Talks about the experiment/ observations that they made to test and see the level of diversity and culture that future teachers

The following quote provides some evidence that supports the idea that varied life experiences contribute to greater appreciation of diversity.

service-learning reflections give even greater insight to their attitudes about people who do not share their background and experiences. Students referred to some of the people that they worked with based on stereotypes that they may have learned in their various communities.

This paper examines the preconceived attitudes toward cultural and racial diversity that preservice teacher education students at a primarily white southern research institution bring with them to class and how those preconceptions may impact their teaching and ability to integrate into a school environment that is culturally different from their own.

These are the themes that illustrate hoe white disadvantage emerges in pre-service teachers

students perceive minority teachers more favorably than White teachers. There is mixed evidence that race matching is linked with more favorable student perceptions. These findings underscore the importance of minority teacher recruitment and retention.

MET study administered an extensive survey soliciting students’ perceptions of their teachers’ instructional practices (Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, 2012). An important feature of the study is that students were specifically asked to report on individual classroom teachers rather than the overall workforce of their schools

teachers perception of students academic merit vary by students racial/ ethnic background

One study showed that found that teachers had perceptions of how student would do in there class base on their race

Third:consisted of all sixth- through ninth-grade teachers in the first year of the study who were identified as Latino, Black, or White by their district administrative records (N = 1,680). An additional 71 teachers in Grades 6 through 9 were included in the MET database but were coded as having a race of “other

First: identified adolescence as a period in which young people rely increasingly on adult mentorship, such as relationships formed with teachers, and less on parents

Hypothesis: testing to examine potential differences among teachers of different racial/ethnic backgrounds

Overall that found that students have more favorable perceptions of Latino and black teachers respectively more than white.

minority students have more positive perceptions of their teachers than White students

their performance, teacher characteristics, teaching conditions, and teacher efficacy. Student academic achievement, measured by standardized math test scores, is positively associated with Challenge, Control, and Confer and negatively associated with Clarify

o contemporary thinkers have invoked it to refer to the amplification of any initial advantage (e.g., economic resources, health status, cognitive ability) that leads to cumulative differences that widen preexisting gaps (Walberg & Tsai, 1983). For example, in the domain of early reading, Shaywitz et al. (1995) succinctly summarized it as “the notion of cumulative advantages leading to still further advantage or, conversely, initial disadvantage being accentuated over time” (p. 894). This effect has been observed in numerous areas affecting children (e.g., in the use of cognitive strategies [Gaultney, 1998] and comprehension [Nicholson, 1999; Stanovich, 1986]), as well as in areas affecting adults (e.g., pay differentials [Tang, 1996] and accumulation of scientific prestige [Merton, 1968]) (Ceci, 2005, p.149).

• The basic idea of a cumulative, or “multiplier,” effect is not new; Stanovich (1986) discussed the concept in terms of the principle of “organism– environment correlation” to show that disparity increases when children with different genotypes or from different backgrounds are selectively exposed to different types of environments: (Ceci, 2005, p.149).

o The very children who are reading well and who have good vocabularies will read more, learn more word meanings, and hence read even better. Children with inadequate vocabularies— who read slowly and without enjoyment—read less, and as a result have slower development of vocabulary knowledge, which inhibits further growth in reading ability.

segregation and desegregation

• It turns out, however, that when these gap-narrowing interventions are universalized— given not only to the group of children who most need assistance but also to the more advantaged group (regardless of whether the latter is identified as White, rich, high ability, etc.), a surprising and unanticipated consequence sometimes occurs: The preintervention gap between the disadvantaged group and the advantaged group is actually widened as a consequence of making the intervention universally available. This is because, as we will show, although the disadvantaged children who most need the intervention do usually gain significantly from it, the higher functioning or more advantaged children occasionally benefit even more from the intervention (Ceci, 2005, p.150).

who failed who

As special education theory evolved and resulted in actual educational practice, it became very clear that many students with disabilities were being educated in segregated self-contained settings with little to no exposure or access to their nondisabled peers. More important, these students did not have access to the same curricula content as their nondisabled peers (Blanchett 2002, pg. 375).

