Half Changed World

Via Shawn Fremsted at Inclusionist, I ran across this article by Theda Skocpol reviewing two books about the GI bill (free but annoying registration required).   Skocpol notes how unusual the GI bill was in providing assistance to young families:

"But unlike most other U.S. social programs, the G.I. Bill focused its largesse on young adults at just the moment when they were building lives for their families. Usually, we spend money on the elderly, who have earned the nation’s support after a lifetime of work."

The article made me think about Strapped, by Tamara Draut, which I reviewed earlier this year.  Draut talks about how the changes in the economy — the increased cost of education, housing, and child care — particularly pinch young adults right when they’re trying to start families.

The key point, I think, is that it was the 50s and 60s that were the anomaly, not today.  One of the reasons that, in most of history, men have married younger women is that men were strongly discouraged from marrying until they were able to support a family, and there was no expectation that they’d be able to do at a young age.  Older teens and young adults were expected to work, but they typically contributed their labor or earnings to their families of origin.  And when times were bad, as in the Great Depression, people married later.

So we’ve got this perverse combination of an economy that all but requires higher education for success (even though a college degree doesn’t guarantee a good job, as Lauren will attest), an educational system that is dependent on student loans, and an expectation that young adults should be able to make it on their own.  There’s no historical precedent.

"At virtually every level, education in America tends to perpetuate rather than compensate for existing inequalities."

Anyone who believes that opportunity — the ability of children to have a future that isn’t defined by their parents’ socio-economic position — is an important value should read Isabel Sawhill’s issue brief on Opportunity in America: The Role of Education.  The whole volume of The Future of Children on Opportunity is worth reading, but the issue brief is only 5 1/2 pages, so there’s no excuse for not reading it.

Sawhill begins by discussing how, contrary to the public image, the US does not have particularly more intergenerational mobility than other industrialized countries, and how such mobility is declining over time.  She notes that Americans are quite resistant to more progressive schemes of taxation and benefits, but — in theory — are highly supportive of the role of education in creating equality of opportunity.  And then she makes the statement I quoted above: "At virtually every level, education in America tends to perpetuate rather than compensate for existing inequalities." 

First, she argues that the K-12 system is generally weak, and "a society with a weak educational system will, by definition, be one in which the advantages of class or family background loom large."  Then she notes that because of the ways that public schools are funded, poor kids go to worse schools than well-off kids.  And finally, she notes that "access both to a quality preschool experience and to higher education continues to depend quite directly on family resources."

Sawhill goes on to mention some possible ways to address these deficiencies.  This part of the essay is not as convincing.  I’m not sure I think all of the proposals are good ideas, and I’m fairly confident that they don’t add up to enough to eliminate the systemic problems that Sawhill has identified.

But go read the brief, because the description of the problem is spot-on.  And then come back and we can discuss whether it’s possible to change any of this.

D got his first report card, or "interim progress report" today.  All Ps, for "progressing in understanding" or something like that.  The skills measured are things like letter recognition, being able to hold a book the right way, understanding the difference between capital and lower-case letters.  In math, they’re focusing on pattern recognition and counting tangible objects.

The school has decided to hire an additional kindergarten teacher and have 3 classes instead of 2.  The good news is that this means there will be about 14 kids in each classroom, with a teacher and a full-time aide.  The bad news is that D is one of the kids who will be switching classes, and the new teacher is a total unknown.  I’m trying not to twitch too much about it, particularly since D seems quite undisturbed.  (The long NYTimes article about The Blessing of a Skinned Knee cites Mogel’s suggestion that parents "spend no more than 20 minutes a day ‘thinking about your child’s education or worrying about your child, period.’"  It seems like a reasonable goal.)

Overall, the person having the roughest time right now in the family is N.  He adores preschool, and has pretty much potty trained himself in the 3 weeks since it started.  But it runs until 1 pm, and D’s school lets out at 2.35, and that pretty much kills his nap on preschool days.  Yesterday he was so tired by the time I got home that he couldn’t stop crying enough to tell me what he wanted.  (D eventually figured out that he wanted to wear shin guards, for no obvious reason.)

