and the feds would still want the cash. What was I thinking?
Oh, wait, yeah, the state and the feds would still want the cash. What was I thinking?
3
Yes! And while we're at it, let's do away with roads , bridges and public transportation. That would really speed up economic growth! Do you know why the South has always lagged behind the rest of the country? Public education there has historically been delayed, lacked government support and been the worse for it, just like the rest of its public infrastructure.
2
As has been said by several others here, it's economics, not race. Baltimore's public schools at one time were superior to the outer county schools. Their decline began decades ago as local industries and their high paying jobs disappeared. Middle class families evaporated and what we were left with was as population struggling to meet their daily needs. Their kids brought their families problems to school. What once were great schools now are showcases of dysfynction. I know many fine teachers who have remained steadfast in their dedication to their students no matter the dysfunction but eventually most of them move on. Jesus himself couldn't survive in most of these classrooms. What are you suggesting? Busing? How did that work out? This problem has gone on so long now there is an engrained culture of dysfunction. I have students who just have no respect for education. They are pushed into AP level classes but lack the preparation but also the proper attitude to succeed although they have had the opportunity. We have built brand new state of the art buildings and filled them with great teachers and technology and yet the same results are achieved. The same raw material, students, come through the doors. It's time to set standards high and have high expectations. Of course monitor teachers but shift the focus on students and families. If they don't measure up, sorry, but KICK THEM OUT. Failure is a good tonic.
2
We're moving in that direction, with charters and vouchers for private schools, and it'll be the death knell for educational quality and equality in our society. Which is what the people pushing the ideas you're parroting probably want.
3
I live in the inner city school district. The kids do better in the middle class segments of this district, which are a mixture of white, Mexicans (majority), and some blacks and Asians than the same schools located in the ghetto and the barrio parts of our district. The same money is spent; the same schools are built. Magnet schools are offered and free Pre-K for all. It is too soon to see the results of that. Our middle class kids, regardless of race or nationality, seem well prepared and go on to college or get good jobs. There are better school districts in the city, and like most cities, many whites and Mexicans flock to those districts. There are also poorer socioeconomic areas within most of those better districts, mostly black, where the kids do less well and often drop out. I don't think its teachers. I don't think its race. What seems to matter most is neighborhood where peers are not in gangs but are college and work-oriented and involved parents who can set goals and limits, be tough on kids, and help with homework. That's really the difference between middle class blacks who grow up in diversified neighborhoods and blacks of the ghetto or lower income all black neighborhoods. Often the people most guilty of preferring self-segregation are blacks.
60
Transferring students may not work, but enrolling students at the kindergarten level does work. The Urban-Suburban Inter-district Transfer Program in Rochester, NY is celebrating nearly 50 years of success. Urban children enroll for their entire 13 year public school careers. Numerical quotas are reviewed annually to assure that additional staffing is not required, but transfer students receive special support, if needed, the same as resident students.
Students take part in most before- and after-school activities. To the extent possible, they are socially integrated into the community. If they become intractable discipline problems, they are disenrolled.
The program is administered through the county school system called BOCES in New York.
Special Urban-Suburban Aid is provided by New York State.
Even with the vaporization of Kodak and its attendant wealth, the program thrives.
I'm not sure that the concept would be well-received in the eastern suburbs of Buffalo, but there is enough of a critical mass in the northern and southern 'burbs that could be receptive.
I'm not sure the governor is aware of the program.
LTC Buzz
Lyndonville, NY
Students take part in most before- and after-school activities. To the extent possible, they are socially integrated into the community. If they become intractable discipline problems, they are disenrolled.
The program is administered through the county school system called BOCES in New York.
Special Urban-Suburban Aid is provided by New York State.
Even with the vaporization of Kodak and its attendant wealth, the program thrives.
I'm not sure that the concept would be well-received in the eastern suburbs of Buffalo, but there is enough of a critical mass in the northern and southern 'burbs that could be receptive.
I'm not sure the governor is aware of the program.
LTC Buzz
Lyndonville, NY
1
"If they become intractable discipline problems, they are disenrolled."
Herein lies the heart of the problem. I believe most schools could perform far better if they could "disenroll" disruptive students (this is what the charters in NYC do). A few disruptive students can create chaos in a classroom, denying the remainder of the children any chance for a decent education. Presented with an environment where teaching becomes increasingly impossible, the best teachers leave for schools where they can actually practice their profession. Most public schools do not have the luxury of "disenrollment," so that's where the kids dumped by the selective schools end up, then those schools get labeled as failing schools.
Herein lies the heart of the problem. I believe most schools could perform far better if they could "disenroll" disruptive students (this is what the charters in NYC do). A few disruptive students can create chaos in a classroom, denying the remainder of the children any chance for a decent education. Presented with an environment where teaching becomes increasingly impossible, the best teachers leave for schools where they can actually practice their profession. Most public schools do not have the luxury of "disenrollment," so that's where the kids dumped by the selective schools end up, then those schools get labeled as failing schools.
6
Social engineering is perhaps the most challenging of all engineering fields.
Just because I sit beside a smart guy does not make me smart. Just because I sit beside a basketball star does not make me a player.
The cream always rises to the top. Social engineering will not change that.
Just because I sit beside a smart guy does not make me smart. Just because I sit beside a basketball star does not make me a player.
The cream always rises to the top. Social engineering will not change that.
30
Actually, Jimmy, if you are in a class better performing kids, you WILL do better. You are learning not just from the teacher, but from your peers. So there is an affect of your context.
1
That reminds me of the old theory that playing with better golfers will make you a better golfer. However, the better playing do not enjoy playing with a hacker. So I never got better.
3
I worked in a CETA (Comprehensive Employment and Training Act) tutoring program in Portland, Oregon's public schools in 1977-8. We met daily with children at least two years behind grade level in reading &/or math. Thus. the academically neediest children received intensive help every day.
Among my successes was a fifth-grader who didn't yet know the alphabet when we started, but was reading within three months. While I can take credit for his success, the most important factor was the opportunity he had for 5 intensive, personal hours per week devoted to meeting his needs.
Thus, more money made a difference--that necessary to hire extra staff--but that the money was focused on an entire program directed at meeting those children's specific needs was what made the money so successful.
The disaster that is happening in our schools goes beyond merely money and can't be fixed by mere choice. Special circumstances--decades of racism and neglect--require special solutions designed for the problems.
Among my successes was a fifth-grader who didn't yet know the alphabet when we started, but was reading within three months. While I can take credit for his success, the most important factor was the opportunity he had for 5 intensive, personal hours per week devoted to meeting his needs.
Thus, more money made a difference--that necessary to hire extra staff--but that the money was focused on an entire program directed at meeting those children's specific needs was what made the money so successful.
The disaster that is happening in our schools goes beyond merely money and can't be fixed by mere choice. Special circumstances--decades of racism and neglect--require special solutions designed for the problems.
9
You forgot to mention the dysfunctional families that fail to drill into their children that a good education is a must!
3
This is not just a problem in NY, it is a problem all over the country. The decline in the public schools and in public education in general started with the rise of the conservative movement and the back lash to the civil rights laws and busing. It is also due to rulings on education by conservatives on Supreme court.
We now have the same separate and unequal system we had during Jim Crow.
We now have the same separate and unequal system we had during Jim Crow.
