Baltimore School Test Scores and Baltimore School Spending
I’ve noted before I have a bit of an interest in Baltimore because my wife originates from there (despite having convinced herself that she’s from the Los Angeles area). So I noticed this story:
An alarming discovery coming out of City Schools. Project Baltimore analyzed 2017 state testing data and found one-third of High Schools in Baltimore, last year, had zero students proficient in math.
Contrast that with this:
The Baltimore City Public School System spent the fourth most per student during the 2014 fiscal year out of the 100 largest public school districts in the country, according to a new report by the U.S. Census Bureau.
The city’s school district, which is the 38th largest elementary and secondary public school district in the country, spent $15,564 per pupil during the time frame. Maryland has four of the 10 highest per pupil spending public school districts, with Howard County Schools rounding out the top five with a per pupil spending of $15,358.
Montgomery County schools was sixth with $15,181, Prince George’s County was eighth with $13,994 and Baltimore County came in 12th with $13,338.
According to the Census Bureau, this is the seventh consecutive year Maryland has had four public school districts rank in the top 10 of per pupil spending. Baltimore City was beat out by Boston public schools ($21,567), New York City ($21,154) and the Anchorage School District in Alaska ($15,596).
The country as a whole saw a 2.7 percent increase to $11,009 in per pupil spending from 2013 to 2014. This was the largest increase in per pupil spending since 2008.
Maryland came in at 11th out of the 50 states plus Washington, D.C., in average per pupil spending across the state at $14,003. New York spend the highest per pupil at $20,610 and Washington, D.C., was second at $18,485.
Utah had the lowest per pupil spending at $6,500.
Why are test results in Baltimore so bad? It obviously isn’t for lack of spending.
Sinclair fen broadcasting..
merde
Kimel,
I saw those numbers and was stunned with the outcomes in math. Those make you wonder how that is even possible?
Teachers and superintendents have been demanding more and more money and refusing to accept oversight from the public. The states have been complying and the results have been poor. (Especially in the larger cities.)
“A state-by-state breakdown of the 2017 Best High Schools rankings shows that Maryland is the leading performer for the third year in a row. This state-by-state performance rating is solely based on which states have the largest proportion of their high schools earning gold and silver medals.”
https://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/articles/how-states-compare
Maryland is a leading performer for the third year in a row! Look at the table. Maryland has 12 Gold medal schools and 44 Silver medal schools. There should not be applause, there should be lawsuits. Where are the rankings by statewide testing?
In about 1990, after a court case, Kentucky reformed its formula used to supplement the county property tax contributions to school districts. The old system was flawed because the property tax was higher or lower depending on property values in the school district. Property valuation systems were not uniform across the state and neither were the rates of taxation. The new system attempts to equalize the funding for all school districts.
And the law established a site based management board in every public school. It was mandated that 2 or 3 parents be seated on every board. Those boards make decisions about how that school is run, and to some extent where money is spent.
And Kentucky legislators extracted a price for those funding changes. Statewide testing was imposed and failure to meet the standards or at least show some adequate improving trend would allow the state Department of Education to seize control from the local school board. And at least one takeover actually happened.
A side effect of those tests is that parents can get on the state’s Department of Education’s website and get a 1 to 10 score for any school in Kentucky.
Those changes have made a difference, but it is a work in progress.
Also as I have pointed out in the past, our children’s education is done on the shoulders of their parents. As each generation’s parents are better educated, their children will be even better educated. Having a parent help with homework should not be underestimated, especially in high school. This suggests that the worst performing schools should all have mandatory onsite tutoring for the worst performing students. (After the regular school day ends.)
Students who get too far behind will become high school dropouts. But if you don’t test them then some students can sit quietly, learn too little, and become poorly educated high school graduates.
geez
“About half of Maryland 10th-graders passed the PARCC English test and 36.5 percent of those students who took Algebra I passed. State officials plan to require successful completion of those tests as a condition for graduation, but haven’t yet decided what the score should be.
