I was insulted by this:
“For middle-class kids — regardless of racial and ethnic background — schools tend to matter relatively less (than for poor students), because parental influence matters so much more. To take the two extremes, it is hardly surprising that a middle-class child who has been read to often, taken on trips to museums and is surrounded by books and talk of college from an early age will score better on tests than a child living in a crowded apartment with non-English-speaking parents who work multiple jobs, or a child experiencing the often chaotic and hopeless environment of intergenerational poverty.”
Yikes! As if the achievement of poor students had everything to do with “poor” or absent parenting!
In her piece Standardized Tests: A Clear and Pleasant Danger, published in Rethinking Schools: An Agenda for Change, Dr. Terri Meier, professor at Wheelock College specializing in cross-cultural communication and language development, discusses language socialization among different groups of children. Meier’s point is that white middle-class children are primed from day one to do well on standardized tests, which reflect the very values taught to these children via communication styles prevalent in their circles. She writes:
“Numerous studies of language socialization in white middle-class communities indicate that the largest percentage of questions addressed to preschoolers by mothers and other primary caregivers consists of simply structured questions to which the questioner already has the answer (e.g., . . . ‘How many fingers is mommy holding up?’). The purpose of such questions is not for the questioner to gain information, but for the child to display information, for which she is typically rewarded with extensive verbal and non-verbal praise.
“When reading stories to preschool children, many middle-class parents often intersperse their reading with questions that focus the child’s attention on noting and recalling specific details of the text.
“. . . Research indicates that many working-class and minority children come to school with very different values and assumptions about what constitutes meaningful communication. In a 1983 study, Shirley Brice Heath found that in the working-class black community where she spent eleven years studying language socialization, children were almost never asked questions to which the adult or older child already knew the answer. . . ., the assumption being, why would you ask someone something you already know the answer to?
“Reading was also often perceived differently, according to Heath. It tended to be a social event in which listeners, young and old, were free to throw in comments or to elaborate on some connection with their personal experience, rather than a context for testing children’s reading comprehension or teaching appropriate school behaviors. People in this community were admired for their ability to tell a good story, draw insightful analogies, or present an interesting and unique point of view, rather than for their ability to display information or show off knowledge for its own sake.”
So, Schulte doesn’t have it quite right. She makes a whole lot of messed up assumptions about the white middle class vs. the working class home culture.
In one respect she is right - schools do have a huge impact on academic achievement of poor students. If students feel alienated by the values and expectations of the institution they’re in, this will likely reflect on their achievement. If they experience racism or are otherwise treated like crap by the teachers or administrators, likewise.
The status quo definition of academic success (high test scores & GPA…) requires that one buy into the system and play the game in order to be viewed as successful. Standardized tests are modeled on intelligence tests, which were created to screen out “undesirables”, as is well documented (see the book Standardized Minds, for example). What makes people believe these tests have any meaningful value whatsoever? They are all about separating the elite from the masses and lining the pockets of the fat cats (corporations).
When I was a teacher and teacher assistant at a public alternative school, serving predominantly students of color, many low-income and most first generation US-born immigrants, I saw firsthand the clash of the values students were supposed to subscribe to and their own. During a standardized testing session, I saw students filling in bubble sheets randomly – all d answers, for example. Because they didn’t care. Because they didn’t buy into the status quo.
My point is that it’s important to keep going deeper with our questions, keep on challenging what is accepted as true.
