More on Grit: Author Ethan Ris Responds to Paul Thomas’ Post

Editor: We are continuing our conversation on the role of "grit" in educational discourse with author Ethan Ris’ response to the earlier post by Paul Thomas.

Response to Paul Thomas

By Ethan Ris

 

I am grateful for Paul Thomas’s thoughtful response to my article, and doubly grateful for the chance to respond. One of the wonderful things about the Journal of Educational Controversy is its commitment to ongoing conversations and the meaningful exchange of ideas – well beyond the unread citations that masquerade as scholarly dialogue in other publications.

Before I address Thomas’s critique, a word about where this article came from. This was a bit of a departure for me, since my primary work is on higher education. While researching a piece about the social construction of “non-cognitive” skills in college (recently published in History of Education), I found myself reading the works of Horatio Alger, Jr., the 19^th century children’s book writer. Digging through his miserable prose, I was surprised to find an early version of the “grit” discourse that has figured prominently in pedagogical theory over the last five or so years.

As I explain in my article, Alger’s books (contrary to popular belief) were written for middle and upper-class children. They were about poor children, but not for them. Instead, they used striving street urchins and farm boys as virtuous exemplars of grit and tenacity. The message to privileged boys and girls was a simple one: compared to these kids, you are spoiled – and if you don’t shape up, they will eat your lunch. That warning was particularly potent in the late 19^th century, a time of increasing income inequality, a burgeoning labor movement, and the rising specter of socialism.

While I was struck by the long legs of the grit discourse, I was also struck by how rarely its co-creators acknowledge its basis in worries about privileged children, a trend that continued throughout much of the 20^th century. I argue that that oversight is equally true for both those who see grit theory as a panacea for the ails of low-income students, and for critics who argue that it is another form of victim-blaming, like cultural deficit theory.

Paul Thomas takes issue with my equivalency of the proponents and the critics, pointing out that my data and analysis strongly support the latter (among whom he counts himself) in their argument that the grit discourse punishes low-income children and students of color. He writes that there is “a direct relationship between ‘grit’ as a domain of the privileged and how that has created the context within which many in the U.S. assume black/brown and poor students lack that quality.” Privileged classes, he argues, perpetuate grit theory “because they need the wider public to believe that success is the result of effort (merit) and not the consequence of privilege.”

Thomas is on firm ground when he points out that I am reluctant to name grit theory as racist or even classist. My reason for this reluctance comes from my reading of the historical record, in which poor children are most frequently exemplars of grit in the eyes of elites. This is even true for contemporary authors who have fueled the grit frenzy – Paul Tough, for example, peppers his book How Children Succeed with humanistic case studies of gritty young people who have overcome the disadvantage of their poor, minority backgrounds in order to succeed academically. It is a short leap from Tough’s middle-class readers to the ones who gobbled up Horatio Alger’s tales of Ragged Dick and Paul the Peddler, seeing in them answers to their concerns about their own children.

For that reason, I can’t agree with Thomas’s claim that “‘grit’ is racist and classist because the narrative speaks to and perpetuates race and class stereotypes that black/brown and poor people are inherently lazy, deserving their stations in life.” I don’t believe that Angela Duckworth and other scholars who perpetuate grit theory directly contribute to that type of prejudice. While they make allusions to “closing the achievement gap” (which I read as a habitual shibboleth necessary to get grant funding), their research design indicates their true audience; as I have pointed out before, Duckworth’s most important samples are not low-income children but privileged groups like Ivy League undergraduates and advanced spelling bee contenders. As Daniel Engber writes, studying these high-achieving groups produces classic “restriction of range” bias, but for my purposes they represent exactly the types of young people for whom the grit discourse originated.

That said, I acknowledge and respect Thomas’s point that grit theory easily fits in to a longstanding racist narrative about the laziness of impoverished people, especially those of color. (I got a taste of that in the comments on a recent piece I wrote in the Washington Post’s “Answer Sheet” blog.) While I disagree with critics who allege eugenicist motives for grit research, they are certainly on to something by highlighting the dangers of “cutting-edge” scientific research that lends legitimacy to age-old forms of prejudice and oppression.  And I am certainly sensitive to Thomas’s point that a reluctance to call racism by its name makes its eradication that much more difficult. Let me be clear: grit theory, in the wrong hands, fuels racism and classism. But I am more concerned about what happens when grit theory is in the right hands.

My article concludes on a note of dismay, with a description of how the grit discourse can harm young people from disadvantaged backgrounds. My study shows that the historical narrative has poor children serving as role models for privileged ones. This is different from impugning them as shiftless and unmotivated, but it is perhaps equally detrimental in its romanticization of hardship and its ploy of talking about success in terms of character, rather than structural advantage.

The difference between my critique of grit theory and Thomas’s critique strikes me as similar to the two ways to critique the “no excuses” model of schooling. One focus (with which I am most sympathetic) is on the interpretation of the model as rejecting macro-level “excuses” like residential segregation, income disparities, and the legacy of legalized discrimination as reasons for the academic achievement gap. Obviously, this willful neglect of structural hardship is troubling. The second set of critics, however, train their fire on the commonly stated rejection of “excuses” at the student level, which unfairly assumes that the real problem is that certain types of learners lack work ethic and blame others for their shortcomings.

Both critiques are valid, but they pursue two different demons. A similar dichotomy may be at play here.

The “Grit” Argument Continues: Paul Thomas responds to Author Ethan Ris

Editor: In our anniversary issue of the journal, we published an article by Ethan Ris entitled, “Grit: A Short History of a Useful Concept.”  It continued both the conversation that we have been having in the journal and added also to the current debates found in a number of recent books on the topic.   Below, author Paul Thomas responds to Ris’ argument.

A Friendly Rebuttal to Ris on “Grit”

P.L. Thomas, Furman University

 

In his “Grit: A Short History of a Useful Concept,” Ethan W. Ris offers, I think, a rare and significant contribution to the scholarly discourse on “grit”—one that has been mostly uncritical.

 Powerfully, Ris presents a discourse analysis of “grit” with a historical lens and argues that “the grit discourse allows privileged socioeconomic groups to preserve their position under the guise of creative pedagogy” (p. 2).

Ris makes a strong case that Angela Duckworth and popular advocates of “grit” (such as journalist Paul Tough) have contributed to policies and practices aimed at mostly black/brown and poor populations of students, conceding “[t]he critics, however, are right that poor children are the inevitable losers of this game” (p. 10).

It is here, where Ris confronts both advocates and critics of “grit” that I want to offer a friendly rebuttal. 