“The continuing story is that only about 40 percent of our students are on track and there still remain huge achievement gaps,” state school board president Andrew Smarick said. White and Asian students are making faster gains on the tests than African-American students, creating a growing gap in achievement.
“More privileged students tend to do better at a more accelerated rate,” said school board member David Steiner. “That is a problem of school systems across the nation.”
Baltimore City and Baltimore County students scored below the state average. In the city, only 15 percent of students passed the English test and 11.9 percent passed the math. The pass rate in Baltimore County went down in elementary and middle school math by 1.6 percentage points, with 30.3 percent of students passing. In English, passing rates improved by 1.4 percentage points to 36.5 percent.
Even in the highest-performing school systems, less than 60 percent of students passed the tests. In Howard County, 56 percent of students passed the English exam, an increase of 2 percentage points from last year. Passing scores in math remained essentially flat at 48.1 percent….
The results show just how difficult the PARCC test is, Smarick said, adding that the standard is designed to make sure students are on track to go to college when they graduate from high school.”
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/education/bs-md-parcc-scores-20170821-story.html
“There’s been more than a little opportunistic, misguided bloviating about Baltimore in recent weeks, including misguided discussions of and references to per pupil spending in Baltimore City Public Schools. The gist of most claims has been that Baltimore City Schools spend more than most other large (or large urban) districts in the country, but their outcome still stink. Thus, for example, more money isn’t the issue. We just need stuff like, more charter schools, which don’t need more money to be awesome (except that, well, the most awesome among them elsewhere tend to spend a lot more money!)
My point here is to simply lay out the data, the issues and some context for better understanding school finance issues facing Baltimore Public Schools.
Baltimore is Carved out as a Segregated, High Poverty City District
Maryland, like other “southern” state school systems is generally organized into county school districts, some of which are increasingly racially and economically diverse. But, Maryland like other southern states saw fit in their historical development of public school governance to isolate/separate certain “city” school districts and make them their own. Invariably, these city/county separations fall sharply (or did at their origin) along racial lines. That’s certainly true in Baltimore as the map below indicates.
Empirical analyses repeatedly show that racial and socio-economic isolation can dramatically affect the costs of improving educational outcomes….
Finally, what about those student outcomes in Baltimore? Is Baltimore really an example of throwing money down the rat hole? Is it really the case that Baltimore spends so much more than other cities, but simply fails so much worse? Here are some graphs from a post I did a while back on the NAEP Urban District Results.”
https://schoolfinance101.wordpress.com/2015/05/15/thoughts-on-school-funding-baltimore/
Sinclair fen broadcasting Miami Vice Angry Bear
merde
Proficient and “at grade level” are not the same. If a proficiency test is normally given to seniors, then 75 percent of the school will be not proficient simply because they have not been given the test yet.
They have changed a lot of things since I was in high school.
Arne,
In Kentucky we use 3 categories. Needs Improvement, Proficient, or Distinguished. And these may have a Progressing modifier.
I’ll simply point out that Mr. Kimel likes to drag out and post his selective information and then doesn’t make his own point or conclusions based on the information he posts.
On occasion when he does make a point and draw conclusions on what he posts however, he does it by selectively picking only the information supporting his conclusions reminiscent of a used car salesman’s techniques to sell lemon’s to unsuspecting naïve customers.
His target audiences are unsuspecting rubes or those who read AB with the same or similar subjective emotionally based belief systems.
Interestingly the subject matter he picks seems very often (most often? I haven’t done a count) to be based on race and/or cultures of those who aren’t of the Northern European white culture.
His methods and thinking are common of non-thinking people the world over.. reminds me a lot of Trump.
And Trump loves Sinclair Broadcasting.
And vice versa.
