Do programs such as Courageous Conversations and causing teachers to "face up to their own racism and privilege" really lessen the achievement gap? Harry Brighouse thinks not.
It is interesting that Singleton started out helping middle class kids find a good college fit.
Other schools writing about Courageous Conversations as presented by Glenn Singleton: Seattle School District; the Bryant Elementary School; Madison I; Madison II, Bay Area Coalition with Equitable Schools
A Conversation With Glenn Singleton
(How to Choose a Diversity Lecturer; other skeptics: Invincible Iron Man
Schools should not put blame for achievement gap on staff --By Harry Brighouse--September 29, 2004
This week the Madison School District entered year two of Courageous Conversations, with an in-service program led by Glenn Singleton of the Pacific Education Group.
Like all other school districts in the United States, Madison is troubled by the minority achievement gap: Minority children consistently perform less well than white children. In Courageous Conversations Singleton leads a districtwide dialogue in which all district employees are encouraged to face up to the facts of white privilege.
The Madison School District is reported to have paid $50,000 for the whole program; but this radically understates the real costs, which include the salaries of all employee participants.
The approach embodies two assumptions, both of which are highly questionable.
The first is that the central problem with minority achievement is about race, not class. Not only do African-American students perform worse than white students, but, supposedly, they do so even when we control for class background. To quote a district document: "More telling is the 18-point proficiency gap between middle- and upper-income whites and similarly affluent African-American students."This throwaway phrase is interesting. In fact, African-American and white families with the same levels of income are not similarly affluent; high-income African-Americans typically have much less wealth than high-income whites. They are more likely to have come from low-income homes, and because of that they are more likely to be supporting low-income extended family members.
True, an achievement gap remains even after we control for wealth. But a good part of that gap closes when we control for grandparental wealth. The injuries of class take a long time to heal.
Some part of the achievement gap does seem to be explained by race, though much less than the district assumes.
The second assumption the Conversations approach makes is that what is explained by race can by addressed by making teachers face up to their own privilege and racism. The problem, in other words, is in the attitudes of teachers and other district employees. But we have evidence to the contrary.
Analyses of the data from summer learning often suggest that the entire growth in the socio-economic class achievement gap each year occurs in the summer, when students are out of school. It looks as if out-of-school experiences, not in-school experiences, are responsible at least in part for that gap. In fact, our understanding of summer learning suggests that schools are truly remarkable places, in which, throughout the school year, the unequal effects of out-of-school experiences on achievement are held in check.
Even if race and teacher attitudes were responsible for a good part of the gap, that still might not justify the Conversations approach. After all, if we knew that alternative policies would help close the gap, although they target non-race, non-school factors, surely we should try those, in the absence of very compelling evidence for the Conversations approach. And, in fact, there are alternatives.
We could devote the money the Madison district has paid to Singleton to screening all free-and-reduced school lunch students for hearing and vision impairment, and providing free prescriptions to them. We could spend it on ensuring that all free-and-reduced school meals are highly nutritious, and ensure that children have plenty of time to eat them.
Or we could address minority and low-income achievement by rejigging existing resources within the schools. Relationships with students really matter; so instead of telling teachers to face up to their own privilege we could try to ensure that they have smaller overall student loads, so that they can get to know all their students well. Or we could ask for SAGE money to be spent entirely on reducing class size for low-income children, instead of spreading the intervention across all children.
Or we could lengthen the school year (instead of shortening it, as the latest contract has). Or offer free, or means-tested, after-school and summer programs that attempt to replicate the cultural experiences that advantaged children enjoy at those times.
The research supporting these kinds of intervention is not restricted to obscure academic journals; it has been made widely accessible by Richard Rothstein in his New York Times columns (available at www.epinet.org/content.cfm/webfeat_lessons) and in his recent book "Class and Schools."
In-school interventions, of course, cost money, which can only be found by raising taxes or taking resources away from advantaged children like my own. I understand that both those measures would be politically unpopular in Madison, and that telling teachers they are the problem is cheaper and easier. And no one expects the district completely to overcome the massive out-of-school barriers to achievement presented by America's shameful history of racism and its shameful present of inequality.
