If schools are measured by how many of their students go on to attend college or university, there's no doubt that American schools are failing miserably--particularly urban schools.
As I understand it, the single best predictor of whether a kid will go on to college is whether either of her parents have attended college. So let's leave that group aside for the time being--they have the advantage--and concentrate on the remaining 80 percent.
The obstacles in these kids' way are too numerous to count. Certainly, parental involvement will help, but it's no panacea. Merely applying to colleges has become a ridiculously complex and burdensome process.
What kids require these days is community, guidance, encouragement, more guidance, more encouragement, and accountability. Small school programs like those at Berkeley High School offer all these things, but more is needed.
I spoke to a man named Vince Trahan today. He's a BH grad and has coached the boys' basketball team for 12 years now. He also runs "Doggie High," a really wonderful hot dog restaurant that sits right across the street from the school.
We were talking about what prevents disadvantaged kids from taking full advantage of the worldclass educational opportunities at BHS. He said, for black kids, too often there's some kind of severe familial dysfunction--drug or alcohol abuse, physical abuse, neglect--that interferes with a child's ability to focus on his or her education.
He gave the example of a boy whose mother is a drug addict, and who resorts to selling drugs to support his mother's habit. (Sadly, this is nowhere near unheard-of at BHS.) Let's assume he doesn't get busted for selling drugs, and his "only problem" is a mother who harrangues him constantly to score for her, or to bring in money so she can score. He's up til 5 a.m. dealing with this shit, and consequently falls asleep in class. As a result, his teachers--ignorant of his home situation--brand him an "unmotivated kid." And that's pretty much that. There's virtually no chance in hell that this kid will pursue a college education, and little chance he'll even finish high school. He loses.
He's in a terrible bind: If he tells a teacher about his home situation, the teacher is legally obligated to report it to social services, who will likely remove him from the home and place him in foster care. A 15-year-old boy will not thrive in foster care, period. He loses.
If he doesn't confide in anyone, he gets no support, no understanding, no slack. And he loses.
Parental involvement in this (all too common) scenario is impossible. And while this is a relatively extreme example, it's just one shade of gray on a contiuum of what many urban kids contend with day in and day out.
My daughter's classmates came to school hungry, exhausted, defeated, angry, and frightened--all before the first bell or the first day of class. And under these kinds of conditions, no child can be, or should be, expected to achieve.
Any discussion of "meritocracy" in today's schools is a straw man. Until we have some equitable way to protect children across the board, too many will flounder and fail.
The obstacles in these kids' way are too numerous to count. Certainly, parental involvement will help, but it's no panacea. Merely applying to colleges has become a ridiculously complex and burdensome process.
What kids require these days is community, guidance, encouragement, more guidance, more encouragement, and accountability. Small school programs like those at Berkeley High School offer all these things, but more is needed.
I spoke to a man named Vince Trahan today. He's a BH grad and has coached the boys' basketball team for 12 years now. He also runs "Doggie High," a really wonderful hot dog restaurant that sits right across the street from the school.
We were talking about what prevents disadvantaged kids from taking full advantage of the worldclass educational opportunities at BHS. He said, for black kids, too often there's some kind of severe familial dysfunction--drug or alcohol abuse, physical abuse, neglect--that interferes with a child's ability to focus on his or her education.
He gave the example of a boy whose mother is a drug addict, and who resorts to selling drugs to support his mother's habit. (Sadly, this is nowhere near unheard-of at BHS.) Let's assume he doesn't get busted for selling drugs, and his "only problem" is a mother who harrangues him constantly to score for her, or to bring in money so she can score. He's up til 5 a.m. dealing with this shit, and consequently falls asleep in class. As a result, his teachers--ignorant of his home situation--brand him an "unmotivated kid." And that's pretty much that. There's virtually no chance in hell that this kid will pursue a college education, and little chance he'll even finish high school. He loses.
He's in a terrible bind: If he tells a teacher about his home situation, the teacher is legally obligated to report it to social services, who will likely remove him from the home and place him in foster care. A 15-year-old boy will not thrive in foster care, period. He loses.
If he doesn't confide in anyone, he gets no support, no understanding, no slack. And he loses.
Parental involvement in this (all too common) scenario is impossible. And while this is a relatively extreme example, it's just one shade of gray on a contiuum of what many urban kids contend with day in and day out.
My daughter's classmates came to school hungry, exhausted, defeated, angry, and frightened--all before the first bell or the first day of class. And under these kinds of conditions, no child can be, or should be, expected to achieve.
