Reply to Why are the East County schools the way they are?

Forum Index » Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)

Reply to "Why are the East County schools the way they are?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The degree of wealth and education is not the same. East MoCo has more populations than West MoCo who lack the background, education, money or time to insist that their kids do their homework and pay attention to their teachers. 
[/quote]

[b]You left out desire of parents to prioritize their children's education. [/b]My elementary-aged kids like to visit libraries all over MoCo, so we've been doing this for years. We've probably been to 80% of all libraries in the county. One pattern I noticed in the kids section no matter where we go -- the vast majority of kids there are white or Asian, even when the demographics of the surrounding area is not like that.

It's not a cost thing. Libraries are free, open long hours (all are open as I write this, in fact), and many are easily accessibly by public transportation. All MCPS students can ride Ride-On for free.

Of course, going to libraries is not required, and there are many other activities children can do to improve their knowledge, but we see this consistently on our library trips and it seems like a sign.[/quote]

PP you replied to. I didn't want to get into it, because that's loaded.

Low-income parents (income overlaps significantly with race and ethnicity) are not different from high-income parents, in that they want the best for their children. But a lot of them don't have the life background to understand what the educational options are out there, and because their frame of reference is so different they don't even know where to begin; a lot don't know what it takes to get into college these days, or even that college statistically increases the odds of financial stability. Maybe they can't fathom paying for college, even community college. If you don't know anyone who has gone to college who now holds a white collar job that pays more than 150K a year, maybe plumbing seems a safer choice (and maybe it is, if you can't help your child study and do well academically). If you don't like to read, because you've never been taught to like it, odds are your kids don't have a natural love of reading either and you're not going to think of encouraging that by going to the library. Maybe you're working on weekends anyway.

The wealthy neighborhoods are comparatively better-informed because they are seeded with more people who have reached the white-collar top and know how the system works. They talk to their friends and neighbors and the information gets disseminated from there. They also populate DCUM, and other forums and discuss options online. They know the basics of childhood development and how to get children to succeed academically.

My husband is an immigrant who survived a war, clawed his way out from poverty and became a doctor. His parents hit him if he didn't bring home good grades, but they didn't know how to help him. As a result he hates to read. He'd never of his own volition bring his kids to a library. He stuck our oldest in front of the TV when I was in grad school, which contributed to a language delay. Even though he's a terrific success on paper, there are lots of things he "missed" in his social education because of his childhood poverty and living in a poor, crime-ridden neighborhood from which practically nobody got out except him and his brothers (all science fields). So my secondary point is that one's environment is VERY important to achieve well-rounded growth. [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics