In homogeneous populations, SES is not conflated with cultural factors as much as in a very diverse population like here in the U.S.

I had too much to say

My attempt at humor failed. I believe it’s courageous, not cowardly, to challenge the norm. (after all, I quickly deleted the offending phrase from my dissertation and I’ve usually done the same ever since) Nobody can exclude Obama as being “polite company, just as I’m not getting included in polite company.” We are supposed to nod knowingly and agree with the theories that discipline problems would disappear if … Your blog is one of the few places where the dogma is challenged, and that was my point.

I’ve often challenged dogma in a discrete/wimpy way, Reading you helped give me freedom to articulate the unpopular opinions that you and I share. In official meetings and the like, I’ve always just gone along with the mantra on “Expectations,” just like most of the others in the room. Afterwards in the lobby or at a bar, we’d joke about the silliness of it all. I doubt many people who put on the just raise expectations “dog and pony show” actually believe what they are saying. Its just a convention for getting along, sorta like saying, “Yeah, its a nice day, but its going to get hot.”

But as I indicated, our beliefs aren’t unpopular outside of a narrow policy circle. They certainly are held by the majority of teachers.

Gosh, if your approach is cowardly, what would I call my compromise per day approach?

Still, I’m not craving the distinction of being “polite company” and something tells me that you don’t cut any of your opinions to fit the fashion. Besides, admitting that you don’t have all the answers isn’t fashionable in education right now. That’s another opinion that we share.

Not so firey John

@Jay, I’m not one of those that thinks that scheduling ballet and piano lessons means you have a “childhood” so I guess I do have an interesting perspective. To me having a childhood means kids have time for free play. I didn’t grow up in a home where we could afford any type of lessons so there is clearly some cultural disconnect here. Still, having also experienced part of high school life in a suburban school of mostly white students, I’m pretty wary of assuming that everything suburban parents do is something worth duplicating.

Saturdays were for morning cartoons and unscheduled hanging out. Trips to the mall… sometimes in IB we’d organize a “free” study at the downtown library, or we’d go bowling or to a movie. There was a real sense that the work we’d been doing justified a little bit of free time and it taught us more responsibility. In younger years it was also an opportunity to come up with creative ways to use our time. I’m still wondering when these KIPP kids get a chance to just hang out when you factor in the longer school days and the extensive homework I keep reading about.

But even if I did think scheduling activities on saturday was good, that doesn’t change the other things (overworking teachers, not internationally benchmarking, top down approach to changing cultural norms, etc.) that bother me about KIPP schools.

I wish one of the edublogs would do a poll of their readers and other bloggers and really see whether or not they would enroll their children in a KIPP school and why or why not. And again, not “if I were stuck in a troubled district then I would pick KIPP” but “If I knew I wasn’t taking a spot from a child who needed it, I would absolutely go out of my way to enroll my child in a KIPP school.” I think the results and the discussion that would inevitably follow would be fascinating.

@Matthew, Why be polire if you can refute my point? You’re right that it isn’t JUST about race… I would argue Obama is just as clueless about many of these issues as Wendy Kopp is due to his background. But I’d like to see a school district that has made incredible gains with black or latino students that is led by someone who isn’t black or latino and is enduring enough to last without that leader. Don’t get me wrong, there can be pockets of greatness with non-minority leaders, but I am talking about the seismic change that gets to the root of whats causing the problems in these schools in the first place. I just don’t think these communities are going to listen to someone who is white/Asian and from a middle to upper class background.

In the private sector you look at the great successes and you see people who lived their lives in one sector come up with the best ideas for that sector. Bill Gates, Peter Diamandis, etc. Its experience and passion that make up the biggest breakthroughs in an area. Why should education be any different?

People don’t like to hear this because they want to believe they can help (I’m not saying they can’t), but these groups don’t see the world in the same way. I remember very clearly expressing different concerns at Colgate U, Cornell, and at my suburban high school that most of my classmates simply could not relate to or understand. And there were, and still are, a lot of things I didn’t share because they were embarrassing or I couldn’t express properly, or that I thought might offend. Things are different now that I can think through these problems more clearly, but there is a lot of anger in the black community at things most white and Asian people don’t ever have to think about. I think many of these unspoken issues are at the root of our communities’ education problems. It doesn’t seem crazy to me to say that its going to take someone who can relate to these issues to help fix them.

“I could be wrong but I am pretty confident that the person who does that is going to need to be black or latino with a background similar to many of the people in the district.”

I’ll be polite and not address the validity of that claim. Instead, I’ll say that even if it’s 100% accurate, I’m not going to put up with it or accept that it’s likely the only way forward. Call it quixotic, but I go about things by looking at character, truth, knowledge, etc. before melanin or bank accounts.

Jay,

We both know that education debate on the internet is a funny thing, and some arenas are more skewed than others. For example, I’m thinking of Twitter, whose users voted in a massive poll using the Twitter API for Sen. Obama at a rate ~5.5x greater than Sen. McCain. Sen. Obama won the nation convincingly, but he didn’t win 5.5:1.

So we’re bound to see lots of misinformation about KIPP and the like. Speaking of Twitter, the other day someone on my followers list asked if anyone could explain the approach of Edison Schools. I commented that asking education Twitterites to answer that question is like asking Bill Ayers to explain Ronald Reagan’s approach. It was meant to be a joke, but it’s not far from the truth.

And Michelle Rhee… there’s an example of the internet population of education-folks having developed false impressions.

Someone like Charles Murray would probably say that those who are growing up poor today are simply dumber on average than those who were poor back when my grandfathers were kids, but that seems way too simplistic and pessimistic to me. I think the problem is more one of motivation & effort than one of ability.

As far as their approach to changing culture. Honestly, I am frustrated that so many people think that being able to pay proper attention in class is some special middle class value. And trying to create top down cultural changes that do not take into account students perspectives is a job even Sisyphus wouldn’t want to do.

These values aren’t unique to white middle class people. I wasn’t around for the 1960s, but it seems that there was this shift in the black community where suddenly being critical of destructive behavior became “racist” and uncaring. The hushed words of people like my aunt are a way of letting me know they approve without being branded uppity and bourgeois. Its not that these values don’t exist… its that this perverse cultural norm of being PC makes people uneasy with stateting them out loud… lest one end up outcasted like me.

As for bottom up cultural change. I think KIPP is heavy handed and isn’t letting that culture develop organically among its young people. In part because immediate results demand that sort of direct intervention. But a longer lasting solution would create a student culture where the coolest kids are the academic successes. I don’t know that KIPP is recreating that image of cool in or outside of its schools. Until students admire hard work and intelligence over bling, there will be no meaningful change in these communities.

@john, I have an idea for an after school program and I remember sharing it with someone who deals with business plans in education. She was well meaning, but the first thing she pointed out to me was that many people don’t like the term “poor” when referring to inner city kids (so much for that poverty meme). Nevermind the idea… I needed to go through and make my plan more PC! Please. This is one of the main reasons I roll my eyes about whether Rhee can save our public schools. She’s Korean American and can’t say a fraction of the things that need to be said to the black students and parents and here district… even if she knew what needed to be said (she doesn’t). Like you said, you can’t have a great education team if you can’t be honest about the problems.

@ Matthew, You bring up a good point… there is a huge difference between who can be a great teacher (someone with great content knowledge and the desire to share it regardless of that person’s race) and someone who can be the catalyst for change in the public schools. I could be wrong but I am pretty confident that the person who does that is going to need to be black or latino with a background similar to many of the people in the district. Otherwise there is just too much that cannot be said with enough authority to avoid the negative labels.

I apologize for the length, just wanted to get to most of the comments…