8 More Links on Education Inequality

1. William H. Schmidt: Inequality in the American Education System

While I do not agree with Mr. Schmidt's conclusion (that the introduction of the Common Core Standards is a move in the right direction), I find it interesting that he points out an area of education inequality not often discussed: tracking systems. I myself am undecided on the topic of tracking; I see both sides of the debate and cannot decide which is more compelling. This article makes a pretty good case against the tracking system. 


2. No Education Reform Without Tackling Poverty, Experts Say

A panel of experts that met in Washington, D.C. in April concluded that the focus of the education inequality battle needs to be poverty, not public school educators. 

Here is a quote from the article:

"The panel used their presentations to demonstrate how more affluent schools have made significant gains in academic improvement over the past 40 years while under-funded schools, despite making some strides, have been unable to close the achievement gap. The panelists urged lawmakers to avoid blaming the public school system and instead put programs in place to address the crippling poverty that obstructs student learning."


3. New York Times: SAT Scores and Family Income

This article is frightening. I've always heard that higher family income correlates with higher SAT scores, but seeing this data visually really brings it home. I've included the graph of all 3 sections on the same axis below.

4. School Funding Inequality Forces Poor Cities Like Reading, PA., To Take Huge Cuts

This article is a sobering reminder of how severely those in poor cities suffer. In 2013, twenty six states in the U.S. will spend less per student than they did last year. Thirty-five states thus far have spent less per student than they did before the recession. If you want to get a feel for how bad things are, take a look at what this article has to say about the Reading, Pennsylvania school district: 

"The Reading School District looks nothing like it did just a year ago. A $43 million deficit this year has resulted in 13 percent fewer teachers on its payroll, and a scramble to fill those gaps. Many furloughed rehires are teaching in unfamiliar fields. For example, Brad Richards, a longtime sixth-grade history veteran, presides over a kindergarten class. The capacity of pre-kindergarten has been cut in half. Because Pennsylvania schools by rule can't fire teachers unless a school is closed or a program is shut down, certain vocational and technology classes simply don't exist anymore. Fewer security guards monitor student brawls and school safety inside the halls, and those who remain operate without the help of police officers, whom the district deemed too expensive to hire from the city.

More students jostle for less space. The intermediate schools and the high school are flooded with extra kids, the refugees of three defunct middle-school "gateways" opened a few years ago."

This article points out that education reformers are arguing over things like school choice and charter schools, which only serve to continue the cycle of poverty (the issue of school choice is complex and multi-faceted, so expect a blog post devoted to that topic soon). 

To understand how living in a poorer city effects the education system, consider these statistics quoted in the article: Reading, PA can spend only $7,572 per student per year. Does that sound like a lot? Well, only a short distance away in West Reading, the school district spends $10,633 per student per year. That is what having a poverty rate of 40.1% does to a city. Only 64% of Reading residents have a high school diploma, and only 10% have a bachelors degree. Many teenagers in Reading have dropped out of school to help their parents in times of economic hardship, and are thus unlikely to attend a university. 

This article includes many more salient points and is definitely worth your time to read. However, you may want to have a box of tissues on hand when you read Ja'Nya's story. 

Horace Mann famously stated: "Education then, beyond all other devices of human origin, is the great equalizer of the conditions of men, the balance-wheel of the social machinery." If school districts like that of Reading, PA cannot afford to spend as much as they need to spend on their students, how will we ever break the cycle of poverty in this country? Horace Mann was on to something when he called education "the great equalizer", but he statement is only true if we make it true.

5. Evidence Says Education Inequality is Hurting the U.S. Economy

This article makes a few very important points about how income level effects the education one receives, however what I found most informative about this article was the following paragraph: 

"Poverty isn’t the only disadvantage faced by bright kids from poor backgrounds, The New York Times story said. At college, low-income students face competition from peers who grew up with perquisites many poor kids lack, such as preschools, tutors, summer camps, music lessons and stable, prosperous families. Low-income students often miss out on guidance from family members, can be easily swamped by mounting debts, and might feel pressure to contribute income toward their families."