6
"The decline in the public schools and in public education in general" isn't even a decline; it's a slowdown in the decades-long history of improvement (not a decline, just slower improvement). It's also a relatively new phenomenon, happening in the last ten years or so, as Democrats like Obama have started adopting traditionally Republican positions on things like charter schools and teacher evaluation.
Republicans have said over and over that our public schools have declined, and Democrats have started parroting it to seem "serious." But the decline is mostly fictional.
Republicans have said over and over that our public schools have declined, and Democrats have started parroting it to seem "serious." But the decline is mostly fictional.
2
Well better stated it happened when families were reduced, parents don't parent and gangs replaced other social institutions. Nothing from outside the culture makes much of a difference.
1
I remember the schools starting to fail in the '70's with the rise of 'new math' and much less rigorous discipline. It was Social Studies instead of History and every new education fad was put into practice without any thought to how it would really work. Also, teacher colleges became schools of education and lowered the standards to keep up their numbers. Women had more choice now (Thank God!) and didn't have to settle for being a nurse instead of a doctor and could do anything they wanted.
1
How does one integrate schools or for that matter anything when the bulk of a population in a city is of one persuasion. In addition, you can mix groups together but you cannot force them to play!. Humans divide themselves into groups no matter how much you mix the pot. So bottom line is provide equal access and EQUAL quality to the kids via education and stop social engineering...... But even more important is the value of education... I submit unless the parents are strong proponents of education, public or private, and assure their kids sit and study, read, read to them, work with them and not ignore them and leave them on their own, no matter how good the system may be, the kids will fail due to lack of parent involvement. It has nothing to do with race, economics or anything else..... ask the Asians, a prime example of parental involvement and success.
29
I was lucky that my grandparents, recent immigrants made the decision in the early 30's ( after my Grandfather was hit by a lady driving a car as he got off a Buffalo City bus and lost 3/4 's of his vision and could no longer work as a brick Mason ) to move out to the East Aurora area. Their was no auto insurance lawsuits in the 1930's nor was their Social Security Disability or welfare. At first they moved in with relatives in a two family farm house. The Cousin was a blacksmith and my grandfather and grandmother tended to animals and small gardens for food for the two families. The wives didn't get along after a few years. So my grandparents and their then 5-6 kids moved on to an Estate where my Grandmother was the maid/cook, my nearly blind grandfather was the Gardner. My mother ended up being a babysitter/ nanny from a young age. They lived in the small staff house with 7-9 people. When their family hit 9 they moved into a nearby larger rental house. My German grandmother Paula, endured being called Sara by the lady of the Estate, because she deemed that a better Maid name. My grandparents couldn't quit, they had to support their children. They wanted to give then a village life, like they had in Germany, with good local school. My mother and Aunt saved their wages from FIsher Price Toys for 10 years and bought their parents and younger siblings a house of their own in the village as my grandparents were nearing their 60's. The struggle of our grandparents was for us.
9
So the Liberal/Progressive scion of the planet - has some rough edges.
Well, here, in the heartland, they actively and honestly talk about integration.
The best schools, both by reputation, and by being a magnetic school, for 1-6, are what everyone wants. However, your choice for 1-6, is also your choice for middle school. The School Board will openly admit, when asked, that these are the least integrated and the ones with the most disciplinary issues, but if you want your child in the gifted program from 1-6, you will have to accept that they will be bussed to the worst middle schools in the city.
So that's how we're integrating post-bus, and have been, for quite a while in the mid-west.a
Just catching up to what life really is I see in NYC - good luck.
Well, here, in the heartland, they actively and honestly talk about integration.
The best schools, both by reputation, and by being a magnetic school, for 1-6, are what everyone wants. However, your choice for 1-6, is also your choice for middle school. The School Board will openly admit, when asked, that these are the least integrated and the ones with the most disciplinary issues, but if you want your child in the gifted program from 1-6, you will have to accept that they will be bussed to the worst middle schools in the city.
So that's how we're integrating post-bus, and have been, for quite a while in the mid-west.a
Just catching up to what life really is I see in NYC - good luck.
4
Well I bet there are many parents that don't care what school their children attend or if they go at all. I see children who overcome massive issues when they have adults who support them, some even when they don't.
Is 'racial isolation' in schools due to 'racial isolation' in society? Of course. When we talk of a 'dysfunctional system' we are talking of America.
Your comment 'This is not an easy problem to solve' is central to the discussion, but the 'moral obligation' idea is our very core of being. We, are caring, compassionate human beings tied together in our neighborhoods, cities, countries and world. We share the only home we'll ever know.
The idea that 'schools' will solve poverty has been promoted primarily so we do not have to look at 'poverty'. We fear the wrath of the rich and powerful, who actually assist in their very own country's downfall.
Somehow greed trumps all sense. We cannot create a have and have-not society without creating horrible lives for our have-nots. Poverty is a little word that is a cheap way of defining pain, hunger, violence, stress, frustration, suffering, inhumanity, spiritual and emotional and social and societal degradation. We basically leave poverty alone, then, talk about what's wrong with schools in poverty areas. Invalid reasoning.
When you talk of ' prepare them for college and success in the new economy'; how will they afford college? Isn't the 'new economy' full of terrible, dead-end, low-wage, no-benefit jobs that create more poverty?
No, the real 'isolation' here is in our hearts. We've been raised to believe in a dream that is not real. So, we need create new structures with real commitments to equality and love. So be it. Let's do it.
Your comment 'This is not an easy problem to solve' is central to the discussion, but the 'moral obligation' idea is our very core of being. We, are caring, compassionate human beings tied together in our neighborhoods, cities, countries and world. We share the only home we'll ever know.
The idea that 'schools' will solve poverty has been promoted primarily so we do not have to look at 'poverty'. We fear the wrath of the rich and powerful, who actually assist in their very own country's downfall.
Somehow greed trumps all sense. We cannot create a have and have-not society without creating horrible lives for our have-nots. Poverty is a little word that is a cheap way of defining pain, hunger, violence, stress, frustration, suffering, inhumanity, spiritual and emotional and social and societal degradation. We basically leave poverty alone, then, talk about what's wrong with schools in poverty areas. Invalid reasoning.
When you talk of ' prepare them for college and success in the new economy'; how will they afford college? Isn't the 'new economy' full of terrible, dead-end, low-wage, no-benefit jobs that create more poverty?
No, the real 'isolation' here is in our hearts. We've been raised to believe in a dream that is not real. So, we need create new structures with real commitments to equality and love. So be it. Let's do it.
4
Poverty will always be with us, the real issue is way too many people for the jobs and opportunities we have in the US. College does not make success, competence does. Thus Bill Gates who is quite competent is a big success with no college, and many have college and are not a great success. Simple!!!
1
More and more this country seems like 18th C France.
Let's band-aid and staunch the flow where we can.
Apres nous, le deluge.
Let's band-aid and staunch the flow where we can.
Apres nous, le deluge.
3
Students who are behind need special attention form expert teachers. Early on, for a number of reasons that need to be addressed, minority kids are not given the access to books, and, more importantly, not given structured free time--choice time--to read whatever they want. Too often, inexperienced teachers drag them through top-down drill and kill programs that leave the students empty and hating to read. At the core of the inequity is antiquated teaching practice aimed at control and punishment rather than innovation and choice.