BTW,
I think I understand why AB lets Mr. Kimel post his junk … it always draws a lot of comments and that means more eyes and traffic on AB which means AB’s advertising rates are improved, which cuts costs and/or even makes a profit. And that is afterall the point of most website blogs.
In my own opinion Mr. Kimel’s posts seriously demean AB’s otherwise good content and authors, dragging AB down with it. But that’s just me.. others may differ.
Longtooth,
I suppose this is directed at me.
AB makes no profit, as many sites in our niche are not intended to make a profit. While a website has relatively small costs, it still amounts to hundreds each year in the last few years, with much larger costs incurred in the migration. Break even is the distant goal. To accuse me of profit seeking is just silly…
After some thought on the matter, I figured a site does not have to publish only things pre-approved…we do tend to want conclusions from the reading as fait accompli rather than exploring the limitations of the post in a cohesive response. I cringe sometimes at Mike’s posts, but posting is not advertising for a tribe and need sharp reasoned responses. I am also sure we have lost readers in this political and cultural climate…and red state readers tend not to come here at a guess…way too wonky.
While I often disagree with Mike’s conclusions and logic, I felt there was a place for the posts. Mike’s style worked on the info for taxes and party…why would you assume it would change for another topic? I would recommend Diane Ravitch when it comes to education.
I am sorry that ‘demean’ is a verb you feel applies.
LT:
Been traveling.
There is no money to be had here and AB is a small blog and rated rather well. Dan’s and my time are voluntary.
You still can learn from someone else’s words whether they are wrong. I do not agree with much of what Mike says either as they appear to me to be borderline from my viewpoint in content which many people here have argued.
Please read Dan’s comments above too.
Or not.
E,
The site to which you link states that in 2015, Baltimore City schools were spending 13% more per student than other schools in the “Baltimore Core Based Statistical Area.” So it’s not just the fourth biggest spender per student among big cities as per what I cited, but it also spends 13% more per students than the immediately surrounding areas as per what you cited. The article you cite also show graphs indicating that Baltimore students are underperforming on outcomes relative to other big cities.
So why isn’t the money producing results? And if more money isn’t the solution, what is? Or does that not matter to you?
Arne,
My wife just met with our seven year old’s teacher. Both “proficient” nor “at grade level” have been really watered down was one of the conclusions my wife reached. Both my wife’s mother, and mine, were grade school teachers.
JimH,
At risk of being even more politically correct, I would not be surprised if in many cases the parents with the most time on their hands are those who a) do not earn an income and simultaneously b) are the least likely to help their kids with homework.
Cracks in the Pavement: Social Change and Resilience in Poor Neighborhoods by Martin Sanchez-Jankowski
According to Berkeley professor Sanchez-Jankowski — who spent nine years on the streets of impoverished neighborhoods in New York City and Los Angeles — students (and sometimes teachers!) in such neighborhoods don’t see any point in making the necessary effort because they don’t see anything remunerative enough waiting for them in the (union free American) labor market to make it worth it.
He had spent ten years previously studying street gangs. Half of Chicago minority, gang-age males are in street gangs Fifty percent are not one-percenters.
Simplest level answer: if fast food can pay $15/hr with 33% labor costs, retail clerk can pay $20/hr with 10-15% labor costs and Walmart can pay $25/hr with 7%.
By definition the upper middle will be willing to pay more to the lower and lower middle than they have been paying (through consumer prices) — simply because by definition our (union free) labor market has never tested their willingness to pay: therefore (very?) much head room there.
And our friend Kaepernick and rich fellows will be willing I’m sure to accept confiscatory taxation of their exploding millions to replenish upper mid incomes squeezed by newly re-unionized American labor — win, win, win for the just. In mid-sixties, highest paid quarterback Joe Namath — highest paid player in football — earned $600,000 a year in today’s money. Double that for productivity growth and you still only get 10% of what today’s star quarterbacks get.
Ditto for the overpaid across the board. National income about $13 billion out of $20 billion GDP (roughly). Top 1% take 22.5% last I looked: nearly $3 trillion.