High-income students have access to so many resources that are simply unavailable to their lower-income counterparts. To speak from personal experience, working with a tutor helped me jump 70 points on a section of the SATs. It isn't fair that some of my peers cannot afford to get the same kind of assistance!

6. The Income Inequality Debate: Potential Causes

The content of this link is nicely summarized in its introduction:

"While income inequality can be summarized in a few words, its multiple potential causes are more complex. Globalization and technological change have simultaneously led to greater competition for lower-skilled workers--many of whom have also lost union membership--while giving well-educated, higher-skilled workers increased leverage. Changes to tax rates, including favorable treatment for capital gains, may also play a role."


7. Research Traces Impacts of Childhood Adversity

This article is a gold mine of information on the psychological and emotional implications of adversity experienced in early years. 

Here is a quote from the article that explains the ACE study, which polled over 17,000 middle-class adults:

"Known as the ACE study and done in collaboration with Dr. Robert F. Anda at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, the project analyzed longitudinal data on more than 17,400 middle-class adults in the Kaiser Permanente system.
Participants reported whether, as children, they had experienced repeated physical, sexual, or severe emotional abuse, and whether they had grown up with any of five types of "household dysfunction": a family member in prison; domestic violence; an alcoholic or drug abuser in the home; someone in the home who was depressed, mentally ill, or suicidal; or loss of at least one biological parent during childhood for any reason.
As it turned out, more than half the adults had had at least one type of severe abuse or home dysfunction in childhood, and one in 16 had experienced four or more. The number of traumatic childhood experiences, Dr. Felitti found, was directly proportional to a person's risk of a wide variety of major medical and social problems, from teenage pregnancy and drug abuse to adult heart disease and hepatitis. 
"These results are almost unique in their magnitude," Dr. Felitti said. A boy with six indicators of abuse and home dysfunction was 4,600 percent more likely than a boy with no risk factors to become an intravenous-drug user, according to the study."


8. Steven Strauss: The Connection Between Education, Income Inequality, and Unemployment

The author of this article quotes statistics that tell us what we already know: the more education one has, the higher the likelihood of finding a high paying job. Although we in the 21st century are challenging this notion, the corrolation between education and income remains strong. Articles like these remind me how important it is for us to address education inequality right now. 

Students Calling for Action

New York City public school student Claryssa Santana shares her experience in the NYC public school system: 

Two Peas (not) in a Pod: Ultra-Orthodoxy and the Internet

This week, we are being asked to look at a classmate's blog and discuss what they are doing for their Frisch LEADS project. 

Here are two blogs that I am looking forward to following as the year goes on: 

1. Danielle Silber is exploring what it means to live in ultra Orthodox Jewish communities as a woman. I think this topic is a fascinating one. As Modern Orthodox Jews, we are members of both the religious and secular worlds. Thus, we are probably in the best position to reconcile religious extremism and traditionalism with modern ethics and values. Yet, I find that many people in the Orthodox community stay on one side of the debate, either neglecting to take into account the not all together adverse culture of ultra religious communities, or making up implausible excuses on behalf of these communities without considering their actions against the backdrop of modernity. Many of my family members recently read Unorthodox by Deborah Feldman, a book detailing one woman's experience in the Chasidic neighborhood of Williamsburg. Although I have yet to read the book myself, from what I have heard it raises a plethora of questions regarding religious extremism, gender roles, and so on. One of my cousins read Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali after reading Unorthodox, and commented that one of the differences between the two books is that while both women detail the oppression they experienced in their respective religious communities, Feldman seems to have a lot more anger than does Hirsi Ali. Although I have not read either book, I found this observation interesting. Since I don't forsee myself having time to read Unorthodox in the near future, I look forward to following Danielle's progress with her Frisch LEADS project.

