“Our Schools Suck” Reciprocal Teaching Presentation

1. “Our Schools Suck”Reciprocal Teaching Presentation Chapter 1 - Culture Trap Talking about Young People of Color and Their Education Augusto Vargas, Katelyn Griswold, David Johnson

2. Analysis of Harvard Sociologist Orlando Patterson • Harvard sociologist Orlando Patterson analyzed the conditions of low academic achievement, persistent poverty and violence plaguing Black communities. • He assumes that this tragedy is part of a social and historical process that includes our racist past. • He describes the culture of “Cool Pose” for being responsible of the disconnection of young men of color and for “languishing in the ghettos” .

3. Why are young people of color “immerse in this situation”? • He explains that the “Cool Pose” culture is too gratifying to give up. It’s something addictive. • Some manifestation of this culture is Hip Hop music, the sharp dressing, hanging out, easy money, sex, party and drugs. • All of this is a main factor of their disconnection from the socioeconomic mainstream.

4. Which data supports his opinion? • The Urban Institute published a report that: half of black men, aged 16 to 24, do not attend school or work formally. Also, 30% of this group is on parole or in jail at any one time. • Further, 10% of Black and 9% of Latino young men are “disconnected” from school or work for more than 1 year with rate of incarcerated rising to 17% and 12%.

5. The sociologic analysis of Patterson • Patterson establishes the failure of social scientists to find solution in an effective strategy by: • the rejection of the cultural explanation (deep seated dogma) • justifying it by structural factors • He assumes social scientists are “allergic to cultural explanations”.

6. Main Social Scientific Idea of Patterson as a key concept: • Taking culture as a social reason for the behavior of a community: • socioeconomic factors/structural forces are of limited explanatory power of this result and • cultural values and norms are the reasons for many people of color’s “disconnection” • The cultural pre-conditions, based on his analysis, doesn’t allow these groups to move up in the society and into the mainstream formal system.

7. Patterson's editorial was followed by: • Fox News commentator and writer of the book “Enough”, Juan Williams. • Bill Cosby’s speech at the 50th Anniversary of Brown Vs. Board of Education. • This speech blames the “lower economic and lower middle economic people” of their own reality, and in some way, that these people have betrayed the historical and revolutionary opportunity since Brown. • Bob Herbert’s editorial • Herman Badillo, Congressman, author of “One Nation, One Standard”

8. Reasons of Cosby’s ideas and analysis: • Instead of denouncing the hyper segregation at school, and the violation of the integrationist spirit of Brown, he justifies his ideas because: • This people failed in taking advantage of the educational and economic opportunities. • They created a cultural milieu in which is acceptable to have 50% school drop rate, people get shut in the back of their head over a piece of pound cake, fight hard to be ignorant, wear clothes inappropriately.

9. Reasons of William’s Ideas: • In “Enough”, Williams defends Cosby, saying that: • African Americans abandoned the ideals of the Civil Rights. • They embrace a “Culture of Failure”. • He also refuses the structural conditions as the reason of this reality.

10. Bob Herbert in another editorial says: • African Americans need a new leadership based on the old values of struggle, self determination and hard won pride. • He supports the ideas of Cosby, Williams and Patterson adding: “…a depressing cultural illness” is sapping away African Americans ability to achieve educational success and move up the economic ladder • A last publication also support these ideas, but now, about Latino people:

11. “One Nation, One Standard” by Herman Badillo and the Latino’s cultural dysfunction: • He argues that the primary determinant of any immigrant group’s success or failure in America is their attitude towards education. • He states that Hispanics as a culture don’t place a lot of importance to education. • They will succeed, like any other ethnic group, if they had a total attitude adjustment.

12. In Summary • Instead of denunciating the bad conditions and disadvantages of education that urban people of color are receiving, • Instead of defending the people of the urban communities, • The opinions of these leaders blame the attitudes and individual educational/cultural values by applying different but correlated diagnostics:

13. Summary of lack of educational values: • The “cool pose”. • The “disconnection” of people of color. • The allergy to cultural values explanations. • The failure to take advantage of opportunities. • The cultural attributes and dysfunctions. • The depressing cultural illness. • The people of color’s attitude towards education. • The culture of failure and need of attitude adjustment.