11
The reason that "inexperienced teachers drag them through top-down drill and kill programs that leave the students empty and hating to read" is because many of the experienced teachers have fled schools where they'll be fired for their students' poverty and poor parenting, or been fired. Though that problem is overstated; there are experienced teachers in those schools, too. But largely, they're forced to "drill and kill," too, as we've instituted lots of policies that reduce teachers' autonomy and hold their continued employment hostage to test scores that reflect mostly poverty and parenting, not teaching. We force teachers to do what you're complaining about, against their will, and then we complain about it.
Y'know who's overwhelmingly supported those bad policies? The NYTimes.
Y'know who's overwhelmingly supported those bad policies? The NYTimes.
5
No at the core is competence and lack of parental support. Somehow we think that teaching and learning is customized. It is not to be effective the student must adapt to the process not the other way around. We make this more difficult in insisting on not creating homogeneous groups of students by competence so that they process could be different for each group.
1
NYC Teacher:
Public school teacher for the past 16 years. Catholic school teacher for 15 years before that. Harlem for 29 years and the South Bronx for two years.
Schools are directly impacted by the economic conditions surrounding them.
Change the living conditions of those attending those schools, and you change the experience of students and teachers in those schools.
I can attest that great things can be done, but I will also say that maintaining a school environment that presents a rigorous curriculum while trying to address the myriad educational short comings of my students, directly connected with living in low income neighborhoods, is a Herculean task.
It is a color issue if you simply look at the faces of my students.
It is a money issue if you could understand the difference of a child's experience in their formative years vs. their counterparts in more stable and wealthier neighborhoods.
Had amazing classes this past week on Plato's Allegory of the Cave, (in my AP and regular history sections) and at the same time have to deal with rampant absenteeism, truancy and hallway chaos.
Change the streets, and you change the schools.
How that gets done I have no idea, and that is why i will be in school this Saturday morning for two hours, with my AP Euro class, for our weekly voluntary review session
Public school teacher for the past 16 years. Catholic school teacher for 15 years before that. Harlem for 29 years and the South Bronx for two years.
Schools are directly impacted by the economic conditions surrounding them.
Change the living conditions of those attending those schools, and you change the experience of students and teachers in those schools.
I can attest that great things can be done, but I will also say that maintaining a school environment that presents a rigorous curriculum while trying to address the myriad educational short comings of my students, directly connected with living in low income neighborhoods, is a Herculean task.
It is a color issue if you simply look at the faces of my students.
It is a money issue if you could understand the difference of a child's experience in their formative years vs. their counterparts in more stable and wealthier neighborhoods.
Had amazing classes this past week on Plato's Allegory of the Cave, (in my AP and regular history sections) and at the same time have to deal with rampant absenteeism, truancy and hallway chaos.
Change the streets, and you change the schools.
How that gets done I have no idea, and that is why i will be in school this Saturday morning for two hours, with my AP Euro class, for our weekly voluntary review session
122
Thank you Fred, for your work with our children!
1
I want my cake and eat it too. If our society continues to put garbage in the minds of our children we can only expect to get garbage out. Watch TV, go to the movies, listen to the music, shop in the store. Corporations make millions of dollars promoting dysfunctional behavior.
The public school is the point at which all of this comes together. The victims or rather students are the most vulnerable in our society.
Please stop blaming teachers, institutions and unions. They are not the cause. We are by tolerating dysfunctional marketing.
The public school is the point at which all of this comes together. The victims or rather students are the most vulnerable in our society.
Please stop blaming teachers, institutions and unions. They are not the cause. We are by tolerating dysfunctional marketing.
2
What you say is monumentally true. I was a public school teacher for 35 years and loved it. It does wear you down after a time, dealing with the economic, familial, and societal issues that hamper student focus. As a retired teacher who realizes how much "out of classroom" work good teachers do to help their students, I applaud you for your hard work. I imagine you, like many others, are not gettting supplemental pay for your Saturday work. I sure didn't.
2
The physical plant of a school does not teach or produce academic success. There are many cases where per student subsidies are high yet students continue to in fail.
Education will always fail in a culture where it is not valued. I have friend whose school was a junk floating in Hong Kong harbor that had one black board and no supplies. He lived in poverty and yet he and many of his peers went on to academic success.
Ultimately, he taught in urban American schools and summarized his student's attitude as "resentful and disinterested in learning". Physiologically, they were not present, and disrupted where ever they could. Good teaching could not force the unwilling to learn. The pressure of peers and their twisted values could not be surmounted.
Perhaps desegregation could help by separating children from their resentful peers, I.e. via dilution.
Education will always fail in a culture where it is not valued. I have friend whose school was a junk floating in Hong Kong harbor that had one black board and no supplies. He lived in poverty and yet he and many of his peers went on to academic success.
Ultimately, he taught in urban American schools and summarized his student's attitude as "resentful and disinterested in learning". Physiologically, they were not present, and disrupted where ever they could. Good teaching could not force the unwilling to learn. The pressure of peers and their twisted values could not be surmounted.
Perhaps desegregation could help by separating children from their resentful peers, I.e. via dilution.
20
Is there such a thing as freedom of association?! I would think the Times editorial writers, went to school, as I did in my life! No one put a gun to my head, as to who I would sit with in the cafeteria, or who I spoke to in class, or who I chose to walk, or not walk home with! And that went for ALL of us, whether we happened to be White, Black, Purple, Christian, Jewish, or as some would say today, whatever! I chose freely, because I was blessed to be living in a democracy! Freedom to choose, what is wrong with that?! Should people have a right to choose where they live?! I've seen social engineering first hand, and it doesn't work, and often leads to further problems! To thy own self be true, and the key is to improve conditions in one's own life, and one's own neighborhood, wherever that might be! You may now go back to your ivory towers!!!
16
Wait - didn't you tell us that race is an artificial construct and has no real meaning?
Schools don't fail, students fail. Sometimes that failure is the fault of the teachers, much more often, it is the fault of the family that does not support the student.
Race does not drive who can get an education. The ability to get an education is not controlled by the color of your skin, the shape of your eyes, or the waviness of your hair. It is controlled by the content of your character, which is influenced more than anything by your family.
Families that care about their children will do anything they can to provide their children with a better life. They will work long hours, they will move, they will cross borders without papers, they will lie and cheat to improve the lives of their children. Public schools will never be able to get motivated families to send their children to schools filled with students from dysfunctional families. At least not for long.
Teachers are like everybody else. Some of us work very hard, some of us, not so much. Most of us do the best we can with the tools we have. Most of us would agree that nothing beats well-motivated children when it comes to education. A handful of disruptive children, sometimes just one, can severely impact the ability of a teacher to teach. The smartest Smart Board in the world can't overcome that.
Families, not the State, are the key.
Schools don't fail, students fail. Sometimes that failure is the fault of the teachers, much more often, it is the fault of the family that does not support the student.
Race does not drive who can get an education. The ability to get an education is not controlled by the color of your skin, the shape of your eyes, or the waviness of your hair. It is controlled by the content of your character, which is influenced more than anything by your family.
Families that care about their children will do anything they can to provide their children with a better life. They will work long hours, they will move, they will cross borders without papers, they will lie and cheat to improve the lives of their children. Public schools will never be able to get motivated families to send their children to schools filled with students from dysfunctional families. At least not for long.
Teachers are like everybody else. Some of us work very hard, some of us, not so much. Most of us do the best we can with the tools we have. Most of us would agree that nothing beats well-motivated children when it comes to education. A handful of disruptive children, sometimes just one, can severely impact the ability of a teacher to teach. The smartest Smart Board in the world can't overcome that.