2. Ben Katz is researching the impact that the Internet has on human interaction and connection. This topic is particularly important in light of the immense amount of time that we moderns spend using the World Wide Web. Ben plans to explore social media, popular websites that impact how we learn and research (like Google, Wikipedia and Yahoo! Answers), sites like eBay and Amazon that have changed the face of consumerism, and sites such as eHarmony that have fundamentally altered the way in which we interact with other human beings. Here are some of the questions that Ben wants to answer: " To what extent has the Internet changed human behavior? Is this impact worldwide or just concentrated in certain privileged countries? Will this 'revolution' continue at the rate that it has? Has the Internet brought a positive change for us? To what extent must we remove ourselves from it? What are some instances where the Internet has changed people's lives?" All of these questions intrigue me, so I am very excited to follow Ben's progress!

10+ Links on Education Inequality

Here are some articles and videos I've found that relate to my project:

1. At 76, Jonathan Kozol is More Outraged Over Inequality Than Ever

This is an article about Jonathan Kozol, long-time education activist and author of multiple books on education inequality. Kozol is well into his seventies and still lecturing  and writing in the hopes that our education system will one day give students equal opportunity to succeed. 

Here's a quote from the article: 

"What's happening now in America, says Kozol, is "not even a pretense of a meritocracy." We are willfully condemning the futures of poor children in our society and, by scapegoating teachers and underfunding schools we're destroying public education. If that legacy of public education is lost, "that precious dream of Thomas Jefferson at his very best," says Kozol, "it will imperil our democracy."


2. Kalamazoo, Mich., the City That Pays for College

I read this article in the NY Times magazine a couple of weeks ago. In November 2005, some unnamed donors decided to pay tuition for Michigan's public colleges, universities and community colleges for students who graduated from the Kalamazoo, Michigan high schools. The program, called the  "Kalamazoo Promise", gives Kalamazoo teenagers hope for higher education. One in three Kalamazoo students lives below the national poverty line, and one in twelve are homeless. The Kalamazoo Promise is blind to family incomes, student grades and disciplinary and criminal records. The program requires families to reside in a Kalamazoo school district and graduate from a Kalamazoo high school. The hope is that families will live and work in Kalamazoo for longer, thereby boosting the local economy.


3. BoostUp

BoostUp is an organization dedicated to helping teens who are at-risk for dropping out of school the support they so desperately need to graduate. I've watched many of the videos on the site about student stories. As I watch these videos, I am reminded that these are just a handful of the adolescents in this country who are struggling to make ends meet. The site also provides statistics about dropout rates and ways for the average person to give these students a boost, whether it be by tutoring students after school, giving students resume and interview help, or donating to schools in need. 



4. The Opportunity Gap, by David Brooks

I read this article back in July. Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam recently did a study on the socioeconomic gap in America by looking at opportunity inequality among children, the future of our nation. College-educated parents spend one hour more a day with their children. Upper-income parents have increased the amount of money they spend on their children's enrichment programs by $5,300 a year in the past forty years. Children from upper-income families are about twice as likely to play after-school sports and more than twice as likely to be captain of their teams. They are much more likely to participate in other extracurriculars. 

"Equal opportunity, once core to the nation’s identity, is now a tertiary concern. If America really wants to change that, if the country wants to take advantage of all its human capital rather than just the most privileged two-thirds of it, then people are going to have to make some pretty uncomfortable decisions."


5. Income Inequality and Educational Opportunity, by Laura D'Andrea Tyson

This September 2012 article includes some sobering statistics about the education gap in this country.

"The United States is caught in a vicious cycle largely of its own making. Rising income inequality is breeding more inequality in educational opportunity, which results in greater inequality in educational attainment. That, in turn, undermines the intergenerational mobility upon which Americans have always prided themselves and perpetuates income inequality from generation to generation.

This dynamic all but guarantees a permanent underclass. Indeed, the process is already under way: An American child’s future income is already more dependent on his or her parents’ income than a child born in most other developed countries."

6. 2011 Census: Income, Poverty and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States

Knowing the facts is the first step towards making a difference.

The 2012 census reports:

"Of the 20.4 million people with income below one-half of their poverty threshold, 7.3 million were children under age 18, 12.2 million were aged 18 to 64, and 940,000 were aged 65 years and older. The percentage of people aged 65 and older with income below 50 percent of their poverty threshold was 2.3 percent, less than one-half the percentage of the total population at this poverty level (6.6 percent)."

