I'm tired of reading stories like this:
(NNPA)--On any given day, nearly 23 percent of all young Black men ages 16 to 24 who have dropped out of high school are in jail, prison, or a juvenile justice institution in America, according to a disturbing new national report on the dire economic and social consequences of not graduating from high school.
Article here.
New paradigm: skip urban youth ministry and get Christians in the classroom so that these fellas and have academic discipleship as well. A middle-school or high school teacher will have far more opportunities for "contact work" when they see the kids all day, everyday.
I think some urban ministries may be the easy way out for some. If you're a teacher you won't even need to raise support because you'll be making nice change too. I can seen now that the real urban youth may actually be in the trenches in the classroom day-to-day and not at basketball games coaching and once-a-week Bible studies; shouldn't urban ministry be about discipling minds as well--like algerbra, physics, literature, etc?
Amen, although some urban public schools are so dysfunctional that I would not send my worst enemy to teach there. I hope to see more Marva Collins-style programs (starting in elementary school) and supplemental education programs like what my best friend does in South Africa with great success. (Her black/Colored/Xhosa kids beat kids from six other white schools in a debate competition in English, which was the second language for all her kids) It is amazing what can happen when someone actually demands and expects more from students that many "advocates" have written off.
...and giving those kids/parents choice in which school to send their children wouldn't hurt, either. coughvoucherscough.
ab, I agree in that tons of discipling out there goes on in non-ministry ways (sports, especially). i think you've got a sage point here, i'm just trying to conceptualize how that'd work.
shawn, vouchers?
come on, many private schools would just up the price to adjust what status level they want - er, I mean, income level, if they're strictly financially driven. if they're already getting 100s of students at the tuition they charge, why not simply tack on the voucher cost to get what tuition they know they can receive?
Jeff,
Actually tons of urban Catholic schools are closing, even though they educate children far more effectively (and for far less per year) than the public schools. They simply can no longer compete with "free," although at one time working class families could scrape together the tuition to send their kids. Vouchers would save these schools and force public schools to compete with them.
Did you happen to read the article in the Washington Post recently about a teacher that asked his students why they didn't study like the kids from Africa?...
Their reply was something about not having DADS... it was stunning...
it was by Patrick Welsh who teaches English at T.C. William High School in Alexandria. I think the date was Sunday, Oct. 18, 2009
Here is his eMail... perhaps you'd be interested in what he has to say... patrwelsh@gmail.com
Go ahead... you know you wanna... I'll be watching...
I looked and found it here ->
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/15/AR2009101503477.html?nav=hcmoduletmv
Yep, guys this is exactly what some have been saying for years. Hmmm, seems like I can remember somebody named Anthony Bradley making the connection between education success in children and parenting 4-years ago. "Back to School, Back to Parents"
http://www.acton.org/commentary/commentary_283.php
And I think this same Bradley dude mentioned yet again it 2008, when he said, "Fatherless children are twice as likely to drop out of school as their classmates who live with two parents. Children whose fathers are absent consistently score lower than the norm in reading and math tests."
http://www.acton.org/commentary/458_radical_education_reform.php
So, I'm not surprised at Brian's article. It's been the word in the street for years...
Professor Bradley,
I've tried several times and several ways to contact you. My wife and I relocated from South Carolina this February to live in and minister to students in East St. Louis. I honestly had given up on connecting unless I ran into you when I started classes in the spring, but after skimming this blog post (forwarded to me by a friend) I thought I'd try to post a comment and see if I could catch your eye.
If you have a chance and are able to get together, I would love to briefly share our desires and dreams for ESL, but more importantly, I want to figure out how I can learn from you.
Sincerely,
Shane Fast
Rebirth: East St. Louis
Anthony Bradley... yep I've heard about him...
Now Mr. Bradley... you KNOW the answer and have known it for four years... but what are we doing about focusing in on the men-folk ... and instilling in them the RESPECT for themselves - and keeping their pants on?
Seems that they wanna do the deed... but don't want to take responsibility for the repercussions of those actions.
How can they not see what they grew up in - and want to change it?
How can they not see what happened to their momma and make sure they don't make it happen again and bring a child into this world without a daddy?!
Tough questions for a Sunday night,,, huh?
I just realized it asked for all my contact information but did not post it with my commment. Here it is:
Shane Fast
shanefast@gmail.com
rebirthesl.org
I hope that we are able to connect sometime!
Totally agree that there are questions that need to be asked, but these:"How can they not see what they grew up in - and want to change it? How can they not see what happened to their momma and make sure they don't make it happen again and bring a child into this world without a daddy?!" seem a little off base.