What would Jimmy Hoffa say? Rebuild union density if you ever want poor neighborhoods to function again.
Having went to California public schools in the 60s and early 70s, it is hard to grasp why kids are not doing well today across the board. I know what worked with us though. Grammar school was about rote learning, it was drummed into us over and over again until every kid mastered it. Bored me to death but at least we all were at the same level when we got to 7th grade. In 7th grade, the district wide tests we all took in 6th grade were used to separate us by scores. We got tracked into classes with kids in the same brackets. This made me work a lot harder to get those grades then I had to in grammar school. By the time we got to high school, we all separated into college bound, union bound or just unbound. I think one of the biggest differences was that our parents supported the teachers over the kids. The kids had virtually nothing to distract them at home besides playing or doing chores and our parents made us do homework and show it to them. Our classes had smart kids, dumb kids and everything in between yet my generation is regularly thought of as fairly well educated at least in California. I feel for the teachers nowadays, it is very hard to be the only one responsible for the kids. Parents need to put effort into raising kids too. But one more thing, my mom was at home, we were a single paycheck family just like almost everyone else in the middle class. That is no longer the case.
“Why are test results in Baltimore so bad? It obviously isn’t for lack of spending.”
You usually look at various factors before making pronouncements.
What is the composition of the student population in Baltimore compared to other school districts in Maryland? What are the results in other school districts in Maryland?
Do you expect that every teacher can get the same results with every student with the same funding?
Kimel,
Read the entire link, not just the parts you and Sinclair fen broadcasting like.
Answers all your questions, but that is only if you are interested in them. We know sinclair fen broadcasting is not interested in them
E,
I read the entire thing. I figured his explanation, which amounts to poor people cannot study because they’re poor, would be self-evidently wrong.
Since you don’t see the problem with it, OK, here goes. Pick just about any field of mental endeavor and you will find great contributors who grew up poor and with fewer options and support from the government than people in Baltimore today. In many fields of intellectual endeavor, one can name great contributors who survived real extermination camps, whether in Poland or Cambodia, in their youth.
bs
Yeah, I get there are outliers. But your comments are about the whole, not outliers.
The guy has written many peer reviewed papers on this subject. You and sinclair have cherry picked apart stats to come to a conclusion.
It starts right from the beginning:
“The Baltimore City Public School System spent the fourth most per student during the 2014 fiscal year out of the 100 largest public school districts in the country”
Why only take into account the largest districts in the country?
Cause it fits their program.
E,
Once you accept that there are outliers in any statistical sample, the relevant question is what is the distribution of the population. The author you cite has, from what I can tell, assumed causality runs opposite the way that data suggests. It’s a popular assumption but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t lead to erroneous conclusions.
Remember, a good model should fit the data and lead to testsble hypotheses.
Mike:
Is this a normal distribution or otherwise? Results of a distribution typically do not lead to a conclusion. They point in a direction for further analysis. Outliers may require a test of medians.
Fourth most in the country sounds so much “better” and allows(if you already know your conclusion) to state it is not a lack of money.
Meanwhile, I cannot even guess where this actually ranks in the country, but I can tell you that in PA, it would rank in the bottom third or so.
http://www.openpagov.org/education_revenue_and_expenses.asp
kimel, bs.
Your thoughts are as valid as your link.
Apples to oranges.
“Students from low-income households are more likely to struggle with engagement—for seven reasons.
Poverty is an uncomfortable word. I’m often asked, “What should I expect from kids from low-income households?” Typically, teachers are unsure what to do differently.
Just as the phrase middle class tells us little about a person, the word poverty typically tells us little about the students we serve. We know, for example, that the poor and middle classes have many overlapping values, including valuing education and the importance of hard work (Gorski, 2008). But if poor people were exactly the same cognitively, socially, emotionally, and behaviorally as those from the middle class, then the exact same teaching provided to both middle-class students and students from poverty would bring the exact same results.
