Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Breaking Up

Neil Sedaka may have said that, "breaking up is hard to do," but in this case, saying goodbye to Arne was simple. Over the past few weeks he has been harder to love - his recent performance at the Let's Read, Let's Move event on Friday in which he looked painfully bored and showed very little love toward students with disabilities made me begin to question what I had seen in him. His performance this morning at the Leadership Conference felt detached - his words had the right message but his expression, tone, and relationship with the audience fell flat. I sat right in the front, center - hanging on his every word - and, by the end of the speech, I barely remembered any of his points.

I would have given Arne more time - after all, I've been a fan for months now & appreciate that he has gotten educators to think about schools, classrooms, teacher training programs, innovation & technology, but my affection was stolen by Kevin Jennings, Assistant Secretary for the Office of Safe & Drug-Free Schools. Controversy surrounds him and he has made many conservatives angry with his progressive ideas about broadening the definition of "safe schools" to mean far more than no guns, no fights, no drugs. He captured my attention from the get-go with his intelligence, wit, and a presentation that reminded me why I love being a teacher. The only "oh, no" moment was his mention of a the girl who committed suicide from a school in Massachusetts that captured the nation's attention. Oh, South Hadley...

In the days to to come, I imagine, I'll have the chance to tell you about Kevin Jennings' message this morning, but, people, you are disappointing me some - here I am, sending my love to you from my lonely apartment in Dupont Circle, asking you to think about and engage in a colorful dialogue about education in America and only one response! Is this where we are people? Are there no opinions about the future of America's schools? (A big, public thanks to Ted who is always ready to debate & discuss.)

Before I head off to sleep, here's some more information that I've been thinking about today -

* Approximately 90% of children referred to Special Education tend to be placed there. (And, yes, I know that Special Education is not a PLACE, but a set of SERVICES, but work with the stat, people.)
* The arrest rate for white youth, three to five years out of school, with disabilities is 27%. That percentage rises to 40 for African-American youth.
* Only 10% of African-American students placed in Special Education eventually return to their regular education classrooms.

As a community we need to do a better job here!

Wait, could it get worse?

* The average mother spends 11 minutes a day talking with her child.
* The average father, only 8 minutes a day.

These facts & figures come from various presenters that I heard speak today at the OSEP conference. (Don't any of you come after me asking for citations or arguing the statistics!) My point for posting them was to let you know that these figures resonated with me and I'm now wrestling with what I can do about it...



2 comments:

  1. That stats about the number of minutes parents spend talking to their children per day is interesting; I bet it would be even more interesting to break it down by race and class. I don't know what to say about that; I'm just grateful that even as a professional, I can spend half of my child's waking hours with her (her father gets the other half). And, due to our "no TV for the baby" rules in the house, we spend the majority of it talking. It's exhausting! But worth it...It's also not fair. I am extremely privileged to have this set up, but life in the US makes it next to impossible for most parents, across the race and class spectrum, to spend the time with their children that we seem to all agree is necessary. I've always thought the US is a pretty hostile place for families.

    As for special ed and race. The link between poor education and/or unaddressed learning disabilities and entry into the criminal justice system is alarming. But it pales in comparison to disproportionate arrest, sentencing, and incarceration rates for people of color, even after you control for the offense. And the increasing tendency of school districts to refer discipline problems to the criminal system, instead of disciplining within the school system, merely compounds the problem. It's data like this that make me wonder what planet people like Jim Webb are living on. If being referred to gifted testing for behavioral problems when you're a white student, but being referred to criminal proceedings for behavioral problems when you're a black student, is not evidence of white privilege, than I just don't know what is.

    Really, all of this is just a reflection of what I was talking about in my previous post. The differential ways in which we handle students based on race and class; our refusal to provide education that is challenging and effective for all of our students, instead of just the mainstream ones; all of it is a reflection of how differently we value different people in our larger society.

    I know none of this answers your questions about what we can "do" about it, but it's a hard question. How does one create a more just society??? It doesn't collapse easily into a few bullet points...

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  2. I assumed that your stat about the number of minutes parents talk to their children had something to do with parents in the workforce; I assume that stay-at-home parents (or parents with my arrangement) are able to talk to their children much more.

    Assuming my assumption was correct (LOL), there was an interesting NY Times article about the price women pay for having children, as exemplified by the fact that the last three female SCOTUS nominees have no children (and Ginsburg doesn't, either). The article also had this fascinating stat: Giving parents in the U.S. a full year of leave for each child would cost about $25 billion a year, or less than 0.2 percent of gross domestic product. Australia just passed a universal leave policy, making the U.S. the ONLY rich country that does not have such a law.

    Here's a link to the full article: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/04/business/economy/04leonhardt.html?_r=1

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