Support NeoGAF

[not psycho]

I went to an inner city school for a horrifying few months.

The teachers have NO backup. There is nothing they can do. Kids running wild? Office doesn't want them. Nowhere to send them. No programs for them. Because there is no money for programs, no money for anywhere to send them.

The only real way to help would probably mean leaving the worst of the worst students behind, so that the classroom could be used as a place to learn. But nobody wants that to happen either.

And you can't blame the parents or students, because they come from such a bad situation. So, nobody to blame, no way to fix it.

 

[Seanspeed]

You people make me sick.

You are so invested in preserving this mental fiction that there is no systemic or societal problem that disadvantages black people in the United States, that your immediate reaction to a school with these types of failure rates is to blame the kids and blame their parents.

It couldn't possibly be the school, it must be because black kids or black parents are lazy or stupid or don't care about education or bettering themselves. Because that's really what you're talking about when you say "well there's plenty of blame to go around" or some such nonsense. We're not the idiots you think we are.

Let's drop the fucking pretense. I'm sick of dancing around this shit.

By the way do you see the youtube comments on the video? Top ones:

And you know what? I actually like those comments more than the bullshit that's being spouted in this thread. At least those idiots are open and honest about what they're actually thinking and feeling.

Your veneer of civility isn't fooling anyone.

Fuck off.

This is called being over-defensive. You might not know it because you're all wrapped in your 'everybody is against the blacks' rant, but white people can be poor and ignorant, too. So can Mexicans. And anybody else.

And the parenting really does have a big effect. Kids aren't going to care about doing well in school when their parents dont reinforce the importance of it. It also doesn't help that its always the poor people having all the kids. When you cant properly take care of one kid, having 5 more just makes it so that each kid gets a little less attention still.

And when I say poor people, I mean it. In this scenario, we are probably talking about black people as the majority, but 100% of kids flunking their science/social studies skills means there's whites and other races in there, too.

There's obviously issues going on beyond just 'black people being disadvantaged'.

 

[Mitsurux]

- vastly underfunded schools
- issues with gangs and other things that encourage kids not to attend class
- a culture in low income areas that discourages academics altogether
- zero parental involvement
- teachers who are afraid (sometimes rightly so) of their students, and who would rather socially promote kids than deal with conflict

Lots of problems. A lack of respect for adults by stuudents (and burnt out apathetic teachers) doesn't help matters.

Unfortunately, by grade 11 it is way too late. If a kid is operating at a grade 2 or 3 level by grade 9, they will never catch up unless they have almost exclusive 1 on 1 tutoring/instruction and that will never happen due to budgetary restraints.

Not sure how much suing the schools will help (I would guess that it will help very little), but the schools do need some major reforms, starting with the 4-5 year old kids just starting out.

I agree, there are multiple causes.... but its more complicated when you consider Highland park itself, its a (Small) seprate city which is completely surrounded by Detroit, both citys are in dire straits finacially....

When even the promise of the Casinos (Tax money) helping to turn Detroits Shcools around, seems to not be enough, you know there are much deeper problems.

Lack of funding from state, mismanagement of taxes, corruption... its a mess

 

[Joates]

People need to stop playing the blame game, because everyone with any involvement is at fault here.

Kids, parents, teachers, officials, etc. Everyone is failing and likely pointing the finger elsewhere.

 

[Ether_Snake]

LOL at the "it's the parents' fault!".

My grand parents kept telling their kids school wasn't necessary cause they didn't need it, like a lot of the population thought back then. The only one that did fine is my mother, who left that shit hole of a ghost town.

Kicking the church out of the schools was the first step in making sure that future generations wouldn't be mislead by their dumb parents. If I was living where my grand parents and the rest of my family lived, I would be making a shit salary and be a know nothing.

It's the schools' fault, or more specifically the US government's fault. The US needs a clear reform that will bring results.

 

[Seanspeed]

LOL at the "it's the parents' fault!".

My grand parents kept telling their kids school wasn't necessary cause they didn't need it, like a lot of the population thought back then. The only one that did fine is my mother, who left that shit hole of a ghost town.

Kicking the church out of the schools was the first step in making sure that future generations wouldn't be mislead by their dumb parents. If I was living where my grand parents and the rest of my family lived, I would be making a shit salary and be a know nothing.

It's the schools' fault, or more specifically the US government's fault. The US needs a clear reform that will bring results.

