news flash: poor parents value education, too.

I'm taking a summer class about diversity in higher education, and I really like it. The professor is great, the material is interesting, and it's going to help me write my all-important candidacy paper. Trifecta of win... until my classmates speak.

Well, not all of them. There is actually a really diverse mix of people and I'm sure/I hope that as the session goes on (only 4 more weeks!) the conversations will get better. But right now, the only people who feel comfortable speaking a lot are me (duh) and the ones who only know privilege and are therefore ignorant about the populations who benefit from efforts to improve access and retention policies... Which is kind of the point of the class. Instead of coming in with an openness to learn, they say stuff that makes me want to punch them...

So here is what happened in the last session.

We were discussing the flawed pipeline from high school to college that shows how about 20 out of 100 ninth graders will end up graduating with a two or four year degree. (That's national data, folks. Disaggregated by race and gender, it's even more depressing.) Professor posed the question 'Why do you think this is?' and my classmate replied: 'Middle class, well-educated people don't have kids, but poor people do. So it's not a surprise that, since more poor kids are in school, that they don't want to go to college, or won't be successful when they get there. Poor parents don't push college because it's not as important.' (I'm paraphrasing, but sadly, not much.)

Having worked with low-income families in the past, I know that this is patently false. The majority of my students were free lunchers whose parents were either unemployed or minimally employed, and I never met one who didn't value education... especially higher education. I never had a problem 'selling' more education to these families, and often they sought me out for advice. The hardest part was knowing that they were so far behind in the process that their dreams, while attainable, would take a lot more work. The admissions timetable can't start in junior year for kids who don't have a college-going tradition in their families. It is not that these parents don't care, they just don't know how to navigate the system. (I didn't touch the whole 'poor people have more kids than educated ones' comment, because that's just not correct.)

I said this in class, and there was an awkward silence. Nobody disagreed, but the topic died. This definitely wasn't the first time I'd heard this sort of comment, but it still bothered me just as much. I don't know how people (especially education people) can believe such nonsense, and it makes me sad for the people that my classmate is supposed to serve. There are plenty of gaps in American education - achievement, opportunity, gender, disciplinary - but desire to have their children succeed in life is not one of them. Poor parents value education. They care just as much and want their kids to be just as successful as middle and upper class parents wish their children to be. It's such a shame that some educators don't share this mindset, or at the very least, acknowledge it.

How can the system be fixed if the folks responsible for bringing about change think so negatively about the people they are supposed to help?

the 'public or private' dilemma.

I was recently at a dinner soiree with some childless married folks, and the topic of where to educate their future children came up. As expected, the poll results were mixed. Most of the ones who had gone to public school said they wanted their kids to follow suit, usually giving the argument that they wanted them to be exposed to a more diverse population than a private school would offer. In the same vein, the private schoolers tended to prefer that environment for kids, despite the potentially prohibitive cost, because they saw it as safer and more academically rigorous. No one said homeschool, citing that homeschool kids "don't have social skills." (Their words, not mine.)

When asked my opinion, I gave what sounded like the typical Linds the Libra response: "It depends."

If asked before I started working in education, I would have said public school without hesitation. Just as the public school advocates at the party stated, I believed that it would provide the best opportunity for my kids to a diverse group of people. But now I'm not so sure. Recent research that shows there has been a major trend in the resegregation of public schools (including charters) since the '70s (the same time that forced Brown v. Board of Education-inspired desegregation policies started being overturned by the courts), this exposure is definitely not a given. Plus, if I'm still living in a major city I probably wouldn't trust the public school system enough to give them my child, especially before the 8th grade. The possibility of an erroneous label and the major consequences that come with it are too great.

I have spoken with a few of my Black friends who are parents, and it appears that this fear of labeling is very real. With them, the decision to try to enroll their kids in private school has less to do with safety or academic rigor, and way more to do with the fact that they don't want them to be 'tracked down' because they're Black. (While less diverse, private schools tend to be more open to diverse learning needs.) Even if the child is not slapped with the 'special education' classification, negative stereotypes of students of color play out in recommendations for upper level (Honors and Advanced Placement) courses. At public schools all over the country, the percentage of kids of color who take these classes is abysmally low. Such biased decision making can have serious consequences on a student's self-efficacy expectations, and lead them to believe that they have less potential than they actually do. Nothing is worse than a kid who doesn't think they're good enough.

I feel like a bad person saying these things, and I don't mean to knock the public school teachers out there who are busting their butts to give every kid the chance to be great. I'm friends with plenty of them and if I could keep them all on hold until I have school-aged children who could benefit from their gifts, I totally would. But since that is completely ridiculous, I have to keep it real: if I live in a city, my kids will go to private school... at least until high school.

But no matter where I actually to educate my future kids, I know that it isn't up to any school to completely educate them. For example, given my desires for quality, they will probably be part of a small minority of students of color, so I'll have to make sure that they get their cultural education elsewhere. The little things to get them prepared to be students will also be key to their success. So much goes into this all-important decision, and I'm really glad that I don't have to make it any time soon.

And who knows, maybe by the time Little Linds' are running around the whole public education problem will be solved, and location and means won't matter in the quest for quality education.

xo,
Linds

ps: Share your thoughts!