How could the children of alcoholics not see what alcohol has done to their families and avoid it altogether? How can children of obese people not see what overeating has done to their parents and grow up to be fit and slim? How could people who grow up under genocidal dictatorship not form a democratic republic for their children? You get the idea...
The fact is that it is not at all surprising that children of single mother's repeat the cycle because has become socially normative and it is much more difficult to do some something that you have never seen/experienced. The question is what policies and actions present the best possible odds for that cycle to be broken. (Another question: how could any upper middle class child handed every possible advantage in life possibly grow up to be a pot smoking loser? Oh right, the depravity of the human condition...)
Commenting on Julia//commenting on TomTom.
Julia -> a little harsh?!
Instead of GIVING and GIVING perhaps we could start TEACHING and GUIDING and helping the less fortunate LEARN instead of throwing money at them, and telling them they should be better.
You know... GIVE a person a fish and they will eat for a day... TEACH them to fish and they will eat for a life time.
Julia - not harsh, spot on.
I can see what she's talking about in my own struggles to overcome being raised in an alcoholic household. And I grew up white middle class out in the country with many more advantages than these kids that we're talking about right now.
It's certainly not as simple as learning the right thing to do and then doing it. There are things involved like anger, depression, mistrust of others, desperately wanting to be loved and accepted by others and looking for it in all the wrong places, etc.
Judy: thanks for the kudos and the candor. Life is complicated, to say the least.
Pooba: Deep stuff;), and I agree with the spirit of what I think you mean, but as a wise man once said,"Teaching is very easy if you don't care about doing it right and very hard if you do."
Julia,
You said, "Vouchers would force public schools to compete with them."
Good point, I'll have to think about that. Sounds enticing, and I can think of some private schools who MIGHT retain their same tuition rate after a voucher change. But I still foresee that group being potentially small. I went to a private school that I believe would keep the same tuition, it was an excellent christian school (at the time, i know little about it today), but I can't imagine administrators NOT thinking about even the extra little bits of money they could raise by upping their tuition (and capitalize by it). So, i'm ultimately unconvinced. But I have an open ear to the matter.
also, julia, what do you mean by "Tons" of urban catholic schools closing. i haven't been aware of that, and do you think vouchers would solve the problem?
Completely fair question ("tons" is very vague; further evidence that I am not an economist, not matter how much I admire them). This study: http://www.nd.edu/~ndlaw/conferences/mwlawecon/Brinig-Garnett.pdf
says 1600 Catholic schools (mostly urban) have closed in the last two decades, 148 in Chicago alone. A Time magazine article last week (Oct 12, I think) said 1 in 5 Catholic schools had closed their doors in the past 10 years, almost entirely in urban areas. Lots has been written about it by a guy named Petrilli, if you want to google more.
FWIW, I completely understand your concern. I share it when it comes to proposed Federal college tuition vouchers and so on. However, when it comes to urban Catholic schools, the dynamic is different. They are NOT succeeding economically, and they are non-profits, and they are some of the most mission-motivated (as opposed to profit-motivated) institutions you are likely to find, IMHO.
By the way, I'm sure you're aware Milton Friedman made the opposition prediction when he proposed vouchers decades ago: he predicted that new private schools would sprout up everywhere, each costing what the voucher could pay. Unfortunately, it may be while before we'll get to see which of you is right:)
jeff...yes, it's possible that some schools would up their rate. however, competition w/in a short time would drive that rate down to the normal profit rate, just as competition always does, in every situation, barring political intervention.
sorry I didn't respond sooner.
now, there is a case to be made for a supply-side restriction on new schools, Reason hosts a paper here. If those restrictions hold (and, I must admit, i'm not particularly keen on some aspects of the linked paper: bit too scare-tactic in some parts for me, but it's still a valid point), it may take longer than the 'couple years' i mentioned above. That said, it certainly wouldn't hurt, and at least parents could send their children to better PUBLIC schools in the mean time.
Don't be so quick to dismiss vouchers. Competition is always good, and while a completely state-free system is preferable, this would still be a much better notion than the current atrocity.
Zoiks...New Journal article on single parenting and the brain:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704754804574491811861197926.html
shawn, so the article is basically saying, "Deregulate school start-ups, so schools can start up." always goes back to supply and demand. i took about 8 classes toward an econ major in college, and i think every one was basically "supply & demand with respect to ______" (fill in the blank)
Julia, besides the fact that he won a nobel prize the only thing I'm aware about with Milton Friedman is that we share(d) the same birthday. Thanks for the generous assumption (should know more with that bit of econ background, but alas).
I will say our interaction has made me think differently about vouchers. Cool.
Okay, most of you know I spent 8 years teaching school @ inner city Durham, NC. I taught math, history, english, Bible, and econ. Most of the kids were low-income, no-income, black, latino, fatherless, and from homes with substance abuse.