Families, not the State, are the key.
53
Your last paragraph is one many teachers could have written. One disruptive student can take down a whole class. You may or may not have administrative support in dealing with that student. The majority of the time you will get little or no support from the family. All the teacher education improvement programs in world will not alleviate a key problem....lack of family understanding and support. I was a teacher for 35 years. I have seen various types of teacher training come and go, but their success will continue to be minimal until the family unit is strengthened.
3
New York state or Public schools are not the only segregated places. It seems like a Universal problem in US on every level. I have yet to see a US city where I could say that I have seen real integrated communities.
Minneapolis is the 3rd US city that I am living in now for past 3 years. San Francisco and New York being the other two that I have lived in. Oklahoma, Denver and Seattle are the other that I have spent quite significant time in. They all suffer from the same, segregation. New York probably is the most integrated of all these cities that I have lived in but it's hardly a poster child for integration. You can walk rest of the other cities at length, hangout in Cafes or Bars, you'll hardly ever see people mixing up.
I am not sure if it's the schools or is it the general attitudes that needs to be fixed!
Minneapolis is the 3rd US city that I am living in now for past 3 years. San Francisco and New York being the other two that I have lived in. Oklahoma, Denver and Seattle are the other that I have spent quite significant time in. They all suffer from the same, segregation. New York probably is the most integrated of all these cities that I have lived in but it's hardly a poster child for integration. You can walk rest of the other cities at length, hangout in Cafes or Bars, you'll hardly ever see people mixing up.
I am not sure if it's the schools or is it the general attitudes that needs to be fixed!
20
Come on down to San Antonio!
1
bh you are correct. Since I taught for 45 years in very poor areas of New York City I can answer you last statement. The problem is long term poverty and the concomitant social problems that it creates that leads to the poor performance of many children. The schools can do very little to change an intrenched culture. My only hope is that all day universal free Pre-K and all day Kindergarten can have some positive effect; however, in my opinion these school programs must be knowledge based and have a very extensive parent training component to have long term positive effects.
2
Are you attempting to imply that what is needed is forced integration? What part of town do you live in? Maybe you can name ONE country that's more integrated than the US?
I doubt it.
I doubt it.
1
Whenever something goes wrong with a charter school, however picayune, we hear shrill calls for their demise. Here we have one more article, in a very long line of articles, on incompetence bordering on criminality in the public schools, and there is only silence.
I think it is time, and past time, to pull the plug on this travesty we call the public school.
I think it is time, and past time, to pull the plug on this travesty we call the public school.
5
The fact that we rarely hear about the many bad things going on in charter schools (and often hear about the rare good things), and the fact that we often hear about the rare bad things going on in generally successful public schools, are both editorial decisions. The NYTimes is very pro-charter. Reality isn't. We'd certainly be better off, overall, without charter schools.
2
I thought that, "charter schools are public schools", at least that's what the moguls like Eva Moskowitz LOVE to tell us. Are you actually refuting Eva herself!
2
When Government tries to solve racial problems you get results similar to what happened when Judge Sand forced Yonkers to desegregate housing. Whites moved out and the school system became even more segregated. The irony is that while Judge Sand was advocating for minorities in the Yonkers case he personally lived in an upscale neighborhood where zoning and housing prices kept minorities out. Do I sense a limousine liberal hypocrite?
In the end, instead of having just a few bad schools the entire school system is now a disaster and the city's White population has gone from 85% before Judge Sand's ruling to 55% of the city's population in 2010. If this is a Government success story I hate to see how they define a "failure".
In the end, instead of having just a few bad schools the entire school system is now a disaster and the city's White population has gone from 85% before Judge Sand's ruling to 55% of the city's population in 2010. If this is a Government success story I hate to see how they define a "failure".
12
Buffalo is an example of how economic decline drags everything down. It creates short sighted management, white and middle class flight from inner city schools, and an attitude of a desperate us vs them mentality, where some hold on to evaporating privileges while the community around is deteriorating.
And the decision to have the state intervene also has to bring up all the issues about how schools are funded, including where local school property tax burdens fall and how to equalize school expenditures. That doesn't mean oversight of local schools isn't merited -- but it's going to require more.
Buffalo is a large school system -- I wonder how it compares to other larger systems in similar cities, and I also wonder if many rural schools are keeping up with their better funded cohorts in more prosperous areas.
And the decision to have the state intervene also has to bring up all the issues about how schools are funded, including where local school property tax burdens fall and how to equalize school expenditures. That doesn't mean oversight of local schools isn't merited -- but it's going to require more.
Buffalo is a large school system -- I wonder how it compares to other larger systems in similar cities, and I also wonder if many rural schools are keeping up with their better funded cohorts in more prosperous areas.
1
Before the NY Times cur to protect the residents of the Upper East Side and Tribeca from having the children of Harlem and the Lower East Side from attending "their" schools. For example, the lines of District 2, within NYC, effectively prevent Harlem residents from attending a school they are close to, Eleanor Roosevelt, while giving preference to the wealthy residents of Tribeca, much further away. While the Mayor is focused on admissions to the selective high schools, such as Stuyvesant, those schools at least give every child in the city a fair chance. On the other hand, the District 2 schools eliminate students solely on the basis of where they live, notwithstanding that NYC, like Buffalo, is ONE school district, no matter how they attempt to "name" areas as separate districts, when they are not.
5
Kids from the lower east side have gone to the same schools for over 125 years. What is unique is the issues that come from the culture and comportment of its current inhabitants. Changing schools cannot overcome the absence of parents, the absence of values and the pathological dysfunction of the families from which these students come.
Also implicit in your comment, and that of the Times, is that there is something wrong with black communities. Do you seriously think they'd write the same editorial about excessive aggregations of Jews or Asians in a school district? To complain is to believe that blacks are inferior and can only learn if they are near whites.
Also implicit in your comment, and that of the Times, is that there is something wrong with black communities. Do you seriously think they'd write the same editorial about excessive aggregations of Jews or Asians in a school district? To complain is to believe that blacks are inferior and can only learn if they are near whites.
3
As with so many things, this isn't about race. It's about people who have children they cannot or will not care for properly. They will not read to them at night, they will not prepare breakfast or good lunches for school. They will not sit with them and help them with their homework. They will not visit the school or meet the teachers. They will not involve themselves with the child or its needs. No wonder the child ends up lost and alone and searching for some contact with someone who cares, attaching to other lost children in groups and gangs. "Middle-class families" means intact families with parents who do engage with their children and the schools. It's not race, it's responsibility and nurturing that make all the difference. The billions poured into education will continue to have little effect as long as parents don't do their job.
131
Well-put, Sharon! How do your views go down with your Marin County neighbors? Do they think you're to the right of Genghis Khan?
3
It's unreasonable to just place blame on people who, perhaps, shouldn't have had children after the children are born. Maybe you're right, but the kids are here. We can blame the parents and throw up our hands, or we can try to help the kids have the best lives possible.
That said, blaming schools and firing teachers when they serve a student population of concentrated poverty is our current way of trying to deal with the problem, and it's not working. The problems DO come from the home, and we need to stop misplacing the blame. But that doesn't mean we should stop trying to help the kids.
That said, blaming schools and firing teachers when they serve a student population of concentrated poverty is our current way of trying to deal with the problem, and it's not working. The problems DO come from the home, and we need to stop misplacing the blame. But that doesn't mean we should stop trying to help the kids.
