The very complex reasons for low scores from low SES students has been studied for many years. Read David Berliner at Arizona state.

*low birthweight babies

* poor nutrition

* lack of proper vision dental and medical care

* frequent moves

*lack of role models

*crime infested neighbourhoods

*fetal alcohol syndrome

These are the issues that determine low SES results.

Perfect schools can help to mitigate these conditions somewhat but it amounts to bailing out a row boat with a tea spoon.

http://nepc.colorado.edu/newsletter/2009/03/blame-school-achievement-gap-misplaced

This is an overview. Detailed reports are available. It has very little to do with curriculum or pedagogy.

What lies behind the premise that low socioeconomic are doom? The radical pedagogues of the K to 12 education establishment.  Culture of Poverty is often used as the excuse to replicate from one year to the next, the low achievement of low-income students. “The Myth of the Culture of Poverty” - http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/apr08/vol65/num07/The-Myth-of-the-Culture-of-Poverty.aspx “

First the radical pedagogues via through the culture of poverty parameters to the ‘novice teachers’ begins the endless cycle of reinforcing the culture of poverty dogma throughout the K to 12 education system. In a paper called - It’s Not the Culture of Poverty, It’s the Poverty of Culture:The Problem with Teacher Education,
“The preparation of novice teachers is dominated by psychological notions almost to the exclusion
of other social science paradigms. The perspective that is least likely to be evident in teacher preparation is that of anthropology. However, prospective and novice teachers regularly and loosely use the word “culture” as an explanation for student patterns of behavior
they cannot explain. This discussion focuses on the ways prospective and novice teachers construct
culture simultaneously as both the problem and the answer to their struggles with students different from themselves.” http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=7&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CGAQFjAG&url=http://navejar.com/handouts/Other/Its_Not_the_Culture_Of_Poverty.pdf&ei=p0NNU4OFDJT-2QXPzoHICA&usg=AFQjCNGu2Zv_DkJ7aTNoCYCvhxqtIA5nOg&sig2=0iezaf9MhsI3iRy5BDVqGQ&bvm=bv.64764171,d.b2I

The culture of poverty aids and abets in perpetuating class differences that reinforces the discovery learning methods that has its roots in the Enlightenment Era, where wealthy parents educating their children to inquire and create, and to learn on their own. From the early beginnings to the 21st century, the very culture of the education establishment has steadfastly refused to stray off the pathway of the philosophies of discovery learning, and as such today’s education policies and practices are designed around the culture of the high socioeconomic students. What is missing in action, is the actual science of learning of the 21st century…....instead morphing into the repetitive cycle of excuses for the lower socioeconomic students that has now extended its reach that provides education services according to the social-income status of students.

In 2014, “A society that closes its eyes to this important truth is an unjust society that punishes poor children and perpetuates class differences.” is a true statement. Pity though, the public K to 12 education establishments refuses to see their role they are playing, and instead justifies their education policies and practices at the expense of all students and their education.

Present example - From Michael Swaagstra, on math - http://www.calgaryherald.com/opinion/op-ed/Zwaagstra+ways+teaching+math+pass+test/9738237/story.html  ““There was a period in which teachers were encouraged to believe that rote learning stood in antagonism to deeper understanding. This notion is misleading since all indices of knowledge display positive associations . . . . Repetition and consolidation are vehicles enabling knowledge to be stored within retrievable units, thereby accelerating mental growth through conceptual mastery and deeper understanding,” conclude Hattie and Yates”

And instead the public K to 12 establishment continues to ignore the science and research and educates by philosophy rooted in the Enlightenment Era.  .

“In contrast, the Alberta initiative, Inspiring Education, has little empirical support. While its underlying philosophy goes by various names (i.e., inquiry-based learning, discovery learning, constructivism, etc.), the key idea in math is that students should develop their own problem-solving strategies. The widely used textbook series, Math Makes Sense, exemplifies this approach by asking students to figure out multiple ways of solving even the simplest of questions.”

Children from families straddling the poverty dragon are HUNGRY and if not hungry malnourished. 

My environmental science students were challenged this week to go into the supermarket down the block and spend 1$ per student but they must purchase 200 calories.  They were brilliant and we ran it like the TV show top chef Canada.  They could team in any combination of students but the parameters were fixed—each dollar needs to purchase 200 calories. 

When they walked into class they were asked to draw a ticket from a beaker.  The tickets were comprised of two colors.  One color got you on the ‘processed food team’ the other got you the ‘unprocessed food team’.

