Money Talks: How Affluent Families Have the Advantage in Today's Public Education

"Your services are no longer necessary..."

The six words that no employee wants to hear. They're the words that sting the soul, words that indicate that despite our best efforts, for some reason or another, we failed. I've heard those words twice before: Once when I was sixteen and working at the local gym. The other time was this past year when my long-term substitute position terminated at the end of the year and there was no permanent position available to me. Each time I could see the logic behind the removal. At the gym, they couldn't afford to keep providing me with a free membership for my otherwise non-paid work. For my previous school, the truth was that staff with seniority were placed ahead of me and there was nothing for me beyond the school year. This past Monday, I heard those nonmagical words for the third time from a woman whose son I was tutoring. The reasons behind my dismal this time are not as clear cut as in previous situations.

Let's start with economics 101. As I often talk about in my blog, there is a tremendous discrepancy between the haves and the have-nots in education. The truth is that money can't buy you happiness, but in this day and age it can buy you opportunity. And nowhere is this opportunity more apparent than in the education field. Think about how many opportunities money can buy you in education. Transportation to and from school and extracurricular activities. Transportation on the weekend to sports events that might earn you a scholarship. Money for field trips, both local and long distance. Computer access at home. SAT prep books, classes, and tutors. College guide books. Money for multiple college applications. And the list goes on.

Despite dedicating my life to helping those students who have had their lives stacked against them by society, I also feel the need to work with those who are more affluent and who do have those opportunities I have mentioned. The reasons for this are twofold. First, it is important for a classroom teacher to be able to work with all students in his or her classroom. I know that working at a start-up charter school, I will be working with the whole spectrum of students, especially this first year. Secondly, I'll be honest: I enjoy making money. Working with the more affluent students outside of school in a tutoring situation gives me the chance to not only enhance by teaching bu also to make a few dollars on the side. Simple theory of supply and demand: There is a demand for language teachers in Southern California and I am part of the supply of teachers in that field. Who am I to argue with basic theories of economics?

So, with that logic in mind I decided to take a tutoring job with a local high school junior. This student was enrolled at a private school about 30 minutes north of his home. The family lived in a nice home in an area that overlooked San Diego Harbor. This student had struggled in Spanish the year before and his teacher recommended that he continue studying the language only if he got a tutor for the upcoming school year. Knowing that competitive University of California colleges and state universities expect three years of foreign language in high school, the student's parents asked around for assistance in Spanish. Fortunately for me, I went to Kenya with another graduate student who is friends of the family and she recommended me. The rest, as they say, is history.

I worked with this student for an hour a week for 4 weeks. There was no question he was bright. Despite "struggling" in Spanish as his mom told me, he still had a B-average. However, that wasn't cutting it and so I was brought in to help raise that B to an A. In working with the student, I noticed he lacked a lot of the foundation needed to be successful in a third year high school Spanish class. We spent a lot of time reviewing material from the previous school year. The structure of the class was one that required a lot of outside studying. I had to convince the student that vocabulary flash cards would help him learn the material in preparation for the weekly quizzes. We went to the classroom website and he learned how to use the links to practice with material that was presented in the notes for the previous day. After 4 weeks, the student still had a B, but his needs had been analyzed and we were ready to move into a positive direction for his upcoming assessments.

Then, I got the ax.

On Monday morning, the student's mother told me that his grade wasn't improving at the rate at which she would have liked. She thanked me for my efforts and told me that the student would take it upon himself to work with the teacher during lunch and after school to try and bring up his grade. This news hit me like a ton of bricks. I knew that we had turned a corner and that the student was on his way to steadily improve. I also found him to be an interesting case study, and in my working with him I was hoping to help lay the foundation for my action research project that I had to do next semester for my last graduate course. I also was disappointed to lose out on the added income that tutoring was bring me. It wasn't a tremendous amount, but in this economy each and every dollar matters and I enjoyed the fact that my gas would be paid for monthly thanks to my new tutoring endeavor.

So why did I get canned? Simple. I didn't live up to the ridiculously high expectations of this family. They assumed that I could somehow and some way make their child an A-student in Spanish class, a class that he had barely passed the year before. This same student also had tutors for both chemistry and algebra as well. Do I blame the family? No. Why not? Because they expect their child to do well. The parents both did well in school and graduated from college. During one of the tutoring sessions, the mother informed me that the tutoring session had to be done in exactly an hour because it was junior college night and they had to return to school for it. That meant two hour-long trips to and from school in the same day, a sacrifice that mom was willing to make. These parents fully expected their child to succeed and end up at a top tier university.

