The Other Three R's

       I watched the video The Other Three R’s with Gloria Ladson-Billings, Michael Lomax, and Gary Orfield, they stated that the Brown v Board of Edu created equal opportunities for all students in schools as well as colleges. At the college level work study became available as did financial aid and scholarships. However, in the 1990s, it was said that the desegregation was temporary and things began to go back to the way they were before.

 

       Gloria Ladson-Billings stated that there were two major issues that have never fully been solved in society; the first is that schools were never fully segregated and the second was that there was never funding to allow them to run properly. Schools are mostly segregated by race and poverty levels. The video states that in the early ages African Americans and Latino students were deemed unable to participate in society, it was even illegal for them to learn how to read and write. Without knowing how to read and write makes it impossible to go to school. Without schooling and today, without a college degree it is very difficult for someone to obtain a job. For low income, high performing students of color the chances of going to college are one in ten, but for high income moderate performing white students they have a 90% chance. The top schools consist of mostly white and Asian students, and the lower tier schools are mostly black, and at these schools it is harder to graduate. This is a great example of white privilege.

       The other point they touched on was the fact that some of the teachers that teach in these low income areas, are not specifically certified to be teachers. Teachers that are teaching in high performing schools are certified and understand the importance of teaching. Some teachers in the lower performing schools do not have a certification. For example, there could be a chemistry teacher, but they could only have a degree in chemistry, not a teaching degree. In school, teaching to the test is something that is being done more and more, however, teaching to the test allows no room for creativity or fun in the classroom. Since the test scores have a direct effect on teachers, most teachers main priority is to teach in a place that they will be able to survive and keep their jobs. In most cases this means teaching in a high performing school. The low performing schools get stuck with teachers that are new to the teaching world and may not know how to handle the situations they are forced into. If teaching to the test was not such a big aspect, more teachers would want to teach in these places where kids are in need of a good quality teacher willing to do everything in their power to help the students understand the material. There has to be a way to figure out how to make disadvantaged schools become advantaged. The students at these disadvantaged schools are not unintelligent in any way, they are just so deep in poverty and the schools do not have enough resources, so they are fighting against a vast amount of problems.