But it doesn’t work that way. In one study of 81,000 students across the United States, the students not in Title I programs consistently reported higher levels of engagement than students who were eligible for free or reduced-price lunch (Yazzie-Mintz, 2007). Are children from poverty more likely to struggle with engagement in school?
The answer is yes. Seven differences between middle-class and low-income students show up at school. By understanding those differences and how to address them, teachers can help mitigate some of the negative effects of poverty….
Difference 1: Health and Nutrition
Difference 2: Vocabulary
Children who grow up in low socioeconomic conditions typically have a smaller vocabulary than middle-class children do, which raises the risk for academic failure (Walker, Greenwood, Hart, & Carta, 1994). Children from low-income families hear, on average, 13 million words by age 4. In middle-class families, children hear about 26 million words during that same time period. In upper-income families, they hear a staggering 46 million words by age 4—three times as many as their lower-income counterparts (Hart & Risley, 1995). In fact, toddlers from middle- and upper-income families actually used more words in talking to their parents than low-SES mothers used in talking to their own children (Bracey, 2006). This language difference is not subtle; it’s a mind-boggling, jaw-dropping cognitive chasm.
A child’s vocabulary is part of the brain’s tool kit for learning, memory, and cognition. Words help children represent, manipulate, and reframe information. Kids from low-income families are less likely to know the words a teacher uses in class or the words that appear in reading material. When children aren’t familiar with words, they don’t want to read, often tune out, or feel like school is not for them. Also, many students don’t want to risk looking stupid (especially to their peers), so they won’t participate in class.
What You Can Do
Vocabulary building must form a key part of enrichment experiences for students, and teachers must be relentless about introducing and using new words. Include vocabulary building in engagement activities, such as by creating “trading card” activities, in which students write a vocabulary word on one side of a 3 × 5 card and a sentence using the word correctly on the other. Students can do a “class mixer” and test other students; they give the new word to their partner, and their partner has to use it in a sentence. Teachers can also draw cards from a bowl and ask the class to use the new word in a sentence.
Teachers can incorporate vocabulary practice into daily rituals. For example, the teacher posts a word for the day and when either the teacher or a student uses it—and another student is first to point it out—that student gets a simple privilege. Classroom teams or cooperative groups should present a word for the day to the whole class every day, with teachers reinforcing those words for days and weeks afterward.
Difference 3: Effort
Uninformed teachers may think that poor children slouch, slump, and show little effort because they are—or their parents are—lazy. Yet research suggests that parents from poor families work as much as parents of middle- or upper-class families do (Economic Policy Institute, 2002). There’s no “inherited laziness” passed down from parents.
One reason many students seem unmotivated is because of lack of hope and optimism. Low socioeconomic status and the accompanying financial hardships are correlated with depressive symptoms (Butterworth, Olesen, & Leach, 2012). Moreover, the passive “I give up” posture may actually be learned helplessness, shown for decades in the research as a symptom of a stress disorder and depression. Research from 60 high-poverty schools tells us that the primary factor in student motivation and achievement isn’t the student’s home environment; it’s the school and the teacher (Irvin, Meece, Byun, Farmer, & Hutchins, 2011). Effort can be taught, and strong teachers do this every day.
Students who show little or no effort are simply giving you feedback. When you liked your teacher, you worked harder. When the learning got you excited, curious, and intrigued, you put out more effort. We’ve all seen how students will often work much harder in one class than in another. The feedback is about themselves—and about your class.
Take on the challenge. Invest in students who are not putting out effort. In a study of more than 1,800 children from poverty, school engagement was a key factor in whether the student stayed in school (Finn & Rock, 1997).
What You Can Do
First, strengthen your relationships with students by revealing more of yourself and learning more about your students. Ask yourself, “What have I done to build relationships and respect? Do my students like me?”
