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This month’s focus: Culture of Possibility

“Schools are not poor because the children in them are poor or black or brown. Schools are poor because we have poor policies, poor practices and inadequate investments.” – Dr. María “Cuca” Robledo Montecel, IDRA President and CEO

Published 10 times a year, each edition explores issues facing U.S. education today and strategies to better serve every student. This newsletter is published in print and on the IDRA website, in addition to this eLetter format.

Arkansan Parents “Pushing Beyond the Breaks”

by Bradley Scott, Ph.D.

Almost 400 African American and Latino parents and community members gathered in Little Rock at the Second Annual Summit for Parents. This unique event, “Pushing Beyond the Breaks,” brought together African American and Latino families to explore together many issues, barriers and conditions in public education that lead to persistently poor outcomes for their children. Hosted by the Little Rock Parent Education Project, the summit was sponsored by the Arkansas Cradle to Prison Pipeline Initiative with support from the IDRA South Central Collaborative for Equity.

The conference was held bilingually in English and Spanish, with the IDRA South Central Collaborative for Equity also providing concurrent sessions entirely in Spanish for those families for whom that language was the primary or sole language.

The “breaks” focused on during the conference are those low outcomes that repeatedly show up for African American and Latino students juxtaposed with the highly successful outcomes that are experienced to a significant degree by non-Latino and non-African American students in the schools of the Little Rock metropolitan area. The summit provided dynamic sessions focused on these breaks and ways parents can respond as advocates for their children. – Keep reading

Advancing the Culture of Promise and Possibility

by Nilka Avilés, Ed.D., and Abelardo Villarreal, Ph.D.

The culture of poverty theory postulates that those who are poor gain a poverty-perpetuating value system. It is prevalent in the mindsets of many educators and has thereby often contributed to schools’ dysfunctional behaviors and practices that undermine the academic success of many students, particularly poor and minority students. Tensions exist in the minds of many educators who know about the myths associated with a culture of poverty and, without realizing, yield to well-ingrained prejudices that are used subconsciously to justify any shortcomings in working with some students.

Recently, a group of educators was attending a workshop on how to be successful with every student. When asked about their philosophy of education, all agreed with the axiom that all students can learn and that the teacher can play a positive role in ensuring that all students are successful. Good intentions appear to be less evident, however, when asked about the barriers that students face. The majority started by listing assumptions and forces outside the school, such as “parents don’t care” or “students are not motivated to learn.”

Many of us don’t realize we have subconscious biases or make personal judgments that affect what we are communicating and how we are interacting with people who are not like us. As educators, we need to acknowledge and have a clear understanding of how the interaction between our beliefs, attitudes and behaviors filters into what happens in the classroom. If we are aware of our hidden biases, we can monitor and adjust our thought processes before they are expressed through dysfunctional actions and behaviors. – Keep reading

Embracing the Culture of Possibility for Student Success – Culture-of-Poverty Thinking Shortchanges Students and Families

by Aurelio M. Montemayor, M.Ed.

People who are poor have assets, gifts and strengths that far outweigh the stereotypical negative traits ascribed to them. Approaching children and adults with an attitude of respect runs counter to the prejudices evident in the national rhetoric that is now experiencing a new vogue.

Culture of Poverty Myths and the Assets of the Poor 

In “The Myth of the ‘Culture of Poverty,’” Paul Gorski identifies and rebuts some misconceptions of poor people (2008). Building on Gorski’s work, I contrast each myth with an asset-based truth below.

Myth: Poor people are unmotivated and have a weak work ethic.
Asset: Poor people survive and subsist under trying circumstances, often taking difficult and severely underpaid jobs.

Myth: Poor parents are uninvolved in their children’s learning, largely because they do not value education.
Asset: Families see education as critical to success in life and counsel their children to get educated so that they don’t suffer the same poverty as their parents.

Myth: Poor people are linguistically deficient.
Asset: Families talk in many registers and with their own unique vocabularies.

Survival and Subsistence

The rule, rather than the exception, has been that families keep working to feed and clothe their children. For example, the majority of the families in the communities where IDRA is supporting Comunitario PTAs are squarely within the official guidelines designating them as poor. In spite of the challenges related to their severe economic disadvantage, we see them attend monthly meetings with a perseverance that would make any suburban PTA proud. – Keep reading

Low Funding for Educating ELLs Affects Students Across Texas

New Research on Education of English Learners in Middle School & High School Released at IDRA José A. Cárdenas School Finance Fellow Program Symposium

English language learners make up the fastest growing segment of the student population but they are one of the lowest academically performing groups of students, and the achievement gap widens as students progress through school. Dr. Oscar Jimenez-Castellanos, IDRA’s inaugural José A. Cárdenas School Finance Fellow, presented his research findings on securing educational equity & excellence for English language learners in Texas secondary schools at a symposium in February.

“English language learners are almost one out of five students in the state of Texas and are not being well served by schools in Texas. They continue to be placed in underfunded, poorly monitored, segregated programs that do not produce results, particularly in middle school and high school,” stated Dr. María “Cuca” Robledo Montecel, IDRA President.

“We are taking a look at what needs to be done to assure they are prepared for college. Right now, for example, only one out of 10 English language learners is prepared to go to college. That’s outrageous,” added Dr. Robledo Montecel.

Dr. Jimenez-Castellanos began: “Before conducting the study, I had a perception that Texas was at the leading edge of educating English language learners. I was expecting to find real solutions to national issues related to secondary English language learners. But I learned that Texas is not the utopia I had envisioned.” – Keep reading

Meet Dr. Bradley Scott

Director of IDRA’s Educational Transformation & Innovation Department

This year, the IDRA Newsletter is highlighting our staff’s varied and diverse talents and backgrounds. Dr. Bradley Scott directs the IDRA South Central Collaborative for Equity, a federally-funded equity assistance center, and leads IDRA’s Department of Educational Transformation and Innovation. The department conducts professional development, including coaching and mentoring for teachers, teacher leaders, principals leaders, and administrative leadership in school districts.

While it is known by many that Dr. Scott is a singer, it may not be known that as a choir director, he was named the Best Choir Director of the Year, three years running. He is an actor and has been a part of community theater. He received the best Supporting Actor of the Year while he taught in New York and was a member of the Community Theater Group of Elmira New York.

He has served as chair of many organizational boards and is most proud of the Friends of the Graduating Seniors Scholarship Fund that has given out over a half million dollars to the sons and daughter of military members in San Antonio. – Keep reading

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Classnotes podcasts on culture of possibility

Busting Myths About Children of Poverty – Episode 50

Tool for Building Quality Schools – Episode 81

The Civil Rights Issue of Our Generation – Episode 88

Six Goals of Educational Equity – Episode 29 

Framing Systems Change for Student Success – Episode 8

Videos

Video: Coca-Cola Valued Youth Program – Valuing Students. A teacher describes what it means to “value youth” in the Coca-Cola Valued Youth Program. [00:36]