Blanchett - Despite the fact that African American and other students of color, students labeled as having disabilities, and poor students in urban schools are indisputably linked in terms of the quality of schooling they have experienced, few attempts have been made to examine the relationship between special education and urban education. Both students placed in special education and those who attend urban schools have a long history of being miseducated, undereducated, and treated inequitably by the American educational system, with the American educational system at times excluding these students altogether from receiving a free and appropriate public education. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to provide (a) a historical analysis of special education and the treatment of students with disabilities prior to the Brown decision; (b) an analysis of the challenges that students with disabilities, African American and students of color, poor students in urban schools, and students affected by all three have historically experienced in their quest to receive a free and appropriate education in the American educational system; (c) a discussion that illustrates that special education is the new tool for the resegregation of African American and other students of color in special education; (d) a discussion of who the real beneficiaries of failed urban schools are and why they resist providing an equitable education to all children; and (e) specific examples of what it means to go for broke in calling out educational inequities and advocating for African American and other students of color, poor students, students with disabilities, students in urban settings, and students affected by all of these factors and issues.

“In addition to prohibiting racial segregation in public education, the Brown decision was especially important in securing appropriate educational services and opportunities for students with disabilities.

“The Brown decision provided advocates and parents of students with disabilities a legal precedent for challenging the educational inequities that children with disabilities experienced.

".. Advocates of special education fought to develop special education programs because general education was often not inclusive of students with disabilities and, as such, was not meeting their educational needs.” (Blanchett, p. 373)

Abstract

“Although the 1980s gave birth to many special education reform ideas, the most radical of the special education reform ideas was the theory of inclusion.

"Advocates of inclusion have been very successful in arguing that incorporating these students is consistent with the concept of normalization, the disability rights movement, the major tenets of the civil rights movement,and the promise of Brown..."

“Many forms of intervention, across different domains, have the surprising effect of widening preexisting gaps between disadvantaged youth and their advantaged counterparts—if such interventions are made available to all students, not just to the disadvantaged. Whether this widening of gaps is incongruent with American interests and values requires an awareness of this gap-widening potential when interventions are universalized and a national policy that addresses the psychological, political, economic, and moral dimensions of elevating the top students—tomorrow’s business and science leaders—and/or elevating the bottom students to redress past inequalities and reduce the future costs associated with them. This article is a first step in bringing this dilemma to the attention of scholars and policymakers and prodding a national discussion (Ceci, 2005, p.149).”

“A performance-based benefit operates when both the advantaged and disadvantaged groups participate in the same intervention but the former group performs disproportionately better on some outcome measure.” (Ceci 153).

o In the economic domain, similar examples of utilization differences exist. Many economic interventions are made available without regard to income or SES, with the result that these interventions end up disproportionately benefiting middle- and upper-income students. For example, Dynarski (2000) showed that President Clinton’s Hope scholarships benefited college-bound students who came from middle- and upper-class homes more than they benefited poor students (i.e., middle- and upper-class students were more likely to use them)

“For some social programs, the advantage of being made universally available is that the people who have the greatest need for the intervention maybe more likely to utilize it than their more advantaged peers if it is not advertised as a program targeted to them.” (Ceci 154).

This favoring of students from advantaged backgrounds was apparent even after controlling for cognitive aptitude (see also Cameron & Heckman, 1999, for similar results). Along the same lines, Stanley (1999) found in a retrospective analysis of Korean War veterans that college subsidies associated with the various provisions of the GI Bills were used disproportionately by returning veterans from advantaged backgrounds. Once again, gaps that may have existed prior to the implementation of these nontargeted interventions were widened as a result of the differential utilization of such programs, regardless of whether the programs were intended to produce this effect

o As far as impediments with sources external to the individual are concerned, it might well be argued that it is reasonable to provide special help or special services for those who would otherwise be handicapped, impaired, or disadvantaged as a result of their group membership (as a result of where they live, their ethnicity, social circumstances, institutional discrimination, etc.). The objective here, however, may not be to reduce inequalities in any general sense but rather to remove impediments that particularly apply to some groups but not to others—impediments to reaching a level of competence that one is capable of attaining.

“The objective here, however, may not be to reduce inequalities in any general sense but rather to remove impediments that particularly apply to some groups but not to others—impediments to reaching a level of competence that one is capable of attaining.” (Ceci 159).

In such an analysis, we agree that clearly identifying the role of institutional discrimination and power differentials in producing differences between haves and have-nots becomes central in order to remedy roadblocks to utilizing interventions described earlier that may be the result of oppressive living conditions (Ceci, 2005, p.158).

They reported that although the intervention improved the vocabulary of all children, analyses of pre- and post test vocabulary measures revealed significant interactions between testing conditions and children’s ability. Of particular relevance to this article is their finding that higher ability children demonstrated significantly greater benefit from both the repeated exposure and the explanation of target vocabulary words (i.e., greater accuracy in the use of target words).” (Ceci 153).

