School Reforms and Their Impact on Minorities, Research Paper Example

Choice, School Reforms, and Their Impact on Minorities

Choice

For a long time, public schools represented a common thread in the American experience. Public schooling has changed drastically over recent years. No longer do most people send their children to neighborhood schools just because of their assignment to them. Parents exercise choice more than ever before. The public school is not as public as it used to be.

Any time a school reform initiative comes down the pike, minority students are affected. At their core, school reforms offer choice for families, students, teachers, or combinations of all of these stakeholders in the equation of education. The argument presented here analyzes choice and its impact on marginalized students.

Lack of choice becomes choice. Many times those most likely to benefit from school reform, minorities, are the least likely to take advantage of them. Those who can, choose. Those who cannot, do not. Either way, public schools may not be so common anymore.

Nonetheless, Bulman (2004) observes the concerns that most parents share toward education. Typically, these involve acceptance, personal bias, cultural capital, reality, safety, and values. Such factors are foremost on the minds of parents who consider a choice in school reform. Those who are wealthier make choices. Those with lower income levels usually make the choice of not making a choice. The truth is choice is not the thing that educates a child.

American culture intersects school choice on three, distinct levels. First is at the place where church meets state. A federal office now exists that supports the work of faith-based initiatives. Many of these foster positive social change and are backed by political conservatives. Second is the way in which money filters down to the places where students are. As dollars follow students when they leave public education for private modes of schooling, public education is asked to do more with less. Third is the strange manner of politics as it enters the landscape of choice.

Everything in public education is measured in order to appease a public that wants its money’s worth from the schools it supports. These three, major topics (church-state, the flow of money, and inescapable political rhetoric) reveal but a portion of the complicated designs that nurture and denounce educational reforms.

School Reforms and Impact on Minorities

A few of the more popular contemporary reforms are as follows: charter schools, home schools, intentional community schools, magnet schools, private-religious schools, private schools, public schools, and school vouchers. Each of these offers glimpses into the thoughts of American families who seek choice for the education of their children. Brief descriptions of these choice reforms point away from typical children of poverty, color, and migratory status.

Those who produce the charter, as approved by the states in which they operate manage charter schools. As long as they meet and surpass the standards of their charters, they continue to work, unencumbered by many of the bureaucratic processes of traditional, public schools. Minorities generally do not dominate the rolls of charter schools. Parents who lack more than moderate means will shy away from applying to charter schools, most of the time.

Home schools are legal and operate in every state. Parents of home schooled children take the initiative to teach their children themselves, often with the assistance of curricula designed for such children. Most of the time, home schooled children are not from minority homes, for a large percentage of minority homes are single-parent homes. The single parent is a working person who cannot afford the luxury of staying home to oversee an at-home educational day. Most students from home schools have multiple siblings and parents who are educated beyond the national average (Belfield, 2002).

When we think of intentional schooling environments, the Amish or Mennonite communities come to mind; however, these are not the only communities of this type in America. Other, similar ones evolve, not out of religious convictions, but because of shared interests or values. Intentional schools exist to instill the most cherished feelings of the community within the hearts and minds of its young. Minorities tend to live in ghetto or barrio communities that are somewhat insular, but their organization does not extend into the area of formal education. Besides, many minority parents work more multiple jobs in an attempt to make ends meet and do not have the educational background to lead their children in learning state minimum requirements for school age children.

Magnet schools, given their propensity to be situated in urban centers, are more likely to attract minority students than most any other form of school choice. This is because magnets represent grassroots reform, where teachers and school administrators seek to transform schools according to the needs of the communities they serve. The people who are most active in the educational process are the ones that have most of the decision-making power in magnet schools (Smrekar & Goldring, 1999). Find a magnet school, and you will find minorities represented there.

Private-religious schools are designed arise because churches and other faith-based programs want them. Some of these schools require large tuitions in order to remain solvent. There are occasions when minority students attend these schools, tuition-free, because of their athletic abilities, especially at the high school level.         

Private schools, long the symbol of elitism, raise specific observations about contemporary education. Parents with moderate financial means, sometimes opt for this type of education, making all necessary sacrifices for their children, with the hopes that these schools will assist their children in gaining acceptance into the colleges and universities of their choice. This happens, not out of religious or moral grounds, but on measures of quality (Pearson, 1996). Others like the feeling of safety that they feel in such schools. Minority students of non-professional parents are rarely seen in these schools, and these schools have done little to raise their minority student acceptances beyond token means.     