Again, Ris’s discourse analysis and historical couching of the “grit” narrative are very important, but his argument that “grit” has been mostly an idealized character trait embraced by the privileged does not, as Ris suggests, discredit assertions “grit” is racist (and classist); in fact, Ris’s historical context proves “grit” is racist. 

Part of the problem here is Ris’s “[b]oth sides have the story wrong” (p. 2)—the both sides being:

To its champions, the concept of grit offers a solution to the intractable low performance in these schools: help the kids get grittier, and they can claw their way out of poverty (Tough, 2011; Tough, 2012; Rock Center, 2012; Lipman, 2013). To its skeptics, grit is at best an empty buzzword, at worst a Social Darwinist explanation for why poor communities remain poor – one that blames the victims of entrenched poverty, racism, or inferior schooling for character flaws that caused their own disadvantage (Shapiro, 2013; Thomas, 2013; Anderson, 2014; Isquith, 2014; Noguera & Kundu, 2014; Ravitch, 2014a; Snyder, 2014; Ravitch, 2015). (p. 2)

 

I am on the “skeptics” side that asserts “grit” as a narrative and as a character quality formal schooling needs to instill in black/brown and poor students is racist, but I see in Ris’s analysis a direct relationship between “grit” as a domain of the privileged and how that has created the context within which many in the U.S. assume black/brown and poor students lack that quality.

My rebuttal, then, revolves around “skeptics” being wrong because we agree wholeheartedly with one of Ris’s central argument: “Here, though, is the fundamental problem with the perception that the importance of grit has to do with bettering the chances of disadvantaged students. Children raised in poverty display ample amounts of grit every day, and they don’t need more of it in school” (p. 8).

 So I would like to pose that Ris has not proven “both sides are wrong,” but has failed to recognize why we skeptics have been calling out “grit” policies and practices.

 As Christopher Emdin explains in For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood…and the Rest of Y’all Too, vulnerable populations of students are plenty “gritty,” but they remain the primary targets of “no excuses” schooling grounded in “grit” discourse and lessons.

Therefore, the formula to me (one made clear by Ris’s work) is that the privileged have historically promoted and continue to promote the “grit” narrative (the work ethic the working class has imposed on itself out of fear of not measuring up to the affluent)—and needlessly worry about the “grit” of their own children—because they need the wider public to believe that success is the result of effort (merit) and not the consequence of privilege.

So I agree with Ris that the “grit” narrative and “grit” as educational policy are tools to keep the class (and race) divisions in the U.S. intact—all of which confirms that “grit” is racist and classist because the narrative speaks to and perpetuates race and class stereotypes that black/brown and poor people are inherently lazy, deserving their stations in life.

Ris’s work is really important, and I would not have felt compelled to offer what may appear to be a minor quibble from someone labeled as “wrong” in Ris’s essay, but one of the ways in which privilege is maintained is our reluctance to name racism, our urge to find any other cause possible.

Duckworth, Tough, and the growing legions of advocates in the “grit” industry—these people are invested in “grit” and they are surely wrong.

We skeptics? I think we are making a case reinforced by Ris’s work, and I invite him to consider this carefully because I believe his work is crucial in reclaiming the value of effort and engagement for all children, but especially for vulnerable populations who are being mis-served by the “no excuses” and “grit” movements.

The New Year Continues our Discussion between Authors Paul Thomas and Curt Dudley-Marling

Editor: Welcome back to our blog for 2015.  We will start the new year with a continuation of a discussion that was begun at the end of 2014 on our blog between two authors whose articles were published earlier in our journal.  Readers will recall that Paul Thomas in an earlier post began by criticizing those who blame poor parents for the limited vocabulary of their children.  Curt Dudley-Marling expanded on this deficit thinking in education while also commenting on the hostile responses that Thomas’ article had received in the Washington Post as part of the larger problem.  Below Paul continues the conversation.  The exchange between these two authors is a good introduction to the upcoming issue of the journal that will focus on the theme: “Challenging the Deficit Model and the Pathologizing of Children: Envisioning Alternative Models.”

Parents and Language: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

 By P. L. Thomas

 Soon after The Washington Post reprinted my piece from The Conversation UK, Stop blaming poor parents for their children’s vocabulary, Curt Dudley-Marling emailed. Curt was pleased to see a somewhat mainstream acknowledgement of scholarly challenges to both the often-cited work of Hart and Risley and the deficit perspective inherent in that work and lurking beneath why so many people accept the claims without critique. 

But Curt was also deeply concerned, it seemed, about the comments posted—comments that were strongly committed to deficit perspectives of language and of people and children trapped in poverty. 

In his response here, Curt explains that he has “not lost hope,” and then ends with what I believe is an important point: “The enduring lesson here is that we can more effectively counter deficit thinking by showing students’ competence when they are engaged in thoughtful, engaging curricula rather than merely telling about the problems of deficit thinking through scholarly critiques.”

 In fact, Curt’s concluding statement hits on how important public work of scholars and educators is when compared to scholarly work, which remains mostly among the scholars, and how action will always trumps words. 

While we continue the conversation here and even in JEC and other scholarly venues, we must be resolved to act in ways that are counter to deficit narratives and deficit practices.

 Below is a follow-up blog post after Curt emailed me, spurring me to think longer and harder about the comments posted. 

•

The Good

Middle-class and affluent parents are good because they pass on to their children good cultural capital (such as good literacy).

The Bad

Impoverished parents and working-poor parents are bad because they pass on to their children bad cultural capital (such as bad literacy).

The Ugly

Many, if not most people, in the U.S. embrace the above class- (and race-) based views of parenting and language (vocabulary, grammar, reading, and writing).

•

This ugly social mythology is identified by Pierre Bourdieu in Acts of Resistance:

I’m thinking of what has been called the “return of individualism,” a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy which tends to destroy the philosophical foundations of the welfare state and in particular the notion of collective responsibility….The return to the individual is also what makes it possible to “blame the victim,” who is entirely responsible for his or her own misfortune, and to preach the gospel of self-help, all of this being justified by the endlessly repeated need to reduce costs for companies….

In the United States, the state is splitting into two, with on the one hand a state which provides social guarantees, but only for the privileged, who are sufficiently well-off to provide themselves with insurance, with guarantees, and a repressive, policing state, for the populace. (pp. 7, 32)

But these deficit views that feed an environment of victim blaming also have been echoed in the comment section of a recent piece of mine refuting those very deficit views (see the reposting and comments at The Washington Post's PostEverything).

The ugliness rests on two separate and related issues—parents and language.