10 minutes is what they had once we entered the store.  Students needed to put their choices in my shopping cart under 10 minutes - that is when the checking out started…...once I checked out .....the debit card was no longer available.  Not surprisingly the processed food team had no challenge in meeting the criteria.  One dollar for 200 calories if purchasing processed food was simple.  The students attempting to meet the same criteria with unprocessed food were stymied.

We discussed/debriefed on these issues back in class.  THEY got it!  The struggle of the families in impoverished circumstances have to do with hunger and malnourished.  This impacts cognitive function.  This impacts academic results. 

The most impressive initiative in supporting student success has been the the visionary breakfast programs funded by industry leaders and the current political leadership.

If their tummies are not rumbling their brains can roar,

Mirka

Hijacking Public Education To Spread Class War

When will the day come when we have NGO education?  It’s only because government workers run public education that it’s a sitting duck for all kinds of opportunists.

Art education has been hijacked.  See this article:  http://www.aristos.org/aris-10/hijacking.htm  Socialist Realism is a desired style of expression.

Math education is being hijacked.  Look at this title plus 100s of others (I had no idea how overwhelming this movement is!)  Teaching Mathematics for Social Justice by leading figures in critical and social justice mathematics.  I saw this book prominently displayed on the site of NCMT (Nat. Coun. Teachers of Math).

With the trend for “cross-curricular themes” environmentalism is being embedded into as many subjects and activities as possible — actually sucking time from other curriculum items.  New Report Reveals Green Brainwashing In UK Schools http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/site/article/new-report-reveals-green-brainwashing-in-uk-schools    It’s being called another example of “curriculum capture” or hijacking of curriculum.

Now we have the “povertists” wanting to hijack public education to level society and David Berliner is one of the first on the list of prominent povertists.  http://unionwatch.org/red-and-i-do-mean-red-herrings-of-the-left/

Now, for some common sense and research-based evidence.  Report: No link between school spending and student learning http://www.examiner.com/article/report-no-link-between-school-spending-and-student-learning  We heard this before on this site — spending triples, # of school employees doubles, achievement remains flat.  Furthermore, this article states that using only whole-word reading approach cripples the mind.  Instead phonics should be relied upon to engage left-brain activity that serves long-term learning.  Why is common sense being sabotaged?

We must stop hijacking of public schools for selfish and political self-interests.  If common sense and parents drove education in their children’s best interests we would be so much further ahead — societally, economically and on the individual level.

That article above scorching Berliner says: “getting a good education is paramount to getting out of poverty. Those who deny public education’s failings and use poverty as an excuse – no matter what their intentions might be – are working to keep the poor in their place and destroy children’s lives. Shame on them.”

Mirka, hardly seems a fair contest - fresh against processed foods. Especially when the grocery store is geared maximum retail prices for fresh foods. I watched it happen in real time over the years, and its a pretty expensive deal when one has been raised up with little processed foods in their diet. Did you know that in the basic food subgroups, prices have risen 4 times since January 01, 2014?  What is never discussed are the locked access doors to affordable nutritious foods and the keys to open up the access doors are the size of one’s pocketbook. The globalization of foods have done more harm to blocked access to affordable nutritious foods at the local and national levels, that has played a big role in preventing families to providing for their families. Often the pubic K to 12 establishment does not help, and as Tunya has stressed the curriculum has been hijacked by the povertists, where the culture of poverty is reinforced constantly.  The Ontario example - http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/curriculum/secondary/environment.html

And the Environmental science -  http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/curriculum/secondary/science.html

Why is Mirka’s statement a political one that aids and abets the globalists and big business that ultimately keeps the class structures in place?  “The struggle of the families in impoverished circumstances have to do with hunger and malnourished.  This impacts cognitive function.  This impacts academic results.
The most impressive initiative in supporting student success has been the the visionary breakfast programs funded by industry leaders and the current political leadership.”

Who would be against what Mirka has stated.  No one I would know would be against it. However, if one should explained the poverty theories of the K to 12 educationalists, and how the poverty theories are intertwined and woven in the very fabric of the curriculum, what/how it is taught, Mirka’s statement takes on a darker tone of hidden agendas and self-serving interests. Yet, the fundamental breakfast programs remains positive to the vast majority of society in Western democracies.

