Blog #3

What Counts as Education Policy?

By

Jean Anyon

Reflection

After moving to the U.S. and living in Providence, Rhode Island, for almost a year, I always wondered, saying, “Why do people believe that Providence’s schools are bad?”. I said to myself: “It’s the capital, and even many of its schools are located in beautiful areas, so shouldn’t they be the best in the entire state?!”. But after reading this article by Jean Anyon, I think I got more than enough reasons to answer my questioning! It’s now that I know why such urban schools, even though they have beautiful buildings and are equipped with the most up-to-date technology tools for both teachers and students, have inferior expected outcomes in terms of student performance. That also answered my exclamation when I used to see, every day, and while the dismissal time of not only these public schools, but also some private ones located in the same area, that, in the public schools, I could notice that the majority of students are getting into either school buses or public transportations to give them a ride to their homes. On the other side, at the dismissal time of those private ones, I could see that the majority of the students are meeting their parents with luxury cars to pick them up, at the schools that are well known for their students’ competencies. If I want to give a reason to what I’m seeing and what I’m getting informed, I would say: “There should be definitely a financial issue.” Here, I’m trying to connect my observation and my questioning to what the author is saying about these differences between these two types of schools, why this one has successful students and the other does not. He tells us that the generous efforts of both the state and the federal governments towards the public schools and especially the urban ones, like curriculum reforms, funding increases, and much more, only affected the schooling system, ignoring the rooted problem, which is the living situations of the students and their families that, as the author mentions, many studies have shown the strong impact of these conditions like poverty, unemployment and housing segregation on the srtudents’ cognetive development and their academic performance! I find this current situation very hurtful, which always made me ask myself: “Why should a specific group of people be neighborly separated and judged to be poor and having a bad academic experience forever?!”. I really would like to join the author’s hope in the government to look beyond the schooling system to work on improving the economic and social situations of those families who need such financial support, which will lead to healthier and more successful students in every school in the country.

Health and wealth in Rhode Island

Question to share in class

Do you think that the author’s suggestion of expanding the government’s effort to address the poverty issue is something doable? If yes, what do you think the actions could be?