Poverty and Education

David Berliner is an educational researcher after my own heart. In his 2005 speech at AERA's annual convention, he explores the relationship of poverty to school reform.

Those who blame poor children and their families, like Herrnstein and Murray, or those who blame the teachers and administrators who serve those kids and families in our public schools, like Rod Paige, Jeanne Allen, Checker Finn, William Bennett, and dozens of other well known school critics, are all refusing to acknowledge the root problem contended with by too many American schools, namely, that there is a 600 pound gorilla in the school house.

The gorilla is poverty.

As educators and scholars we continually talk about school reform as if it must take place inside the schools. We advocate, for the most part, for adequacy in funding, high quality teachers, professional development, greater subject matter preparation, cooperative learning, technologically enhanced instruction, community involvement, and lots of other ideas and methods I also promote. Some of the most lauded of our school reform programs in our most distressed schools do show some success, but success often means bringing the students who are at the 20th percentile in reading and mathematics skills up to the 30th percentile in those skills. Statistical significance and a respectable effect size for a school reform effort is certainly worthy of our admiration, but it just doesn’t get as much accomplished as needs to be done.....Schooling alone may be too weak an intervention for improving the lives of most children now living in poverty.

While the poverty rate in Orange County is 14.1%, one of the highest in the state, our childhood poverty rate is much lower than that of our neighbors.

Locality	Child Poverty	ChildPovRate
Alamance	4,063	13.3%
Chatham	1,358	12.7%
Durham	8,556	17.2%
Orange	2,127	9.0%
Wake	13,275	8.6%

Berliner asks "Why do we put so much of our attention and resources into trying to fix what goes on inside low performing schools when the causes of low performance may reside outside the school? Is it possible that we might be better off devoting more of our attention and resources than we now do toward helping the families in the communities that are served by those schools? That would certainly be a competitive strategy for solving the problem of low academic performance if it is simply poverty (along with its associated multitude of difficulties) that prevents most poor children from doing well."

Good questions. He identifies housing prices, real wages, job creation and tax revenues as the community factors affecting child poverty rates. What is the relationship between those factors and poverty in Orange County? I'm going to try and get data from the two school systems and from the county economic development commission to create a better profile of poverty in Orange before the November elections. We need a realistic understanding of the relationship between affordable housing, wages, community services (including education), and taxes (including the proposed district tax) may impact overall poverty and child poverty in order to make informed decisions in this upcoming election.

Black Friday 2005

Today the FCC unanimously agreed to treat the high-speed Internet service, known as digital subscriber line (DSL), as an “information service,” which insulates it from many traditional telephone rules, such as requirements to lease network access to independent ISPs, such as Earthlink, AOL, etc. The move supposedly eliminates any 'unfair competition' with cable broadband since they were designated as "information services" in 2002. As part of this new decision, 9 months from now, DSL providers will no longer have to contribute 10 percent of their revenue into the Universal Service fund, a program to subsidize phone service in rural areas and the e-rate program.

OK, so now all broadband services will be classified as information services rather than telecommunication services. How does that affect the Ensign-McCain Free Market Telecommunications Framework Act of 2005? According to McCain's aide, his intent in sponsoring this bill is to make broadband service more universally available and that he doesn't support the provision within this bill that outlaws municipal networks. Certainly the amendment to the Telecommunications Act of 1996 is a ringing endorsement of municipal networks/universal access. And now this..

Consumers Union (CU) and the Consumer Federation of America (CFA) warned that today’s Federal Communications Commission (FCC) order restricting access of competitors to digital subscriber lines (DSL) will force existing independent broadband providers out of the market and drive up the price of high-speed Internet for consumers. ...

The FCC’s action today underscores the need for a competitive broadband alternative that does not depend on cable or phone lines—wireless Internet," said Kimmelman. "As the FCC shuts off competitor access to DSL and cable lines, it should free up airwaves to foster affordable wireless Internet offered by independent companies." HearUsNow.org

No more dialup? The only positive aspect of this decision is that it might help Chapel Hill and Carrboro move forward on developing municipal networks, sooner rather than later.

Municipal Wireless

For the first time in my life, I want to move to New York City--just to vote for Andrew Rasiej. He's running for public advocate on a platform of wireless (Wi-Fi) and cellphone Internet access from every home, business and school in the city. Thomas Friedman, in today's NY Times, quotes him as saying: "we can't trust the telecom companies to make sure that everyone is connected because new technologies, like free Internet telephony, threaten their business models." But it gets better. He is advocating for "civic photo-blogging - having people use their cellphones to take pictures of potholes or crime, and then, using Google maps, e-mailing the pictures and precise locations to City Hall." This guy understands the concept of e-democracy, separate and apart from digital government. On his blog Rasiej says: "Every day, thousands of civic-minded individuals and organizations in hundreds of neighborhoods selflessly work to clean up our parks, improve our schools, care for neighbors, and strengthen our communities. Yet, too often, our voices and concerns are not heard and our collective power is never felt, because city government is stuck in an old paradigm: elect one person and supposedly they will solve our problems."

It's interesting that so many of our local candidates are emphasizing their willingness to "listen" and "collaborate." Do they think their predecessors were unwilling? Maybe the challenge of being a public official is changing and we need to rethink the role (beyond just paying them a full time salary). Andrew Raseij says: "The public official or candidate will no longer just be the one who talks to the many or tries to listen to the many. Rather, he or she will be a hub of connectivity for the many to work with the many - creating networks of public advocates to identify and solve problems and get behind politicians who get it." To accomplish that, we need better municipal infrastructure that 1) provides town-wide connectivity, 2) ensures all citizens have easy, 24-hour access to a computer hooked up to the network, and 3) ensures that all citizens have the skills and knowledge needed to take advantage of the network. We need technology access to be as much a part of town infrastructure as access to telephones or drinking water. Right now, Laurin Easthom in Chapel Hill is the only candidate addressing this issue. Will others join in? Anyone from Carrboro interested?