You do realize that you spent the majority of your post showing that parenting DOES make a big difference, right? lol

 

[Joates]

My grand parents kept telling their kids school wasn't necessary cause they didn't need it

Thats the schools and governments fault?

 

[Venfayth]

The kids need to care. The parents need to care. The school needs to care. You need all the pieces. I take the 100% failure rate to mean that both the parents and the school did not care.

That's without knowing the whole picture about the circumstances at these school(s) though

 

[Ether_Snake]

Thats the schools and governments fault?

Yes because it's not parents that are going to wake up one day and go change things. It was THE YOUTH who brought the changes, people in their 20s realizing the system was shit. The government isn't an answering machine. It's supposed to ACT to fix PROBLEMS. Parents won't fix shit. The kids need to get in school, good schools, and then bail the heck out and get good jobs. THEY will know better than their parents, and when they form their own families and send their kids to a school system that is better than the ones their parents had, it will still be thanks to the schools, not the parents, not anymore.

 

[Joates]

Yes because it's not parents that are going to wake up one day and go change things. It was THE YOUTH who brought the changes, people in their 20s realizing the system was shit.

Well, at the minimum you should be glad your mom (not a parent, mind you) was apparently the exception to the rule you just made up.

 

[virtuoso88]

You do realize that you spent the majority of your post showing that parenting DOES make a big difference, right? lol

That's hilarious.

 

[Seanspeed]

Yes because it's not parents that are going to wake up one day and go change things. It was THE YOUTH who brought the changes, people in their 20s realizing the system was shit. The government isn't an answering machine. It's supposed to ACT to fix PROBLEMS. Parents won't fix shit. The kids need to get in school, good schools, and then bail the heck out and get good jobs. THEY will know better than their parents, and when they form their own families and send their kids to a school system that is better than the ones their parents had, it will still be thanks to the schools, not the parents, not anymore.

Totally. These 8 year olds just need to pull up their bootstraps and start seeing reality. They should know by now how important a good education will be later on in life.

 

[Cyan]

I don't quite understand why the ACLU specifically is getting involved. I mean, it's obvious that there's a serious problem here, but why the ACLU? Can anyone clarify?

 

[Dreams-Visions]

I doubt that parental involvement has anything to do with this number aside from possibly stopping their kids going to school but even if these kids had a half-arsed attendancy you shouldn't see a 90% illiteracy rate.

The school is definitely at fault here, and if they are failing due to inadequate funds then it's on the state.

Fuck that noise.

Where are the parents going over homework with their kids? Giving them flash card tests? Taking them to the public library to get books to read for some reward (like Pizza Hut)? Asking teachers about their progress? Attending parent-teacher conferences to get the real scoop?

Too often, the answer is: not around, not helpful, not available. Sometimes, they can't read or do basic math themselves. Schools suck for passing these kids, but the parents fucking suck for them to somehow not know that after 11 grades, they don't know their kids can't read or do basic algebra. By the time they get to 11th grade, it's too late. You can't burn 5 or 6 grades worth of knowledge and understanding into a kid's head in a few months or a year.

 

[SquiddyCracker]

Fuck that noise.

Where are the parents going over homework with their kids? Giving them flash card tests? Taking them to the public library to get books to read for some reward (like Pizza Hut)? Asking teachers about their progress? Attending parent-teacher conferences to get the real scoop?

Too often, the answer is: not around, not helpful, not available. Sometimes, they can't read or do basic math themselves. Schools suck for passing these kids, but the parents fucking suck for them to somehow not know that after 11 grades, they don't know their kids can't read or do basic algebra. By the time they get to 11th grade, it's too late. You can't burn 5 or 6 grades worth of knowledge and understanding into a kid's head in a few months or a year.

That ridiculous, did your parents ever do that?
Flash card tests, going over homework, asking teachers about their progress, etc, is stuff you do if you want your kid to get A's or maybe even B's.

But for a pass, you don't need anything but a competent school with competent teachers - who will spend more time with your average student than that student will with their parents.

Blaming the parents is easy, because that means the inadequate funding to these schools isn't resolved.

 

[virtuoso88]

That ridiculous, did your parents ever do that?
Flash card tests, going over homework, asking teachers about their progress, etc, is stuff you do if you want your kid to get A's or maybe even B's.

