Bryan Lee's List: Research for diversity in schools

• the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University releases new findings showing an  American educational landscape that is increasingly multiracial yet,  simultaneously, separate and unequal.
• in the South, where the greatest progress in school integration was achieved
• landmark Supreme Court decisions in the last decade have steadily eroded the  progress in educational integration
• From 1991-2003, the number of black students attending majority nonwhite schools  rose sharply across all regions. In the South, this percentage increased from  61% to 71%. Latinos constitute the largest minority and are increasingly  segregated in regions where they are concentrated. Asians are the least  segregated group of students and are most likely to attend multiracial schools.

  • Somehow use this information for the paper.
• States where the largest shares of students attend multiracial schools include  the three largest states-California, Texas, and Florida-and one state in which  the Latino population seems to be exploding-Nevada.
• While South and Border regions are resegregating, black students in the South  and Border states still have among the highest levels of exposure to white  students

  • The South seems to be a posterchild for racial success. Why then is the financial success not commensurate?
• three quarters of intensely segregated schools are also high poverty schools

  • Confirms the suspicion that segregration's roots lie further in the field of poverty than in hatred of the early segregation movement. Pity that the term "segregation", stridently identified with the racism of the South must be used here with no clarification. There should be a new term coined that avoids the effects of racial polarization. If the issues are no longer truly racial, but financial, then why muddy the waters?
• white students remain the most isolated group

  • If poverty confines minorities to large cities, then the whites in the rest of the country are only isolated because they have fewer minorities to be exposed to. The phrasing could imply that whites are isolated by design, rather than circumstance.

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• Dealing with Diversity: Some Propositions from Canadian Education

   

  Benjamin Levin
  J. Anthony Riffel
  
  University of Manitoba
• These programs are primarily offered outside of regular school hours, and in  many cases are taught by people from the communities who do not have teaching  certificates. In some areas, however, schools offer bilingual programs in  languages such as German and Ukrainian. Some schools have also tried to reach  out to ethnic and minority populations by, for example, translating school  communications into various other languages. The Toronto Board of Education  recognizes more than 40 languages being spoken by sizeable numbers of its  students' parents.
• This has led urban Aboriginals to press for the creation of separate Aboriginal  schools, with extensive Aboriginal involvement in governance; the first such  schools now exist in cities such as Calgary and Winnipeg
• Family income has been and continues to be a very strong predictor of how well  Canadian children do in school. A great deal of research shows that poverty is  related to lower achievement in school, to greater risk of dropping out, and to  lower eventual occupational status and income. These relationships are at least  as strong as is the relationship between measured ability and achievement.
• not uniform across countries
• stronger in North America
• Low economic status may predict school success more strongly in countries where  the disparities between rich and poor are greater
• double jeopardy
• seems paradoxical
• Nor have schools and districts been particularly imaginative in their approach  to poverty. The kinds of efforts which have been made essentially involve  tinkering at the margins of the system providing breakfast and lunch, creating  special classes for students who change schools very frequently, strengthening  remedial programs, and so on
• Maynes (1990) has pointed out in his study of Edmonton schools that  administrators and school trustess did not see poverty as an issue that was  their responsibility, or over which they had very much influence.
• The same is not true of poverty
• there is convincing evidence from many places, especially in the United States,  that education programs which address directly problems of poverty can result in  dramatically increased success rates for students (for example, Slavin, 1991;  Means & Knapp, 1991).
• success has come from efforts such as pre-school programs which help parents  provide educational support to their children
• Linguistic or ethnic pride have been major factors in the surge of politics in  these areas; it is hard to envisage a movement based on pride in being poor.  Indeed, poverty is still frequently viewed as a condition to be ashamed of, and  which is one's own fault. Not only does this view limit political work around  the issue, it also limits the respect or sympathy with which lobbying efforts  will be met. The poor also tend to lack the resources to organize
• For most of our history, the common good has in practice meant the good of those  who already enjoy income, power and social status.

• Insofar as education has as one of its goals making people more aware of  their situation and more conscious of themselves as actors able to affect the  world, we should perhaps see the increasing pressure on schools (and other  institutions) as a positive outcome of education. People are more aware of what  they think they want and more willing to work to obtain it. That is, on the  whole, a positive development.

• As Tinder (1991) has pointed out,  

   

  There must be tolerance for beliefs we consider erroneous and actions we  deem immoral. Tolerance must extend far enough to be dangerous. Otherwise it is  a more formality...and not a policy that accepts important disagreements...in an  effort to make room for abounding life and serious communication. (p.180)  

   

  So far in Canada we have been more inclined to do the easy thing, and to  recognize differences that do not change the status quo very much. Having  multicultural festivals in schools with ethnic foods and costumes is a  recognition of diversity, but hardly one that threatens the status quo. Giving  political control of schools to various ethnic groups is much more significant  and equally much more contentious.