Parenting: Good or Bad versus Scarcity or Slack

Within a cultural of individualism, perceptions of good or bad parenting are strongly correlated with social class—as noted above. Unpacking why and how those perceptions exist reveals the ugliness.

Despite evidence to the contrary—evidence that shows class and race are more powerfully correlated with success than effort—impoverished parents are blamed as bad and affluent parents are praised as good when we assume that individual effort of those parents has determined their status.

The focus on the individual also feeds assumptions about whether or not parents can, will, or even want to provide the necessary care and initial teaching for their children. See this comment as one of several such claims:

Being poor is not the problem.....acceptance of poverty and the social position it implies is the problem. When the poor decide that they would like their children to be better off than their parents, efforts will be made in that direction.....but, if the poor decide to instill in their children the idea that being poor is better than being rich, and that the rich are the bad guys in the play, the poor will remain resentful and poor which will define them and their children.

What is often missing in all of this are the tight margins of living in scarcity (poverty) as compared to the slack of living in affluence.

For example, good but impoverished parents may appear to be "bad" when compared to poor or neglectful affluent parents who appear to be "good"—especially when we focus on proxies for the quality of parenting such as a child's vocabulary.

Good and conscientious but impoverished parents, doing the best they can under the stress and within the tight margins of poverty, may be accurately associated with a non-standard home language, and as a result, their children may enter school with measurable literacy that is deemed behind affluent children, whose parents may have been neglectful. However, those affluent children raised in the slack of affluence may have had surrogate people and experiences that mask the weak parenting.

Impoverished parents, on the other hand, have all of their decisions and all of the factors outside of their control amplified negatively by their poverty; while affluent parents have their weaknesses masked or even mitigated by their affluence.

Class-based differences in child rearing are not "good" versus "bad," as much as more affluent children's rearing matches social expectations, ands thus appears "good" in that context.

Annette Lareau, author of Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life, explains about the differences in child rearing by class between middle-class and working-class/poor families:

The differences are striking....

Neither the approach of concerted cultivation or the accomplishment of natural growth is without flaws. Both have strengths and weaknesses [emphasis added]. Middle-class children, for example, are often exhausted, have vicious fights with siblings, and do not have as much contact with their extended families as working-class and poor children. But when children enter institutions such as schools and health care settings, the strategy of middle-class child rearing of concerted cultivation is far more in compliance with the current standards of professionals than is the approach of the accomplishment of natural growth. There are signs that middle-class children gain advantages, including potentially in the world of work, from the experience of concerted cultivation. Working-class and poor children do not gain this benefit.

Poverty creates reduced circumstances, razor-thin margins, and relentless stress; as Sendhil Mullainathan and Eldar Shafir note, people cannot take vacations from poverty.

Affluence, however, allows slack, an abundance of time and money that buffers mistakes, carelessness, and behaviors that would otherwise be considered "bad."

Whether parents are "good" or "bad" is profoundly impacted by status (class and race)—more so than by individual qualities alone.

The Lingering, but Flawed, Connection Between Language and Character

The related ugly is our lingering, but flawed, connection between language and character. Many in the U.S. remain convinced that vocabulary, grammar, and even pronunciation are signals of not just intelligence but the "good" or "bad" in a person.

Non-standard English is associated with race and class, revealing more about our classism and racism than about linguistics or individual character (again, read the comments section linked above).

Deficit views of language perpetuate beliefs that the poor and racial minorities speak broken or inferior forms of English; that their language is not merely different, but inferior.

Alice Walker's The Color Purple is an epistolary novel, a story told in letters. As impoverished, black women, Celie and Nettie create a rich tapestry of using language to confront and recreate their worlds. Walker's novel, then, is a powerful rebuking of the belief that poverty and racial minorities are the provinces of flawed or deficient language.

The impoverished do not pass on "bad," but socially marginalized language to their children; we must admit that non-standard forms of language trigger the dual ugliness of classism and racism in the U.S.

In 1963, novelist Ralph Ellison confronted this language stereotype directly:

“Language is equipment for living,” to quote Kenneth Burke. One uses the language which helps to preserve one’s life, which helps to make one feel at peace in the world, and which screens out the greatest amount of chaos. All human beings do this.

Further, Ellison rejects the deficit view held about the language of poor blacks:

Some of us look at the Negro community in the South and say that these kids have no capacity to manipulate language. Well, these are not the Negroes I know. Because I know that the wordplay of Negro kids in the South would make the experimental poets, the modern poets, green with envy. I don’t mean that these kids possess broad dictionary knowledge, but within the bounds of their familiar environment and within the bounds of their rich oral culture, they possess a great virtuosity with the music and poetry of words. The question is how can you get this skill into the mainstream of the language, because it is without doubt there. And much of it finds its way into the broader language. Now I know this just as William Faulkner knew it. This does not require a lot of testing; all you have to do is to walk into a Negro church.

Also unmasking deficit views of language related to class and race, in 1979, James Baldwin asked, "If Black English Isn't a Language, Then Tell Me, What Is?":

The argument concerning the use, or the status, or the reality, of black English is rooted in American history and has absolutely nothing to do with the question the argument supposes itself to be posing. The argument has nothing to do with language itself but with the role of language. Language, incontestably, reveals the speaker. Language, also, far more dubiously, is meant to define the other–and, in this case, the other is refusing to be defined by a language that has never been able to recognize him.

Like Ellison, Baldwin recognizes poetry where others see deficit:

Now, I do not know what white Americans would sound like if there had never been any black people in the United States, but they would not sound the way they sound. Jazz, for example, is a very specific sexual term, as in jazz me, baby, but white people purified it into the Jazz Age. Sock it to me, which means, roughly, the same thing, has been adopted by Nathaniel Hawthorne’s descendants with no qualms or hesitations at all, along with let it all hang out and right on! Beat to his socks which was once the black’s most total and despairing image of poverty, was transformed into a thing called the Beat Generation, which phenomenon was, largely, composed of uptight, middle-class white people, imitating poverty, trying to get down, to get with it, doing their thing, doing their despairing best to be funky, which we, the blacks, never dreamed of doing–we were funky, baby, like funk was going out of style.

Ultimately, then, Baldwin states boldly his own recognition of the ugly:

The brutal truth is that the bulk of white people in American never had any interest in educating black people, except as this could serve white purposes. It is not the black child’s language that is in question, it is not his language that is despised: It is his experience. A child cannot be taught by anyone who despises him, and a child cannot afford to be fooled. A child cannot be taught by anyone whose demand, essentially, is that the child repudiate his experience, and all that gives him sustenance, and enter a limbo in which he will no longer be black, and in which he knows that he can never become white. Black people have lost too many black children that way.