But for a pass, you don't need anything but a competent school with competent teachers - who will spend more time with your average student than that student will with their parents.

Blaming the parents is easy, because that means the inadequate funding to these schools isn't resolved.

No for pass the parents need to provide a safe and loving environment at home and teach the kids responsibility.

I'm pretty sure the best teachers would be screwed in that environment where the kids don't listen, and rebel and you have no way to discipline them.

 

[Tuck]

10% Literacy Rate? In America? What the fuck?

Yeah holy fuck, that's a very big problem.

 

[Ether_Snake]

Totally. These 8 year olds just need to pull up their bootstraps and start seeing reality. They should know by now how important a good education will be later on in life.

The schools are supposed to make them enjoy school. A good school system will allow kids to be good in school even if the parents are idiots. You don't get to fucking grade 11 with 10% literacy rate if the school actually makes an effort.

I'm right, parents have fuck all to do with this. You could have kids getting straight As in school without even having any home works to do.

 

[Gaborn]

That ridiculous, did your parents ever do that?
Flash card tests, going over homework, asking teachers about their progress, etc, is stuff you do if you want your kid to get A's or maybe even B's.

But for a pass, you don't need anything but a competent school with competent teachers - who will spend more time with your average student than that student will with their parents.

Blaming the parents is easy, because that means the inadequate funding to these schools isn't resolved.

I'm curious, have you ever watched Waiting For Superman? Putting it all on funding or all on parents or all on one thing is misguided. It's not JUST the schools either. This is SYSTEMIC and this isn't as easy to fix as "hire better teachers." I'm NOT saying teachers are blameless either. It's EVERYONE in situations like this.

 

[SoulPlaya]

One of my friend's younger cousins came to us one day asking for help on his seventh grade homework. He didn't understand fractions. Now, get this, he didn't even understand the concept of fractions. When we asked him to bring us his textbook, he said he didn't have one, and that the school hadn't given him a math textbook in years. This is on the west side of Chicago. Now, I ask you, how are these kids supposed to learn math without any real resources? They're not even given a chance!

 

[SquiddyCracker]

I'm curious, have you ever watched Waiting For Superman? Putting it all on funding or all on parents or all on one thing is misguided. It's not JUST the schools either. This is SYSTEMIC and this isn't as easy to fix as "hire better teachers." I'm NOT saying teachers are blameless either. It's EVERYONE in situations like this.

I just can't see it.
If we're talking about really bad grades, then fine, I could see that being a result of unsupportive parents/bad homes.

But 97-100% of all students outright failing?
How incompetent are the freaking schools if they can't even teach the kids what they need to know to get a pass?

 

[Flying_Phoenix]

Yes because it's not parents that are going to wake up one day and go change things. It was THE YOUTH who brought the changes, people in their 20s realizing the system was shit. The government isn't an answering machine. It's supposed to ACT to fix PROBLEMS. Parents won't fix shit. The kids need to get in school, good schools, and then bail the heck out and get good jobs. THEY will know better than their parents, and when they form their own families and send their kids to a school system that is better than the ones their parents had, it will still be thanks to the schools, not the parents, not anymore.

Ridiculous. You act as if whites also had problems with gang life and indifference toward school about 80 to 100 years ago and government intervention pulled them out of it or something.

Totally. These 8 year olds just need to pull up their bootstraps and start seeing reality. They should know by now how important a good education will be later on in life.

You're being purposely obtuse here.

One of my friend's younger cousins came to us one day asking for help on his seventh grade homework. He didn't understand fractions. Now, get this, he didn't even understand the concept of fractions. When we asked him to bring us his textbook, he said he didn't have one, and that the school hadn't given him a math textbook in years. This is on the west side of Chicago. Now, I ask you, how are these kids supposed to learn math without any real resources? They're not even given a chance!

No text books? God damn. I really wish I could see a documentary about how bad these schools are.

I'm curious, have you ever watched Waiting For Superman

Is this documentary really that inaccurate? I haven't seen it but from every intellectual about this situation ALWAYS downplays it. Is it even worth a watch for amusement GAF?

 

[Manos: The Hans of Fate]

That ridiculous, did your parents ever do that?
Flash card tests, going over homework, asking teachers about their progress, etc, is stuff you do if you want your kid to get A's or maybe even B's.

Mine did. I always thought these things should be basic if you are going to be a parent.