Here are some interesting graphs from the census report:

 

7. Education Gap Grows Between Rich and Poor, Studies Show

Yet another article with startling statistics about the state of education inequality in America.

"One reason for the growing gap in achievement, researchers say, could be that wealthy parents invest more time and money than ever before in their children (in weekend sports, ballet, music lessons, math tutors, and in overall involvement in their children’s schools), while lower-income families, which are now more likely than ever to be headed by a single parent, are increasingly stretched for time and resources. This has been particularly true as more parents try to position their children for college, which has become ever more essential for success in today’s economy.

A study by Sabino Kornrich, a researcher at the Center for Advanced Studies at the Juan March Institute in Madrid, and Frank F. Furstenberg, scheduled to appear in the journal Demography this year, found that in 1972, Americans at the upper end of the income spectrum were spending five times as much per child as low-income families. By 2007 that gap had grown to nine to one; spending by upper-income families more than doubled, while spending by low-income families grew by 20 percent."

8. 20 Facts about U.S. Inequality that Everyone Should Know

Here are some great graphs with statistics about inequality in the United States. 

One important fact I learned:

"Only college graduates have experienced growth in median weekly earnings since 1979 (in real terms). High school dropouts have, by contrast, seen their real median weekly earnings decline by about 22 percent"

9. Why Education Inequality Persists- and How to Fix It

This article focuses on education inequality in New York City. 

"The real outrage, then, is not our vivid language but how education in New York City is more likely to reinforce existing patterns of inequality than to serve as a pathway to opportunity. It is as if New York is testing black, Latino and poor students on their swimming abilities after knowingly relegating them to pools where the water has been drained. These students are then stigmatized as failures, their parents labeled as less than fully engaged, and their teachers called ineffective. Ultimately, their community’s schools are closed rather than being supplied with the necessary resources and supports to flourish. One cannot ignore the impact of such policies and practices on the public image of blacks and Latinos males and the profiling that exists in our society."

10. Some informative and heart-wrenching videos about general socioeconomic inequality and education inequality:

Richard Wilkinson: How Economic Inequality Harms Societies
Inequality in the Public Education System
Disparity in Public Education Funding in America
Jonathan Kozol: Education in America (1 of 6) (Follow the related videos for parts 2-6)
This is America- Jonathan Kozol (Part 1 of 2)
Hans Rosling: New Insights on Poverty

Bursting Bubbles

As I look back on my Frisch career, I think about all of the times when I inadvertently made schoolwork harder for myself. I made a big deal about small assignments, left things to the last minute, and so on. Yet here I am, on the last leg of my journey through Frisch, purposefully making school more difficult. Why, you ask? I advise you to buckle your seatbelt, because this will blow you out of the water...

I want to actually learn something during my senior year. 

I know, I'm crazy. Feel free to mock.

Instead of combining my Tikvah paper with the Frisch LEADS project, I am leaning towards working on two totally different topics. Yes, I'll have more work, but I'm optimistic about how much I will learn in the process. 

And now (drum roll please), presenting what I hope will be my final topic: education inequality.

Over the past year, I have developed an interest in and a passion for education reform. One specific area in which I am interested is education inequality, particularly in urban school systems. I have been privileged to attend well funded private yeshiva day schools all my life. I have spent my days in beautiful facilities with high-tech classrooms and benefited from a plethora of enrichment programs and extracurricular activities. I have taken for granted things like adequate lighting, intact textbooks and exposure to the arts. The more I read about education, the more shocked I become. The gaps between private and public schools, and well funded public schools and under-funded public schools are extraordinarily wide! During my excursions into the large network of educators on twitter, Facebook and blogging sites, I have learned that this problem has existed for decades. For years and years, urban youth have been getting the short end of the stick. Education is of primary importance for youth living in urban areas, where there tends to be more violence, substance abuse and the like. Yet we've substantially reduced the chances that these young people will one day move up the socioeconomic ladder. We are prolonging-- possibly worsening-- the general socioeconomic rift in our country.

