re: Diane Ravitch writing in today's Times--
If every child arrived in school well-nourished, healthy and ready to learn, from a family with a stable home and a steady income, many of our educational problems would be solved.
Waiting for a School Miracle
By DIANE RAVITCH
Published: May 31, 2011
lgm writes:
Our nation and NY have many students who can be described as ideal. They have been placed in fully included classrooms with students who have severe issues and [they have been] denied access to an appropriate education. Remove that barrier, place by instructional need with competent teachers, and we as a nation will see education succeed. Continue to mainstream, and pretend to teach at an instructional level several years below the grade level over the door if it all, and we'll continue headbanging.
Yesterday's home and careers assignment for my 8th grader was similar to his 1st grade assignments before full inclusion: Take the alphabet. Under each letter, list two careers that start with that letter.
The majority of this school meets Ravitch's definition of ready to learn. But the idealists won't let the majority of children learn at their instructional level.
back to the future with Diane Ravitch
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2 comments:
"If every child arrived in school well-nourished, healthy and ready to learn, from a family with a stable home and a steady income, many of our educational problems would be solved."
Parents who are intelligent and conscientious usually provide stable homes with steady incomes, and they ALSO pass on genes for such traits to their children. As usual, people discussing education are willfully blind about heredity.
Such parents not only pass on their genes, they provide a stimulating environment and many learning opportunities and they teach their kids the habits, skills and behaviors that enabled the parents to be successful. Their kids arrive in school ahead of the curve and the parents' contributions move them farther and farther ahead as they grow.
SES essentially serves as a proxy variable for IQ and environment, which includes an array of habits, behaviors and characteristics. That explains why some families start out poor and move quickly upwards and why some families remain poor and become increasingly dysfunctional. It also explains why 40 years of throwing money at the problem hasn't worked. The left side of the curve will always exist; we just hope to move it further to the right. In an environment where there es essentially no academically useful cuture, it's hard to do.
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