  • Does the ethnic group then override state control?
• As groups see their needs for identity, recognition, and success being met,  their demands are likely to decline, or to become the same as anyone else's  demands.
• The essential tension facing schools is how to combine diversity with solidarity  in an appropriate way.
• diversity may ultimately not be manageable in any real sense
• Diversity appears to fit well with the idea of a "wicked problem", one which is  ongoing and has not evident solution (Rittell & Webber, 1973).
• A particularly difficult problem is the issue of "standards." It is one thing to  say that there will be curricular differences to meet the needs of different  subpopulations; schools have always made these kinds of adjustments. But it  could be argued that the critical function of schools is providing credentials.  Is it possible to have differing credentials? Experience suggests that  credentials created to accommodate differences, such as vocational diplomas,  quickly take on inferior status.
• the legitimacy of governing structures such as school boards will be argued.  Full recognition of diversity suggests not only changes in curricula, but also  in basic instructional approaches and in school organization

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• Florida

  The Board of Regents of the State University System of Florida  voted in favor of Governor Jeb Bush's "One Florida" Initiative in February 2000.  This plan eliminates the use of race as a factor in admission decisions in the  Florida University system and outlines an alternative, race-neutral admission  process. Florida planned to have its new admission criteria in effect for  students graduating from high school in 2000.
• diversity is "an amorphous, unquantifiable goal" that cannot be constitutionally  justified
• ow-discarded policy of maintaining lower admission standards for blacks. In a  non-binding opinion, he further criticized the university's use of  race/ethnicity as a "plus" factor in the selection of 10 to 15% of the students  in each year's entering class.
• In March, 2001, District Court Judge Bernard Friedman ruled that the law  school's admissions policies considering race were unconstitutional and a  violation of Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

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• signatures of 553 social scientists and researchers, urging the Court to permit  the continuation of voluntary race-conscious student assignment plans in  American public schools.
• In both districts, two individual students who were denied their first choice  school have sued, trying to end these choice programs designed by local  educators. The districts have defended the programs as the only practical way to  produce integrated school experiences which have important educational benefits  for students and their communities
• evidence that schools will resegregate in the absence of race-conscious policies
• 553 scholars who have signed on to the statement reflect an unprecedented  commitment by scholars representing 201 institutions in 42 states and the  District of Columbia
• ending voluntary desegregation will serve to accelerate this resegregation, with  serious consequences including the undermining of successful magnet and choice  plans, and the creation of more schools segregated by race, income, and  language.

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• By "democracy," I mean what the word implies: self-rule or rule by the people.  Self-rule isn't confined to elections and representative government or to what  citizens do in relation to the state (pay taxes, obey laws, and the like).
• We, the People" collectively, but with all of our diversity
• baseball
• These school initiatives tend to focus on individuals, or they assume that the  public already exists as a constituency to be roused by more effective  communication. The problem is that the public able to take effective ownership  doesn't exist until citizens, like baseball players, begin to work together.  This work has to start where citizens start, which is with their communities  rather than just schools and with education broadly rather than just schooling.
• public ownership

  • Like Max Weber's worker controlled factory, or Karl Marx's Proletariat.
• Citizens are more disposed to take ownership of decisions they have helped to  make rather than decisions that have been made for them.
• Another widely touted means of establishing a better relationship with the  public is through greater accountability. The objective is to restore public  confidence in the schools. Yet the citizenry that places confidence in an  institution is not the same as the public that exercises responsible ownership
• the kind of accountability the law provides and the accountability the public  wants are not the same.
• the scores should be used for diagnostic purposes rather than for punitive
• laws leave citizens on the outside looking in
• the assumption that customer satisfaction will solve many of their problems with  the citizenry
• Classroom teachers are quick to feel the effects, and they complain that  educating children is doubly difficult if it is seen as solely their  responsibility
• Such a process is occurring in Kentucky, where a farm for retired race horses is  being used to teach everything from history to biology, and in Alabama, where  such contextual learning is being promoted by a new organization known as PACERS  (Program for the Academic and Cultural Enhancement of Rural Schools)
• the community itself is an educational institution
• From this perspective, the role of schools is to support communities in their  role as producers of education
• To begin, people have to identify or name the problems that interfere with the  education of young people in a way that suggests actions they might take. Then  they have to come up with options for solving the problems and recognize the  tradeoffs that have to be made. This creates a framework for decision making on  critical issues. As citizens weigh the pros and cons of the various options,  they deliberate. And after people have made decisions, they must commit their  resources to implementing what they have decided. Ideally, people are aware of  and in a position to employ the range of a community's resources in mutually  reinforcing ways.

  • He actually provides a measured framework for how this will be accomplished.
  Add Sticky Note
• People have to identify problems in terms that are meaningful to them, in terms  that capture the invaluable intangibles that can generate political will
• One concrete example of what professionals have done to engage citizens has been  to promote deliberative public forums on issues that affect both the schools and  the community
• issues related to persistent problems
• challenges of work-force development, economic revitalization, and health care
• all have had implications for educators
• Implementing exclusively professional solutions to problems without regard for  collective actions that citizens might take can burden schools with problems  that only the community can remedy. These problems -- poverty, drug abuse, crime  -- send children off on a trajectory that schools alone are hard pressed to  redirect. Controversy over sex education can mask the larger problem of teen  pregnancy; lack of discipline in classrooms can be a symptom of an increase in  youth violence. Deliberative forums have helped to reframe such issues as  matters that a community as a whole must address. Only a democratic citizenry  can deal with problems that are deeply rooted in our society.

  • Huzzah!
• Schools were made public for democratic, not pedagogical, reasons

  • This conflicts with the Kincheloe textbook's views toward the first "common" schools of Horace Mann.

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