Still, most parents allow their children to attend the local, public school to which they are assigned. This, then, is their choice. The lion’s share of minority students goes to school under this option. By not choosing, public school children’s parents choose. As more parents opt for choices outside of this one, public schools become less public and more minority-segregated.

The voucher system of schooling brings out hot debate. Proponents of this plan see schooling as a product that improves when it competes for clientele. Vouchers give parents a specified amount of money to spend on a child’s education. Parents decide where to spend it. Opponents of vouchers see them as the death knell of public schools as we now know them. They declare that every dollar taken out of the public school system makes that system even more impossible to improve. Minority students are not prone to take advantage of vouchers, given the limited resources of their parents who would need to supplement any voucher option with involvement in transportation and extra-curricular issues that come with exercising voucher rights, now or in the future.

Ideas Behind Reforms

This paper has investigated specific reforms that affect minority students and Whites, America’s most prominent race, as well. The next area of school choice study looks at a few of the larger issues that produce those specific reforms. These are not the only ones that factor into schooling, but they are arguably the ones that most people would list if pressed to engage in conversation about it. There are a few ideas that shed considerable light on the things that drive school reform.

1. Church-State issues- Current thinking divides concerning the involvement of public funds in faith-based agencies that work in education.
2. Politics- Reformers say that the solution is to apply the same economic principles of choice and competition that have succeeded in many other areas.
3. School Choice- This topic arose about 50 years ago. Most any educational reformer will tell you that the goal for the reform is to give people equal access to educational quality. School choice is not prominent in the minds of those who struggle to put food on their tables.
4. Hostility- Some research has suggested (Sinkkink, 1999) that many conservative religious groups feel an alienation from traditional public schools and deem such schools to be contrary to their personal goals for their children. There is a caution here for minority students. Before opting for choice, minorities, or anyone else, should be careful to know the goals of secular schools and the goals of private ones.
5. Emerging Reforms- Choice does not guarantee better options. Choice reforms that are coming down the pike allow people to address concerns that they have about the purposes of schooling and the best ways to meet and exceed those purposes.
6. Legal Issues- Any reform is confronted by possible legal challenges to their validity. Numerous, existing reforms have already passed legal muster; new ones will most surely be receive legal analysis and challenge.

Social Change

Education is the cradle of personal change, so it makes sense that it is a place where changes, positive or negative, form for society. Some people change society with their words, others with their deeds. Still others change society with their abilities to synthesize, organize, and revolutionize. 

Summarizing the Impact of Social Change Writers

There is power in the pen. Ellen Gruwell came to teach in her high school English classroom only to find bitter division between races in the wake of the Los Angeles riots of the early 1990s. Her ability to elicit written accounts of deep, inner feelings and life experiences from her minority students resulted in a book, a motion picture, Freedom Writers, and perhaps most importantly, a sustaining foundation that encourages replication of her classroom success [On a similar vein, it is applicable to note the death, yesterday, of famed Latino math educator, Jaime Escalante, whose remarkable work with Los Angeles at-risk minority students was captured in the film, Stand and Deliver].

More recently, The National Writing Project works to how to get marginalized young people to write about things that engage them outside of school, like issues that confront them in their daily lives and suggestions for social change (Taylor, 2007). This curricular design shows promise. Elsewhere in this paper there is more lengthy discussion of concepts known as Critical Pedagogy, Dialogue, and Democratic Citizenship that reinforce applications such as the National Writing Project, especially for minority children, as a means to make meaning and promote intellectual growth and civic responsibility and change.

Some teachers have found that students make some of the best spokespeople for social change. Pantaleo (2007) describes how Dresang’s Radical Change Taxonomy can analyze minority children’s written stories to reveal how they shape around other stories they have read. These inter-text influences cause children to reflect on prior knowledge in constructing plots. A purposeful exposure to literature makes this possible. Dresang is a noted authority in Library Science. Her personal research interests connect with social change at numerous levels.

