|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
"Structural changes in the economy and the
continuing vestiges of racial discrimination
are rendering the parents of our new public
school students dysfunctional as caregivers
and superfluous as breadwinners."
|
Public
school districts, many of which are experiencing grave educational
challenges in delivering effective education instruction, are under
siege. On the one hand are those who argue that reforms can be
made within the current structure, and on the other are those who
contend that nothing short of “blowing up the existing system” by
bringing in for-profit charter management companies and virtual charter
schools, publicly-funding private and religious school vouchers, and
subjecting teachers to harsh scrutiny using students’ standardized test
scores to evaluate their performance can save today’s public school
students from educational Armageddon. Proponents on both sides
are well-intentioned and passionate about their positions.
However, it is important that we have a comprehensive understanding of
the students that we purport to serve.
Overview of our New Public School Students
An
assessment of our contemporary public school students reveals that
major demographic changes have occurred since 2000, presenting the
nation’s public schools with a stiff instructional challenge. As
of September 2015, more than fifty-one percent of them, inclusive of
all fifty states, are African Americans, multi- ethnic Asians and
Hispanics, Native Americans, and a decreasing number of Caucasians,
most of whom are low-income. Collectively, they constitute a new
group of public school students (urban, rural, and suburban), and they
evidence all or several of the following characteristics: (1) personal
assertiveness; (2) frequent residential mobility; (3) environmental
experience with drugs; (4) escalating rates of violence and
neighborhood instability; (5) values and social class status which are
substantially different, or in opposition to ,those of school
personnel; (6) alienation—even at a young age—from the view that
educational effort will lead to societal opportunities; (7) adaptation
to the school environment by withdrawing positive effort and
substituting negative interference; and (8) manifestation of chronic
health issues (lead poisoning, anemia, asthma, vision problems, food
insecurity, etc.) which impede the learning process.
Because of
these characteristics, our new public school students are generally
labeled as being at-risk. The original purpose of the at-risk
designation was to focus attention and resources on children most in
need. But as our new public school students surpass, and exceed
by far, those students judged not to be at-risk, the term becomes as
irrelevant as does the term minority in a school whose majority is made
up of students of color. Thus, conceptually, there is a need to
revise our understanding of the complex of factors impacting today’s
public school students. In addition, the major problem
confronting most of them, irrespective of race, gender, and ethnicity,
is a deeply held and growing sense of futility—a belief that they
cannot and will not succeed at home, at school, and in their
neighborhoods (which is reflected in the proliferation of homicides in
economically distressed cities, e.g., Chicago, Milwaukee, Washington,
D.C., etc.).
Structural
changes in the economy and the continuing vestiges of racial
discrimination are rendering the parents of our new public school
students dysfunctional as caregivers and superfluous as
breadwinners. The exponential growth of both a drug use and
stressed out single-parent households in concentrated poverty are
manifestations of this economic malaise. The latter group is
increasingly populated by teen parents, who because of their youth and
oftentimes inter-generational single-parenthood, are frequently
unwilling and/or unable to manage, monitor, and regulate their
children’s lives. They also lack the ability to buffer and
protect them from the negative effects of the larger social
world.
These
parents fall into two groups: traditional parents and non-involved
parents. Traditional parents, single- and two-parent families,
and custodial parents are supportive of their children’s
education. They believe in and promote the education ethic and
reinforce school practices to the best of their abilities.
However, those with the lowest incomes in this group are frequently
faced with difficulties of school accessibility due to a lack of
transportation and the school schedules for parent activities.
This is especially true for those parents of students who are
bused. There are two types of non-involved parents: those
overwhelmed by their lack of economic resources and those lacking
parenting skills and orientation. The former are consumed with
providing day-to-day economic sustenance for their children and, in
their life’s priorities, cannot place involvement with their children’s
schools high on their agenda. The latter group is part of the
emerging social and economic underclass whose values and resources do
not readily lend themselves to good parenting, in general, and parental
engagement with the schools, in particular. In large measure,
they reflect a sense of hopelessness about themselves and their
children’s future.
Beaten down
or excessed by the broader society, these individuals basically
function as biological parents. Their ranks are being swelled by
teen mothers, who rarely engage in those parenting behaviors that the
broader society endorses as necessary for the proper socialization of
children (e.g., the structuring of non-traumatized home environments,
the setting of limits on their children’s personal behavior, the
teaching of general societal values, the development of their
children’s respect for authority, and the facilitation of an academic
achievement ethic). In accord with the characteristics of our new
public school students and the family situations in which they are
embedded, it is instructive to note the characteristics of current
teachers of these students who are under intense pressure and ongoing
criticism of their efforts. They and other education
professionals, primarily those at the lower levels, have served and are
serving as pawns for the ills of public education. The so-called
education reformers, led by a Cartel of conservative corporations,
foundations, wealthy individuals, and Wall Street financial firms have
seized upon these new social realities to make the public schools a new
profit center.
Accordingly,
it is imperative that the aforementioned domains of students and
parent(s) be re-conceptualized. Attending to and understanding
the increasing disaffection of these domains from each other must be at
the nexus of framing an effective educational strategy to overcome
those factors that prevent successful academic learning in today’s
public schools.
|
BlackCommentator.com Columnist, Dr. Walter C. Farrell, Jr., PhD, MSPH, is a Fellow of
the National Education Policy Center (NEPC) at the University of
Colorado-Boulder and has written widely on vouchers, charter schools,
and public school privatization. He has appeared on the Today Show with
Matt Lauer and National Public Radio’s The Connection to discuss public
school privatization, and he has lectured to parent, teacher, and union
groups throughout the nation. Contact Dr. Farrell.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
 is published every Thursday |
Executive Editor:
David A. Love, JD |
Managing Editor:
Nancy Littlefield, MBA |
Publisher:
Peter Gamble |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