If society deems the improvement of all children as a paramount goal, regardless of preexisting differences, then such demonstrations may not pose a problem because they elevate the advantaged group to levels greater than what could be achieved by them in the absence of the interventions. However, if policymakers intend some cognitive interventions to close preexisting gaps, then such demonstrations underscore the need for more focused, targeted interventions that boost the lower scoring group without adding to the higher scoring group’s preintervention advantage (Ceci, 2005, p.153).

Undoubtedly, there is a mix of interventions, some targeted and some universal, that produces the best overall cost– benefit ratio for a nation on political, economic, and moral grounds. To some extent this is an empirical question, but the point of this article is to foster a national dialogue on the heretofore undiscussed social, political, ethical, and economic aspects of this issue. America has no national policy that (a) explicitly frames intervention programs in terms of consensual political philosophy that is mindful of both the need to elevate the top students and the need to redress past injustice, (b) acknowledges the types of outcomes that we have described here, and (c) considers what mix of interventions will best achieve national interests and values. In closing, we reiterate that we take no position on this debate but hope that our analysis is a first step in promoting a needed discussion of whether national policies should be aimed at raising the top students, bottom students, or both, and the political, moral, and economic ramifications associated with each of these options (Ceci, 2005, p.159).

Likewise, one could imagine that some early childcare programs have more positive effects on the disadvantaged. For example, available evidence appears to support prekindergarten programs only for disadvantaged children; children of college-educated parents who participate in such programs do not appear to benefit more than matched peers who do not participate, probably because collegeeducated parents already provide equivalent resources to their children outside the confines of such programs (Ramey & Ramey, 1998).

“One can imagine from an ethical position a case being made that every student has an intrinsic right to have access to any intervention that is known to improve performance.” (Ceci 157).

Thus, any comprehensive discussion of the pros and cons of universalizing interventions must include a consideration of the type of intervention and its target audience. This leads to the suggestion that interventions will be most effective if they are both targeted and targeted to the right subgroups. So a child-care policy may not be optimal for children who already get enough cognitive stimulation at home, and programs for gifted children may not be optimal if directed toward children who do not have the requisite basic skills to profit (Ceci, 2005, p.154).

No matter how hard an educator tries to remain neutral, teaching will always be political in its nature.

Some teachers think students should hear the real stuff because they are already thinking

How young is too young? Are children ready to talk about those "heavy" conversations and are teachers ready to give them?

Some teachers argue that difficult conversations need to be had because children are at different points in their lives, one person might already be dealing with the difficult stuff that nobody wants to talk about

“Before they ever start school, children begin learning informally and haphazardly—from families, television, and peers—about key social issues like race, poverty, war, gender, and sexuality. Once at school, they continue to learn about social issues, informally at least. We need to prepare and support teachers to enact a curriculum that formally addresses these social issues so that children can learn to think about, analyze, discuss, and debate them in a structured manner and respectful environment.” (Kelly, 2009, p.215)

“The primary strength of the philosophical/conceptual strand of social justice work is that it helps us to get greater clarity about our assumptions, terms and visions. Too often we think because we are using the same term, for example, justice or democracy, we are talking about the same thing.” (Hytten & Bettez, 2011, 12)

• “Westheimer and Kahn’s vision of developing justice oriented citizens parallels that of other writers in this genre of social justice literature. For example, Ayers, Hunt, and Quinn (1998) argue that teaching for social justice is inseparable from teaching that supports the development of a thriving democracy. Maxine Greene makes this connection well in the introduction to their edited collection, Teaching for Social Justice: A Democracy and Education Reader (1998). She claims that in a democratic society, justice is “the primary value of political life,” especially as it “is incarnated in human action in spaces where people live together” (p. xx- viii).” (Hytten, 2011, p. 20)

“Our goal in this article is to sort through the social justice literature in education in order to develop a better understanding of what this work is all about and why it is important. Better understanding the types of work done under the banner of social justice may help us to more productively work together across differences and amid the variety of ways we are committed to social justice.” (Hytten & Bettez, 2011, 9)

“Ultimately, we hope that characterizing diverse strands in the social justice literature can help us to better build bridges across various positions and create openings for more sustained dialogue among educators who share similar, and often overlapping, goals. Better understanding what we mean when we call for social justice in education can hopefully contribute to opening up new angles for seeing and new possibilities for engaging each other across differing passions, commitments and agendas.” (Hytten, 2011, p.21)

• “Writings in the philosophical or conceptual strand of the literature aim to tease out the meaning of justice in abstract, philosophical and/or theoretical terms. One of the most commonly cited pieces in this vein is Iris Marion Young’s (1990) Jus- tice and the Politics of Difference, which comes out of philosophical and political theory.” (Hytten, 2011, p. 10)

Having the ability to teach children to recognize problems and figure out how to fix them.