How did I teach? What did I teach?
1. How to be a man. My wife and I courted while the whole school watched. We began our marriage and had our kids while the students were in and our of our home constantly. I took responsibility. I lived it in front of them.
I read them the Eldgridge "Wild at Heart," and T.D. Jakes, "So You Want to be a Man." I read them the Bible.
2. Regular subjects. Math, english, etc. FEED THE BRAIN. Give them something worth thinking about.
3. Econ. How to have a healthy skepticism toward government handouts, poverty pimp politicians, and their Mamas. How to think like an entrepreneur. How to read markets. Funny how far that Supply and Demand stuff can go...
Re: vouchers.
Suppose vouchers were made available to all students in amounts equivalent to what the actual per student expenditure is in public schools (gasp). Among the more powerful effects is the incentive for the best teachers to bail out of public schools and start their own private schools.
Suppose I'm a teacher earning $45,000 a year. Wikipedia says the per student cost is $9866. Cato claims $24,000 per DC student.
Let's go with $12,000, near the low end. A good teacher could pick her 4 favorite students, have them meet at her dining room table, and make better money with a whole lot less headache than going into public schools. With the internet she would not even need to buy books. I could start a program like this tomorrow. If I wanted more money I could take in 10 kids. I could test them to make sure they were all at the same level, so I would never have to teach to the bottom half of the class. If anyone gave me trouble I could push them out in an instant.
Who would most dislike this setup? Well, after the NEA and those who like to use schools to indoctrinate kids, the worst teachers would most oppose such a reform, because they know they would not be able to compete with the good teachers and all the other well qualified people attracted to teaching by the more reasonable setup.
Mediocrity is holding us all back.
Nathanael Snow
ndsnow@gmail.com
...unionized mediocrity, that is. ;)
jeff...yep, that ol' devil. my explanation of econ: "demand slopes downward." Answers quite a few issues.
if you want to get started on some friedman, a very readable and very elucidating book is his "the choice," written along with his wife, rose.
there's a video version of it on ideachannel.tv (I watched the videos about 2 years before I read any of the book)
Very interesting post, Nathanael, especially when taken together with your thoughts on Christian education a while ago. As someone who has been on the front lines, I would be very curious to know if you think wide-scale cultural transformation is possible through Christian activism in urban public schools as they currently exist. I truly don't know. I absolutely agree that a key ingredient of such transformation is education, but the "how" within the public schools seems exceedingly tricky. (My beef is just as much with the core curriculum or lack thereof as the shackles placed on teachers' free speech. The math teacher can't select the math book he teaches from, can he? My husband I realized long ago that if we wanted our kids to learn logic, Latin, Spanish, chronological world history and so on at a young age, we needed to cut out the middleman and do it ourselves) Even Escalante was successfully pushed out of the public schools after all he accomplished...
Shawn,
You've muddled the Friedmans' "Free to Choose" with Russ Roberts' "The Choice," which is fine by me! I highly recommend both, though I have fewer quibbles with Roberts than with Friedman.
Julia,
No, I don't think explicitly Christian activism in urban public schools is a good idea, given what that usually means. Christian involvement in politics can be best when it is pluralistic in its aims. Liberty.
Handing responsibility back to the parents can be dangerous because sometimes parents are awful. What's to stop a parent of three from pocketing $36,000 (from my previous example) and sticking their kids in front of the TV all day? This monitoring issue is one of the strongest objections to my argument. What Christians can best do is raise the best kids they can, and to voluntarily serve others.
Nathan
Yeah, I've never seen a voucher proposal that applied to anything but accredited private schools, and I don't expect I ever will. States have varying monitoring techniques to make sure we homeschoolers aren't parking our kids in front of the TV, few of which work very well. (Here in Maryland, I simply present a portfolio on my kids to a County reviewer each semester. True story: a County reviewer once looked at an essay my then 9-yr-old had written on Adam Smith and Karl Marx and said, "Oh, I see they're studying American History!" Although I have my kids take the California Achievements every year, they are not required by the state to take any standardized tests) And I completely agree that our first duty as Christians is own our own children's education so we do not add to the problem (so easy to do if we're busy saving everyone else's kids!).
That said, we know that urban youth (even the fatherless) can be successfully educated so that they graduate high school and go on to better things: Marva Collins did it in Chicago and Jaime Escalante did it in LA. Many surviving urban Catholic schools do it. I just don't see how it can be done on any kind of wider scale without vouchers.
Awesome stuff, Nathaniel. I laughed out loud thinking about you teaching four kids and getting the same amount of money the gov't already shells out per student. I would love to teach a group that small.