•

And now we are still confronted with "the brutal truth," as Baldwin puts it. Why do we cling to deficit views of poverty and language, and why are so many angry and bitter toward people—families and children—who find themselves in poverty—while simultaneously praising the affluent?

It may well be that neither the quantity or quality of words children bring to school nor that both are strongly correlated with the socioeconomic status of those children's parents matters as much as our cultural bitterness, callousness.

More important is how adults use words to demonize the marginalized and create an Other so that they do not have to confront themselves. [1] Again, if you doubt me, return to those comments that suggest to me that if we wish to judge parents by their children, there we have ample evidence to draw some pretty harsh conclusions.

---

[1] See the ugliest of ugly here.

In Memory: John Goodlad 1920-2014

It is with sadness that I share with our readers the passing of educator and philosopher John Goodlad. Our journal had a very special relationship with Dr. Goodlad. Our association with a local progressive school as part of a team that participated in Dr. Goodlad’s National League of Democratic Schools enabled us not only to write about democratic educational theory but to see it in action. The head of that school, Susan Donnelly, created her school as a laboratory for democratic practices. And teachers in that school like Vale Hartley shared real life democratic experiences by writing about them in our journal. See “The Elementary Classroom: A Key Dimension of a Child's Democratic World.” They are both the legacy that John left. They shared his passion for democratic education and worked to realize his vision in the reality of their school.

John’s purpose in forming the League of Democratic Schools was to bring together those committed to the ideal of democratic renewal to regional conferences where they could share their many experiments in democratic living as well as find fellowship and support with others who shared the same vision.

Our journal’s winter 2010 issue was dedicated to John Goodlad’s lifetime work in helping us to think about the kind of education that is required to sustain a vital democracy. In his prologue to the issue that he titled, “An Agenda for Education in a Democracy,” he shared his deepening concern that public schooling was increasingly betraying its commitment to any democratic public purpose. “Whatever happened to the educational system,” he wrote, “that was once regarded as the source of our enlightenment and the bastion of our security?” John’s prolific writings were a clarion call for reclaiming a democratic public purpose for our schools against the assault by what he called “the god of economic utility.” The League of Democratic Schools was the active arm to his life of research and writing.


And so it remains an unfinished project. But his legacy will be in all those who believe we must educate “as if democracy really mattered.” John asked us to continue to think about what it means to really create a public that is capable of sustaining a vital democracy. We at the journal hope we can continue his conversation.

Author Curt Dudley-Marling Continues the Conversation on Deficit Thinking and the Pathologizing of Children, their Parents, and their Community

Author Curt Dudley-Marling’s article, “Return of the Deficit,” published in Volume 2 Issue 1 of the Journal of Educational Controversy, has been one of the most read and quoted of all the articles we have published. In his post below, he responds to our earlier post by Paul Thomas who talks about the ways we blame poor parents for their children’s limited vocabulary. Dudley-Marling comments on the hostile response that Thomas’ article received by readers of the Washington Post. His post below highlights a concern that we have had for a long time at this journal. Our aim in publishing the Journal of Educational Controversy has been to bring scholars as public intellectuals into conversation with the general public, policymakers and legislators. Unfortunately, as Dudley-Marling points out, the most promising and insightful scholarship is typically ignored in the political discussions that influence our policies, laws and practices. Professor Dudley-Marling has one suggestion on how to turn this around. Perhaps our readers have other thoughts.



Reflections from Author Curt Dudley-Marling



I recently retired from 33 years in academia. This life change has given me reason to reflect on my contributions to the field of education. I’d like to think that, at its heart, my scholarly writing stands as a critique of deficit thinking that pathologizes individual students, their families, their language, culture and communities. More seriously, deficit thinking is used as justification for providing students in high-poverty schools – as well as students with disabilities – with curriculum focused on low-level skills, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. This partly explains the so-called achievement gap in which poor children underachieve relative to their more affluent peers. Children in poverty achieve less because they are taught less. Of course, the academic performance of children in poverty is also seriously affected by the material effects of poverty (i.e., poor nutrition and medical care, high exposure to environmental toxins, higher risk of violence and on an on). I summarize most of these arguments in a piece I wrote for this journal in 2007, “The return of the deficit,” in which I use Hart and Risley’s (1995) research on the vocabulary of children living in poverty and Ruby Payne’s “culture of poverty” as illustrations of the pernicious effects of deficit thinking.



There are many other critical educators who have taken aim at deficit thinking. Richard Valencia at the University of Texas, for example, has written extensively on the ills of deficit thinking. A recent critique of deficit thinking by Paul Thomas, "Stop blaming poor parents for their children’s limited vocabulary,” was recently reprinted on the Journal of Educational Controversy blog. Thomas’s piece was originally posted in the Washington Post and the reader responses to Thomas’s piece highlight a painful realization for me. Critics of deficit thinking are widely cited by like-minded scholars but have had little impact on the deficit thinking that is deeply ingrained in popular discourses, a point driven home by the generally hostile responses to Paul Thomas’s piece in the Washington Post. Despite numerous critiques, Hart and Risley’s deficit model of poor children’s vocabulary has been extraordinarily influential cited over 1400 times in scholarly journals. Similarly, fierce critiques of Ruby Payne’s work have done little to diminish the popularity of her program. Deficit thinking is also at the heart of both conservative and liberal programs aimed at “fixing” the problem of poverty. Scholarly arguments have generally been ineffective at stemming the tide of deficit thinking.



I have not lost hope, however, in efforts to counter deficit thinking. I’ve just come to doubt the efficacy of scholarly critiques. A more promising approach has emerged from work I’ve done with Sarah Michaels from Clark University that illustrates the intellectual and linguistic competence of students in high-poverty when challenged to participate in high level, evidence-based discussions of challenging texts. Video recordings and analyses of these discussions have been effective at persuading groups of teachers of the competence of students in high-poverty schools. This experience inspired us to put together an edited collection of illustrations of the effects of what we call high-expectation curriculum in an edited text (High-expectation curricula: Helping all students succeed with powerful learning) published by Teachers College Press. The enduring lesson here is that we can more effectively counter deficit thinking by showing students’ competence when they are engaged in thoughtful, engaging curricula rather than merely telling about the problems of deficit thinking through scholarly critiques.



References


Hart, B. & Risley, T.R. (1995). Meaningful differences in the everyday experiences of young American children. Baltimore, MD: Brookes.

Payne, R.K. (2005). A framework for understanding poverty (4th ed.). Highlands, TX: Aha! Process, Inc.