15
What do you propose we do then with these children? They are here on earth. They still have to go to school and learn how to function as an adult by the 12th grade. They still have to either gain employment or pursue college. The children you speak of can learn to read and can succeed, if they are given a fair chance. Lets just admit that not all parents can handle their kids for whatever reason. That does not mean that civilized society should just let them fall through the cracks. If we turn our backs and shake our heads at those awful parents then we are just as culpable in our failure to help where and when we can.
3
One word: vouchers. There, I just offered a solution.
16
A solution with no supporting evidence.
3
I think there is a lot of supporting evidence. Quite a few studies have been done and show that vouchers can be a big help for students in need.
Even better. Outlaw tenure, and give the boot to lousy teachers.
1
Stop saying ‘ to prepare them for college’. College means big debt. Most Americans historically never got degrees anyway, even when higher ed expanded after ww2. They were able to get training for good jobs, even if they didn’t sit and read books for 4 years. That’s not for everyone, yet college is always the slogan for all.
If we really brought back our mfg jobs from Asia, and accepted unions like we once did and other nations do now, our inequality gap would narrow and be similar to other advanced democracies.
We could also, god forbid, simply raise wealth taxes, to restore funding for schools and public services. Unequal schools are a symptom of our 2 and 3 tier system in everything. And this is supported and reinforced by our big money elections systems. It’s all related. Our politics is 2 tier---the candidates the big money invests in, vs the ones they don’t. Privatization is the goal.
Our wealth inequality gets wider, as many of our politicians support hedge funds investing in charter schools. Let’s study as positive examples many other countries where schools are funded nationally, teachers valued and well paid, and various economic classes can attend public school together. Is this ruining their economies? The evidence says not.
They also have good job training and apprenticeships, starting in high school, where kids can see studies leading to a goal, and self support---see Germany, for 1 example. College is low cost, or even free. What a concept.
If we really brought back our mfg jobs from Asia, and accepted unions like we once did and other nations do now, our inequality gap would narrow and be similar to other advanced democracies.
We could also, god forbid, simply raise wealth taxes, to restore funding for schools and public services. Unequal schools are a symptom of our 2 and 3 tier system in everything. And this is supported and reinforced by our big money elections systems. It’s all related. Our politics is 2 tier---the candidates the big money invests in, vs the ones they don’t. Privatization is the goal.
Our wealth inequality gets wider, as many of our politicians support hedge funds investing in charter schools. Let’s study as positive examples many other countries where schools are funded nationally, teachers valued and well paid, and various economic classes can attend public school together. Is this ruining their economies? The evidence says not.
They also have good job training and apprenticeships, starting in high school, where kids can see studies leading to a goal, and self support---see Germany, for 1 example. College is low cost, or even free. What a concept.
46
College is NOT for everybody. Even the last two years of high school are a questionable endeavor. By age 16 kids should be on an academic or vocational track. Academically-oriented kids could spend their junior and senior years of high school earning an associate's degree at a nearby community college, reducing future costs, getting two years ahead of the game and putting an end to "senioritis." The vocational group could start learning a trade, so that by age 18 or 20 they would have marketable job skills and 2 to 4 years of practical experience.
4
MEREDITH, removing "our"factory jobs from Europe would mean that trade restrictions or tariff barriers would have be created to encourage production in the United Sates. That would probably mean higher prices for goods like Apple, where Chinese workers make about $2.00 per-hour making I phones. Funding for public schools isn't the problem in this nation, we spend billions of dollars on education. You can't recreate the ww2 era when America's was dominant. Lets face a reality, charter schools have wide spread support in the African American community, and the European nations which you refer to don't have the ethnic diversity of America. Finally, taxing the rich to create middle class government workers offers little hope for poor people, since most of the programs don't work
2
Timewarp here. Jobs are in Asia because costs are 70% lower than here. The jobs one used to obtain with a high school degree no longer exist.
I suggest you read a paper like the NY Times to become more aware of the economics of the world you live in. You are immersed in platitudes based on ideology. The world is no longer sympathetic to people without advanced degrees.
I suggest you read a paper like the NY Times to become more aware of the economics of the world you live in. You are immersed in platitudes based on ideology. The world is no longer sympathetic to people without advanced degrees.
3
We tried forced desegregation, often by busing in this country, and it didn't work -- nobody liked it, including our African American and Latino communities. People like the idea of their kids attending neighborhood schools.
You don't solve the problem indirectly, or even quickly. You solve the problem nationally by severing the direct relationship between schools and property taxes, and figure out how to fund schools in a manner that assures a minimum level of quality across all schools. As a result, people coming through those schools will become more mobile and become part of better-off communities and you'll organically bring racial and ethnic diversity to both our communities and our schools. Buffalo would benefit from this approach as would all our communities.
A lot of Buffalo's problems, and not just with education, deal with money. But Buffalo is enjoying a renascence of sorts, as industry is moving there and creating jobs. But, in the end, the solution will need to be state-led and federally led, and will need to focus on how schools are funded.
You don't solve the problem indirectly, or even quickly. You solve the problem nationally by severing the direct relationship between schools and property taxes, and figure out how to fund schools in a manner that assures a minimum level of quality across all schools. As a result, people coming through those schools will become more mobile and become part of better-off communities and you'll organically bring racial and ethnic diversity to both our communities and our schools. Buffalo would benefit from this approach as would all our communities.
A lot of Buffalo's problems, and not just with education, deal with money. But Buffalo is enjoying a renascence of sorts, as industry is moving there and creating jobs. But, in the end, the solution will need to be state-led and federally led, and will need to focus on how schools are funded.
9
The "minimum level of quality across all schools" issue is closer to being solved than most people imagine. In "failing" schools, there are students who show up, behave, and do the work, and those kids generally get a good education there. There just aren't enough of them.
4
The connection between property taxes and school funding has already been addressed by lawsuit which forces the state to divert more funds to low income districts. That's why Buffalo is able to spend 50% more per school than neighboring suburban school districts. Throwing more money at the system is not going to solve the system. Charter schools are a better solution.
1
We spend a boatload of money per pupil in this country. Look at what other countries spend and then look at the results. Money is not the issue.
3
This editorial is very correct, but it is important to note that the "wasteful, outmoded teachers’ contract that provides unusually generous benefits" was once much vaunted for its high payments to so-called "master teachers" (really, just teachers with greater seniority, who were already paid more relative to their value than early-to-mid-career teachers who are nearly as skilled. Paying existing staff much more money rarely results in much improvement to the schools).
The central problem is Buffalo's poverty. New York City and its suburbs are rich enough to bear the expensive tax and regulatory regime of the state it dominates. Not so upstate cities whose competitive advantage over other parts of the country disappeared in the 1950's and 1960's with the spread of air conditioning and the end of Jim Crow in the south. Upstate New York needs a tax and regulatory regime that can compete with the South and Midwest.
The central problem is Buffalo's poverty. New York City and its suburbs are rich enough to bear the expensive tax and regulatory regime of the state it dominates. Not so upstate cities whose competitive advantage over other parts of the country disappeared in the 1950's and 1960's with the spread of air conditioning and the end of Jim Crow in the south. Upstate New York needs a tax and regulatory regime that can compete with the South and Midwest.
