Greenfield Southeast

Greenfield Southeast

A Problem We Must Choose to Solve

9/19/2013

2 Comments

 
This week, the Walton Family Foundation gave $6 million to the Philadelphia School Partnership to promote the growth of excellent schools. This announcement in and of itself was not remarkable. Major gifts and attention are regularly heaped on urban school districts. Their leaders become nationally-recognized advocates. Through fits and starts, many urban districts are improving; and the money and attention is well deserved.

But what was just as striking to me is the announcements that were not made this week. Mark Zuckerberg did not show up in the Mississippi Delta to give the keynote at the Clarksdale Municipal School District's annual convocation. The Gates Foundation did not announce a partnership with Greene County (NC) Schools in an effort to redesign small town schools. Even writing those felt weird. They're so unlikely as to seem absurd.

If we make the assumption that all lives have inherently equal value, then we must acknowledge that there is something amiss. If you're a poor kid growing up in New Orleans, you have at least have a shot at attending a good school. If you're in Itta Bena, MS; the odds are much, much less favorable. And yet, the lives of both children matter equally; we should treat them as such.

And where exactly are the children with the greatest need for a great school? The small town South. In the United States, there are one hundred eleven counties where more than 50% of children live in poverty. Of those one hundred eleven, seventy-eight are in the South (highlighted below).
Southern Counties with More Than 50% of Children under 6 Living in Poverty
Source: Measure of America
Picture
So three out of four counties with insane child poverty are in the South. (If you drop the barrier to 49%, twelve of the next sixteen are - yup - in the South.) And now we also know that poverty deeply taxes cognition. 

This is just the latest revolution in a lengthy cycle, a cycle with no foreseeable end. Those counties are exclusively rural. Not a single one is within forty five minutes of a major metro area. There is no hospital with an excellent emergency room. There is no magnet school to apply to. In many places, there's not even a grocery store. It may sound insane, but that's the inescapable reality for tens of thousands of children.

As a society, we value connectivity, knowledge, and novelty; it should come as no surprise that counties like those above have slowly receded from our consciousness. Or that we look cross-eyed at people who say things like "I work for a KIPP school in Helena, AR," or "I'd love to start a mobile health unit in Plymouth, NC."

It is time for a coherent, regional effort to address these issues. It's the same problem across the region; we should treat it as such and get to work.

It's time to destroy these notions and mindsets of what is valued and where we should therefore focus our energy.

It's time to quit trying to make heaps of money or design the next great app or score the next great status job and do something about this.

So here's our focal point: the oldest of those children growing up in poverty will graduate from high school in 2025. I have some ideas. I'm sure you do, too. And I'm certain that the folks living in these areas do. So why wait? Let's do something about this.
2 Comments
Mr. B
9/21/2013 03:34:31 am

I teach in one of those schools. Until the system is replaced, no amount of money will help. The administrations are attempting to cover their respective hind ends and blame every issue on teacher dedication. Teachers are fed up with being blamed. Old school administration thinks that change is bad and doesn't work "on these kids"; then continue to resist and prevent change from happening. There are those teachers that try to resist and include change, but they are soon brow beaten back into submission. The people that created the issues, the teachers from 20-30 years ago are now "consultants" trying to translate things they will never understand. The issue, I believe is that people that are willing to help are seen as a threat and those that come in are run out of town on a rail.

I came to do something about it, but was told my help is not welcome here.

Reply
Travis
9/22/2013 03:59:20 am

Hey Mr. B,

I brought out the Walton funding example to highlight the exposure gap that small town districts face, not to argue for throwing money at an ineffective system. It is significantly easier to create a coalition of community groups who will push for systemic change in urban areas given physical proximity and consequently get easy publicity for big changes in those places. As a result, they dominate the national conversation about what works in education. I do not believe that we are paying enough attention as a country to the needs of small towns, especially small towns in the South where the legacy of slavery persists in glaring and devious ways.

I disagree with your perception about the source of the problem. The issues were not created 20-30 years ago by former teachers who are now consultants. Over the past forty years, many small town/rural districts have been decimated by careful redistricting and white flight to private schools, which has helped preserve racial and class divisions. Before that, separate but equal schooling persisted until the 1970s. Even further back - in the 1880s - northern philanthropists fought to establish secondary schools that emphasized "industrial training," a curriculum that was intended to force blacks into subservient occupations. There is a long history of messing with the system to make it more favorable to some over others at play here.

The reason why the mindsets you're encountering appear to be so static is because the system that you and I have the opportunity to opt in or out of is a multi-generational in nature. And sometimes defeatism is the best way to reconcile it on a personal level.

I would also offer, having worked with 30+ schools in Southern small towns at this point, principalship in a small town school can be exponentially harder than in a city. The teacher talent pipeline is smaller, and the community of people in the same boat as you is significantly smaller. It's a lonely job.

I'm not sure what state you're teaching in or if you already know about him, but Michael Cormack is a great example of someone who is already making great strides within the existing system. http://goo.gl/bgI2UC

I also don't want to insinuate that outsiders swooping in is going to somehow save another group of people. This will only work if region-wide AND local coalitions are build with the express purpose of facilitating and championing advancements in the system.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    About

    Outlining the strengths, challenges, and opportunities present in the South.

    Archives

    December 2014
    May 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.