Author Paul Thomas says: "Stop blaming poor parents for their children’s limited vocabulary"

Author Paul Thomas is well-known to our readers. He has written two earlier articles for the journal as well as a book review.


"Universal Public Education—Our (Contradictory) Missions" Vol. 6 No. 1


"Of Rocks and Hard Places—The Challenge of Maxine Greene’s Mystification in Teacher Education" Vol. 5 No. 1


Review: Police in the Hallways: Confronting the “Culture of Control” Vol. 7 No. 1


In this morning's Washington Post, Professor Thomas published an article entitled: "Stop Blaming poor parents for their children's limited vocabulary: Blaming parents for the language gap in early childhood overlooks one important point."


The article was originally published on The Conversation, that uses a Creative Commons license to republish their articles for free, online or in print. Because we believe the article has relevance to our upcoming issue on the pathologizing of children, we are reprinting Professor Thomas' article below for our readers also.


Stop Blaming Poor Parents for their Children's Limited Vocabulary


Blaming parents for the language gap in early childhood overlooks one important point


While the reading wars in education have raged for decades, most people agree that literacy is crucial for children and that the path to strong reading and writing skills begin in the home. But focusing on poor children’s parents may actually be the real problem when trying to increase their success in school.


In a recent article in the New York Times, journalist Douglas Quenqua looked back 20 years to a “landmark education study which found that by the age of three, children from low-income families have heard 30m fewer words than more affluent children, putting them at an educational disadvantage before they even began school.” He detailed new research by Kathryn Hirsh-Pasek, professor of psychology at Temple University, challenging the importance of the quantity of words a child hears and emphasising the quality of language in each child’s home.


That “landmark study” refers to a 1995 study by American psychologists Betty Hart and Todd Risley. They concluded that the key to children’s language development is quantity of words they hear. And that an important way to evaluate early years child care is the amount of talk actually going on between children and their caregivers.


What the New York Times article fails to mention is that in 2009, education researchers Curt Dudley-Marling and Krista Lucas discredited Hart and Risley’s claims as being biased in favour of middle- and upper-class children. They showed that the study’s research design, limited population studied and biases reflected assumptions about the impoverished. Thus, Dudley-Marling and Lucas argued that Hart and Risley’s claims should not be generalised to the whole population.


Also absent in these debates is the recognition that whether we identify quality or quantity of vocabulary, we remain trapped in a “deficit perspective” of language. Deficit perspectives are those that identify a person or a condition by what is missing – in this case, parents talking to their children in a certain way. That deficit often reflects biases and stereotypes.

Blame the poor

Hirsh-Pasek’s claims about the quality of words children hear complicate a simplified view of language as merely how many words a child knows. But the broader discussion remains trapped in a perspective of blaming impoverished children’s parents.


Ultimately, a shift in focus from the quantity of words a child hears to the quality of those words does not usher in a step-change in policy. This is because the myth persists that the flaws of impoverished parents are passed to their children – and so the impoverished continue to be blamed for their poverty. The deficit must be filled: first it was more words, now it is higher-quality words.


Neither approach turns our attention away from the victims of poverty and toward the social conditions creating it. This results in differences in language among social classes – often related to grammar or vocabulary – that reflect not failed people but an inequitable society.


Such debates simply allow cultural stereotypes to determine what research matters publicly and politically – and how. Whether we argue that impoverished parents fail to share the same number or quality of words with their children when compared to middle-class or affluent parents, we are still blaming those parents and not the social inequity driving poverty.


Giving children more or higher quality vocabulary teaching without addressing the roots of social and educational inequity exposes that simply embracing ongoing research is not enough in education. Without first setting aside our cultural biases, research fails us and our students.

What messages get through

In a recent article on The Conversation, Dennis Hayes lamented that a study in the UK shows education often fails to link practice to research. Back in 1947, American educator and former president of the National Council of Teachers of English, Lou LaBrant expressed a similar concern about the “considerable gap between the research … and the utilisation of that research in school programs and methods.”. This lack of research-driven practice in the classroom spans decades and stretches across national borders.


Further complicating this failure is distortion by media who disproportionately cover think-tank press reports (often not peer-reviewed) compared to more rigorous university-based research.
Psychology professor at Florida State University, K. Anders Ericsson has confronted this problem since journalist Malcolm Gladwell has misrepresented his research and made popular the misleading 10,000 hour rule – that greatness only comes by a defined amount of lengthy practice.

Ericsson has called for not allowing research to remain primarily in the hands of journalists: “At the very least [media coverage of research] should not contain factually incorrect statements and avoid reinforcing existing misconceptions in the popular media.”


As the ongoing concern for the literacy of impoverished children shows, research can be the problem and not the solution, if we view that research through the lens of stereotypes and assumptions.


Yes, we need to link research and practice in education, but we must do so while guarding against oversimplification and biases, especially those perpetuate deficit views of impoverished families and children.

The Contraception Controversy Again Raises the Separation of Church and State Question

Today’s news coverage over an individual’s religious liberty rights and the right of equal protection to a social benefit in a democratic community, i.e., preventive health care, once again raises the question over where the line should be drawn between church and state. In our current issue of the Journal of Educational Controversy, author John F. Covaleskie brings some deeper analysis to this larger question in his article, “Public Speech and Religion in the Public Square: Creating Citizens who can Breach the Wall.”


In the article, the author first analyzes and compares responses to the question by three different public figures -- John F. Kennedy, Mario Cuomo, and Mitt Romney -- each a member of a religious faith, and each trying to define his role as a public servant serving many faiths in our pluralistic society. Covaleskie then asks the reader to consider the many politically divisive issues in the public debate today and what the role of individual conscience should be in the formation of public policy.


Because the schools create a public for democratic life, Covaleskie is particularly concerned about the level of public discourse in the media today and what that teaches the young about democratic discourse where those who “differ with us are the enemies and must be destroyed.” How do we create democratic citizens who are able to negotiate their differences and take into account the life perspectives of their fellow citizens as they search for common ground? To read the author’s answer to this crucial question, read his article, “Public Speech and Religion in the Public Square: Creating Citizens who can Breach the Wall.”

Newly Published - "Dear Maxine: Letters from the Unfinished Conversation"

In our winter 2010 issue of the journal dedicated to the life and work of Maxine Greene, we announced that a new book was about to be published in the fall by Teachers College Press. The book, Dear Maxine: Letters from the Unfinished Conversation, is now available. Readers can find information at the Teachers College Press website.

