Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion NYT opinion: No (rich) child left behind

[quote=Dude
But SES clearly matters for the portion of your statement I bolded. Low SES often means attending bad schools with limited resources. Low SES often means limited time with parents due to more immediate survival needs. Low SES often means living in an environment not conducive to the support of learning.

As I said in another thread, achievement is an intersection of ability, opportunity, and effort. SES is a dominant influence on the middle one. [/quote]

Dude,

I gave an example with Dr. Ben Carson. His Mom was a single parent and she hold two jobs. She did not have extra money for tutoring or what not when her sons were failing. She just gave them ultimatum and made them study hard. (I do not remember about the school but most likely not a good one either but he succeeded anyway mainly due to his mom's intervention.)

The accountability is not just on the teachers, it fall squarely on the parents as well. But I don't think it applies to the parents in this forum.

I also noted that high SES is an advantage. BUT there is no excuse for not taking 10 minutes a day and make your kids accountable.

It probably has a lot to do with taste. My kids have tons of books because it's what I like so it's what they know. I like shopping for clothes, but I prefer shopping for books. We have so many books. I teach my kids to take care of their stuff, but nobody's perfect. We have so many books that I don't really care when I have to throw out a book because the cover got ripped. It hasn't happened often, but they're 2 & 5. The other day the five year old threw every book on one shelf carelessly on the floor looking for one book. I made him clean it up. It did cross my mind that if we only had library books my kids would not be this comfortable with books. I buy most of my childrens books used and in good condition for less than a dollar. But if your kid loses or breaks a book you borrowed, you're paying full price. (I lost a cd I borrowed from the library-$35.00).
People keep saying everybody has access to a free public library. It would be an extrordinary kid who has the EF skills to do all that and never lose the books. The librarian will give you some slack, but my friend's kid can not use her library card because she has five books somewhere around the house she can't find. Everybody knows a story about some unlikely kid who did use the library successfully, but still. My kids library books stay on a top shelf and I told them not to use a stool to get them, only ask me.

Agreed 100% on both counts - I think that this is the primary area where cultural factors play their part.

I also laugh at the notion that higher earners work less hours and therefore have all this wonderful extra time to spend with their kids (sigh).

Yes, some higher earners work very long hours. My dh (not bringing home anywhere near the figure from the article, but we do have choices in providing enrichment for our kids) works 75-80 hours a week. But I have many friends and neighbors who would be considered high earners, and many of them are able to spend wonderful extra time with their kids due to a combination of hard work and connections and luck. They don't work harder than the people I know cleaning hotel rooms for 10-12 hours a day.

My spidey-sense is telling me that this is a gross oversimplification.


Just to make sure I'm not misunderstanding you here, it seems to me that you're implying that, since low-SES families are generally associated with low educational achievement, the primary cause is that the parents do not spend 10 minutes a day with the child, in which they emphasize the importance of good grades. Is that correct?

It's interesting, I've been following this same article in another forum and the conversation has gone a completely different direction. I had to go back and reread it. Two things jumped out at me:

1) The point the author arrives at here: "If not the usual suspects, what’s going on? It boils down to this: The academic gap is widening because rich students are increasingly entering kindergarten much better prepared to succeed in school than middle-class [and low SES] students. This difference in preparation persists through elementary and high school."

This difference in preparedness is what I see at our local school, which pulls entirely from those two SES groups. I left kindergarten round-up my first time and cried. They had given us a small stapled booklet of nursery rhymes and pleaded with the group of parents to read to their children 5 min a day throughout the summer. 5 min? We read and sing for hours, just 'cause it's fun and we have time to do it. Clearly from the plea, this was not the case in many homes.

Having a background in early childhood educ, the author's point resonated with me and was hopeful. He's pointing out what we know -- the gains in those early years are irreplaceable. And he's calling us to do something different, because the strategies used during k-12 aren't cutting it.

If we're only concerned about our child(ren), then it's enough that we're making choices to prepare them. But if we're concerned about everyone's children, then we need to advocate for systems that help them all succeed, which brings me to another of his (the author's) points....

2) "investments in early childhood education pay very high societal dividends."
And he mentions maternity/paternity leave and other key interventions that we could choose to provide.

Working with teen moms, I've known new moms who are back to work days after giving birth, working long hours to bring home minimal income, because they have no options. And think about the gentrification in many of our cities -- workers with the longest commutes in those areas are often those earning the lowest wages, with kids spending the longest hours in childcare.

What if we not only helped parents parent well, gave them paid parental leave as in other developed countries, and also made all childcare amazing? That's what I took away from the article. So far to go!

Love this. I agree on all counts. And the evidence I have seen strongly supports the return on the investment in quality pre-k.

My kids are 2 and 4, and their library books (which we check out 20 at a time) are kept on the bottom of the bookshelves in their rooms, where they can easily peruse them and make up their minds about which one they want to read. We have never lost a book. We have never significantly damaged a library book. We have repaired books that were damaged when we checked them out. My kids have been taught to take care of books. We don't bend pages. We don't stand on them. We don't throw them. We try not to drop them. My son is certainly not known for a gentle nature, but he manages to live up to our expectations most of the time, and he understands that there will be consequences if he doesn't. (That sounds bad, but I'm talking about taking away a favorite toy for an evening. The threat of losing a toy is much more effective for him than the threat of time out.)

I really don't think that using the library is a privilege reserved for only the extraordinarily well behaved and organized. I think a family that absolutely can't manage it is the exception. I suppose there is the matter of priorities though.

Our DD8 tore a couple of books before she was 1. She learned the consequences then... now we can't read it, the story is ruined. We explained/demonstrated to her how easy they were to damage, and how to handle them properly. And that was the end of that. She valued her books well enough to be more careful with them.

But still...

- Higher earners have the option of becoming a single-income family, at the expense of lifestyle. Middle and lower income families do not have this choice.

- Higher earners have the option of hiring in-home care providers for individualized, full-attention, high-quality service. Middle and lower income families, if they can't find a family caregiver who can provide it for free, often have no choice but to send their wee ones to Lord of the Flies Daycare.