Blaming Schools for Student Absences is Like Denouncing Doctors for Disease by Steven Singer
Originally posted at: https://gadflyonthewallblog.com/2019/08/25/blaming-schools-for-student-absences-is-like-denouncing-doctors-for-disease/?fbclid=IwAR1LVoEzc5LkC_ZB_BduvzyaPe_IlOwzIBMBzfk6sT7CG4jhcUUCZVgsKi4
If something is wrong with children, it must be the school’s fault.
Right?
If kids can’t read, write and do ‘rithmetic, the teachers must not have taught ’em right.
It couldn’t have anything to do with home life, generational poverty, economic inequality and systemic racism.
Except that it almost always does.
Inextricably.
The fact is children who don’t live in safe, loving homes have much greater difficulty concentrating and caring about academics. Kids with impoverished parents are much more likely to go to underfunded schools and sit in classrooms that are racially segregated.
None of that is under the control of teachers or schools, but a focus on high stakes standardized testing, school privatization and dangerously unregulated ed tech hides the problem
It’s not that teachers don’t teach. Inequality, prejudice and CONTINUE READING: Badass Teachers Association Blog: Blaming Schools for Student Absences is Like Denouncing Doctors for Disease by Steven Singer