James Baldwin (1979): “you can’t change a school without changing the neighborhood”
Every time I make the case that in order to offer every child the very highest quality education all children deserve, we must address the socioeconomic inequity of homes and communities as well as the schools that serve them, I am chastised by some that teachers and schools cannot control any of those out-of-school conditions.
Yet there remains a historical and current fact that social inequity is almost always reflected in educational inequity; schools, then, mostly perpetuate inequity, but they almost never fulfill their promise as the great equalizer.
In California recently, we see this in action: California students sued because they were such poor readers. They just won $53 million to help them.
Students and teachers have won a lawsuit that exposes political negligence, a failure to fully fund the most burdened schools serving students most burdened by inequity, as Kohli and Lee report:
A Los Angeles Times analysis of the 75 lowest-performing schools on the state’s English language arts test, based on California’s Common Core standards, illustrates the depth of the reading problem. Seven out of 10 third-graders in these schools did not meet the standards, according to state data from 2018 and 2019. The schools have about double the English learners of other elementary schools, and more than 90% of students at those schools qualify for free or reduced-price lunch — a poverty indicator.
While this is now, we must not ignore that social and educational inequity is a CONTINUE READING: James Baldwin (1979): “you can’t change a school without changing the neighborhood” – radical eyes for equity