The darker side is that the public K to 12 establishment is able to reinforce the cultural values of class structure. “The idea that poor people share more or less monolithic and predictable beliefs, values, and behaviors.”  http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/apr08/vol65/num07/The-Myth-of-the-Culture-of-Poverty.aspx

Ditto for the middle and upper class structures. Some experts have said, part of the increase in bullying lies in the areas of the constant reinforcement of the class values and beliefs by the education establishment. A single working mom turns in the single welfare mom. A father who commutes to Alberta, the family turns into a single welfare mom. Environmental science curriculum is a potpourri of facts and ideologies. that works in sync with the public K to 12 education establishment, industry leaders and political leadership. The breakfast clubs in Canada, have turned into a big business that actively works against the welfare of all society, and in the end the students. 

http://www.breakfastclubcanada.org/at-school/breakfast-makes-me-shine/
http://www.breakfastforlearning.ca/about-us/our-impact/

Twenty-two billion dollars is spent on the K to 12 education system, and yet the public education establishment doesn’t have the spare cash to provide what should be a given, that breakfast is an important start to the day for one and all. On one of the Breakfast for Learning pages - http://www.breakfastforlearning.ca/how-to-help/child-hunger/

And yet, what I have never seen and probably never will, is the public K to 12 establishment making good use of their political and social capital in lobbying the provincial and federal governments to altered policies that unlocks the access doors to health, education and yes even foods. No, far too busy with self-serving interests that are in lock-sync with government,  big industry and the globalists.

Or in Tunya’s link - “Reality, though, is finally catching up with the “reform” movement’s propaganda. With poverty and inequality intensifying, a conversation about the real problem is finally starting to happen. And the more education “reformers” try to distract from it, the more they will expose the fact that they aren’t driven by concern for kids but by the ugliest kind of greed – the kind that feigns concerns for kids in order to pad the corporate bottom line.”  http://unionwatch.org/red-and-i-do-mean-red-herrings-of-the-left/

Hamilton Spectator series on education
Day 1 Equity Gap http://thespecgraphics-hamilton.com/eqaoLayout/index.html

Day 4 Keeping Score http://thespecgraphics-hamilton.com/eqaoLayout/day4.html

Poorer children are not doomed.

http://www.bostonreview.net/us/snyder-public-private-charter-schools-demographics-incentives-markets

Why public schools are better than private or charter schools.

The articles make a much stronger case for my position than yours Doretta.  The point is not can one poor school outperform another poor school? Of course they can. One rich school can outperform another rich school. The question remains why can poor schools not outperform rich schools?

The answer of course is due to poverty.

SQE has never denied that poverty is a reality that poses serious challenges. What we take issue with is when it is used as an EXCUSE for non-action—when educators just shrug their shoulders with the “they’re poor so nothing can be done” attitude.  The articles actually illustrate the facts about what can happen when there are NO excuses for learning—high expectations, positive attitudes and the ability to do just ‘get ‘er done.

You continue to shrug.

Educators NEVER say they are so poor nothing can be done.

They constantly say:

Smaller classes for the poor

earlier start for the poor

more support staff for the poor

summer programs for the poor

breakfast programs for the poor

and the like.

what they DO say is testing makes things WORSE.

there is no curriculum pedagogy silver bullet

the students have to be actually sitting in front of you in good physical and mental health before anything meaningful can happen. This is seldom the case in poor schools.

Doug, you operate on the poverty culture line. All low income people share the same beliefs, values and behavior according to the poverty theorists of the K to 12 education system. Worst yet, the identical methodology is applied to other social-income groups. and the typical solutions are derived and modeled after the high-income students. Anyone below high income, are seen as less capable,  many deficits, resulting in education decisions being made on the personal biases and misconceptions of the educators. The one-sized-fits-all solutions such as small classes, infant to grade 12 education by the state, summer programs according to social-income status, food subsidy programs based on income status, and of course the small army of staff and bureaucrats to administered and delivered education services to the masses.

The parents with the means are of no concern to the K to 12 establishment, because according to the pedagogy of poverty theorists, they will seek private services and provide for their children that will ease the burden of the school to provide the basics of an education. Rather crazy, all the education services are based on the behaviour and learning needs of the high-income students and ergo, and yet any student without the means, are stuck with a public school who only provides dumb-down education offerings and locks to the access doors for education services that are beyond the regular classroom.