Use more buy-in strategies, such as curiosity builders (a mystery box or bag); excitement and risk (“This idea’s a bit crazy; let’s make sure we have the number for the fire department, just in case”); and competition (“My last class accomplished _____; let’s see what you can do!”). Make the learning more of the students’ idea by offering a choice, and involve them more in decision making.
Second, teachers must make connections to students’ worlds in ways that help them see a viable reason to play the academic game. Can you tie classroom learning to the real world? Use money, shopping, technology, and their family members to make the learning more relevant. Without clear links between the two, students often experience a demotivating disconnect between the school world and their home life. As a result, they give up.
Third, affirm effort every day in class. Most teachers don’t keep track of their comments to students; maybe they should. When teachers give more positives than negatives (a 3:1 ratio is best), they optimize both learning and growth (Fredrickson & Losada, 2005). When affirmed, challenged, and encouraged, students work harder.
Fourth, set high goals and sell students on their chances to reach them. Get them to believe in the goals by showing them real-world success stories of adults who came from the same circumstances the students did and who achieved their goals.
Finally, provide daily feedback so students see that effort matters and that they can adjust it for even greater success. Affirm your students, and let them know how much good you see in them.
Difference 4: Hope and the Growth Mind-Set
Hope is a powerful thing. Research suggests that lower socioeconomic status is often associated with viewing the future as containing more negative events than positive ones (Robb, Simon, & Wardle, 2009). Low or no expectancy (“helplessness”) is also related to low socioeconomic status (Odéen et al., 2012). In short, being poor is associated with lowered expectations about future outcomes.
The student’s attitude about learning (his or her mind-set) is also a moderately robust predictive factor (Blackwell, Trzesniewski, & Dweck, 2007). Taken together, hope—or the lack of hope—and mind-set—whether you believe that you’re simply born smart or that you can grow in intelligence along the way—can be either significant assets or serious liabilities. If students think failure or low performance is likely, they’ll probably not bother to try. Similarly, if they think they aren’t smart enough and can’t succeed, they’ll probably not put out any effort.
What You Can Do
Teacher and student beliefs about having a fixed amount of “smarts” that the student can’t increase will influence engagement and learning. Teach students that their brains can change and grow, that they can even raise their IQs. Provide better-quality feedback (prompt, actionable, and task-specific).
Also, telling students that they have a limited amount of focusing power is likely to disengage many of them (Miller et al., 2012). There’s an alternative to saying, “Don’t feel bad that you didn’t finish. It’s late in the day, and we’ve all got brain drain.” Instead, say, “Stick with this just a bit longer. You can do this! Your mind is a powerful force to help you reach your goals.”
Don’t use comforting phrases that imply that even though a student isn’t good at something, he or she has “other” strengths (Cooper, 2012). Instead, focus on affirming and reinforcing effort. Guide students in making smarter strategy choices and cultivating a positive attitude.
Difference 5: Cognition
Children from lower socioeconomic backgrounds often perform below those from higher socioeconomic backgrounds on tests of intelligence and academic achievement (Bradley & Corwyn, 2002). Commonly, low-SES children show cognitive problems, including short attention spans, high levels of distractibility, difficulty monitoring the quality of their work, and difficulty generating new solutions to problems (Alloway, Gathercole, Kirkwood, & Elliott, 2009). These issues can make school harder for children from impoverished backgrounds.
Many children who struggle cognitively either act out (exhibit problem behavior) or shut down (show learned helplessness). But cognitive capacity, as well as intelligence, is a teachable skill (Buschkuehl & Jaeggi, 2010).
If you’re not teaching core cognitive skills, rethink your teaching methods. Students who struggle with reading, math, and following directions may have weak vocabulary, poor working memory, or poor processing skills. Studies show that high-performing teachers can overcome the problems of underperforming kids (Ferguson, 1998). Like effort, cognitive capacity is teachable.