Any discussion of "meritocracy" in today's schools is a straw man. Until we have some equitable way to protect children across the board, too many will flounder and fail.
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I was driving through downtown after a late dinner meeting yesterday evening. To my dismay, I saw a group of children between say, 3-12 on the streets in the "ghetto" at almost midnight. I saw adults conglomerated outside a bar, but none of them were really proximal with these children...who likely went to school the next day, as you said: "Hungry, exhausted, defeated, angry and frightened".
When I arrived home and saw my own two children in bed, bathed, fed - with homework done and clean clothes (and a great report from Grandpa) - I immediately thought of those kids downtown.
It is hard to digest - that some will fail and others will not. But without failure and defeat we can't have success and victory. If we truly level the field, it must happen not just socially and educationally, but also economically. Our country is a capitalist democracy - the game will always be rigged.
Thank you for your comments as well. I very much enjoyed your blog.
When having a discussion about a proposed (and thankfully failed) California law to require teenage girls to tell their parents if they want to get an abortion, I pointed out, "In an ideal supportive family, that's a good idea. But what about a girl who wants to have an abortion because she was raped by her father?"
"Oh, come on." My friend said, "how often do you think that happens?"
There are a lot of reasons that young women bear children out of wedlock, and most of them are very bad reasons. But the charge that they're doing it for the money is a (usually racist) fallacy.
Please don't forget that, under Clinton, the "Welfare to Work" laws were enacted. The vast majority of adults are now given five years' worth of benefits and then they are off the rolls completely and forever. They can never again qualify.
Parents of underaged children can, and do, qualify for AFDC (Aid to Families with Dependent Children) payments, but these are meager and can't be counted as a living income.
Instead of pillorying young, unwed mothers for their poor choices, why not make it easier for them to avoid pitfalls they probably didn't (however much they should have) anticipated? Let's set up daycare in high schools so these young women can finish their educations. Let's fund universal, all-access day care so they can go to work, or get a college education. Let's support realistic sex education programs, and fully funded access to birth control that would help these young women prevent pregnancy?
In addition to much needed affordable, quality childcare and practical job training opportunities, these neighborhoods need actual places for residents to work. They need safer streets and fewer abandoned buildings. Good teachers and schools can certainly have a positive effect on social problems, but at the end of the day, what we say to our students inside the walls of the school carries a lot less weight than what they see when they leave.
Excellent article.
At 17, three of my group home roommates were mothers. Two had more than one child already, both in foster care also. One mom, who had been in several
foster homes, had been impregnated by her step-father at 13. I can assure you this did not happen because she wanted/needed money, or any other reason having to do with her.
All of these girls were wrecks. I completed high school and eventually (I stress eventually because it takes A LONG TIME to recover from this kind of crap) went to college. One other girl did too, if I remember correctly. We were the rare lucky ones.
As to the original post, I'm inclined to say that an uneven playing field is human nature. Someone will always make sure the odds will stack in their favor, and as societies grow larger, the impediment of someone else becomes the paranoid strategy of the competitive.
And I agree wholeheartedly, with one caveat. Too often, it's the young women themselves who are letting the fathers of their children off the hook. If these girls held their boyfriends more accountable, everyone would be better off.
But I'm not seeking to blame them, only hoping, somehow, to educate and inspire them to make different choices.
I know I toot the programs at Berkeley High pretty regularly, but consider this: Since implementing the Student Health Center (which, in addition to offering free immunizations, free physicals, free mental health counseling, free medications, free vision and hearing tests, offers free birth control, free pregnancy and STD testing, free STD treatment, free, fair and nonjudgmental counseling on ALL matters related to sexual health) Berkeley High School boasts the lowest teen pregnancy rate of any urban high school in the country.
I'll say it again: Berkeley High School boasts the lowest teen pregnancy rate of ANY urban high school in the entire United States. That is absolute proof-positive that they've got it right.
It's a bold program. Teen Health Educators (usually juniors and seniors) give very detailed, in-class lectures about birth control, (complete with demonstrations) and sexual health in every classroom across the school, at least once per semester. They'll answer any question posed to them, as honestly as they can. Nothing is too personal, or too embarassing, or to "dirty" to discuss.
And it works, and it made my work as a parent that much easier when all of this was on the table and my daughter was hearing--not just from me, but from her peers, her teachers, her healthcare providers--the same message. Sex is okay. It's normal, it's nothing to be ashamed of. But you must be responsible, because the consequences of being irresponsible can change your life--or even end your life--forever.