Grading the Success of Social Programs That Further Equality in Schools            

Teachers have the greatest impact on student success. Classroom best

practices, strictly adhered to, make a positive difference in the lives of young students; however, pedagogies alone do not make the differences that children require to grow academically. School effectiveness must concern itself with questions about assessment and the overall purposes of schooling (Lingard & Mills, 2007). Socially just reforms are numerous and varied, ranging from overtly political reforms to school-specific ones. Schools, seen as places where justice can happen for minority students, bring more out of those teachers and students who work and learn in them.

An example of this would be the Head Start Program, which has run for almost a half century with the mission of preparing minority, at-risk, preschool children for school. School readiness is achieved through Head Start as children learn and develop social and cognitive skills. Head Start attacks systemic poverty by working with children, early, to instill a love of learning.

Currently, predominant educational practices tend to segregate minority, slow learning children from those whose backgrounds allow them to grasp ideas more quickly. Godwin (1998) observes that diversity is discouraged by diverting educational funding to the areas where a majority of elected officials are drawn and that the wealthier a family is, the more educational opportunities there are. Reforms need to target low income, minority students, many of whom live in inner cities. Reforms need to educate children about worldviews. Debate wags on as to whether a competitive marketplace for schooling would produce better schools with more efficiency and more effectiveness.

Explaining the Relationship between Education and Social Change

Countries develop as their systems of education develop. Educated people shape the futures of their countries through their leadership in a multiplicity of professions, trades, and services. Education means to draw out. Social change means to alter society. It is hard to separate education and social change from actions that are political. Schools prepare learners to live in and work in society. Schools want to inspire students to do more than has been done previously. Schools that work for democratic education want their learners to be active in society rather than passive observers. It is possible that numerous teachers fail to solicit student opinions or to look at more than one side –the teacher’s side—of issues. Society has to change if it is ever to witness minority students taking their rightful places in academic achievement. Students need to desire activism. Minority students should be able to identify with that. Schools need to think about integrating subjects rather than to think of them as distinctly unique units of the overall educational equation. This kind of activism begins at home. Local actions begin to have national and global impact as they are replicated.

Students need to practice advocating for change. This takes work. When minority students see and feel injustice, they need to contribute their gifts with those of others in order to create the change they wish to see.

Let us examine the parents of minority students. In many instances, minority parents do not have reading or writing skills. These parents feel disenfranchised in society. They feel like outsiders. Many are undocumented. They cannot vote. They want no attention drawn to them. At times, these parents feel that their English speaking ability does not allow them to express their opinions. Students need to learn how people in society gain power, how they keep it, how they lose it, and how they can get in position to gain some for themselves.

Teachers need to but in to the possibilities for social change in order to equip their students to know how to debate wisely and to take careful consideration of different opinions on issues. Students need to practice self-confidence.

Social Change: Theoretical Orientations

Lewin analyzed how systems change. He sees change as a see-saw. Things naturally resist change. They change when an imbalance occurs. Forces favoring change must be greater than those that oppose it in order for it to occur (Neville, 2009). School systems, out of necessity, need to plan their approach toward elevating minority student achievement by understanding the theoretical underpinnings that support their decisions. When this is done, the weight of research becomes an ally in advocating interventions and other measures toward uplifting student work.

Social Change: Empirical Generalizations

Greenfield’s theory of social change goes along with the current national census. We count things so that we can show trends in specific areas. As we migrate from rural environments to cities, we change. As we become more educated, we change. Shifts in cultural values happen when socio-demographic conditions show change (Greenfield, 2009). We know this empirically. Things are constantly in a state of flux, to some degree. We need to respond to change dynamically.

The significant thing about data and fulfilling minority student subgroup academic goals is that empirical evidence provides educators a basis for their experimentation with reform designs. Reforms, enacted through this method, are grounded in science and not on whims. Social change can be informed greatly by the fruits of empirical investigations.

Critical Dialogue

Social struggle and becoming and helps students find individual voice. Lensmire criticizes individual expression and voice of participation when it is apart from critical dialogue and appropriation (Lensmire, 1998), citing that personal, student voice comes from an ideological perspective. Critical pedagogy creates a place where social, personal, and societal issues intersect.

Education and Social Change: Relationship

Education plays a role in social change. Some say it plays a conservative role of preparing citizens to be acquiescent members of society (Burns, 2002). At the very least, or most, depending on how a person looks at it, educations reflects moral standards and norms.