8
Teaching is like other skills: you get better with practice. Teaching is unlike most comparable jobs in that it pays less, though. Even in districts with "overly generous" contracts, usually what that means is that teachers are paid a larger fraction of what other college-educated workers in the area are paid.
3
Teachers in Buffalo are entitled to co-pay free elective cosmetic surgery. That is nothing if not an unnecessary and costly benefit. Under NYS law, if a new contract is not negotiated, the old one stays in place, along with guaranteed cost of living increases, which is clearly contrary to the needs of the citizens.
1
" and middle-class flight. "
Now it's middle-class flight.
Why can't the NY Times admit it's just people moving to avoid crime along with bad (yes I said "bad") and unsafe schools .
There's this liberal hate for people who are able move out of neighborhoods that are unsafe. And no, they are not moving out of some "fear of the unknown ". People know all too well the crime and decay they experienced.
Now it's middle-class flight.
Why can't the NY Times admit it's just people moving to avoid crime along with bad (yes I said "bad") and unsafe schools .
There's this liberal hate for people who are able move out of neighborhoods that are unsafe. And no, they are not moving out of some "fear of the unknown ". People know all too well the crime and decay they experienced.
62
Re: liberal hate for persons moving out of unsafe neighborhoods
Liberals do not hate this. They applaud it. They want everyone to be able to move out of an unsafe neighborhood. Hence the need to fix the school system in Buffalo so that everyone gets an education which will give them the financial freedom to make such a move.
Liberals do not hate this. They applaud it. They want everyone to be able to move out of an unsafe neighborhood. Hence the need to fix the school system in Buffalo so that everyone gets an education which will give them the financial freedom to make such a move.
1
Let's see. Failing schools. And of course, a little gift from the public teachers unions: "More recently, the Buffalo school system has been hobbled by a wasteful, outmoded teachers’ contract that provides unusually generous benefits and makes it difficult to manage the teaching force." Should we be surprised these things go together ?
And the article also omitted a workable solution in Buffalo (and elsewhere) - Charter Schools. "On those tests, about 23 percent of Buffalo charter school students were deemed proficient in math, compared to 13 percent of Buffalo Public Schools students." And these aren't the privileged few. "90 percent are black or hispanic ... About 80 percent of charter school students qualify for free or reduced price lunch."
And charters are becoming widely accepted. "According to the Buffalo school district’s 2014 budget analysis book, fully 24 percent of the city’s children now attend charter schools."
Rather than reward this success, however, it is being starved. A recent lawsuit by minority parents point out that charter schools are given $10,000 less per pupil than traditional public schools. Here's a quote from one of the students of the families: “At my old school, I learned almost nothing ...,” Tishawn said in a prepared statement. “My new school is different. I like that my teachers at BASCS are more strict. They don’t take excuses for not performing.”"
Time to focus on the children's needs rather than those of the teachers unions.
And the article also omitted a workable solution in Buffalo (and elsewhere) - Charter Schools. "On those tests, about 23 percent of Buffalo charter school students were deemed proficient in math, compared to 13 percent of Buffalo Public Schools students." And these aren't the privileged few. "90 percent are black or hispanic ... About 80 percent of charter school students qualify for free or reduced price lunch."
And charters are becoming widely accepted. "According to the Buffalo school district’s 2014 budget analysis book, fully 24 percent of the city’s children now attend charter schools."
Rather than reward this success, however, it is being starved. A recent lawsuit by minority parents point out that charter schools are given $10,000 less per pupil than traditional public schools. Here's a quote from one of the students of the families: “At my old school, I learned almost nothing ...,” Tishawn said in a prepared statement. “My new school is different. I like that my teachers at BASCS are more strict. They don’t take excuses for not performing.”"
Time to focus on the children's needs rather than those of the teachers unions.
17
Teachers' unions and bad schools rarely go together; all other things being equal, unionized schools are usually better schools, though unionization alone is not enough to make up for a very poor student population.
12
what is your evidence of this? Charter schools in similar areas are producing better results--schools with student bodies determined by lottery; not this fiction that they are "skimming" only the best students
2
Of course teacher unions have absolutely NOTHING? to do with school performance, it's those "very poor student populations"!!! This simplistic approach does nothing but mirror the Times' bias in public education. When will it be time to think out of that box?
Project much?
Project much?
1
Funding. The political class has quit caring about the poor in all areas, why not education. These deplorable school conditions exist all through the US.
Sorry to see the Editorial Board blame a teacher's union before the fact that basic obligations for the district had not been met.
Please see Matt Taibbi's Rolling Stone piece on how/why union busting has become the bogey man in every tale. An editorial on that trend would be very useful and informative, as we try to understand the serious problems in our failing schools.
Sorry to see the Editorial Board blame a teacher's union before the fact that basic obligations for the district had not been met.
Please see Matt Taibbi's Rolling Stone piece on how/why union busting has become the bogey man in every tale. An editorial on that trend would be very useful and informative, as we try to understand the serious problems in our failing schools.
7
You're not likely to get an editorial about union-busting from the NYTimes; they're firmly in the anti-union camp, despite the facts. Why blame poverty or unequal opportunities when you can blame the people working hard to compensate for those problems?
8
Of course it is an easy problem to solve. Use the 'net. Because teacher don't teach. Children learn. And you can't make a child who doesn't want to learn do it.
Let the best teachers make videos. That might inspire some.
Let the best teachers make videos. That might inspire some.
3
Be honest, the only way to significantly improve public education is to provide a free market of school choice. That free choice is 100% school vouchers. More money for education? What a stupid idea, as the last forty years has shown. Teaching talent? They will go to where they are appreciated and paid well, places that do not require them to spend half their days on just keeping order in the classroom. Kids want to learn, and giving them places that are safe and staffed by caring teachers, it will happen. Another set of laws, crafted by the teachers union will get you nowhere.
15
If the teachers' unions were really in control of how schools would run, schools would be doing better. There probably wouldn't be much in the way of school choice, but that's not because of a conspiracy by the union to limit it; it's because the union is comprised of people who've studied education and know that the facts don't support school choice. It's been tried, and it just doesn't work.
3
A teachers' union is never going to put the needs of the children over the wishes of the teachers until children start paying union dues. So the best teachers will always use their seniority to get to better schools, leaving the worst teachers at the worst schools. It's only one element of the problem, but it is disingenuous to suggest that teacher unions are a force for students.
1
That is patently untrue.
Buffalo's public schools have been awful for years. The governor is just noticing?
I grew up in Buffalo. The highly touted desegregation plan the Times referred to is why my parents opted to send me to a small Catholic school -- one with no library and mediocre quality--instead of BPS. They didn't want us to spend an hour a day on a bus en route to a high-poverty neighborhood.
Buffalo is segregated in all areas. It wasn't until I moved to Atlanta that I realized just how segregated and frankly racist the city of buffalo can be.
While I believe that teachers unions are necessary to protect their membership, the head of the Buffalo union, who's been there for at least 30 years, has an appalling sense of entitlement and needs to go.
I grew up in Buffalo. The highly touted desegregation plan the Times referred to is why my parents opted to send me to a small Catholic school -- one with no library and mediocre quality--instead of BPS. They didn't want us to spend an hour a day on a bus en route to a high-poverty neighborhood.
Buffalo is segregated in all areas. It wasn't until I moved to Atlanta that I realized just how segregated and frankly racist the city of buffalo can be.