From the website:

Do Teachers have Free Speech Rights? An Update on Recent Court Decisions

Readers will remember the article by author Sam Chaltain in our winter 2008 issue of the journal, entitled, "Ways of Seeing (and of Being Seen): Visibility in Schools." Sam has his own website and blog at: "Democracy,Learning,Voice." Check it out. Sam gave us permission to reprint his article on teachers' rights from his website.


Free Speech for Teachers? Think Again . . .

by Sam Chaltain

Reprinted by permission from Democracy, Learning, Voice.


In case you missed it, there was a major case last week involving the First Amendment rights of teachers to make curricular content decisions. And the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals’ ruling puts another nail in the coffin of the free-speech rights of public employees.

In the most recent case, an Ohio teacher’s contract was not renewed after controversy erupted over a few book assignments she made with her High School English class. As recently as a decade ago, the teacher may have had a legitimate chance in court (although not neccesarily). That’s because, prior to 2006, the U.S. Supreme Court evaluated public employee free-speech claims by using a test with two basic prongs. First, the court would determine whether the speech in question touches on a matter of public concern. If it did not, the teacher would receive no First Amendment protection whatsoever. If the speech did touch on a matter of public concern, the court would proceed to the balancing prong of the test, in which it would balance the teacher’s interest in commenting upon a matter of public concern against the school officials’ interest in promoting an efficient workplace of public service.

Prior to 2006, courts sometimes sided with school officials even though the public school teachers’ speech touched upon a matter of public concern. In one 2001 case, for example, the Eighth Circuit determined that a school principal did not violate the First Amendment rights of three teachers who were ordered to quit talking about the care and education of special needs students. Subsequent appeals in the case acknowledged that the teachers’ complaints about the lack of care for special needs students touched on matters of public concern. Nonetheless, the appeals court noted that the teachers’ speech “resulted in school factions and disharmony among their co-workers and negatively impacted [the principal's] interest in efficiently administering the middle school.”

Conversely, in 1993 the Eleventh Circuit reached a different conclusion in the case of Belyeu v. Coosa County Board of Education. In this decision, a teacher’s aide alleged that school officials failed to rehire her because of a speech she made about racial issues at a PTA meeting. The aide said the school should adopt a program to commemorate Black History month. Immediately after the meeting, the principal asked to speak with her and told her he wished she had raised this issue privately rather than publicly. A lower court determined that the speech clearly touched on a matter of public concern, but that the school system’s interest in avoiding racial tensions outweighed the aide’s right to free speech. On appeal, however, the Eleventh Circuit reversed, writing that the aide’s “remarks did not disrupt the School System’s function by enhancing racial division, nor, based on the nature or context of her remarks, was her speech likely to do so.”

This is all a precursor to 2006, however, when the U.S. Supreme Court effectively eliminated the free-speech rights of public employees in its 5-4 decision in Garcetti v. Ceballos. As my friend and former First Amendment Center colleague David Hudson explains, since Garcetti “public employers are able to defend themselves against allegations of retaliation by claiming that employees’ criticisms of government operations were made as part of their official duties.”

Indeed, a pattern has emerged in this post-Garcetti world, in which it has become almost impossible to mount a successful First Amendment lawsuit based on speech that relates to the workplace. In other words, a teacher who wishes to claim First Amendment protection for decisions about curricular content must do so knowing that the same protections s/he would be afforded as a private citizen will not apply to anything so directly related to his or her official duties.

Ironically, the 1969 case that is hailed as the high-water mark for student free-speech, Tinker v. Des Moines, features these lines: “It can hardly be argued that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate. This has been the unmistakable holding of this Court for almost 50 years.”

No longer.

(Postscript: If you’re a junkie for First Amendment law, check out my three books on the subject, including answers to all of the most frequently asked questions as they pertain to First Amendment issues in schools.)



Sam Chaltain is a DC-based educator and organizational change consultant. Previously, he was the National Director of the Forum for Education & Democracy, an education advocacy organization, and the founding director of the Five Freedoms Project, a national program that helps K-12 educators create more democratic learning communities. Sam spent five years at the First Amendment Center as the co-director of the First Amendment Schools program. He came to the Center from the public school system of New York City, where he taught high school English and History. Sam also spent four years teaching the same subjects at a private school in Brooklyn.

Sam’s writings about his work have appeared in both magazines and newspapers, including the Washington Post, Education Week and USA Today. A periodic contributor to CNN and MSNBC, Sam is also the author or co-author of five books: The First Amendment in Schools (ASCD, 2003); First Freedoms: A Documentary History of First Amendment Rights (Oxford University Press, 2006); American Schools: The Art of Creating a Democratic Learning Community (Rowman & Littlefield, 2009); We Must Not Be Afraid to be Free: Stories Of Free Expression in America (Oxford, 2011); and Faces of Learning: 50 Powerful Stories of Defining Moments in Education (Jossey-Bass, 2011).

Time for a Serious National Conversation on the Public Purposes of our Schools: An Interview with Bill Ayers

Readers will find the interview with Bill Ayers from Truthout.org an interesting departure from the mainsteam media's superficial coverage of our national debate on school reform. We reprint it in its entirety with permission from Truthout.org. In his interview, Ayers talks about the public purposes of schooling -- something often left out of the economic and privatized goals that have dominated the national debate -- and the real social and human conditions that need to be addressed. For readers who would like to read the article we published by Bill Ayers in our special issue on "Schooling as if Democracy Matters," go to: "Singing in Dark Times."



Back to School: An Interview With Bill Ayers
Friday 01 October 2010

by: Maya Schenwar, Executive Director, t r u t h o u t Interview

Reprinted by permission from Truthout.org



As the 2010-2011 school year grumbled to a start - and millions of public school students settled into overcrowded, underfunded, under-resourced classrooms - I sat down in Chicago with education theorist and activist Bill Ayers to discuss true democracy, false reform and his latest book (co-authored with cartoonist Ryan Alexander-Tanner), "To Teach: The Journey in Comics." In an educational culture increasingly permeated by top-down marketplace values, Ayers, who taught primary school for years, still believes in the possibility of a schooliverse where every teacher is respected and every student is valued as a full human being, where collaborative learning and growth trump the school-eat-school "Race to the Top." And by the end of our conversation, I did, too.

Maya Schenwar: In "To Teach," you talk about how a good school is defined by good teachers. What do you think of this practice that's been circling the country, of "reconstituting" schools and firing all the teachers? Does that logic work?



Bill Ayers: Not at all - not even close.