14. Some test questions: • Why does Cosby, Williams, Herbert and Badillo think that the structural factors do not create distortion for urban students to receive a good education? • Until which point there is a culture of failure, or until which point the segregation, overcrowded underserved schools, personal and familiar adversities, lack of hope, unemployment, discrimination, uneven distribution of resources in schools, no bathrooms, bad lessons, transportation, no books, old infrastructure and hundreds more disadvantages can affect the efficiency of the circuit that connect people of color to good equal education and their educational/functional values in society?

15. Some implications: • Some videos to view about urban education that invite us to some reflection: • http://youtu.be/ZVfCOtt-axg • http://youtu.be/FY0m_javDxU • http://youtu.be/QvZEpOAcQ44 • http://youtu.be/RvtklvJK9B8 • http://youtu.be/FwacH4-IBZw

16. As implications of the reading: • Based on these personalities, the society or environmental/structural factors are not responsible of the lack of good provision of education for urban students. • Every individual is so similar than others, that create a culture of anti values in their own insertion in society and education. The school and the system have nothing to do about it. Creating engagement, high expectation or building a positive relationship between teachers and urban students is impossible, because of their “lack of educational values”.

17. More implications: • “The reason why in many states the Charter schools are growing is the result of the system failure about urban education”. • The “cool pose” theory, and the “decent family” vs. “street family”, stigmatizes the society, creating psychological barriers in communities and individuals. It can affect any social revolution project for the future generations. • The culture as a result of structural conditions is more understandable than culture as a condition itself, based on Anderson’s analysis.

18. Connecting the “disconnected”: simulation of the sustainable human development in urban teaching • Creating the circuit: our job as teachersshould be the right connection of the educational circuit with all of its parts: • The rubber band is the educational/human support that we should give to all our students. • The connected circuit represents the engagement of our students to our classes and lessons with attractive, challenging and high expectation approaches. Efficiency, good relationship with the student and families, and having fun while learning are strongly recommended.

19. Connecting the circuit… • The motor is the engine, the generator of the positive attitude from our students. The motor is their enthusiasm and potential achievement represented by a machine in motion. • Lighting the light is the goal. Light is education and good communication. When you see the light, you see the product of your effort in a human development project: an individual with family values, a future career, good member of the community, with a strong and positive impact in their own life and the life of others.

20. Making the effort of keeping the light on: the reality of urban students… • Each impulse that we give to the motor on the rubber band is transformed in energy and light.. Each one represent an effort, a challenge and the adversities that urban students have to face every day. • All kind of limitations, from economical to family issues, discrimination, and lack of good advisory. Successful urban students are urban heroes. • We, as Urban Teachers are facilitators of this heroism. Let’s help them to keep the light on…!

21. On “Acting White” • On page 43, the book says that Anderson states “for many young black people, attending school and doing well becomes negatively associated with acting white” • For the case of African Americans, there is a fear of “acting white”, however this fear is focused towards other minorities such as immigrants from Asia or the Caribbean. They are more concerned how they will be perceived by those groups then they are members of their own ethnicity.

22. On “Acting White” (continued) • John Ogbu: • An anthropologist who has work with students of color for the last two decades. His work has greatly influenced how others, namely scholars, journalists, and policy makers talk about minority students. • His work is dedicated towards explaining the low achievement rates among minority groups by relating the culture of the minority to the mainstream culture. • Shows the viewpoints of voluntary and involuntary immigrants • Voluntary (people who chose to come to US): get ahead by working hard and having high academic achievement • Involuntary ( people forced to come to US; ie: enslavement): believe that there is an “inadequate and unequal reward of education as a part of the institutionalized discrimination structure which getting an education cannot eliminate”, thus creating the “acting white” viewpoint

