George Will on Arne's (Mrs. Jellyby!) misguided efforts.

[Catshrink]

Yeah, I know, George Will :puke:. But... he says what we've been saying although has to get his digs in.

Democrats miss an obvious lesson plan for deprived children

Education Secretary Arne Duncan, like many liberals, seems afflicted by Sixties Nostalgia Syndrome, a longing for the high drama and moral clarity of the civil rights era. Speaking this month in Alabama at Selma's Edmund Pettus Bridge to commemorate the 45th anniversary of the "Bloody Sunday" march, Duncan vowed to unleash on public schools legions of lawyers wielding Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. They supposedly will rectify what he considers civil rights violations, such as too many white students in high school Advanced Placement classes.

<snip>

Plainly put, the best predictor of a school's performance is family performance -- qualities of the families from which the students come. Subsequent research suggests that about 90 percent of the differences among the proficiency of schools can be explained by five factors: days absent from school, hours spent watching television, pages read for homework, the quantity and quality of reading matter in the home -- and the presence of two parents in the home.

If Duncan is looking for the high SAT scores that correlate with, and often are consequences of, AP courses, he should look for schools where educated parents are intensely involved with their children. The best predictor of SAT scores is family income, which generally correlates with family structure -- two parents in the home. Family structure is pertinent to the 9/91 factor -- between their births and their 19th birthdays, children spend 9 percent of their time in school and 91 percent elsewhere. For many children, elsewhere is not an intact family.

Government can do next to nothing about family structure, which is why it is pointless for Duncan to suggest that "access" is why "the door to college still does not swing open evenly for everyone." It will not so swing as long as 71.6 percent of African American children and 51.3 percent of Latino children are born to unmarried women. The political class flinches from talking about those numbers, preferring to take refuge behind talk about "rights." But those numbers go far to explain numbers that Duncan does cite: White high school graduates are twice as likely as black or Latino graduates to have taken AP calculus classes. The political system cannot candidly discuss, let alone cope with, the reasons why, for example, there are few if any high-performing inner-city school systems.

Duncan seems to fancy himself an Earl Warren, expanding civil rights. Actually, he resembles Mrs. Jellyby (from Dickens' Bleak House).


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/19/AR2010031903679.html

[jody]

1. I analyzed Alabama's test scores among all schools several years ago. Per cent free lunches, a

surrogate for poverty that Will discusses, explained well over 60% of the variation in test scores.

I have not seen an effective government program that gives children in at-risk families and their environment an opportunity to rise above their level.

Jaime Escalante, the high school teacher whose ability to turn out high-achieving calculus students from a poor Hispanic neighborhood, suggests that it's not government programs that are the answer, but dedicated teachers, one teacher at a time, and all the education bureaucrats are simply barriers to educating students who want to learn.

[proud2BlibKansan]

2. Will usually gets it right on education

He has a child with disabilities and he and his wife have been advocates for our kids with disabilities for many years now.

[Hannah Bell]

4. he divorced the mother of that child, though. for a younger model.

and notice his remarks here are all about the inherent qualities of individual families -- not income, not class, not society.

it's the same old republican "individual responsibility" schtick.

[proud2BlibKansan]

5. Yes he did

and I don't like his rw remarks.

But he does deserve credit for hie work securing access for kids with disabilities. He was the only right wing voice on our side of this issue for may years. We had a decade long fight before we secured educational parity for our kids with disabilities. I appreciated Will's support back then.

[Smarmie Doofus]

3. "A stopped clock......" nt

[Grand Taurean]

6. Will is one of the calmer voices

even if you do not agree with him, he is.
On this matter we agree. The teachers are NOT to blame for the troubles of the students families.

[Hannah Bell]

7. at this point in time, he is. which demonstrates how far to the right the rhetoric has moved.

when will is a "calm" voice & the democratic ed secretary is tearing down the entire edifice of public ed.

[Dinger]

9. Exactly

Nail hits head. Excellent, concise point Hannah.

[Dinger]

8. Hmmm. K & R : )

george will or not. He's right.