The Global Infestation of U.S. Educational Ideas: A Cautionary Thought by Author Kay Ann Taylor

Editors: Today we welcome a post by guest blogger, Kay Ann Taylor. Our readers will remember the article that we published in our winter 2009 issue of the Journal of Educational Controversy by Kay Ann Taylor, entitled, Poverty's Multiple Dimensions. In today's post, Dr. Taylor reflects on her recent visit to a conference she attended in Istanbul, Turkey where she learned about the extent that the United States focus on standardized testing has had on the educational thinking in other nations. Historically, U.S. educational ideas have had an influence around the world. Our author asks us to think about what ideas we are exporting today and if this is the "best the U.S. has to offer."


Exporting U.S. Education: Is Standardized Testing the Best the U.S. Has to Offer?
by Kay Ann Taylor
Kansas State University


As an educator and an individual, a major personal bias and belief is my non-belief in standardized testing (ST). With the onset and passing of No Child Left Behind (NCLB), the festering in American education surrounding standardized testing has reached the status of some god-like or pagan entity that determines the futures of not only our children, but our teachers, schools, communities, country, and impacts our global efficacy. Those who are not educators (politicians) continue to direct and dictate policies and practices to those who are. How can and why does the American public at large and in general succumb to the edicts of this flawed, detrimental, and demeaning measure of human capacity? And, more to the point, why and how did exporting U.S. ST become so welcome, so revered, and, received so uncritically by our global community? Like cancer, the disease of U.S. standardized testing infects the global arena. I remain critical and skeptical regarding the gate-keeping effects of ST in terms of its impact and outcome on the lives, futures, education, thinking, and psyches of the human enterprise.

The polar views in the U.S. regarding ST are far from new. They are divergent in philosophical orientation, utility, purpose, interpretation, and implementation. There are scholars that support ST. Conversely, numerous scholars continue to challenge the oppressive nature of ST in that it lacks context and marginalizes English language learners, learners from low socioeconomic status, creates winners vs losers. Critics argue further that ST in no way represents learning, knowledge, understanding, much less real-life application. Additionally and importantly, some scholars contend that ST is racist and gender-biased. There is a distorted Darwinian element ingrained in ST, i.e., the survival of the fittest, which misrepresents Darwin for one, and rather, serves the interests of those seeking to maintain the status quo. Further, ST represents an outdated factory system of education that serves social efficiency, social control, social reproduction, and maintains the status quo for social mobility, thus begging the question, “Whose interests are served by standardized tests?” Believing that humans can be ranked, filed, and sorted on the basis of ST is one of the most destructive and dehumanizing practices education faces.

Standardized testing is big business. This hit me squarely during a session at the World Council of Comparative Education Societies this June (2010) in Istanbul, Turkey. I co-presented with my former M.S. student (now pursuing her Ph.D. in Russian Literature at another institution while teaching Russian Language at our university) based on her historical and qualitative thesis research in which she compared the first-ever national 2008 External Knowledge Testing in her Ukrainian country of origin to the historical onset of ST in the U.S. We went to our session location in advance to familiarize ourselves with the setting and to ensure the technology was in place. A Lebanese professor, who teaches in higher education in her country of origin, was there to attend the session and started a conversation with us. The title of our presentation, "Border Transmission and Reproduction Déjà Vu: Ukrainian External Independent Knowledge Testing—Reflections in the Mirror of U.S. Standardized Testing," captured her interest. Even before the session began, we discovered our topic was controversial because of our critical perspective.

As conference sessions go, ours was well attended by 25-30 people from almost as many different countries represented. There were two other countries and comparative topics in our session. Questions for all presenters were held until the end after everyone presented. Evidently, I have been naïve for quite some time because I was unprepared for the lively Q&A that followed regarding our research. Until our session, I remained blissfully unaware the extent to which ST from the U.S. has been exported globally. Plainly, we struck a nerve with most of our colleagues. From the discussion that followed directed at our research, it appeared to us that ST not only is well-received by our global counterparts, but that for many, it never was questioned critically regarding the numerous flaws and negative effects noted above.

After our session, I went outside to relax briefly. A young lady who attended our session stopped to visit with me. She is Brazilian by birth and informed me that Brazilian higher education institutions require the GRE. When I brought up my passion for Critical Race Theory (CRT), she smiled and informed me that she studied for three years with Kimberlé Crenshaw, Cheryl Harris, and Claude Steele—all prominent CRT scholars. She likely was the only individual attending our session who was familiar with, understood, much less agreed with, our position.

This experience provided considerable material for my reflection. After returning from the conference, I visited with a colleague and shared what happened. To my surprise, he challenged our critical assessment of ST and informed me that he knows personally an administrator for one of the major testing companies in the U.S. He explained that in his conversation with this person, he was informed that the company exercises care in test construction with the host country’s interested parties to ensure native language and culture are represented and not misinterpreted. After visiting the company’s web site to see for myself, I engaged in more reflection about this phenomenon. What struck me is that what is highly likely in this international ST-creating process is that the same flaws and biases inherent in the U.S. system also are reproduced in each country constructing “culturally sensitive” ST. For example, as stated above, ST represents an outdated factory model of schooling in the U.S., especially in terms of social efficiency, social control, and maintaining social mobility for the status quo. As I continued my conversation with my colleague, I continued to delineate the negative aspects of ST. One comment made by my colleague that struck yet another chord, was his statement that ST in many countries is used for placement in education. This, of course, also caused me consternation as I responded that placement represents tracking—from my perspective yet one more oppressive and outdated practice that remains deeply entrenched to the detriment of many in the U.S. In a final attempt to convince my colleague, I posed the question, “Do we want our students to be good test takers or to be able to understand, engage, embrace creativity, and be able to apply what they know?” It was this question that finally afforded success in relaying my concerns about ST to my colleague.

I continue to contemplate this conundrum of ST plaguing our schools and educational system in the U.S. With every semester since the passing of NCLB, my undergraduate foundations preservice students enter my class increasingly expecting me to tell them what to think and how to do “it”. Colleagues at other institutions indicate similar observations in their parallel classes. I anticipate that this will continue to worsen with each class of K-12 students in our public education environments who are subjected to the edicts of NCLB.

Thus, I now am acutely and painfully aware of the global infestation of ST. The oppressive biases and stultifying effects of ST now appear to be accepted uncritically in numerous countries. Moreover, ST reinforces competition and isolation rather than cooperation, collaboration, and understanding—the latter qualities needed to serve all humans productively in our global setting. U.S. education is revered deeply by many international communities. Will this, in turn, affect the success of international professionals seeking to live and work in the U.S.? Will ST ensure for them that they are no longer required to start their education over in the U.S. in order to pursue a profession they were educated for and practiced, perhaps for decades, in their country of origin but their “foreign” education and experience is inadequate by U.S. standards? I doubt it.

