In The Only Valid Passport From Poverty, Dana
Goldstein focuses on several themes as a way to analyze the historical effects
of the Brown v. Board of Education
ruling, which forced seventeen states with legally segregated public schools to
desegregate. Prevalent in the essay are the concepts of conflict and
resistance, expectation, intent, perception, and value. These concepts each
provide a different and valuable lens, which allow us to have a more
comprehensive understanding of the topic.
In the decade following Brown
v. Board, state legislators engaged in what Goldstein calls "massive
resistance," through the passage of highly racialized laws meant to
undercut the intended spirit of Brown v. Board. The ruling also
stimulated a backlash from many black intellectuals concerned about issues of
employment and identity (Goldstein, 2014). President Lyndon Johnson's attempts
to improve the educational outcome of the most vulnerable populations of the
United States were just one area of policy design implemented to support his
vision of a Great Society. Johnson’s personal understanding of how poverty and
education are fundamentally tied recalled the groundbreaking 1944 study of
Swedish economist Gunnar Myrdal, which influenced the Brown v. Board decision. The
American Dilemma delved into the moral contradiction felt by citizens between
allegiance to the country’s founding ideologies of freedom and justice for all,
and the awareness of the reality of racial discrimination. Myrdal believed that
the American educational system was the solution to combat racist beliefs and
increase economic opportunity and economic development.
Segregation was not immediately beneficial, and while there was
notable cross-cultural bonding, Goldstein intimates that was exception rather
than the rule. Institutional racism still meant black teachers were laid off at
higher rates than white teachers and hired at lower rates. White parents
considered black teacher unqualified to teach white students, white teachers
had low expectations from their students, and fears of miscegenation were
rampant. Differing perspectives, expectations, and values added to the
resistance to, and affected the successful outcome programs like Joan Wofford’s
Cardozo Project, which paired college students as interns to veteran teachers
in impoverished schools. Although created with good intent, the program
participants experienced challenges from the start. As discussed in class previously,
the inclusion of community voices is instrumental to the success of any
educational program, and this is where good intent led to conflicts between the numerous actors involved. Interns were better
funded than teachers, had access to better material, newer technology, and
sought to make changes to the curriculum. It is significant that in retrospect,
Wofford is cognizant the mistakes she made by ignoring community voice when
implementing the program, or by not attempting to understand the culture she
sought to save. That’s problematic, and fundamental to the white savior complex
that seems to motivate so many white people who are hoping to make a difference.
The results of the Coleman Report (1966), which revealed that
black children who attended well-funded schools had higher grades and senses of
autonomy, provide a neat tie-in to Jean Anyon’s Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work (1980). Anyon looks
at public education through a Marxist lens, arguing that the American
educational system is class-based; structured to replicate and support the
labor needs of the industrialized, capitalistic society we currently live in.
To support her argument, Anyon details her methodology, provides definitions
for class and labor, and outlines the hierarchical structure for class and
labor. Conflict and resistance prove to be a commonality between the two
essays, and Anyon provides the example of working-class student’s resistance to
the drudgery of low expectations, low cognitive engagement, and routine, tying
that resistance of working-class laborers striking for incremental difference
in their professional lives. The resistance doesn’t create monumental change,
but it does provide momentary diversion, and occasionally the teachers (foremen)
make temporal concessions that improve the docility of the students (workers).
Such acts of passive resistance are enough to exhibit agency, but not enough to
elicit a penalty. Like the segregationists of the south, teachers in the
working-class district show a fundamental lack of respect for the humanity of
their students, nor do they provide a sense of community within their classrooms.
Students in middle-class and affluent communities are afforded degrees of
autonomy and humanity based on that status, and the funding for more highly
educated teachers, technology, and rigorous curriculums provide the necessary support
for such students to succeed.
Viewed in comparison, it’s difficult to disagree with Anyon’s
argument. It becomes quickly apparent that educational expectations for all
parties involved, students, parents, and teachers, increase in correlation to
students’ socioeconomic status. Applying this framework to the current
educational system, we see that not only does educational segregation exist, but
incorporates elements of class conflict in addition to racial conflict. The
reliance of property taxes in funding formulas for school districts continues
to increase the educational equity gap between cities and towns with high rates
of homeownership and those with higher rates of rentals. This disparity
continues into the workplace, perpetuating the hierarchy of class. If we as a
nation are to move beyond our current state of stagnation, significant changes
must be made to our public schools.
I think you put this into good context - and your video made a very important point - that prejudice "doesn’t go away when you end legal slavery" and so many of us want to "imagine all that is history", and so many of us are content to throw a little money towards this initiative, or vote for this person, and think that things in society, in our schools, will be magically equal. But it is far from that. You can end legal segregation, but that doesn't strip it from the minds and hearts of the people. And I think that Anyon's article really helped to shape how deeply rooted some of our prejudices are, stemming not only from race, but from class as well. So many of us have been taught these prejudices - maybe not outright - but through context in our families and communities, and without really acknowledging that as a society, it will be difficult to ignite real change.
ReplyDeleteThe phrase "Although created with good intent..." struck me because I feel as though, as described in so many of our readings, that is generally the case. Brown v. Board and other cases that ended segregation both in education and in public life were well intended, and have certainly made a difference, yet we still have not been successful in ending racism. In the video one speaker says, with a tone of sarcasm, how Americans are so ready to be able to say, "we're good now, we can exhale". Yet it's 2018 and so many of our fellow citizens can't do so. It's troubling to realize how difficult it is to change society when there will always be remnants of the ideals of previous, less tolerant generations.
ReplyDelete"It becomes quickly apparent that educational expectations for all parties involved, students, parents, and teachers, increase in correlation to students’ socioeconomic status." I always knew in the back of my mind that this existed, but I failed to really accept it. On my 12th year of teaching, I try to pretend like this isn't the case, but it is. I am so thankful to have this class to really force myself into facing these issues head on. I am noticing it more and more in my everyday teaching population and I am drawing conclusions based on where I went to school, where I used to teach, and where I currently teach, similarly to the way the study of the 5 elementary schools did.
ReplyDeleteThe piktochart is an excellent representation of Anyon's observations of each school environment connect to its' economic class. The teacher as the foreman and the students as the workers really stood out when thinking back to Anyon's argument. I was almost shocked that actually happening. Students just obey orders like robots in a factory working to the same goal, working till the work is done or else it won't get done. “tells them exactly what to do, or they couldn't do it.” (Anayon, 75.)
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