This family is not unique. Not in San Diego, not anywhere. I do not fault this family for trying to help their only child succeed. It's what we all want for our children. It's why my twenty-five year old self has a financial planner as a way to start saving money now so that my children will have all the opportunities I had as a child. And those opportunities were given to me thanks to a super hard-working father. Thanks to his efforts, I had many of the same opportunities that the student I tutored had. I went on the field trips throughout school. I traveled all over New England to play sports. I took an SAT Prep course that raised my score by 150 points. I applied to eleven colleges and universities, writing multiple college essays on the desktop computer in my room. It was never a question of if I was going to college, it was a question of where I would end up. The same can be said for the student I tutored.

I leave you with these thoughts: How can someone from a less affluent home be expected to compete against someone who has had all these advantages? How does a struggling student stay after school if he or she has no ride home? How does the high school athlete with no transportation compete year round against those who travel all over the region for tournaments? How does the elementary school student go to the art museum if his single parent hasn't yet gotten her paycheck for the month? How does the middle school student type up his social studies report if he doesn't have a computer at home? How does the high school student apply to multiple schools if she doesn't have that much money available and doesn't qualify or know about scholarships? How does she get into college with low SAT scores? Does she have any hope for her future?

You tell me.

Fall Into the (Achievement) Gap: A Uniform Decision

Recently, thanks to the keen eye of my mentor and good friend Ray Jones, an article has come to my attention that deserves to be discussed. The article itself is from the Winston-Salem Journal and describes how my former middle school intends to implement school uniforms starting next fall (http://www2.journalnow.com/content/2010/feb/15/philo-gets-dress-code/). This in itself is not much of a surprise. This was something that had been discussed while I taught at Philo and was something the administration and staff had supported. However, I felt compelled to comment on this topic not so much because of what the article said, but because of the abundance of comments that the article generated. Let's take a look at some of these from the Winston-Salem Journal website:

"It sure was nice long ago when us kids could wear whatever we wanted and no one was around to ruin it for the rest of us. Why don't they discipline or remove the offenders?"

"We must provider these kids meals because they and their parents decide to spend money on expensive clothing and not food. Many of these people are not poor. They are just lazy, greedy and vain. Such people are an insult to the true poor."

"Parents are also negligent for allowing their children to wear unacceptable clothing. Most problems start in the home."

"I wonder how many of those who qualified for the discounted meals [free and reduced lunch] own 1 or more cell phones? 1 or more vehicles? 1 or more color televisions? A sophisticated video game system?"

"The ACLU needs to challenge this. No way a public school can demand that a child must dress a certain way. A school can certainly BAN an item of clothing but it has no right dictating what a child has to wear in order to attend public school."

After my head stopped spinning from reading these comments, I felt I had to express my own opinion seeing as I actually had set foot inside Philo's hallways unlike any of the above posters. First and foremost, I feel this is a positive decision for the school. Truth be told, we tried to implement a quasi dress code my first year at the school for the 07-08 school year. We required students to tuck in their shirts and wear belts to keep their pants from sagging. The students at Philo fought, and fought hard. We tried to suspend our repeat offenders, but it got to the point that students flat out refused to do what was being asked of them. I saw students disrespect not only teachers but administrators as well by refusing to adhere to the dress code. About 2/3 of the way through that year, we as a staff decided to cut our losses, and we vowed to implement a school-wide dress code the following year.

Unfortunately, with the change over from one administration to a new one, the idea of a dress code got lost in the shuffle. It was not until about two months into my second year that the idea was breached again, and by that time it was too late to implement anything for the 08-09 school year. However, there was without question a need for the dress code. Students wore sagging pants, inappropriate shirts, as well as gang affiliated clothing. It got to the point where I could tell you which young men would be coming to school on a Wednesday wearing white t-shirts and jeans. That was no accident, those were gang members showing off their "true colors." When a group of 15 boys walk down the hall together wearing the same thing, you know something is up. Any time students can openly broadcast their gang affiliation, it is time for a needed change.

That is why the offenders were not removed as one of the comments suggested. In terms of the ACLU getting involved, well I wouldn't lose any sleep over that one. Besides since 80% of the parents and staff approved the new dress codes, they have no legal recourse anyway. One comment I didn't post mentioned how students would now want to leave the school if they had to wear a uniform. This poster clearly has no idea about Philo's demographics. Half of our students are Hispanic. Many of their parents or even themselves come from a background of wearing school uniforms. This is nothing new and I wouldn't be surprised if many of the families actually embraced this new dress code. There will inevitably be a handful of students who leave. That is their choice and ultimately, if you don't buy into a school's philosophy then maybe you should consider other options anyway.

I also wanted to comment on the posts about welfare and the socio-economics of the lower class. These posters clearly have no idea about what is going on. The truth is that there is a class system even within the urban poor. One way to assert your status in this group is by what you own. Conspicuous consumption is not a trait reserved for the elite. Students from lower socio-economic families know they too are being judged on a day-to-day basis. Yes, they are on free and reduced lunch. However, this doesn't stop them from owning an iPod or having new sneakers. I have seen near fights break out over some boy scuffing another's shoes. Walk into any middle school boy's bathroom and you will see the boys fixing two things: their hair and their shoes. If you ever want to get on a young male's good side, complement his shoes and he will immediately respect you.