Freire and School Policy

Freire wants students to question the things that are presented to them at school. This questioning sustains a conversation about ideas, beliefs, and facts. His word, “dialogue,” uses topics under investigation to be put into the perspective of the learners. He does not see learners who are empty and in need of filling. (Salazar, 2008).

The role of dialogue is important in affecting social change. Provençal (2002) makes the point that this is the Freire tradition and is utmost importance in affecting such change. Minority students grasp chances to define for themselves their belief systems. Classrooms that become safe for them to express themselves within specified boundaries help them to practice their contributions in a democratic society. Freire’s fears are confirmed in classes where minority students are not encouraged –even condemned –for questioning authority. They are confirmed in places where free, academic inquiry is not only encouraged, but required.

Giroux and School Policy

Giroux’s ideas about critical pedagogy can be applied to most any examination of practitioner inquiry. His thoughts lead to questions about morals, politics, ideologies, and commitments (Orland-Barak, 2009). Teachers should consider unpacking synergies and boundaries and tensions as this is done. A knowledge of place takes into account different approaches (Bowers, 2008). It listens to those who have community memory. Giroux does not assume that only Western thinkers have something to say.

Giroux calls it “border crossings,” meaning voice develops through a physical and intellectual journey beyond boundaries of the classroom, culture, home, and school subject matter as we listen to the hidden voices in the classroom in diverse cultural settings (MacBeath, 2006). Minority learners need to develop an awareness of their inner voices –who they are and what they believe. Resolution of this comes to them from among multiple identities.

Our minority students cross borders daily when they come to school. Schools are construction sites and genuine communities for learning. Neo-liberal corporate culture outs power in the hands of a few. Public pedagogy, in this sense, is a powerful ensemble of forces that produce competitive, self-interested citizens (Giroux, 2004). Culture affirms the social.

Derrida and School Policy

One of Derrida’s ideas resonates with a current educational topic. Public access. Decartes’ decision to write in French (Willinsky, 2009). The use technology to access published, scholarly work via the Internet.

Derrida “hospitality politics” in policing national, linguistic, and other borders. We treat the “problem” of illegal immigrants in U.S. public schools. Derrida suggests that we weave three discourses to achieve democratic cultural politics: philosophical-religious debate, legalistic-juridical debate; and, practice-grounded in ethos debate (Carlson, 2009).

Democratic citizenship through education. Friendship in democratic communities. Seminal ideas of Derrida- rooted in mutuality and love. Teaching and learning should nurture friendships (Waghid, 2008). Take risks. Enact democratic justice. The work of Derrida is mixed in with the all consuming struggle that first generation Americans and undocumented peoples find in the United States.

Conclusion

Taking Freire’s notion of dialogue, Derrida’s democratic citizenship, and Giroux’s critical pedagogy, education can lead minority students in the direction of their dreams. Using these tools, schools take a larger role in educating a population that is ready, willing, and able to participate in society and to help make the changes that society needs.

A growing number of parents who like the idea of choice in schooling, take extraordinary measures in order to place their children in schools of the own choosing. There are several reasons for their feelings. Some are bound by traditions that exist within their families. Others are moved to follow religious inclinations. Still more are motivated by safety concerns. All want the best for their children; however, “best,” we find, is a relative term.

Minority parents, may of whom are recent immigrants, are loathe to get involved in the internal politics of schooling and usually opt out of any decisions that affect their children’s learning. Consequently, many educational practices, formed and led by the majority race, wielding great power, march on, leaving many minority children on the sideline. When this happens, their chances of taking eventual places of leadership in society and experiencing par in academic achievement are minimized.

Freire (1921-1997), Derrida (1930-2004), and Giroux (1943-    ) combine to promote solid, new millennium views on society and our role in reforming society to the needs of a changing planet. While most educational reforms target scholarly achievement, some do not explicitly enumerate or name societal objectives within their aspirations. Some school policies of today are the antithesis of what these three men have believed. For example, a cursory reading of most any school system policy (available in most cases online) will reveal rules and regulations of conformity rather than individuality, quiescence as opposed to disorder, and “have to’s” instead of “want to’s.”

Post Script

This was an eye-opening exercise for me. Being a part of the majority, White race, I have not spent much of my life thinking about how it might feel to move through school as a minority –and not just at school. I can think of only a few times in my life when I have been a minority. School plays a much larger role in the development of culture than I had previously imagined.

References

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