 

[Devolution]

"FIX THE SCHOOLS" by what? People have to be willing or have a desire to learn. This presents a problem, how do you keep the toxic elements of home or fellow students away? Do you remove some elements and acknowledge nothing is going to help, regardless of material, personal, or wealth available or expended, and just work to ensure they keep from pulling others down? As soon as school ends doesn't the pulling begin again?

It's not a pleasant question along with the implications it raises, but at some point the issue needs to be addressed.

Give the kids the necessary means and abilities to get out of the ghetto? Nah let's just fuck 'em from the start.

 

[Manos: The Hans of Fate]

Give the kids the necessary means and abilities to get out of the ghetto? Nah let's just fuck 'em from the start.

Yes and these means and abilities you refer to are....?

 

[SquiddyCracker]

Mine did. I always thought these things should be basic if you are going to be a parent.

Fair enough, I never needed that because I had a decent enough school with good enough teachers that gave us flashcards, went over our homework, answered any questions we might have

You should as a parent expect the education system to actually take care of the education bit while the parents take care of everything besides just that. There is nothing wrong with leaving some things up to the Government to provide - you can't walk around and expect people to bootstrap themselves out of misery all the time.

 

[Devolution]

Yes and these means and abilities you refer to are....?

If their parents are shit you inspire a willingness to learn by improving education. Old textbooks, computers from the stone age and run down schools aren't going to inspire shit.

 

[Gaborn]

I just can't see it.
If we're talking about really bad grades, then fine, I could see that being a result of unsupportive parents/bad homes.

But 97-100% of all students outright failing?
How incompetent are the freaking schools if they can't even teach the kids what they need to know to get a pass?

It's not just the schools. These kids are growing up in crushing poverty. In an environment where drug dealers are common and are controlling large neighborhoods. These kids see hookers every day. They know the gangs out there. They don't have HOPE. They don't believe they're going to be anything more than they are right now and if they DO think that at some point there is at least 12 years of "education" to get that notion out of your head. Years of knowing that your best chance of making something of yourself is getting the hell out of the neighborhood. At some point you learn how to survive and you have to do what you have to do.

Imagine growing up in an environment where many girls in your freshman class are pregnant. Where the majority of your senior class IS pregnant or already has kids. Imagine growing up knowing if you don't get out of there your BEST hope is maybe working as a mechanic's helper in a garage. Or at a grocery store. Or at a gas station. Not as some temporary job, but as a career.

Imagine being poor enough you rely on food stamps and you're STILL being shaken down by the local drug dealer for protection money. Imagine walking down the street to your school and you don't know if you're going to get knifed, shot, beaten, raped, sold into prostitution, etc. Maybe you'll date, and maybe you'll find someone not on drugs that you can build some kind of life with somehow... but maybe they'll be tuned out of the crushing suffocating world they live in because they just can't take it anymore.

Because no matter what, they know and they BELIEVE that their life is exactly what it will always be.

That is the real problem and THAT is what is being fought against.

 

[tokkun]

That ridiculous, did your parents ever do that?
Flash card tests, going over homework, asking teachers about their progress, etc, is stuff you do if you want your kid to get A's or maybe even B's.

I have an aunt with two kids who are 5+ years younger than me. She was a single mother with two jobs who had never gone to college. Nearly every week throughout high school and college, I would get calls from her asking me to doublecheck some of the answers she had gotten when checking over her girls' homework.

I don't mean to say that parental involvement is the single key to solving these problems, because obviously the school has failed here too, but I don't think it should be dismissed as a non-factor either.

 

[SquiddyCracker]

It's not just the schools. These kids are growing up in crushing poverty. In an environment where drug dealers are common and are controlling large neighborhoods. These kids see hookers every day. They know the gangs out there. They don't have HOPE. They don't believe they're going to be anything more than they are right now and if they DO think that at some point there is at least 12 years of "education" to get that notion out of your head. Years of knowing that your best chance of making something of yourself is getting the hell out of the neighborhood. At some point you learn how to survive and you have to do what you have to do.

Imagine growing up in an environment where many girls in your freshman class are pregnant. Where the majority of your senior class IS pregnant or already has kids. Imagine growing up knowing if you don't get out of there your BEST hope is maybe working as a mechanic's helper in a garage. Or at a grocery store. Or at a gas station. Not as some temporary job, but as a career.