23. On “Acting White” (continued) • Fordham and Ogbu claimed in 1986 that “one major reason black students do poorly in school is that they experience inordinate ambivalence and affective dissonance in regards to academic efforts and success” (44) • Ogbu’s final study before he passed away was one that was suggested by parents of African Americans living in a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio who wanted an explaination for their children’s lower academic performance compared to the white students in the same district. He found that the black students in the well-off community still had the fear of “acting white” that other students had in neighborhoods with struggling families. (46) • Ogbu argued that “cultural outlooks rooted in the historical experiences of involuntary minorities, rather than their class background, accounted for their lower performance and overall racial achievement gap” (46)

24. On “Acting White” (continued) • How to fix the achievement gaps? Our text gives these suggestions: • Provide special counseling and programs that work with involuntary minority students to help relieve the ideas and thoughts that go behind “acting white” • Society can help reorient minority youths towards more academic striving for school credentials for future employment by creating more jobs, eliminating the job ceiling against minorities, and providing better employment for minorities • Ogbu’s main recommendations for fixing the gaps were focused more on counseling and mentor programs rather than fixing the schools

25. On “Acting White” (continued) • However… On page 45 our text states: • “ Numerous survey and ethnographic studies conducted in a variety of educational settings find that African American children are MORE likely than their white peers to hold proeducation/pro-school views, to value individual educational achievement as important for future job prospects, and to reward rather than punish high-achieving same-race peers” • In other words, there are scholars out there that have views that are greatly different than Ogbu’s

26. On “Acting White” (continued) • “Go into any inner-city neighborhood, and folks will tell you that government alone can’t teach kids to learn. They know that parents have to parent, that children can’t achieve unless we raise their expectations and turn off the television sets and eradicate the slander that says a black youth with a book is acting white.”—Barack Obama, Keynote Address, Democratic National Convention, 2004

27. On “Acting White” (continued) • The previous quote is part of an article “Acting White” from Education next • My analysis confirms that acting white is a vexing reality within a subset of American schools. It does not allow me to say whose fault this is, the studious youngster or others in his peer group. But I do find that the way schools are structured affects the incidence of the acting-white phenomenon. The evidence indicates that the social disease, whatever its cause, is most prevalent in racially integrated public schools. It’s less of a problem in the private sector and in predominantly black public schools. • http://educationnext.org/actingwhite/

28. On “Acting White” (continued)

29. On Segmented Assimilation • From 1992 to 1996, the Children of Immigration Longitudinal Study (CILS) surveyed 5200 students in San Diego and Miami who were second generation citizens. These children were followed from junior high until the end of high school • Parents were also surveyed

30. On Segmented Assimilation • There are three patterns of segmented assimilation that lead to the different economic and academic outcomes • Constant acculturation- parents possess enough resources and human capital to keep up with their child/ren’s acculturation • Selective acculturation- when children are able to learn American norms and English while simultaneously retaining strong cultural and linguistic bonds with their parents’ ethnic community • Dissonant acculturation- when children learn American norms and English at faster rates than their parents and lose touch with their parents’ ethnic communities

31. On Segmented Assimilation • These findings on assimilation differ from past findings, where it was believed that for immigrants to be successful was to assimilate into the mainstream. Today’s findings instead encourage that people should resist the assimilation of going into the mainstream views or attitudes and norms of the inner city. • However, there are similarities too: • Both cases immigrants had to avoid identifications with those who inhabit “the bottom. • Becoming and American in successful ways entails a deliberate process of social whitening rather than blackening • Again, there are still conflicting arguments out there and factors that also help to determine the outcomes

32. On scholarly Ideas in the Public Conversion • Ideas in public conversation regarding students of color and why they are failing in the schools. Given here are arguments such as from Professor of anthropology John Ogbu’s hypothesis of “Acting White” has become according to Dyson’s words “the academic equivalent of an urban legend”. John Ogbu believed that Black students held as what he called an “oppositional identity” to mainstream culture. In other words black students “opposed academic achievement as it was “acting too white”. • Ogbu’s portrayal of African Americans found it’d way in the Book Losing the Race written by John McWoorter, His main argument was that African American created more of a serious barrier to themselves than White racism. • Reviews from news magazines such as National Review and New York times recommended the book, however this book was not a widely recognized in academic circles and the book was more made for leisure reading instead of an academic publication.