For my project, I want to thoroughly examine the state of American public education with an eye toward urban schools. I would like to look at issues that arise in these schools due to the socioeconomic standing of the students, as well as the amount of funding that the respective schools receive from the government. For part two of project, I want to find creative, implementable solutions to the problems I have explored. In terms of finding sources, I am planning to a read a book or two by Jonathan Kozol, an educator who has dedicated his life to acting and writing on behalf of inner-city students. Hopefully, his writings will give me an overview of the current situation, and perhaps some specifics. There are many other books, essays, articles and blog posts on this topic, so I don't think I will have a problem finding sources of information. In addition, I would love to visit an under-funded school in New York City and talk to students, teachers and administrators about their experiences with education inequality. As a final project, I'm thinking about starting Ramp It Up, a non-profit organization that Mrs. Wiener, Eddie Maza, and I have been planning to create. The organization would provide study help for AP students who do not have the resources that most private school students are fortunate enough to have- multiple review books, flashcards, lists and summaries given out by teachers, practice tests, etc. Hopefully, my understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of public education will inform how we structure the organization. 

People within the Jewish community often talk about the yeshiva day school "bubble". I consider myself to be a fairly open minded individual, generally knowledgable about issues that do not effect the Jewish community. Yet, I cannot deny the fact that growing up in the comfort of the Jewish day school system has made me virtually ignorant to the unique challenges of public education. Hopefully, this project can help me burst that bubble once and for all.

First Thoughts

A couple of days ago, Mrs. Wiener announced the Frisch LEADS project to our English class. You can probably guess how most students reacted. Even if they didn't vocalize their thoughts, it was clear that my fellow students were experiencing a sinking sensation in their stomachs at the thought of actually doing work during senior year...on top of a regular AP English Literature curriculum no less!

Now, I don't mean to say that I always enjoy school work, but I didn't get that sinking sensation in my stomach. Gasp! She what?? Let me explain myself...

I am a big fan of this kind of project-based, student-directed work because we, the students, are given the freedom to be creative and inventive while simultaneously developing our research and communication skills. I find that my peers often complain about school not because they don't want to learn, but because most of what we learn in school is conveyed in a dry, mundane manner. Who wants to sit at a desk and furiously copy down what the teacher says for ten periods a day? These kinds of projects have the potential to break down the barriers that prevent so many students from actually- can I say it?- enjoying high school. Now, I am pretty sure that my fellow classmates and I will still complain about the blogging requirements (not to mention the final assignment) but my guess is that deep down, each of us will gain from this project something that cannot be acquired via frontal classroom learning. 

I have gone through a few topic ideas and I think I've settled on one that ties in to the paper I am writing from the Tikvah class. My Tikvah topic is the individual versus the collective in Judaism and American democracy, and how the distinction between a faith based on covenant and a political structure based on social contract may shed some light on this issue. These questions will hopefully be addressed in my paper: How are we to reconcile the Jewish tradition's insistence on mutual responsibility with the American value of individual freedom and responsibility? How are we, as American Jews, to look at the conflict between individual and community? What are our responsibilities to our respective communities and to the world?

I really like this topic, but I don't want to do the exact same thing for Frisch LEADS. I'm toying with the idea of using individual vs. mutual responsibility as a springboard to explore the American-Jewish approach to the pressing social issues of our time. How do American Jews view homelessness, education inequality and the like? What's more, how should we view these issues given what our faith has to say about social responsibility? As a final project, I might create the organization that Mrs. Wiener, a fellow classmate and I have been discussing for the past few months. 

On the other hand, I'm interesting in so many other areas that would make great projects! I'd love to do my project on education, whether it be general education or specifically jewish education. I'm also interested in social action/entrepreneurship, marketing/advertising, psychology...the list goes on! I may regret limiting myself to philosophy...or not.

I'll be brainstorming a lot in the coming days. More on my progress next time...