Modern liberals don’t care about low-income kids

[Karmadillo]

He makes a good case. Anyone disagree?

http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh030106.shtml

FAREWELL, GABRIELA! Modern liberals don’t care about low-income kids. We dropped out decades ago

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For those of you who are younger than 40, we’ll now tell a startling tale. Believe it or not, liberals once spent a lot of time worrying about low-income/minority children! The young will find this hard to believe, but we swear that our statement is accurate. Starting in the mid-1960s, a range of well-known, best-selling books were written about low-income schools—among them Jonathan Kozol’s brilliant Death at an Early Age and Herbert Kohl’s semi-puzzling but heartfelt 36 Children. It was a standard liberal concern—what should we do about the needs of black children? For ourselves, books like those were part of what brought us here to Baltimore in the first place. When we started teaching fifth grade in 1969, it was books like those, by Kozol and Kohl, which framed our (very meager) understanding.

But uh-oh! It soon became clear that it wouldn’t be easy to solve the problems of low-income schools. In the sixties, pleasing thoughts had prevailed; many liberals assumed that racist teachers were holding black kids back in school, and that basic good faith would solve the problems which obtained in their classrooms. (To his credit, Kozol never really said or implied this. Nor did he claim, in his award-winning book, that he had produced great academic outcomes in the Boston school where he taught.) But as time went by, it became fairly clear that the problems found in low-income schools wouldn’t be easy to solve at all. And everyone knows what happened then; liberals dropped low-income kids like a rock! As we all know if we think about it, we modern liberals don’t discuss the problems and pathologies of our low-income schools. Decades ago, we libs took a hike. We too sang, “Farewell, Gabriela.”

Do you have any doubt about this? If so, consider what happened in liberal and mainstream circles when Helfand published his lengthy piece about Gabriela Ocampo—and about the thousands of low-income kids being pushed from Los Angeles high schools.

What happened when Helfand’s report appeared? In liberal circles, nothing happened! Liberal journals didn’t discuss it, nor did liberal bloggers. Whatever one thinks of the L.A. school board’s new policies, Helfand’s report was quite remarkable—and it opened with a well-known former Democratic politician, L.A. superintendent Roy Romer, wringing his hands about the “cumulative failure” involved in the massive algebra drop-outs. But liberal bloggers and liberal journals didn’t say a word about this. In the modern world, conservatives talk about low-income kids—but we liberals no longer bother. We simply don’t care about low-income kids. We don’t waste our time on their problems.

more...

[marmar]

1. I think there's a fairly broad perception...

among minorities that progressives are very concerned about issues like the environment, the war, fair trade etc., but not so much about traditional liberal issues like affirmative action and racial justice. True or not true, that's the perception.

[flyingfysh]

2. speak for yourself

My wife works full-time with these kids as a teacher. She is one of the best around, nationally certified and with teacher training from NASA, but works in an inner-city school system, teaching science and turning lives around and helping kids succeed. And you tell us we don't care about poor kids?

[MichiganVote]

3. Tall talk, short on statistics. I think this is baloney.

When are oldie liberals like myself going to get with the reality that the times then are not the times now. Whole different world for us and for the younger set today. Factually, schools cannot and will not replace the importance of good parents, any kind, anywhere.

[bliss_eternal]

4. It was a rather broad brushed and blanketed claim...

:shrug: Kind of unfair to assume an entire group or political party shares the same beliefs on anything.

[sam sarrha]

5. your headline told me this is BULL SHIT.. dont even need to read it tho i

did.. Right wing just blames and spins.. in a Fascist state like ours the Poor are demonetized and poverty is considered a vice by all Fascist states.. that way they dont have to take any blame for creating poverty

unfortunately the Democrats are dependant on the Fascist Corporate Campaign Contribution system to compete.. but fascism is fascism.. until you remove the Corporate and Elite influence

[converted_democrat]

6. I give alot of money to charity and much of it goes to clothing and food

for low income children.. I think whoever wrote this is paiting with too wide a brush.. I don't agree with it at all..

[Mass]

7. True problems, but little to do with liberals

Two problems are described in this paper:

1/ A problem linked to economical conditions of the families that is well known and does not have anything to do with school. It is a general problem of the society and not linked to liberal. A large part of the pbs described here are probably linked to deconomical difficulties. It is more difficult for a kid that has problems at home to well at school.

2/ A general problem (for all kids): the ridiculous maths programs in elementary schools. My guess is that this kid failed algebra 1 because she failed a lot of other things before that. I have a son in 6 th grade and one in 10 th grade now. It is absolutely ridiculous that kids start dealing with complex notions like algebra and statistics before they master basic maths. Mine both started way before they knew how to divide and to add fractions. They were doing operations on a hand calculator. They barely understood the concepts, but it was in the program. Kids with parents who could help at home were doing fine. Others were doing poorly. My 6th grader is now supposed to have a minimum of 2 hours of homework every day. Sorry, tell me how a kid does that in a noisy appartment where he does not have his room and when parents are not home or not able to help. (this has little to do with teachers, but a lot with the program and with school days that are too short). So, may be no algebra should be required to graduate, but may be she would be able to do algebra 1 if school systems were trying to deal with the issues of school schedule (25 mn for lunch? long school periods, long vacations in the summer as if schools were still teaching to farmers kids who were going to help at the farm in the afternoon and during the summer time). May be it is time to think about our kids a little bit.