While I believe that teachers unions are necessary to protect their membership, the head of the Buffalo union, who's been there for at least 30 years, has an appalling sense of entitlement and needs to go.
11
If we expected schools to be competent in "teaching reading, writing, and arithmetic" rather than being labs for social experiments and demographic profiling (to create ideal "diversity" mixes, whatever that means) perhaps the schools wouldn't be "failing."
16
Seemingly numberless studies have shown that racially segregated schools generate inferior educational results for students of color. So, despite the often-heard response by Northerners that “you can’t impose motivation and the success it usually begets…,” we still have—in New York State—as much or more racial segregation than parts of the South before Brown vs. Board of Education in 1954.
The geographic comparison and the pseudo concern of many Northerners remind me of the choice of being smothered to death by feathers or crushed to death by stones. Either way you are equally dead.
The geographic comparison and the pseudo concern of many Northerners remind me of the choice of being smothered to death by feathers or crushed to death by stones. Either way you are equally dead.
5
in our last years in Rochester, New York I got the best chance in my life to see the good but in the end inadequate effort to solve problems via transfer. Minority kids came to School 23 from a part of the city where they were not at all in the minority. I used to drive one of those "minority" kids back home across the Genesee River and in the process learned a little but not enough about her family situation. I helped the school psychologist run an after-school program in the gym. The range of backgrounds, behaviors, perhaps basic ability to learn was wide.
We a two-professor family, got a few glimpses of the lives of kids from completely different SES worlds than the one we lived in and still live in here in Sweden. But only glimpses.
Mark Thomason presents what in the end is my view. "The solution (in the end) is how schools are paid for and how they are managed." Read him so I can close on another note.
Standard Times (American ?) practice is to see all problems in terms of "race" where only two "races" count, one black, one white. This practice encourages the American people (I am one) to think in Nicholas Wade terms, which is to say Group A really is genetically better than Group B.
Times Editorial Board, try this, just once. Write an Editorial in which you focus on difference in the quality of School A vs B and on the SES measures used to characterize the children in school A vs B.
Try it!
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
We a two-professor family, got a few glimpses of the lives of kids from completely different SES worlds than the one we lived in and still live in here in Sweden. But only glimpses.
Mark Thomason presents what in the end is my view. "The solution (in the end) is how schools are paid for and how they are managed." Read him so I can close on another note.
Standard Times (American ?) practice is to see all problems in terms of "race" where only two "races" count, one black, one white. This practice encourages the American people (I am one) to think in Nicholas Wade terms, which is to say Group A really is genetically better than Group B.
Times Editorial Board, try this, just once. Write an Editorial in which you focus on difference in the quality of School A vs B and on the SES measures used to characterize the children in school A vs B.
Try it!
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
9
Focusing on SES when talking about schools would reveal what we always ignore when discussing schools: the "good" schools are either in high-SES areas or allowed, in some fashion, to select the high-achieving students that exist, albeit in lower numbers, in low-SES populations. The schools in low-SES that don't cherry-pick their students are "failing" schools.
The NYTimes insists that's a result of what the schools are doing, not who they're enrolling. The comparison you're suggesting would reveal something that conflicts with editorial policy.
The NYTimes insists that's a result of what the schools are doing, not who they're enrolling. The comparison you're suggesting would reveal something that conflicts with editorial policy.
17
"Things went downhill in the 1990s, however, when court supervision ended and Buffalo experienced severe fiscal problems." Are the two unconnected? If African American families are falling apart all through that time, with fathers disappearing in droves, how manageable will their children be in schools? If those kids become disruptive, which parents of other children will not pull them out and move to another district? Isn't this another case of "Detroit disease"? Make a good situation bad by not holding people responsible for their own lives and thereby encouraging irresponsible behavior. Then, as the responsible people leave, spread the blame to others. Iterate! How many more Detroits before people learn?
50
Fathers leave their families because of very long term discrimination that prevents them from getting even working class jobs. Please don't blame the victim.
1
Buffalo? How about New York City?
Why was one school district lines drawn across E. 96th Street in Manhattan? Why are Upper East Side elementary schools overwhelmingly white, while there may not be a single white child in East Harlem. PS 321 in Park Slope is overwhelmingly white, while a mile away in Sunset Park, again, probably not a single white student. Countless examples of little Buffalo's are everywhere.
Before worrying about Buffalo schools, I think this New York City newspaper should be more concerned with, and do an expose on the school system that is more segregated than most southern cities - the New York City school system.
Why was one school district lines drawn across E. 96th Street in Manhattan? Why are Upper East Side elementary schools overwhelmingly white, while there may not be a single white child in East Harlem. PS 321 in Park Slope is overwhelmingly white, while a mile away in Sunset Park, again, probably not a single white student. Countless examples of little Buffalo's are everywhere.
Before worrying about Buffalo schools, I think this New York City newspaper should be more concerned with, and do an expose on the school system that is more segregated than most southern cities - the New York City school system.
14
Here's how "good" schools are different than "bad" schools: in "good" schools, at least 80% of the students come from functional families.
Sure, you can transfer a bunch of kids who are being "parented" by dysfunctional adults into the "good" schools, but then the functional parents will simply pull their kids out and go elsewhere and the "good" school (and all of the formerly "good" teachers) will decline and become "bad."
Kids are not trapped in "bad" schools; the schools are "bad" because the kids are trapped in dysfunctional families.
Race, income and all the rest are just distractors, although higher income people tend to be more functional, stable and mentally well, so their children tend to do better in school.
The problem doesn't start in the schools; it starts with the overwhelming numbers of dysfunctional adults who are enabled and incentivized to have children they do not care for. Fix that and the schools will suddenly amaze you.
Sure, you can transfer a bunch of kids who are being "parented" by dysfunctional adults into the "good" schools, but then the functional parents will simply pull their kids out and go elsewhere and the "good" school (and all of the formerly "good" teachers) will decline and become "bad."
Kids are not trapped in "bad" schools; the schools are "bad" because the kids are trapped in dysfunctional families.
Race, income and all the rest are just distractors, although higher income people tend to be more functional, stable and mentally well, so their children tend to do better in school.
The problem doesn't start in the schools; it starts with the overwhelming numbers of dysfunctional adults who are enabled and incentivized to have children they do not care for. Fix that and the schools will suddenly amaze you.
125
You're right about functional families - and even poor families can be functional. Some of my students from homeless families actually do very well in school - because they have parents who make school a priority.
3
Not just NY public schools...
The schools cannot overcome the ever-increasing effects of systemic racism in this country, the social isolation and economic deprivation inherent in being unable to survive without jobs, or in jobs that don't pay a living wage...not a bleeding heart liberal opinion here, read Elijah Anderson: "Code of the Street" and Elliot Liebow: "Tally's Corner". Eye-opening, required reading.
The schools cannot overcome the ever-increasing effects of systemic racism in this country, the social isolation and economic deprivation inherent in being unable to survive without jobs, or in jobs that don't pay a living wage...not a bleeding heart liberal opinion here, read Elijah Anderson: "Code of the Street" and Elliot Liebow: "Tally's Corner". Eye-opening, required reading.
4
The problem will only improve when poor parents choose to marry and raise their children in intact families. The federal taxpayer does not have enough money to compensate for the absence of two loving parents.
4
Oh, for the love of...
Listen. YOU are responsible for your child's education. Just like you are responsible for your child's nutrition and physical fitness.