What You Can Do
Focus on the core academic skills that students need the most. Begin with the basics, such as how to organize, study, take notes, prioritize, and remember key ideas. Then teach problem-solving, processing, and working-memory skills.
Start small. Teach students immediate recall of words, then phrases, then whole sentences. This will help them remember the directions you give in class and will support them as they learn how to do mental computations. This will take tons of encouragement, positive feedback, and persistence. Later, you can use this foundation to build higher-level skills.
Difference 6: Relationships
When children’s early experiences are chaotic and one or both of the parents are absent, the developing brain often becomes insecure and stressed. Three-quarters of all children from poverty have a single-parent caregiver.
In homes of those from poverty, children commonly get twice as many reprimands as positive comments, compared with a 3:1 ratio of positives to negatives in middle-class homes (Risley & Hart, 2006). If caregivers are stressed about health care, housing, and food, they’re more likely to be grumpy and less likely to offer positive comments to their kids.
The probability of dropping out and school failure increases as a function of the timing and length of time that children are exposed to relational adversity (Spilt, Hughes, Wu, & Kwok, 2012). Having only a single caregiver in the home—if the father is absent, for example—can create both instability and uncertainty because the children are missing a role model. Two caregivers offer the luxury of a backup—when one parent is at work, busy, or overly stressed, the other can provide for the children so there’s always a stabilizing force present. Relationships can be challenging for children who lack role models and sufficient supports.
Low-income parents are often less able than middle-class parents to adjust their parenting to the demands of their higher-needs children (Paulussen-Hoogeboom, Stams, Hermanns, & Peetsma, 2007). For example, many parents don’t know what to do with children who have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), who are oppositional, or who are dyslexic.
Disruptive home relationships often create mistrust in students. Adults have often failed them at home, and children may assume that the adults in school will fail them, too. Classroom misbehaviors are likely because many children simply do not have the at-home stability or repertoire of necessary social-emotional responses for school. Students are more likely to be impulsive, use inappropriate language, and act disrespectful—until you teach them more appropriate social and emotional responses.
What You Can Do
Children with unstable home lives are particularly in need of strong, positive, caring adults. The more you care, the better the foundation for interventions. Learn every student’s name. Ask about their family, their hobbies, and what’s important to them. Stop telling students what to do and start teaching them how to do it.
For example, if you ask a high school student to dial down his or her energy for the next few minutes and the student responds with a smirk or wisecrack, simply ask him or her to stay a moment after class. Never embarrass the student in front of his or her peers. After class, first reaffirm your relationship with the student. Then demonstrate the behavior you wanted (show the student the appropriate facial expression and posture); say why it will be important as the student moves through school (“This will keep you out of trouble with other adults”); and indicate when a given response is appropriate and what it should look like (“When you think your teacher has overstepped his or her bounds, this is what you should say”). End by affirming common goals and interests (“We’re both in this together. We can make this work—if we each do our part”).
Difference 7: Distress
Although small amounts of stress are healthy, acute and chronic stress—known as distress—is toxic. Children living in poverty experience greater chronic stress than do their more affluent counterparts. Low-income parents’ chronic stress affects their kids through chronic activation of their children’s immune systems, which taxes available resources and has long-reaching effects (Blair & Raver, 2012). Distress affects brain development, academic success, and social competence (Evans, Kim, Ting, Tesher, & Shannis, 2007). It also impairs behaviors; reduces attentional control (Liston, McEwen, & Casey, 2009); boosts impulsivity (Evans, 2003); and impairs working memory (Evans & Schamberg, 2009).
Distressed children typically exhibit one of two behaviors: angry “in your face” assertiveness or disconnected “leave me alone” passivity. To the uninformed, the student may appear to be either out of control, showing an attitude, or lazy. But those behaviors are actually symptoms of stress disorders—and distress influences many behaviors that influence engagement.