Imagine being poor enough you rely on food stamps and you're STILL being shaken down by the local drug dealer for protection money. Imagine walking down the street to your school and you don't know if you're going to get knifed, shot, beaten, raped, sold into prostitution, etc. Maybe you'll date, and maybe you'll find someone not on drugs that you can build some kind of life with somehow... but maybe they'll be tuned out of the crushing suffocating world they live in because they just can't take it anymore.

Because no matter what, they know and they BELIEVE that their life is exactly what it will always be.

That is the real problem and THAT is what is being fought against.

Alright, I can agree with you on the above.
The government just needs to in general increase funding to all sorts of things to improve the situation of these kids. I just think that blaming parents, even if it's just partially, is defeatist as it provides for a solution where the government doesn't have to pay anything to fix stuff.

 

[Devolution]

Laying the blame on the parents is ignoring every other single bigger issue at play thanks to economics, systematic racism and the general decline of education in urban centers. They're straight up closing schools in California. Guess we'll just blame the parents on that one too.

 

[mr2xxx]

young cats can't spell but can rock you at playstation

Add some educational segments during Call of Duty load screens and problem solved.

 

[Forever]

You people make me sick.

You are so invested in preserving this mental fiction that there is no systemic or societal problem that disadvantages black people in the United States, that your immediate reaction to a school with these types of failure rates is to blame the kids and blame their parents.

It couldn't possibly be the school, it must be because black kids or black parents are lazy or stupid or don't care about education or bettering themselves. Because that's really what you're talking about when you say "well there's plenty of blame to go around" or some such nonsense. We're not the idiots you think we are.

Let's drop the fucking pretense. I'm sick of dancing around this shit.

By the way do you see the youtube comments on the video? Top ones:

And you know what? I actually like those comments more than the bullshit that's being spouted in this thread. At least those idiots are open and honest about what they're actually thinking and feeling.

Your veneer of civility isn't fooling anyone.

Fuck off.

Who are you talking to? Name names.

 

[Beerman462]

Parents may or may not be educated themselves. If the kids are passing and making it to the next grade why would they question their child's progress. My daughters school send papers home and a lot it requires parent involvement. Hell my Daugher just finished kindergarten and she's reading books to herself with very little help.

If a kid gets to eighth grade and cant read its an anomoly if 90% can't read that school district has failed requardless of parental involvement.

 

[Enron]

10% Literacy Rate? In America? What the fuck?

Im sure someone's probably already mentioned this, but 90% failing the reading portion of a test does not necessarily indicate a 10% literacy rate. I'm sure most of them can read...they just don't have reading/reading comprehension skills at an acceptable level for an 11th grader.

 

[Gaborn]

Alright, I can agree with you on the above.
The government just needs to in general increase funding to all sorts of things to improve the situation of these kids. I just think that blaming parents, even if it's just partially, is defeatist as it provides for a solution where the government doesn't have to pay anything to fix stuff.

First, I agree with you blaming parents isn't really the answser. I think they can and should have a role in solving the issue for some of the kids, but fundamentally they're often in a position where it's not a matter of not WANTING to be there, they just CAN'T because they're working constantly just to make ends meet.

However, as a libertarian I've got to say the solution is not purely governmental, at least not federally. As much as the issue is spending more money on the kids that need it, the issue is making sure you spend it on the RIGHT things. Like I said, the emphasis should be on after school programs, giving kids a safe place to go after school where they can enjoy themselves, they can study if they want, get a snack, and basically get the hell off the street and as far as POSSIBLE away from the negative influences around them.

 

[Aylinato]

Give the kids the necessary means and abilities to get out of the ghetto? Nah let's just fuck 'em from the start.

Reading through this thread is sickening what people think of Detroit, and any city bordering Detroit that isn't run by white people. I can list off 10 cities around Detroit that are run by white people and are just as bad but no one pays attention to them.

To address funding for the schools, Michigan has basically cut off all suburbs from Detroit that are not Republican run cities, and some that are Republican(like Livonia). Synder needs to stop wasting funds by using the money from the sales tax to "balance" his budget and giving his friends money. He either has to A) let cities have sales taxes to pay for things or B) not break the 60 year old agreement of the sales tax going to match funding for all cities within the state.