The captive audience is now prep to accept the ideologies, beliefs, biases of the professional education class who still believes all the old 19th century beliefs that the masses are incapable of making good decisions for themselves, and need the State to make the decisions for them. Its all there Doug, in the pedagogy of the educators that should rightly be called political theories to managed the masses. Educating the masses is a little side business on the go, and rather profitable when the little ones exit out of the grade K to 12,  and they have to pay out of their own pocketbook to finally received an education that leads to a job eventually.

Twenty-two billion dollars for Ontario, apparently that is what it costs to managed the students so the students will only work for the best interests of the Public K to 12 establishment. Profitability of the K to 12 establishment, hinges on remediation an upgrading of the youth after grade 12. To have all students with solid foundations in the 3 Rs would only damage and hurt the K to 12 employees. After all, it takes some genius to ensure that close to 96 to 98 % of the LD students stay low achievers for 12 years of schooling in the 21st century. Even more of a genius when it comes to low income students of much diversity….........and continued to educate them as damaged goods, in the same way LD students are seen as damaged goods. Education according to the political beliefs and biases of the pedagogy of poverty theories.

Me and pretty much everybody else Nancy including OECD.

Righteous Right Wing Dudes,

Fix childhood poverty and then the education quagmire becomes much more linear.

Dismiss poverty and attack teachers, the system, and other organizations working to support good outcomes for poor students—>  you are dancing with those that paid for you. 

Hungry and malnourished children cannot learn because their brains cannot deliver. 

Here is the big question, what do selenium, zinc, and magnesium deficiencies manifest as?

Where do impoverished children range on the required amounts for selenium, zinc, and magnesium?  These are critical micro nutrients for many physiological pathways….... then there is the issue on just the basic caloric intake to keep a kid alert and vertical.

ugh,

Mirka

NANCY, 

I continue to to hit *forward* for all your posts.  But while scrolling down my eye did catch ....

``hijacking pubic education to spread class wars``

Could not spend the time to be *instructed* as I was on my way to my local Tim Horoton`s that agreed to support our hungry students with their day old merchandise `. Mostly bagels, and some sweet stuff too.  I get two big bins every two days.

We put them out in the morning for the student who are running on * empty*

Great partnership that moves mountains.  I am in the business of progress.

Mirka

Righteous Right Wing Dudes??  Really Mirka, you certainly are showing your upper middle-class haughtiness and arrogance and a tad of elitism to fling barbs off the port side. Perhaps you need lessons on rhetoric to fine tune your delivery of barbs.

Its rather odd that Mirka reaches into her bag of poison darts, to come up with selenium, zinc, and magnesium and linking it using the words hungry and malnourished children. A half-truth leaving the reader with the impression that there is children in the developed Western countries suffering from malnourishment. The kind that has been studied in the third world countries and developing countries such as India. Tis true, its a serious problem due to malnourishment, the third world children have deficiencies in selenium, zinc, magnesium and other vitamin/mineral deficiencies.
http://inis.iaea.org/search/search.aspx?orig_q=RN:25061722

In the Western developed countries - “. However, national dietary surveys indicate that UK diets can be low in nutrients typically found in red meat , e.g. vitamin B2, vitamin D, iron, magnesium, zinc, selenium and potassium, particularly among low-income groups, teenagers and females.”  http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nbu.12000/abstract

Another link of interest - http://drsircus.com/medicine/magnesium/magnesium-and-autism

CNN health - listing some of the diseases - http://www.cnn.com/HEALTH/indepth.food/vitamins.minerals/faqs/minerals.html#selenium

Since Mirka has brought it up, a red herring for sure, to avoid the poverty theories that are woven throughout the pedagogy and education theories. Only poverty manners to the inclusion of all other variables and so the education establishment pounds it daily, to defend the very education policies, curriculum and pedagogy practices. All done without supportive evidence based on the science of learning of the 21st century or indeed the nutritional science. They do so become haughty and filled with arrogance when someone provides the inconvenient facts that exposes their messages for what they truly are, self-serving messages and hidden agendas.

The public K to 12 education establishment says they are doing it for the best interests of children and society. Really, when there is virtual silence and absolutely no political funding for such things as,  calling for the lowering of prices for red meats. That is if Mirka is truly concerned about low-income people having access to red meats and other nutritious foods.

