2012 conventions 2012 election 2013 session arts arts and culture author ballot measures basketball bomb books boy scouts budget bullying business charlie hales children clackamas climate change coal college courts crime culture culture club democrats drugs economy education environment family film fluoride food gay rights guns handguns health health care health insurance high school history housing immigration internet kitzhaber law legislature lgbt literary arts living marijuana marriage media medicine mental health military minor parties mohamed mohamud movies music native americans news newspaper obama olympics oregon our town parenting pers photography police politcs politics port portland portland business journal president prevention public safety religion republicans rnc romney rural salem sam adams sandy hook schools science shooting sports suicide supreme court taxes technology terrorism theater third parties transportation union university of oregon washington wildfire women

I've taught high school and middle school English from the South Bronx to Eugene, OR. The holy grail of education right now seems to be eliminating the achievement gap -- primarily among students of varied racial and ethnic backgrounds. I struggled to help my students in the Bronx overcome seemingly insurmountable deficits. They lived in one of the poorest Congressional districts in the country. They were not properly nourished. Their neighborhoods were filled with medical waste incinerators, drug dealers, crime....too many signs that society had given up on them. 

A difficult question for our society is not how to close the achievement gap, but why the vast majority of students who are at the bottom of that achievement gap are racial and ethnic minorities. Why are they concentrated in poor neighborhoods, largely in urban areas? Why do their parents struggle more with unemployment, hunger, disease, prison, and homelessness than their white counterparts? How can we help them?

For many of these students, no matter how good the school or the teacher or the curriculum, it's TOO LATE to help then once they're in school. Hart and Risley did a groundbreaking study related to this. By age 3, a child's learning trajectory is largely fixed and their vocabulary (which is a result of the quantity and quality their parents talk to them) is an accurate predictor of future academic success and IQ. So children who are behind at age 3 will remain behind throughout their academic careers.

 What will work for all students would be to give them an equal start - to begin with parents and their infants. As a society, we need to educate their parents to provide their children with the things they need for optimal prenatal and postnatal brain development: good nutrition, an environment rich in talk and reading, quality play, a loving and nurturing environment. Parents do what is best for their children with the tools they have. We can provide many more tools and more support to parents so that their children are not behind when they begin school. 

Birth the Three, in Eugene, is doing work to help parents here.

Harlem Children's Zone is doing groundbreaking work  in New York City to do this same work.    http://www.hcz.org/

I think that this early work is our best hope.

Amy Samson

Eugene, OR

posted 3 years, 3 months ago
view in context