Highland park is barely at fault. They are blue-collar, and even working class people who have no time to ensure their kids get the best education. The schools districts are under-funded and the state has not been ensuring that the elected officials of the region are being held responsible for stealing funds(the state knew about it, tried hiding it, and still aren't doing anything about it, wayne county prosecutors had to step in(it was the state's responsibility)

 

[Devolution]

Reading through this thread is sickening what people think of Detroit, and any city bordering Detroit that isn't run by white people. I can list off 10 cities around Detroit that are run by white people and are just as bad but no one pays attention to them.

To address funding for the schools, Michigan has basically cut off all suburbs from Detroit that are not Republican run cities, and some that are Republican(like Livonia). Synder needs to stop wasting funds by using the money from the sales tax to "balance" his budget and giving his friends money. He either has to A) let cities have sales taxes to pay for things or B) not break the 60 year old agreement of the sales tax going to match funding for all cities within the state.


Highland park is barely at fault. They are blue-collar, and even working class people who have no time to ensure their kids get the best education. The schools districts are under-funded and the state has not been ensuring that the elected officials of the region are being held responsible for stealing funds(the state knew about it, tried hiding it, and still aren't doing anything about it, wayne county prosecutors had to step in(it was the state's responsibility)

Education is pretty much becoming a perk of only the wealthy/well off again.

 

[Gaborn]

Reading through this thread is sickening what people think of Detroit, and any city bordering Detroit that isn't run by white people. I can list off 10 cities around Detroit that are run by white people and are just as bad but no one pays attention to them.

To address funding for the schools, Michigan has basically cut off all suburbs from Detroit that are not Republican run cities, and some that are Republican(like Livonia). Synder needs to stop wasting funds by using the money from the sales tax to "balance" his budget and giving his friends money. He either has to A) let cities have sales taxes to pay for things or B) not break the 60 year old agreement of the sales tax going to match funding for all cities within the state.


Highland park is barely at fault. They are blue-collar, and even working class people who have no time to ensure their kids get the best education. The schools districts are under-funded and the state has not been ensuring that the elected officials of the region are being held responsible for stealing funds(the state knew about it, tried hiding it, and still aren't doing anything about it, wayne county prosecutors had to step in(it was the state's responsibility)

I'm pretty sure Snyder isn't at fault for Highland Park's situation either though. I mean, he hasn't been in office THAT long.

 

[Flying_Phoenix]

It's not just the schools. These kids are growing up in crushing poverty. In an environment where drug dealers are common and are controlling large neighborhoods. These kids see hookers every day. They know the gangs out there. They don't have HOPE. They don't believe they're going to be anything more than they are right now and if they DO think that at some point there is at least 12 years of "education" to get that notion out of your head. Years of knowing that your best chance of making something of yourself is getting the hell out of the neighborhood. At some point you learn how to survive and you have to do what you have to do.

Imagine growing up in an environment where many girls in your freshman class are pregnant. Where the majority of your senior class IS pregnant or already has kids. Imagine growing up knowing if you don't get out of there your BEST hope is maybe working as a mechanic's helper in a garage. Or at a grocery store. Or at a gas station. Not as some temporary job, but as a career.

Imagine being poor enough you rely on food stamps and you're STILL being shaken down by the local drug dealer for protection money. Imagine walking down the street to your school and you don't know if you're going to get knifed, shot, beaten, raped, sold into prostitution, etc. Maybe you'll date, and maybe you'll find someone not on drugs that you can build some kind of life with somehow... but maybe they'll be tuned out of the crushing suffocating world they live in because they just can't take it anymore.

Because no matter what, they know and they BELIEVE that their life is exactly what it will always be.

That is the real problem and THAT is what is being fought against.

Couldn't have said it better myself. In reality this is just behaviorism. We as human beings are morphed by our environment. It wasn't too long ago that the whites were like much of the blacks today. Involved in gangs, indifferent toward school, engaged in crime, engaged in homicide (which was more common then than now), etc. However things started to change, high school became public, Capitalism started to come out of its infancy as certain regulations were reduced/enacted and trade between nations (that were modernizing as well) started to become common, money started pouring into poor communities, parts of socialism were adopted with unemployment, welfare, medicare, financial aid for tuition, etc. This in turn led to a record amount of speed for social mobility. Unfortunately not everybody received the help they needed. Just at the time LBJ announced "The War on Poverty" blacks and other ethnicities just started getting basic rights and opportunities, such as going to any school they pleased. Its no surprise that they are behind in this regard, especially that 15 years later the right wing revolution occurred which involved pulling back from these programs.