“To educate for social justice, teachers need mastery of content in their discipline (including knowing factual information, having the ability to historically contextualize that information and being able to consider it in both micro and macro ways), tools for critical thinking and analysis, tools for social change and activism, tools for personal reflection (especially about one’s own power and privilege), and awareness of multicultural group dynamics.” (Hytten & Bettez, 2011, 13)

“In the abstract, it is an idea that it hard to be against. After all, we learn to pledge allegiance to a country that supposedly stands for “liberty and justice for all.” (Hytten & Bettez, 2011, p. 8).”

The families (predominantly white) did not want Ms Baker in the school because she had bad reviews. They did not give her a chance to even teach the students.

“As efforts to address the allegations against her increased, conspicuously absent from the signers of the petition were non-affluent and non-white parents. In my interviews with residents of the Mulberry Houses and other African-American families at Cherry Elementary, none of them revealed any knowledge of the situation with Ms. Baker or the petition. The flow of information between parents of different races and class backgrounds, despite engagement with the school, appeared never to have reached parents outside of the wealthy white Beaver subdivision and select families attached to the geography-based social network” (McCoy, R. 2014, p. 92).

“You wouldn’t believe if I told you. You haven’t seen anything! It was even worse at my old school. The problem is that they [affluent white parents] treat it like their private school.”

-PRINCIPAL BELL, BLACK FEMALE

“Social networks were key for parental engagement and advocacy, but the composition of those networks and the strategies they used had collateral influence on other families” (Lewis-McCoy, 2014, p. 94).

“’A good education’ was the outcome that nearly all families desired for their children, but the cultures of the schools in Rolling Acres made this accessible only to a select segment of the population” (Lewis-McCoy, 2014, p. 94).

I found connections between homes and schools were equally if not more greatly shaped by race.

“The data and analysis presented in this chapter make it clear that parental engagement is not equally accessible to all families” (Lewis-McCoy, 2014, p. 93).

...often regarded as the educational Holy Grail- much desired but seldom acquired pg. ( Lewis-McCoy,2014, 67)

“This desire to increase the chances of their child's success cut across social class and race. However, I found that parents' ability to customize their children's education was influenced by class, but more importantly, circumscribed by race” (McCoy, R. 2014, p. 73).

“It was common for white parents to assume the role of consumer. Con­sumer parents viewed schools as a customizable resource, and they fash­ioned schools to fit their children’s educational and social developmental needs.” (Lewis-McCoy, 2014, p. 74)

“While I did observe notable differences in attendance at school-wide events, I did not find consistent evidence that the school staff were actively pursuing, igniting, or rekindling relationships between poorer communities and he school. Instead, accumulated experiences as well as tale of disconnection discouraged continued pursuit of low-income and racial-minority families by school staff” (Lewis-McCoy, 2014, p. 84).

“For black parents of all social classes in Rolling Acres Public Schools, attempts to influence their children’s educational experience was rife with challenges. Parents often interpreted their struggles as race-related, and being middle class only partially attenuated their experiences.” (Lewis-McCoy, 2014, p. 82)

“Formal networks developed through organizations like the PTA or through ‘room parents.’ Room parents were groups of volunteer parents who coordinated volunteer opportunities, maintained phone trees, and served as brokers for the classroom teacher” (Lewis-McCoy, 2014, p. 70).

“Semi-formal parent networks that began in organizations often extended beyond their original purpose; semi-formal networks made parents aware of extracurricular experiences and bridged geographical divisions through emails to parents about upcoming volunteer opportunities” (Lewis-McCoy, 2014, p. 71).

“Informal social networks tended to be organized around clusters of friends or other affinity groups, such as racially similar parents who discover common cultural interests or political leanings” (Lewis-McCoy, 2014, p. 71).

“Lower-income families had less time to read, process, and respond to materials sent home. This is not to suggest that the occupations of middle- and upper-income families were not time demanding. Quite to the contrary, middle-income and affluent families' lives were very busy and heavily scheduled; however, these families relied on multiple social supports that gave them "more time" to engage their children and their activities” (McCoy, R. 2014, p. 71-72).