Ultimately, my question remains: Is exporting standardized testing the best practice U.S. education has to offer?

Kay Ann Taylor is Associate Professor of the Foundations of Education, American Ethnic Studies at Kansas State University. Her article, the Poverty's Multiple Perspectives, appeared in our winter 2009 issue of the Journal of Educational Controversy on the theme, The Hidden Dimensions of Poverty: Rethinking Poverty and Education.

Ideology vs. Sensibilities

I am often amazed at the great divide between people when ideological positions become reified to the point that we are blind to the life experiences and suffering of real individuals. This morning, I read an article in the Denver Post entitled, “Focus on Family says anti-bullying efforts in schools push gay agenda.” http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_15928224#ixzz0yhBtHIjB The conservative Christian media ministry group sees efforts to confront the problem of bullying and cyber-bullying in the public schools as part of a “gay agenda.” In the post below, Warren J. Blumenfeld, an Associate Professor of Multicultural and International Curriculum Studies at Iowa State University, looks at the real life experiences of children who confront this kind of bullying and the devastating effects it can have.

My “Gay Agenda”:
A Response to Focus on the Family
A Commentary by Warren J. Blumenfeld


Focus on the Family, a conservative Christian media ministry organization, asserted in published accounts (“Focus on Family says anti-bullying efforts in schools push gay agenda,” The Denver Post, http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_15928224, 8/29/2010) that gay rights advocates are forcing their viewpoints (their so-called “gay agenda”) in schools in the guise of bullying prevention.

Focus on the Family spokesperson, Candi Cushman, asserted that gay activists are the real schoolyard bullies while conservative Christians are the victims. According to Cushman, “We feel more and more that activists are being deceptive in using anti-bullying rhetoric to introduce their viewpoints, while the viewpoint of Christian students and parents are increasingly belittled.”

I have been gay most of my life, probably all of my life, and I have been involved in community organizing for the past 40 years, and I still don’t understand this term “Gay Agenda.” If you talk to two random “gay activists,” you will most likely find multiple viewpoints toward social change.

If making schools safe and welcoming spaces for students, faculty, and staff of all sexual identities and gender expressions (as well as racial, ethnic, socioeconomic class, religious, ability backgrounds, ages, everyone), then yes indeed -- this is certainly part of my “gay agenda.” Let us look at the reasons why this must be part of all of our agendas, including that of Focus on the Family.

Ryan Patrick Halligan was born in Poughkeepsie, New York in 1990. His parents described him as a rather shy boy growing up, who early on exhibited developmental delays in his speech, language, and motor skills. The family moved to Essex Junction, Vermont, where, by the fifth grade his peers bullied him at school on a regular basis. Rumors soon circulated throughout the school that Ryan was gay. By middle school in the seventh grade, his classmates continually teased and harassed him on school grounds and extended their taunts over email for having a learning disability and for allegedly being gay. On October 7, 2003, feeling that he could no longer live with the constant abuse, Ryan Patrick Halligan took his life. He was 13 years old.

Reports (Spero News, 2006) indicate that Ryan displayed many of the symptoms of youth targeted by face-to-face and on-line cyberbullying: he spent long hours on his computer, and he was secretive regarding his interactions on communication and information technologies. His parents saw him manifest a number of changes in his behavior: he increasingly lacked interest in engaging in social activities that included his peers, and he exhibited a pronounced change in his overall attitude, his appearance, and his habits.

Ryan’s father, John P. Halligan, established a web site in loving tribute to his son as a clarion call to prevent what happened to Ryan from impacting the lives of any other young people. John Halligan expressed his hope:

“This site is dedicated to the memory of our son Ryan and for all young people suffering in silence from the pain of bullying and having thoughts of suicide. We hope young people become less ashamed to ask for help when feeling suicidal. We hope adults gain knowledge from our tragedy. As a society, we need to find better ways to help our young people through their most difficult growing years (RyanPatrickHalligan.org).”

The American Psychological Association (APA) passed a resolution (2004) calling on educational, governmental, business, and funding agencies to address issues of face-to-face and cyberbullying. In the resolution, they particularly addressed acts of harassment “about race, ethnicity, religion, disability, sexual orientation, and gender identity” (p. 1). In addition, the resolution specifically emphasized the high rate of bullying around issues of sexual identity, gender expression, and disability:

“[C]hildren and youth with disabilities and children and youth who are lesbian, gay, or transgender, or who are perceived to be so may be at particularly high risk of being bullied by their peers.”

Though too late to help Ryan Patrick Halligan as someone with a disability and who was perceived as gay, possibly this resolution can assist in developing policies and can ultimately help in the reduction of bullying behaviors.

GLSEN (Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network) found in its 2007 National School Climate Survey of 6,209 middle and high school students that 86.2% of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender students experienced harassment at school in the past year, 44.1% reported being physically harassed, and 22.1% reported being physically assaulted at school in the past year, 73.6% heard derogatory remarks such as “faggot” or “dyke” frequently or often at school, 60.8% felt unsafe at school because of their sexual orientation, 38.4% felt unsafe because of their gender expression, and 32.7% skipped a day of school in the past month because of feeling unsafe. The report also found that the grade point average of students who were more frequently harassed because of their sexual orientation or gender expression was almost half a grade lower than for students who were less often harassed (2.8 versus 2.4).

On a positive note, the survey also discovered that schools can make a marked and powerful difference when they directly and visibly address the problem of bullying and harassment.

Students who are the targets of harassment and attacks by their peers are associated with higher rates of mental health problems. Risk factors for those targeted include increased school absenteeism, school difficulties including slipping grades, and dropping out of school. Also, they have increased risk of alcohol and drug use and abuse, as well as psychosomatic symptoms. They are also linked to serious mental health problems including depression, anxiety disorders, increased fear and withdrawal from family and peers, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), low self esteem, poor body image, suicidal ideation, attempts, and completion.

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people are integral members of families throughout this nation and the world. If Focus on the Family is seriously concerned with improving the quality of life and is truly focusing on families, they will join us in this effort to work to secure the safety and the equity of educational outcomes for all people, including our lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender youth.

Dr. Warren J. Blumenfeld, Associate Professor of Multicultural and International Curriculum Studies at Iowa State University. He is co-editor of Readings for Diversity and Social Justice and Investigating Christian Privilege and Religious Oppression in the United States.

Permission was granted to publish this commentary.


To view state laws on anti-bullying, go to: http://www.bullypolice.org/

To see an example of a Middle School Cyberbullying Curriculum developed by the Seattle Public Schools, go to:
http://www.seattleschools.org/area/prevention/cbms.html