IF YOUR KID CAN'T READ, it's your fault, not the school's. Your schools are not broken. They are functioning exactly as intended, low expectations and all.
YOU have to demand more from your children.
Bring books into the home, get rid of the television and spend time reading with your child. I have never heard of a child who grew up in a house filled with books but that doesn't like to read. Never.
If you delegate, or worse, abdicate your responsibility, you cannot and should not complain about the results.
When I was a kid, there was always a question followed by a command.
"Did you do your homework?"
"Good. Let me see it."
And god help you if the homework wasn't done.
Listen. YOU are responsible for your child's education. Just like you are responsible for your child's nutrition and physical fitness.
IF YOUR KID CAN'T READ, it's your fault, not the school's. Your schools are not broken. They are functioning exactly as intended, low expectations and all.
YOU have to demand more from your children.
Bring books into the home, get rid of the television and spend time reading with your child. I have never heard of a child who grew up in a house filled with books but that doesn't like to read. Never.
If you delegate, or worse, abdicate your responsibility, you cannot and should not complain about the results.
When I was a kid, there was always a question followed by a command.
"Did you do your homework?"
"Good. Let me see it."
And god help you if the homework wasn't done.
96
Perhaps parents shouldn't be allowed to complain that schools have failed to adequately parent their children, but it's not accurate to say they can't. Our government and our media, the NYTimes being a particular offender, encourage them to do so, and our education policy increasingly assumes they're right when they do.
7
Many parents of elementary school children don't ever know the name of their children's teachers.
5
"The United States Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights began its investigation of charges that the district was discriminating against nonwhite students in admissions to the better schools — those that choose students based on test scores and other screening."
You mean like Stuyvesant, Bard, Bronx High School of Science, and other elite New York City schools that have very few black students?
The New York Times should worry about New York City before it worries about Buffalo.
You mean like Stuyvesant, Bard, Bronx High School of Science, and other elite New York City schools that have very few black students?
The New York Times should worry about New York City before it worries about Buffalo.
4
Transfering students to better schools does not really work.
First, only some of the best get to the better school, while the rest of the best and all the rest remain mired in failure.
Second, it does not work well for the kids transferred. Our local schools take in quite a few students from under-performing schools, and I've seen how it works. They arrive behind, and don't catch up when they start with a big deficit. They don't fit in socially: they can't get in early or stay late to do activities or get extra help, they're thrown in among kids who've been in the same schools and been friends for years, and they dress and talk differently which among kids become a huge issues.
The solution is in how schools are paid for, and how they are managed. A property tax base in a poor neighborhood just cannot support an equal school, much less the extra school needed to make up for early and other problems. Schools that have gotten by for years on too little money and student failure are not run to become totally different just with an infusion of money.
Schools need state revenue from the larger tax base, extra for kids who need it, not just for rich parents. They need to be restructured to help the kids they've harmed for so many years. They need to be ready to help kids with the problems those kids have where they live, not the problems of other kids who live elsewhere.
Funding and management, not student transfers, will help these kids. Focus on the kids, and help them.
First, only some of the best get to the better school, while the rest of the best and all the rest remain mired in failure.
Second, it does not work well for the kids transferred. Our local schools take in quite a few students from under-performing schools, and I've seen how it works. They arrive behind, and don't catch up when they start with a big deficit. They don't fit in socially: they can't get in early or stay late to do activities or get extra help, they're thrown in among kids who've been in the same schools and been friends for years, and they dress and talk differently which among kids become a huge issues.
The solution is in how schools are paid for, and how they are managed. A property tax base in a poor neighborhood just cannot support an equal school, much less the extra school needed to make up for early and other problems. Schools that have gotten by for years on too little money and student failure are not run to become totally different just with an infusion of money.
Schools need state revenue from the larger tax base, extra for kids who need it, not just for rich parents. They need to be restructured to help the kids they've harmed for so many years. They need to be ready to help kids with the problems those kids have where they live, not the problems of other kids who live elsewhere.
Funding and management, not student transfers, will help these kids. Focus on the kids, and help them.
95
Unfortunately for your theory, the Buffalo school district spends more per pupil than any other school district in Erie County. Spending in 2012 in the Buffalo school district was $22,193 per student. In the the more affluent suburbs around Buffalo, it was: Lancaster, $13,247, Clarence, $14,288, Orchard Park, $15.232. Williamsville, $16,230.
Of course, these suburbs don't need to spend as much because their kids come to school ready to learn. That's the best way to get good results.
Of course, these suburbs don't need to spend as much because their kids come to school ready to learn. That's the best way to get good results.
42
Here in New Jersey, schools are financed by property taxes. Problems in certain school districts, such as Trenton and Newark, has long been blamed on unequal tax revenue. For years, decades really, judges have ordered more and more state money to be sent to the "disadvantaged" schools. These schools now have more money per student than other districts, and yet the problems remain. The problem starts at home, and no amount of money will change that.
15
You are advocating "Separate But Equal" which has had a history of many problems and has been declared unconstitutional. Personally, I have observed many cases where students mixed well socially and performed well academically.
4
i wonder how many members of the NYT Editorial Board send or sent their children to regular NYC Public Schools. I suspect very few. That is the root cause of much of the problem. Those who can choose avoid the worst schools. perhaps giving the poor the chance to choose might be a better idea. Of course that runs counter to the UFT and NEA dogma that choice is a bad idea.
A bad idea for the poor but a good one for the upper middle class? Law suits won't solve the problem. More people will just move further away to escape the city.
A bad idea for the poor but a good one for the upper middle class? Law suits won't solve the problem. More people will just move further away to escape the city.
87
Thank you Bill for asking the $ 64,000 question.
Well New York Times, please take a poll and get back to us.
By the way why don't you poll the Congress and the President
and see what percent send their children to DC's public schools.
Discipline, Discipline, Discipline, open the schools by 6 AM and
keep them open until 8 PM with Mentors/Grandparents/Coaches
to provide lower achieving students the opportunities do better in
school and thus in life.
Well New York Times, please take a poll and get back to us.
By the way why don't you poll the Congress and the President
and see what percent send their children to DC's public schools.
Discipline, Discipline, Discipline, open the schools by 6 AM and
keep them open until 8 PM with Mentors/Grandparents/Coaches
to provide lower achieving students the opportunities do better in
school and thus in life.
5
Very few liberals, NY Times people and politicians, send their children to the schools they insist others' children should attend.
When Ted Kennedy was asked why he opposed Charter Schools when his own children never attended public schools, he refused to answer.
So the Times Editors who wrote this, to have any credibility, need to write about which schools their children attend.
Do as I say, not as I do!
When Ted Kennedy was asked why he opposed Charter Schools when his own children never attended public schools, he refused to answer.
So the Times Editors who wrote this, to have any credibility, need to write about which schools their children attend.
Do as I say, not as I do!
15
That's been tried. The UFT and NEA, as you'd expect from people who studied education and do it for a living, know what they're talking about. It doesn't work. The main factors that affect whether students are successful are the students themselves and their parents, and those are the things that are unchanged in "school choice" schemes. Where we see a bunch of students grouped together whose aptitude and home lives aren't conducive to school success, we label that a "failing" school.
11
How baffling racial isolation!
Why does it occur in this Nation?
Inequality? No!
That cannot be so,
Might it relate to pigmentation?
Why does it occur in this Nation?
Inequality? No!
That cannot be so,
Might it relate to pigmentation?
23