I may not be the expert about the "ghetto mentality". So I'm not going to pretend I am. I do have a bit of experience as in my current job involves interacting with these people. However despite all of the horrid statistics, their indifference toward participating in social mobility, and what not, remember that everything is tied to Gaborns post. I opened up with this post that this is all behaviorism. People act according to their environment, and the only way to change this is to simply change their environment.

 

[neojubei]

http://news.yahoo.com/horrific-10-literacy-rate-prompts-aclu-sue-michigan-193900112.html


Holy shit

What the hell is happening to those kids?

 

[Big-E]

This is almost unbelievable. This is why I hate when people spew about how perfect America is. As a teacher it is crazy having to teach a class in a country where 90% of the kids couldn't read the work you are giving them and you are giving them something in their native language. I teach in China and I can say that 90% of my students could read and understand the material I am presenting. I think there must be something wrong with their data.

 

[Beerman462]

Does anyone else think school vouchers would work. For those that don't know the vouchers basically mean each kid is worth say 10grand/year in funds, but you can pick and choose what school your kid goes to. That way good schools get more funding and crap schools can just die it get better.

 

[Devolution]

Does anyone else think school vouchers would work. For those that don't know the vouchers basically mean each kid is worth say 10grand/year in funds, but you can pick and choose what school your kid goes to. That way good schools get more funding and crap schools can just die it get better.

So the good schools retain all of the money, can't actually add any more students and the rest of the schools get closed so even more kids are without proper education? Yeah that sounds like a great idea.

 

[Flying_Phoenix]

Alright, I can agree with you on the above.
The government just needs to in general increase funding to all sorts of things to improve the situation of these kids. I just think that blaming parents, even if it's just partially, is defeatist as it provides for a solution where the government doesn't have to pay anything to fix stuff.

Funding won't do shit. America already spends more than any other nation in the world per capita on schooling.

What we need is a second FDR. Expand social welfare programs but make them have a catch with something like "your child has to get at least a 2.5 to receive X amount of money, and you get an extra X amount if they receive a 3.0". Completely retool how the money is redistributed in education and make sure to give the poor schools competent amount of cash, make college free or at the very least England levels of cheapness, decriminalize drugs so that cops can focus on you know actual crimes. I'm pretty confident that after doing this and a generation or two passes by America's "lower classes" will look much closer what you would expect from a world superpower in the 21st century.

 

[Beerman462]

So the good schools retain all of the money, can't actually add any more students and the rest of the schools get closed so even more kids are without proper education? Yeah that sounds like a great idea.

If they can't get more students they can't get more money therefore...Good schools maximize income and expand? In theory it rewards schools that perform better, because people actually want their children to go there.

 

[Ether_Snake]

Ridiculous. You act as if whites also had problems with gang life and indifference toward school about 80 to 100 years ago and government intervention pulled them out of it or something.

The people in this thread are saying it's the parent's fault. I'm giving a clear example that demonstrates that dumb ass parents won't improve things, and focusing on them is WASTING TIME.

When the "educated" young adults in the 60s went to the village my grand parents lived in (those young adults were their children who had left for the city to study in universities), and tried to inform the population about the levels of pollution in their drinking water, they were basically answered with "We're not going to be told what to do by communists!". Today basically everyone who lives there dies of cancer. I never drink the water. I remember when I was at my grandmother's house, the water coming from the faucet would STINK, and yet they cooked with it. Not only are the water sources often polluted for various reasons (gas stations buried under ground, "drinkable" water taken 10 meters away from sewage drains, etc.), but it also has one of the highest levels of in-house radon in North America. The houses are radioactive.

Add to this superstition/religion and overall happy-to-be-ignorant feelings, and yeah, I can tell you that whatever people think about the parents, it's worthless to spend time on trying to help them smarten their kids. A good education system and free access to it is the only solution, with as little reliance on parents as imaginable.

Trying to fix the problem through the parents is like trying to build a fence around free-roaming sheeps, instead of just building the fence according to the plans and then pushing the sheeps in. One is dumb, the other isn't.

 

[Leeroy3101]

Laying the blame on the parents is ignoring every other single bigger issue at play thanks to economics, systematic racism and the general decline of education in urban centers. They're straight up closing schools in California. Guess we'll just blame the parents on that one too.