How’s school going for everyone else?

Tonight our local school board is having a hearing regarding whether the city of Alexandria should allow students to attend Fairfax’s selective math and science high school, Thomas Jefferson. 

As I understand it, the argument in favor is that it opens up an opportunity for a few very talented high school students to attend a school where they’ll be academically challenged and surrounded by their peers.  The arguments against are that it takes away money from the local school system (as Fairfax charges participating districts more per student than Alexandria spends on average), and that it reduces the number of advanced courses that the Alexandria high school (TC Williams — yes, there’s only one high school for the city) is able to offer, by taking away some of the students who would take those classes.

As I’ve mentioned before, I attended a similar school, and it was an incredibly valuable experience for me.  The fact that it was normal to be smart, normal to read, normal to study, normal to like learning, was wonderful for me.  I truly never had to deal with BS like this.  I had a ninth grade bio teacher who told me that if I became interested in boys and decided to be stupid she’d wring my neck. And it also protected me from the arrogance of some smart people I’ve known, who are convinced that they’re the only ones with any brains.

I mentioned this to Maggie, who often comments on this blog, and she responded:

Isn’t it funny how all of our experiences shape our opinions? I’m sure I
would have enjoyed the intellectual companionship of going to
Stuyvesant, if my parents or I had had any idea that it existed – I was
bored a lot in high school. But I also think that a lot of what I like
about who I am today is the direct result of going to a high school
where there were kids across the spectrum, not just high achievers, and
learning to get along with them while still being a high achiever
myself. I learned how to talk to anyone, about anything, instead of just
burying myself in my books. There are lots of people with lots of brains
out there, but there are an awful lot of brainy people who have a dearth
of people skills.

Maggie obviously had better people skills than me to begin with — I came out of my shell at Stuyvesant, and think I would have disappeared totally into the world of books in many environments.

That said, the stress level at competitive high schools does seem to have ratched up a significant degree since I went to HS.  I started reading The Overachievers, and it’s pretty depressing.  (It’s also boring, so I’m probably not going to finish it.)   Maggie said that she’s "interviewed so many kids from TJ who are just basket cases that I really, really would be uncomfortable sending my kid there."

I was really pleased to pick up the paper yesterday and read that Harvard has decided to stop its early admissions program.  Yes, it’s just one school, and yes, as other school admissions directors were quick to point out, it’s easy to take the moral high ground when you’ve got little to lose.  (Harvard could easily select just as qualified a class out of only the people it rejects each year.)  But I do think it changes the terms of the discussion when it’s not just people looking in from outside who say "the current system is rotten" but also a major inside player.

James Fallows laid out the basic argument in the Atlantic five years ago, in a story called "The Early Decision Racket."  His major points were echoed by Harvard’s president in announcing the decision:

Mr. Bok said students who were more affluent and sophisticated were the ones most likely to apply for early admission. More than a third of Harvard’s students are accepted through early admission. In addition, he said many early admissions programs require students to lock in without being able to compare financial aid offerings from various colleges.

What Fallows also explained — and neither the NY Times nor Washington Post stories covering Harvard’s announcement picked up — is how the growth of early decision has been driven by the US News and World Report rankings of schools.  The more of your slots that you fill with students who have committed to attending, the fewer total students you need to admit to produce a given size class, and the more "selective" your school appears.  (And Fallows should know where the bodies are buried — at one point, he was in charge of the rankings.)

Non-binding early action programs — which is what Harvard used to have, and several of the other very prestigious schools have — aren’t as pernicious as early decision, but I think dropping early admissions entirely sends a much stronger message.  Maybe US News should award bonus points to schools that don’t have early admissions.  (I’d love to see the rankings go away entirely, but they’re a huge moneymaker for US News, so I’m not holding my breath.)

Update: Princeton joins in.

There’s been a series of interconnected posts around the blogosphere on how concerned parents should be about less than perfect schools, and I wanted to pull them all together.

I think my post on Debunking the Middle Class Myth started it off, at least in this round.  For anyone who’s new here, here’s more background on what we’re doing, and my worries about our choice.

