Re: [Phys-l] How Much Value is Added at Elite Institutions -Response to Haim #2

[Marty Weiss <martweiss@comcast.net>]

On Jan 27, 2011, at 12:21 PM, Dr. Richard Tarara wrote:

> Then bonus part may well be an insult, but your example shows that the tests 
> do tell us something--just not what people want to hear.  It is the 
> CULTURE/SUBCULTURE in which the kids reside (or are trapped) which seems to 
> be the primary factor here.  Engaged, motivated students (with engaged 
> parents) will succeed.  When the prevalent sub-culture lacks these things 
> (and fill in your own excuses for why not) the students have to be 
> extrordinary to succeed.  Throwing money at education won't be enough to 
> change those sub-cultures.  Not sure what would be!  ;-(

I agree... and have always agreed with this observation.  Most inner city teachers work daily to overcome this, with some success.  Many of us drove kids home after club meetings or, in my case, academic challenge matches, which ended after dark sometimes.  That is, until it got too scary to do so in some of the neighborhoods and people started jumping out of the shadows up to my car to sell drugs whenever I stopped at a stop sign. It was really scary, and I (and more than a few of us) had to stop taking our good kids home.    It's a sub-culture of "poverty-of-mind-and-spirit" that is so hard to overcome, not the financial poverty we usually associate with the inner city, although the two are related.   Until schools are open 24/7 and the good kids feel safe walking to and from their schools there will always be that fear and lack of achievement.  All the university sociologists need to do is to interview the teachers and good kids who work in such conditions to see what goes on on a daily basis.  But, in my thirty-one years there, not one academic ever came to our school to observe and learn!   

Marty  
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