The Problem We All Live With transcript by Ira Glass, struck a chord with me; the conversation
that evolves throughout the transcript deeply connects the reader with the
students of Missouri and supports the severity of their marginalization with striking
information and facts. This transcript
enlightened me to the lengths entire communities of people will go through in
order to keep education segregated and that other than desegregation, we still
have not found alternative means to turn a failing school district around. Yet, even equipped with this information,
desegregation is a solution that is rarely if ever implemented; this is rooted
in politics, power, and overt racism.
There are many days when I go to work that I feel my
students are not just getting the bare minimum but that they are being entirely
disadvantaged when compared to nearby private schools and school
districts. Similar to how Elisa Crouch
describes the school she shadowed a student at, “We went into AP English, and
it's held in a science lab. The classroom across the hall, where it should be
held, smells like mildew and the ventilation system doesn't work,” my school
has leaking ceilings, mold in almost every light fixture, and humanities
classes being held in science labs. What this creates is a space that is
unsafe, not conducive to success, and somewhere students, never mind adults, do
not want to be!
Additionally, as Ira Glass writes, “The US Department of
Education put out data in 2014 showing that black and Latino kids in segregated
schools have the least qualified teachers, the least experienced teachers. They
also get the worst course offerings.” I
have been a part of this, and it was not in the best interest of students;
during my first year at Evolutions, nearly 70% of our faculty were teaching for
the first time! Students, as if
participants in a laboratory experiment, partook in all of us trying new pedagogy
and tools that we had never tested and that often failed. Our effort was there, our expertise however,
was not – and students learning was dramatically, negatively affected.
After reading this transcript, for the first time I began to
contemplate a point I had never before considered: what happened to all of the white students in Providence Public Schools?
Nearly all of the students I teach are Latino or African American. I know however, going back to the 60’s and 70’s,
that PPSD was a very successful and abundant with white students; I also know, that there are still many white
families that live within the city. So
where are their students going to school?
These families are able to use their privilege, power, and money to send
their students to private schools such as La Salle Academy, Moses Brown, and
the Wheeler School that provide some of the best educations not only found in
Providence but the entire state of Rhode Island. This leaves Providence Public Schools to
service mostly minority students, be underfunded, and produce far below par
students outcomes.
Link to Tal
Link to Tal
I like the connection you made between The Problem We All Live With and the school at which you teach. The conditions at the school in which you teach are similar to the school that I work at. I find that underfunded urban schools do the best that they can with lack of space and buildings that have not been kept up. The fact that 70% of teachers were in their first year of teaching was startling. The bar graph from RIDE on emergency certified teachers in Providence added concrete evidence to the lack of experienced teachers. I was just curious as to what year that data reflected.
ReplyDeleteI find it interesting that nearly 70% of the teachers being evaluated were in their first year of teaching! Combined with lack of experience and the fact that being an an underfunded, urban district, the students were already behind the eight ball, so to speak. I teach in a similar setting, where the majority of my students come from families that are working-class and poor. In addition, the majority of our families are immigrants and families of color. While our performance scores are on the rise, small increments but still on the rise,as a faculty, we solely lack the experience in dealing with social-emotional issues and students dealing with trauma.
ReplyDeleteThis is another strong entry and one that once again resonated with me. I think you really named the parallels between the podcast and your own teaching experience. The use of links was really effective here as well. To have a hyperlink highlighting issues with ceilings in your school is tragic. I think we often times almost become desensitized to the conditions our schools are in. Glad to see a campaign to change that.
ReplyDeleteThank you for including the article demonstrating school segregation in our own backyard. I also made parrallels in my mind and briefly in my post between the missouri district described in the podcast and our providence district. WHen I moved to Providence and told people I was placed here by a teaching organization that places teachers in underserved communities I was often recieved with confused faces or pure shock. My community in another state saw Rhode Island as a very white, not struggling state because we pictured beaches and mansions. What I quickly learned and try to educate others of is that inequity is everywhere and its so pervasive it's almost invisible unless you live it. And to be honest, speaking from experience, you may not even realize what you are missing out on until you leave and too often it's late for you.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for the article! At my school, I am the youngest staff member and every staff member with children lives outside of Providence for the sole reason of access to better schools. What is interesting to me is that none of the people I work with would send their children to our school or schools in the neighborhood. While many students are attending private schools, we are also in a small state where many chose to just move outside city limits. Rhode Island has quite a few strong public school systems, such as Barrington or East Greenwich. In such a small state, for many its easier to ignore the problem by moving a few towns over rather than put their child into PPSD.
ReplyDelete