But the Conversations approach demoralizes teachers, without any demonstrable benefit for disadvantaged children. Any one of the measures I've described above, unglamorous as they are, might actually benefit the disadvantaged, without demoralizing anyone. Teachers are not the problem, and they should not be told that they are. The Madison School District should seek to spend whatever little money is available for addressing the achievement gap as effectively as possible.
Harry Brighouse is a professor of philosophy and affiliate professor of education policy studies UW-Madison
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Previous incarnation of Pacific Education Group: Getting Middle Class Kids into College:
Keeping the educational options open
Pacific Educational Group helps students find the right college--Publication Date: Wednesday Oct 11, 1995
by Kevin Moore
It's your junior or senior year of high school, and the decision about where to go to college occupies most of your waking hours. Should you choose a beautiful ivy-covered Eastern school, or the program at that university in the Southwest? Should you save money and attend a public university, or go for a scholarship for a private school? How do you choose?
With the state of California cutting education budgets, many school districts have been forced to cut back on counseling services for graduating seniors. To help fill the gap, many families have turned to private college counseling services like Palo Alto-based Pacific Educational Group.
"There are a lot of students who are falling through the cracks in the educational system," said Glenn Singleton, executive director of the Pacific Educational Group, founded in 1993. "We are here to provide for all their educational needs."
The company provides the kind of academic counseling that many students used to get in school. Singleton and Managing Director Chris Roe help high school juniors and seniors explore their educational needs and choose an appropriate post-secondary institution.
"The community is changing," Singleton said. "We need to rediscover students' needs and desires. What is their passion? We need to address what appear to be non-traditional choices. If there's not enough time in the school day for a teacher or a counselor to address that, then there's a real danger of that student going somewhere bad."
Pacific Educational Group also helps students who are transferring between colleges and those choosing graduate schools. It provides standardized test preparation and academic tutoring. Since each program is individually tailored to the student, costs vary widely. Academic tutoring usually costs between $35 and $45 an hour depending on the age of the student.
Singleton and Roe have worked with about 200 students.
Mike Szabo, a junior at Gunn High School in Palo Alto, started working with Pacific Educational Group last summer. His brother Alex had already gone through the intensive preparation provided by the free-lance counselors.
"(The summer program) was early preparation for college," Szabo said. "So by the time we're ready for college we'll have everything we need. I didn't really want to go to that thing, but it was really helpful. I went on a college tour. It was for my brother, but I saw some colleges I was interested in."
Some students find out about colleges they might never otherwise have heard of.
Kristin Ostby graduated from Palo Alto High School and is currently attending Carleton College in Minnesota.
"I went to Paly," Ostby said. "And they didn't do a very good job of preparing me to pick a college. I wouldn't have thought about going to Carleton without them (Pacific Educational Group). They were listening to the kind of person I was, what my interests are and what kind of education I wanted."
The Pacific Educational Group tries to look beyond the most well-known colleges to find schools that fit students.
"We have to begin to discover the other 1,000 four-year colleges. We celebrate when we are able to utilize the breadth of colleges out there," said Singleton, who is a former college admissions officer.
Singleton and Roe have not been content to simply help the children of families who can afford their services. Working with Sequoia Union High School District, Kaiser Permanente and the Peninsula Community Foundation, they formed the Foundation for a College Education. The foundation works to provide the same sort of services for low-income students of color that Pacific Educational Group provides for its paying clients.
Beyond the Foundation for a College Education, Singleton and Roe are very active in trying to help set policy for California schools to streamline the admissions process. Through the California Center for School Restructuring they and others are working with the University of California and California State University systems as well as secondary schools to restructure both the curricula of the high schools and the admissions system of the universities.
Thanks for the offer to take away diversity training and replace with with vision and hearing. Please note that is the teacher who need to get their vision and hearing checked because they refuse to see and hear that THEY ARE THE PROBLEM. In a nut shell-whites think they are better than us . They think that they are never to be taken out of their comfort zone and White is Right. For those three reason Black kids dreams and educations are crushed everyday. You are so shallow that you would them change to,along with everything else they are facing, to make your job easier. It is your prejudice that allows you to blame them and not yourself. It breaks my heart, because I fear you will never get it. Wake up- we are dying!!!!!
Posted by: Joyce L | Thursday, April 29, 2010 at 05:50 PM