Lebron James ‘i promise school’ crushing it

If I was wrong, I apologize.

But…..Poverty is not the problem. That is the fallacy that got us in this pickle. Poverty is like a cut on your arm…the cut isn’t the problem. The problem is the government put a piece of raw chicken on the wound under the guise of “aid” and now you have an infection. They tell you it’s the cut, but they are killing you with their cure.

You don’t fix poverty by making the State the sugar daddy of a single mom. There is zero chance of success. None of the the current system works. It needs to be burned down and reimagined.

 

You can't take the failure of one school and apply it to all schools that has catered to low-income families. There are some models that have been successful. It is possible for a child to be successful even when they don't have the support back at home.

 

That's simply not true. There are schools that have been successful

 

huh? Mutz and I are talking about poverty, both causes and consequences, and you come in and say my post about poverty’s relationship to failing kids isn’t true because “there are some schools that have been successful.” 5 martini lunch or did you peg the wrong post?

EDIT. I think I see the problem. When I said tear the system down I was referencing the topic of fixing poverty. You think I want to tear down schools?

 

No doubt that mass incarceration has helped destroy families (you'll never hear an argument from me otherwise ) and I don't discount perverse incentives in govt assistance in contributing to them. Same time, I was trying to lead to poverty (leaving aside what might cause poverty and related, what has caused stagnated upward social mobility) in a society with remarkable resources such as ours. Without addressing poverty and its consequences, then we're not getting at a root of the problem w/lack of male role models and why these at-risk kids might not value education etc.

After all, what distinguishes at-risk children scoring poorly on standardized exams, being over-represented in crime, dropping out of school, i.e. what makes them "at risk" in the first place might be in part from lacking role models but it starts from poverty itself. Thus, making values such as educational aspiration kind of a pipe dream, while inhibiting upward mobility out of their situation due to (de)pressing social conditions because poverty itself is a trap.

 

So, you see poverty as causing crime, but somehow you don't see it as a cause of low standardized test scores? It's social values, lack of male role models and liberal polices?

There is a racial context to this, but I wasn't going there...at least not yet.

 

It’s called homework. My wife’s a teacher. No homework, no retention

 

Research shows that homework does pretty much nothing. The kids who can do it at home, don't need to waste the time, the kids who can't, can't, and so it is a waste of time for them as well. Practice during class with a teacher to support and correct is much more effective than spending time on work outside of school up until the kids are taking AP classes.

 

Really? Marion county tried that a few years back. Trickle down effect. When first graders made it to 4th, test scores were garbage. Then Covid hit and made it worse. Good times. Homework back though. Thankfully

 

My kids are in a Montessori school and they don't have homework

 

Good to know

 

Plenty of questions arise. Was this research limited to "academic subjects?" How was homework defined? For example, when I teach trumpet privately, I do not refer to "homework" or "assignments." Rather, I use terms/phrases like "daily practice" and "goals." I could not, however, teach trumpet successfully w/o expecting a certain amount of dedication/effort extended beyond the scope of the lesson itself. With college students specific to my area, I never refer to "homework" and the majority of grade-bearing work comes in the form of "projects." The majority of that work, though, is completed outside of class.

Another big question is how do we teach independence/autonomy and lifelong learning skills if there is no "homework?" Again, it gets down to how we operationalize the term. Perhaps a more liberal definition of the term permits some extent of independent (and perhaps project-based) learning in lieu of strictly measured assignments/assessments. Collaboration can be a key element and in a P12 setting, that is going to occur almost exclusively in school. But I digress. . .

 

If poverty is the cause of the the social ills you delineate then our country would have collapsed in 1930. Americans are resilient. We didn’t collapse during the Great Depression because we still had family values and still believed in the rewards of hard work. There was no safety net back then, but we persevered and became the greatest country in the history of civilization.

 

Poverty is nothing but a symptom of the disease. You treat symptoms, but you cure diseases.

 

I do zero homework.

I have also yet to produce an astrophysicist.

But I just did two weeks of summer astro at TJ (you asked me about this once before so I know you know where I mean) and the director (AP there) asked me to consider coming there if their current astro teacher doesn’t (her return is uncertain due to personal reasons.)

He essentially put me on blast with a “show” in the planetarium on Friday of week 1. I did a progression of the July sky at our latitude with saucy Greek mythology. I have a few progressions I like but this one is about 40 minutes. After that I would typically use the rest of the class time to have the kids either create an artistic representation of it (physical or digital), or recreate the progression in reverse and alternative mythology when available (for northern constellations, almost always.)

We have plenty of time to focus on these things. Homework is a burden for high performers and a non-starter for kids who struggle to navigate life.

 

I agree with most of this. It just shows that education is a very difficult issue. The Gates foundation has made a big impact on many issues but made made little progress on US k-12 education. I think it really shows the biggest variable on k-12 education is resources at home, perhaps parents helping, or at least prioritizing education for their kids. Also living in poor crime ridden neighborhoods decreases the odds kids are going to prioritize education.

I recall 2 kids, from poorer families in my elementary school - both white. In first grade they were part of of a group of us that mostly completed 2nd grade math. By 4th grade one of them had failed the grade and the other one was getting into all kinds of trouble.

People always complain about terrible schools but I think this shows there is only so much a teacher can do. Numerous studies have shown that when adjusting for demographics, primarily parental income, public schools do just as well as private schools.

 

Or poverty is a cause of the disease. And in some cases a history of prior racism kick started the poverty cycle. Once a cycle is started, it is hard to break out of.

 

It might be possible but it is far less likely.

It has been a while, (15 years?) but I seriously dated a girl who taught at a similar school. At that time the only model I was aware of that showed any success was KIPP. Can you cite any others?

 

Huh? Seems like it shows you cant fix poverty with education, if it's demonstrative of anything at all.