LizardBreath at Unfogged linked to my post, writing:

"Now, some schools with a poorer student body are objectively worse, but they’re worse largely because of the middle-class flight. And the degree to which they’re worse seems to me to be wildly exaggerated — the inner-city immigrant neighborhood school I send my kids to is great."

The discussion there is up to about 300 comments.  Bitch PhD picked up on one of those comments, and recommends to nervous parents:

Try the school you’re afraid might be mediocre before you move out to that more expensive suburb, and see if it’s really actually better than you think for the particular personality of your particular kid.

This is essentially what we’re doing. 

But then Jackie at Esperanza responds:

I want the girls to be in the same school from kindergarten through eighth grade, because switching schools was very hard for me….  I really want my girls to start a school next year and not leave it again until they leave for high school. I want that security and stability for them, because losing it was very difficult for me.

I understand where she’s coming from, and agree that I’d rather not keep moving my boys around.  And if D was less socially gifted and adapatable, I might be less willing to take this risk.  But I’m quite confident that he won’t be traumatized if we move him in a year or two. 

SuperBabyMama also picked up on Bitch’s post, commenting that it’s reassuring to know that she’s not the only one stressing about school choices.  (And I really hope that her daughter thrives at her new school.)

I think this whole issue ties back to the point that I was trying to make on Monday, about how hard it can be to give up on being a perfect parent.  Knowing that the local school is less than perfect, how can I justify sending my kids to it?  Well, everything comes at a price.

If we opted out of our local elementary school into another one, D would have to ride the bus every day, which would eat into the time he has to play and do other things.  It would be harder for us to be involved with the school.  His friends would be less likely to live nearby, making casual playdates harder.  If all of his friends lived near each other, they might be less likely to make the extra effort to get together with him.

If we moved into a different district, it would almost certainly mean that we’d be further away from public transit.  My commute would be longer, and I’d have less time to spend on everything from being with the kids to reading to volunteering.

There are some really nice private schools in the area, but they’re really expensive.  We could maybe afford private school for one kid on my salary, if we gave up on the idea of saving for retirement.  It’s pretty hard for me to see how we could afford it for two (although we’d probably qualify for financial aid).  T could go back to work.  I could try to find a higher paying job.  And D would probably feel poor if he went to one of them, because many of his classmates would be better off.

None of these are inconceivable sacrifices, but I’d rather not do them if I don’t have to.  But it’s almost unheard of for an upper-middle-class American parent to say "Yup, my kid’s not going to the best school possible, but I think he’ll be ok."   

*******

More for the roundup (I’m going to keep updating this as long as I keep finding relevant posts):

• Jody at Raising WEG has a post on her family’s choices and a reaction to an article recommended here.
• Jennifer at Penguin Unearthed reports in on school choice, Australian style.
• Eileen Gale Kugler comments on my post about her book.  Cool.
• Amy at Mamazine is also settling for okay schools.
• Dawn at this woman’s work writes about deciding based on your values, rather than your goals.  (Not responding to the other posts in this series, but relevant anyway.)

Today’s book is Debunking the Middle-Class Myth: Why Diverse Schools Are Good for All Kids, by Eileen Gale Kugler.  It was recommended to me by a reader of this blog. Kugler is a parent whose children attended Annandale HS in Fairfax, one of the most diverse schools in the country, and she one by one she knocks down the myths that make parents fearful of sending their kids to such schools (e.g. the best schools are those with the highest test scores, diverse schools aren’t safe, etc).

I agree with most of Kugler’s overall points, especially her argument that that many of the people who are the quickest to dismiss diverse schools are the ones who haven’t set foot in them.  But I can’t say that I feel particularly more encouraged about our local elementary school after reading the book.  First, I’m not sure that it counts as diverse by Kulger’s standards, as it’s about 80 percent one race.  Second, Kugler is careful to say that "well-run" diverse schools can provide an excellent education to all students, and I’m not sure that our school qualifies as well-run.  (This isn’t a knock on the new principal, just on the lack of continuity.)

Overall, the major problem with the book is that I’m not sure who the audience for it is.  I have trouble imagining anyone reading it who isn’t already convinced of the value of diversity.  And the chapters on what school board members, superintendents, principals, teachers and parents can do are pretty simplistic.