I completely agree.

No one wants to think about how soo many of these children are forced to be the parents to their younger siblings. Many of these parents, usually just a single parent, is out working 40+ hours a week just to try and provide for her children. The older siblings have little to no time for their schoolwork due to other more pressing responsibilities in their lives.

No bootstraps can overcome the amount of challenges many of these children face in their daily lives.

 

[Jado]

This problem is multi-faceted and very complicated. I finished reading Boys Adrift: The Five Factors Driving the Growing Epidemic of Unmotivated Boys and Underachieving Young Men. It outlines some of the problems:

School has changes drastically from the 80s onward.
It was once more fun and hands-on, based on experiments, projects, healthy competition, and group/team work. This was especially true in a child's early school years. Now it's mainly about the individual and heavy testing. This is even true in kindergarten, where kids now get homework and have to quietly sit, read, and write for abnormally long periods of time. They're set up to hate school from the beginning. Schools that try the older approach have smarter students.

Video games.
Every bit of research on the planet has apparently shown that video games make you less intelligent while trivially increasing hand-eye coordination. You can make the argument that certain games in specific genres have some value, but it generally doesn't match reading a good book or going outside and studying nature. And really, the majority of kids aren't playing Sim City or Carmen Sandiego. They're playing Call of Duty and Halo for HOURS everyday. There is next to no benefit in playing video games vs. doing just about anything else educational or with family. This is coming from someone who loves video games has played thousands upon thousands of hours since early childhood. It's like a sugary 10% fruit juice drink.

Lack of funding
When a school becomes decrepit and the programs disappear, the teachers bail out for better schools in better neighborhoods, students become poorly educated, and the cycle repeats and worsens.

Lack of strong role models.
A lot of kids are growing up in single-parent homes, typically with no father. We've been misled to think this is no big fucking deal, and a single mother may point to her kid not being a murderer or rapist as proof that he's a "success," never mind that he might be a complete mess in so many less obvious ways. Think Chris Rock's skit about the parent who brags about not being in prison. So where are the strong role models? Gone because of high divorce rates, never there due to shift away from the traditional family unit, and incarcerated due to...

Drugs and prison.
Nowadays, you go to prison for having a relatively small amount of drugs on you. That person, typically male, goes in a fairly normal person and comes out broken and a hardened criminal. I read California opened something like 20 prisons in the last decade or so, and only 1 or 2 colleges. Most (all?) are privately owned and make serious money (gov't funding) by having a steady stream of young prisoners who commit minor, victimless offenses. The prisons, backed by police policy, rely on shitty neighborhoods to produce an ongoing number of potential offenders with no power or voice. An entire generation is now growing up aimless, underachieving, and sometimes violent as a result of broken homes. Anyone heard of Knockout King?

Other issues are cable TV, computers, the internet, and mobile phones. Everyone is hooked to some gadget, online thing or another, so that people rarely ever come together as a community in the ways that previous generations did. The average kid has never gone fishing, camping or joined any sort of outdoor team or activity group. Everyone is a stranger, everyone is only watching out for themselves. When a family or a kid struggles, not only does no one care, it's more likely that no one knows. Computers devices can access a large wealth of info and some have bought into the lie that a classroom of computers will benefit everyone, but a kid can never better himself if you just plop him in front of a computer or give him one to do with as he pleases. If anything, the general population has gotten dumber with all the distracting electronic shit in their lives. Jeopardy even has simplified their questions to make up for an America that's dumber than it once was.

 

[verbum]

The NAAL (National Assessment of Adult Literacy) administered tests which revealed that an estimated 14% of US residents would have extreme difficulty with reading and written comprehension. These people can legally be defined as illiterate.

68% of adults who are arrested for felonies can be defined as illiterate.

I'd like to see a map of the demographics of illiteracy.

The only way to correct this situation is legal action, whether it is the Department of Education holding state and local education officials' feet to the fire or a takeover by concerned citizens by the way of class action suits.
And vocal, physical protest. Occupy the board of education offices.
Get some media attention and get the bureaucratic machine moving.
We either pay to correct it now or we keep paying in other ways.
Luckily, I live in a town with some good education in some schools, both uptown and downtown. But certain schools struggle a lot to meet standards on the state test results.
And the state does come in to assess the situation.
It sounds like the state of Michigan didn't give a damn and the local board didn't give a damn for a long time.