Lastly, the comment about letting their child leave the home dressed the way they are was simply foolish. These are single parent homes for the most part. Some students live with a relative, others live in foster homes. The whole idea of "dressing properly" is a middle-class value that we assume our students to have when they get to us. The truth is, they don't know what it means to dress "properly" and neither do the parents. I have met parents who dress the same way as their children. Some dads come in to parent conferences with baseball caps, baggy jeans, and do-rags. Some moms come in to parent conferences with t-shirts that are 1-2 sizes too small. It is the culture and we should not be judging them for their mode of dress. Students either emulate their parents or their peers in terms of dress. Also, a lot of their parents work multiple jobs and multiple shifts so many of them are forced to fend for themselves in the morning. They wear want they want to and so do their younger siblings that they might be in charge of. For students of poverty, how they look in the mirror when they leave the house is the least of their concerns.

I applaud Philo for this decision. The truth is that once clothing threatens the safety of a school, it is time for a change. That is how I felt about the dress code when I was there. I have nothing against gang members. I have taught them before and I teach them now. Some of them have been very pleasant young men and women in the classroom. However, what they do outside of school needs to stay outside of school. The more visible they are, the more likely it becomes that younger children will want to emulate them. I saw gang membership increase twofold from my first year to my second year at Philo. That is because of the presence of gang members and their gang-affiliated clothing. People knew who the gang members were. I had one African American student find a Hispanic gang member's bandanna with the gang colors. He dragged it on the floor and then took it into the restroom where he urinated on it and flushed it down the toilet. He knew what that bandanna stood for and so did I. With uniforms, that tension that the African American student displayed will be greatly decreased. Then and only then will the teachers at Philo be able to teach in an environment that is truly conducive to learning.

A Dream (Continuing to be) Deferred

A Dream Deferred
By Langston Hughes

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

Recently, I came across Time Magazine's Top Ten Underreported Stories of 2009 (http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1945379_1944495,00.html). The number one story? The continuing de facto segregation in our nation's inner city schools. This might be surprising to us to live in the 'burbs but for anyone who has taught in the inner cities, this story rings true. The fact is our inner city schools are currently more segregated than they were at the beginning of the Civil Rights period. African American and Latio students are especially at risk and dropout rates for these two groups are nearing the 50% mark. In a country founded on the democratic principle that everyone can and should have opportunities to learn, what has caused us to go astray?

The fact remains that as far as we think we may have progressed as a society, we still are very tribal in nature. If given the choice we prefer to be with people who look like us and think like us. There are also push and pull factors at work. Immigrant communities are often family centered with the extended family coming to a specific area to get their feet off the ground. Refugee areas are established within a certain radius giving us areas like the now famous Little Havana in Miami. Cities throughtout the country have their China Towns and Little Italys. The great myth of America as a melting pot continues to prevail, even though it is obvious that many groups have chosen not to submerge themselves into mainstream American society.

This de facto segregation causes various issues in our nation's schools. The simple truth is that the more affluent areas receive more money per pupil. This leaves the less affluent areas (read: inner cities) with less funds per pupil. These schools often have students of difficult backgrounds who have been part of generational poverty. What these students value and how they see education varies greatly from their teachers who most likely come from middle class, white-collar communities. Many immigrants can be found in the inner cities and public school teachers today may be teaching in a class with as many as five or six home languages being spoken. Young teachers face immense difficulties and often have high expectations placed upon them my administration and this leads to higher turnover in inner city schools. All of these reasons: motivation, language, and teacher turnover, lead to a difficult school environment. Yet, thanks to NCLB, these schools that are faced with these conditions must do just as well on standardized tests as the affluent school district next door.

How do we solve this? This is one of the most difficult questions in education today. Forced busing has been tried to integrate schools, but has been shot down by the Supreme Court (see Milliken v. Bradley). Therefore, we must realize that our schools are unlikely to be integrated anytime soon. We must then find a way to improve our inner city schools instead of closing them down for low performance, which is exactly what NCLB does. I suggest a way to provide funds to failing schools. These are the schools that need help the most. When someone is struggling to learn how to swim, we don't let them drown in the deep end. We give them the support they need, no matter how long it takes. We as educators, need to enlighten our local officials that NCLB is increasing, rather than decreasing the national drop out rate. Because of this, we are losing out on a generation of talented students who, due to socioeconomics, haven't had the same opportunities as everyone else. It's time to stop deferring dreams and to begin to think about what the true purpose of education is.