33. Claims the book makes are “Black students fail decade after decade not because of racism but” because of anti-intellectualism that infects the black community.” • The virus is self generated by the community as a “self sustaining cultural trait” • “Black people are taught from the cradle “the books are not us” • These claims are too general and blame a whole community. • Outside of the reading “acting white” is more of an inaccurate generalization when in reality smart students of color ARE looked up upon.

34. On Latino issues.. • McWoorter claims the Latino students come to a close second to blacks in academic under achievement. He goes on further saying the Latino’s follow the civil rights movement ideology the institutions are the “gringo’s game” and if a Latino or Latina succeeds they are acting white. • I can speak for myself that this is an extremely flawed statement and in fact many Latin families put a very high emphasis in education. • Latin students face many challenges, • Language. Try to move to anther country that doesn’t speak your language and try to understand the teacher’s lecture on cell biology! • Some face Uncertainty of their own or their family’s future. “Is my dad going to be deported?? What do I do?? “My mom lives in Mexico but my dad won’t let me see her because I can’t get back into the US”. • Schools in Latin countries are run differently and many Latin families do not know how the US schools work

35. Solving America’s Education “Problem” • The descriptions above from McWoorter and Ogbu address in their how America’s education “problem” can be addressed. As their literature becomes more of books for the public realm the texts influence and reinforce popular thinking of the issues of the education problem and at times providing information that is not always so accurate regarding the issues of education. Further texts regarding this are Williams’s book, “Enough” and Badillo’s book “One Nation, One Standard”.

36. On “Decent Daddies” to the Rescue • Basically these publications such as “One Nation One Standard” pose as the father figure (like a Bill Cosby) for the community reprimanding it for its social ills. • To counter this author Michael Davis critiques Bill Cosby in his book “Is Bill Cosby Right?” He denounces Bill Cosby for “skewering” the victims of educational neoaparthied. • What escapes these critics of education is that these students are young people and they need guidance, where is the guidance? One counselor for a school that is overcrowded? How about vision for the kids? What can they do for a career after they finish? Do classes cover this or do they just train the kids to pass a test? These questions must be addressed before we can blame the kids.

37. On Tough Love • Badillo’s book slams Latino parents for not protecting their children from programs that “hold back their children” he goes on further to justify his claims that Latin America is in a “500 year siesta” “300 hundred years of Spanish rule and 200 years of dictatorships. • Badillo fails to realize many of these families are accustomed to school systems in their home countries, for example Mexico’s education system is very different. There is no upper and lower level classes (Honors). Students have to pass ALL classes to progress to the next grade. In the USA kids can get to 12th grade but be short on credits to graduate. • Parents in rely on the schools to educate their kids. It is a given that their kids will be educated as this is the “teacher’s profession” They don’t need to be so involved. They teach the kids and if there is a problem the school tells them. In many US intercity schools the school does not always reach the family (sometimes due to a language barrier) and the parents are blindsided when they find out their child is not passing his/her classes.

38. On The Children We Are Leaving Behind • The “No Child Left Behind” act went into effect in 2002 (NCLB) it’s official name is “To close the Achievement gap with Accountability, Flexibility and Choice, So That No Child is Left Behind” It makes schools accountable on the outcomes of testing. It reinforces what McWoorter and Badillo believe. • Instead of making schools equal, the schools that don’t have money have students struggling and failing. Low test scores only tighten the noose around the schools neck. • To make things equal students need equal experiences in their schools. An inner city class should give the students the same choices as a suburban school.

39. The Post- Civil Rights Language of Segregation • The intelligentsia of popular media tells about young people that are anti-intellectual and obsessed by conspicuous consumption or the “cool pose”. Also we hear about the “500 year siesta” and the fear of “acting white” • This “culture talk” has many flaws, in fact the students have little choice, little resources and little hope.