***

Oh, yes, D did start kindergarten today. We did manage to get out the door on time (and I even made pancakes.)  His teacher is an older man with a ponytail who talks to the children in a very soft voice.   D was annoyed that it was pouring this morning when we walked him over, but was happy to sit down in the classroom and say goodbye to us.  In the afternoon, he didn’t tell us much about what they did today, but didn’t have any complaints.  (When I noticed that he had only eaten one of the two cookies I packed in his lunch box, and asked him why, he explained that by the time he finished his sandwich and the first cookie, it was nap time, but he didn’t seem particularly upset about it.)  In his backpack, we found a stack of forms to fill out and return (and yet another version of the supply list).  So far, so good, I guess.

***

I just read Sandra Tsing-Loh’s interview on the Atlantic online, which includes this wonderful quote illustrating Kugler’s point:

"I found that once we actually got to public school, everything I’d been told about it was wrong. That’s because we’ve gotten to the point now where in my social class—the media class in big cities—not one person I know professionally sends his or her kids to public school. So nobody actually knows what it’s like anymore. So they’re telling each other about a land, like the North Pole, which no one has set foot in."

I’d love to hear anyone in LA’s reaction to her "Scandalously Informal Guide to Los Angeles Schools."

D is now halfway through his two week "k-prep" session.  He seems to be enjoying it, and has made a couple of friends.  The teachers send little notes home each day saying what he’s done that day; their only concern seems to be that he’s not eating much of the hot lunch. (what a surprise)  If they’re doing any academics, it’s with a very light touch, which is fine with me.

The Post had an article on Friday about k-prep.  It was pretty much a fluff piece about how wonderful the program is, touting how it pays for itself by reducing the number of kids who are held back.  I’m a bit dubious about that claim.  The statistic the article cites is that 85.7 percent of participants at the pilot sites were unconditionally promoted to first grade, versus just 80 percent of non-participants.  First, I was sort of startled at how low those numbers are — how many kids are being retained in general.  Second, I’m pretty sure that this wasn’t a random assignment.  While I know they did outreach to try to recruit kids who hadn’t had a preschool experience, I’m sure there’s a selection bias issue — parents who send their kids to k-prep are probably more likely to be involved with school, to monitor homework, etc.

As regular readers of this blog know, I’m not entirely sanguine about our choice to send D to the local elementary school.  It didn’t help my confidence when I got an email last week telling me that both the principal and vice-principal of the school were leaving.  This means that the school will have its 5th new principal in 6 years.  Not an encouraging sign.

I spent a couple of days freaking out a bit, emailing the local school board members and trying to figure out whether it was too late to get D into a different public school, or even a private school.  I’ve more or less calmed down now.  The article in the local paper suggests that the principal was reassigned, rather than quit.  Still worrisome, but quite so disturbing.  And I’m hearing generally good things about the new principal. 

Next week is the start of "k-prep", the city’s two-week optional kindergarten orientation program.  And just a few weeks later, school starts for real.  Wow.

As reported in the NYTimes over the weekend, the Department of Education released a report on Friday from a study conducted by the Educational Testing Service, comparing test scores of public and private school students.  While private school students have better scores, on average, the study found that after you control for various school and student characteristics there was no difference between the test scores of public and private school students.

This doesn’t really tell a parent trying to pick a school very much.  Among the things controlled for were school size and the composition of the teaching staff, which are precisely the sorts of things that fancy private schools pride themselves on.  And the schools that don’t offer these advantages aren’t necessarily competing on better educational offerings, but on safety (e.g. that they can kick the troublemakers out) and values.  But it does complicate matters for the privatization advocates who argue that private schools are going to do a much better job with the same population of students and the same resources as public schools.

The most entertaining part of the story is the Education Department’s attempt to claim that releasing the report on a summer Friday, without a press conference, wasn’t an attempt to bury it.  Yes, this may have been the first day it could have been released.  But if the results had been favorable to private schools, I’m confident that it would have been released in an event at a school where at least some students are attending through vouchers.