The more aggressive behaviors include talking back to the teacher, getting in the teacher’s face, using inappropriate body language, and making inappropriate facial expressions. The more passive behaviors include failing to respond to questions or requests, exhibiting passivity, slumping or slouching, and disconnecting from peers or academic work.
What You Can Do
Address the real issue—distress—and the symptoms will diminish over time. Begin by building stronger relationships with students; this helps alleviate student stress.
Reduce stress by embedding more classroom fun in academics. Provide temporary cognitive support—that is, help students get the extra glucose and oxygen they need—by having them engage in such sensory motor activities as the childhood game “head-toes-knees-shoulders,” in which children touch different parts of their bodies in quick succession. Such actions can support behavioral regulation, which is so important for early academic success.
Next, don’t try to exert more control over the student’s life. This will only create continued issues with engagement. Instead, give students more control over their own daily lives at school. Encourage responsibility and leadership by offering choices, having students engage in projects, and supporting teamwork and classroom decision making. Having a sense of control is the fundamental element that helps diminish the effects of chronic and acute stress.
Finally, teach students ongoing coping skills so they can better deal with their stressors. For example, give them a simple, “If this, then that” strategy for solving problems using new skills. You can do this through telling stories about your own daily stressors, allowing students to brainstorm solutions, and then sharing the coping tools that worked for you and modeling how you addressed various challenges.
Seeing Clearly
Remember, students in poverty are not broken or damaged. In fact, human brains adapt to experiences by making changes—and your students can change.
You can help them do so by understanding these seven differences and addressing these differences with purposeful teaching. Your school can join the ranks of the many high-performing Title I schools where students succeed every day.”
http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/may13/vol70/num08/How-Poverty-Affects-Classroom-Engagement.aspx
Can’t wait for the next episode of “Blame The Victims”.
Dan and Run,
Thank you for informing me of your information related to AB’s costs and advertising. I’m sure advertising helps defer costs, but profit would be meager in any event. I’m sorry I conjectured that profit might be a motive. My bad.
But then there’s no reason I can fathom to keep posting Mr. Kimel’s junk since he uses highly selective, heavily biased sources and defends them with illogical argument, rarely if ever making any attempt to use rational debate, and more often than not uses straw dogs and mis-direction in his commentary in the comments section.
While I accept that Mr. Kimel’s belief system and forms of argument, & selective information presentation are commonly used by the illogical belief based biases, and the half illiterate crowd, and therefore represent that section of our nation’s electorate and “adults”,
I know many people just like Mr. Kimel who use the same warmed over persistent belief systems and bs argument and misdirection to support them. They are bores and “little people” imo. They do not add to the public discussions in rational forms or even offer realistic solutions. But they are all great bullshit throwers and would do well in the used car salesmen market..
I differ with you both on your reasons for continuing to sponsor Mr. Kimel’s posts on AB It’s your venue and your blog so while I lament your choice in this regard, they are fully yours to use as you see fit.
I will continue from time to time to request you cease posting Mr. Kimel’s junk… my option in that matter is unlikely to change .
Thank-you again for your considered responses to my comment..
Misdirection again, Mr. Kimel. The subject you posted isn’t about intellectual outliers in any community or group. It has nothing to do with the content you posted what-so-ever. .
“Since you don’t see the problem with it, OK, here goes. Pick just about any field of mental endeavor and you will find great contributors who grew up poor and with fewer options and support from the government than people in Baltimore today. In many fields of intellectual endeavor, one can name great contributors who survived real extermination camps, whether in Poland or Cambodia, in their youth.”
To which the obvious response is” “So?”
Mr. Kimel, there are always “outliers” all statistical samples from non-natural and human inspired / created endeavors. In fact distinguishing outliers from a sample of a population is a terribly difficult statistical problem, for which their are a myriad number of options in how to define and distinguish outliers from the underlying population from which the sample was drawn… none of which do so absolutely.. .you pick a criteria and then define outliers with respect to that signpost.
More misdirection that you used in your previous comment now being extended further.