There is silence across the K to 12 education span on such things as the rising food costs, the bottom 50 % of students staying at the bottom making consistent Ds, no lobbying for proven reading instruction programs, campaigning for decent math curriculum using standard algorithms, and across the span. One won’t see one educator, let alone 10 of them in front of the school board demanding the doors to special education services are unlocked. Apparently that is the parents’ job, and not the educator who dare not in fear of losing their job. However, the educators are not at all shy in demanding more pay, using kids and parents as their cheerleaders and than tossed them back into the corner a little bit used when the parent or student asks for a small favour.

Nor are is the K to 12 education set concerned about the malnourishment of the college and university students who might be eating KD 5 times a week. Nor the parent who opts to feed her kids and she goes without. Nor the parent who waters down the milk and opts for processed cheese instead of the real stuff. Even more important, the institutionalized systemic discrimination of the public K to 12 education system that prevents students from reaching their full academic potential and in the process kicks students off the education ramp to lower tiers of education of the dumb-down kind.

As for the OECD, Doug doesn’t do a whole lot of reading in the files of OECD, or otherwise he would know the poverty theories of the education K to 12 establishment is not being pushed as the reason why students are failing in the Western developed countries. Nor does the OECD push ideologies of low expectations.  The only time OECD stats are used by the K to 12 education establishment, is to pat themselves on their backs and to denied education services and new reforms as the reason to keep the status-quo.

Mirka, instead of skimming one should read the posts. Tunya’s post above is entitled - Hijacking Public Education To Spread Class War. If there is one set of parents on the social-income status line that the K to 12 education establishment will fight tooth and nail are the ones with trades and below. The Supreme Court of Canada’s ruling on the Moore case that declared discrimination, was a very long fight indeed, and probably a very expensive one for the BC taxpayers to foot the legal bills on the behalf of the K to 12 education establishment who thought they could provide a third tiered education for the dyslexics. Mr. Moore was a plumber who mortgaged is home to pay for the private LD school because the school board refused to provide education services using proven methods based on the science of the day to teach his son to read.

That said, lots of examples across the span of the K to 12, their literature, the pedagogy, rules/regulatory regime and across the national media and social media that speaks to the class warfare being raged by the K to 12 education establishment, unto the public that are below the professional class.  Day old bagels are good enough for the low-income students eh?  However, that will never do for the high income students?? Mirka, you ought to go unto social media and review some of the shocking data streams pertaining to food thrown out by the grocery stores, producers and manufacturers of food products, restaurants and other places that sell food. Than asked the question with all the political and social capital the public K to 12 establishment has in society, why are they on bended knee begging for the scraps when they should be asking for deep deep discounted prices on food and other supplies of a typical school??  Win-Win for all. Good PR for the company and students for a change will received fresh food, and not the leftovers that are about to make a trip to the garbage bin.

Right wing dudes,

Should have included a link to an excellent documentary “food matters” .  You can view it on netflix.  If you or someone you love is in the jaw of caner—it may help.

Mirka

Right wing dudes,

Should have included a link to an excellent documentary “food matters” .  You can view it on netflix.  If you or someone you love is in the jaw of cancer—it may help.

Mirka

Apparently there is a very strong correlation between the number of bathrooms in the student’s home and the student’s performance in school.  Students coming from homes with 3 or more bathrooms do significantly better than students with only one or even two bathrooms. 

Consequently, it would be prudent for our government to institute a 3 bathroom policy.  All homes should immediately be renovated to include at least 3 bathrooms! 

The relationship between poverty and scholastic ability is not a causal one, or there would be no need for academic scholarships!

There is evidently a strong inverse statistical relationship between reasoning abilities, understanding of stats and personal influence in our education system.

The above post speaks for itself. A rather unsophisticated approach.

Jan, there was another study done a few years ago. It was found if the family had 50 books or more, it was predicted that the children would not have any problems learning to read. Having 49 books or less, it was found the children would have problems learning to read.

I only mentioned it, because of Doug’s post, that lacks substance and knowledge. From Canada Stats, on their Learning Resources page - Scattered Plots info that is missing in the horrible math textbooks. Helpful for parents and children http://www.statcan.gc.ca/edu/power-pouvoir/ch9/scatter-nuages/5214827-eng.htm

The collective crew at the K to 12 public education have a very hard time in responding to the members of the public, other than besmirching the members of the public.

Bears repeating - “There is evidently a strong inverse statistical relationship between reasoning abilities, understanding of stats and personal influence in our education system.”

These washrooms books etc are simply markers of class. Bigger houses bigger lots newer cars it all comes down to class. The only way to make the poor less poor is to make sure they have a lot more money.