# Article - "Unsayable Truths About a Failing High School" - Fair article or not? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [May 23, 2017, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/article-unsayable-truths-about-a-failing-high-school-fair-article-or-not/787293 "2017-05-23T17:11:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2017, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/article-unsayable-truths-about-a-failing-high-school-fair-article-or-not/787293/101 "2017-05-27T12:38:19Z")
> [@Renee](#): > > I guess where I’m getting hung up is what I see as two conflicting truths: these kids don’t have any good models for appropriate “middle class” behavior, and also they’re being raised by people who are working three jobs. I mean, if you’re holding down three jobs, you must be able to present good behavior because otherwise you’d be getting fired, right? There seems to be a disconnect here. On the one hand, people living in poverty have the best work ethic of anyone on earth, and on the other hand they aren’t passing that work ethic onto their kids, because Cycle of Poverty. What am I missing? I’m honestly not trying to be an asshole. I find this issue both interesting and really sad, and I’d love to understand it better. If you’re working three jobs, then your kids never see you. So you can’t be a roll model. Not that having a work ethic is remotely enough to mean anything. As you pointed out, poor people have a better work ethic. But they’re still poor. That work ethic isn’t making things better. It just allows them to survive. ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2017, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/article-unsayable-truths-about-a-failing-high-school-fair-article-or-not/787293/102 "2017-05-27T16:09:07Z")
.0001% of any people have three jobs. I know no one who has. Its this threads red herring. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2017, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/article-unsayable-truths-about-a-failing-high-school-fair-article-or-not/787293/103 "2017-05-27T16:24:14Z")
> [@madsircool](#): > > .0001% of any people have three jobs. I know no one who has. Its this threads red herring. You don’t know anyone who has three jobs, so therefore, only 300 people in the US has 3 jobs. Sound logic. ---
**Author:** ![HoneyBadgerDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/honeybadgerdc/32/1033_2.png) [@HoneyBadgerDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoneyBadgerDC)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2017, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/article-unsayable-truths-about-a-failing-high-school-fair-article-or-not/787293/104 "2017-05-27T16:37:01Z")
> [@madsircool](#): > > .0001% of any people have three jobs. I know no one who has. Its this threads red herring. After my divorce and putting my kids through college I always had 3 jobs. 1 full time job, a late night janitorial business and a drapery installation business before I started my swing shift. I doubt I was in the .001% percent. My total hours each week were about 80 hours. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2017, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/article-unsayable-truths-about-a-failing-high-school-fair-article-or-not/787293/105 "2017-05-27T16:41:45Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > My experience is that they are usually working north of 80 hours a week, total. Usually one primary job, as close to full time as they can get, one secondary, usually not all that much less, and one on the side that they may only work 10 or so hours at. > > But, keep in mind that 10 hours a week at one job still means that you have to get ready for and travel to and from that job. There are many jobs that only work you 3-4 hours in a shift, so they may only be working 10 hours at a job, but are working 3 shifts. As I have pointed out in other threads, sustained 80 hour workweeks are nearly impossible for anyone. Do the math. That is over 12 hours a day 7 days a week, 365 days a year and much more when you factor you factor in commuting time and mandatory meal breaks. You would be looking at something like a schedule something like 6 am - 10 pm seven days a week even if you could coordinate scheduling perfectly between multiple jobs. Anyone that works a schedule like that wouldn’t be all that poor either even at minimum wage (and I would question why someone that works that hard would be stuck in minimum wage jobs; they would at least get overtime if their primary job exceeded 40 hours). More importantly for this thread, this hypothetical woman wouldn’t have time to have sex let alone have kids and why would she? That would be dumb. I am not saying that no one has ever worked 80 hours in a week because I know they have in short bursts but it isn’t sustainable. However, hours worked inflation is even more common than IQ and penis size inflation. I know managers and executives that do it too and they are all either delusional or lying. Anything over 50 - 60 hours is likely wrong because they would just a robot at that point and not be able to take care of any personal needs let alone have any sort of life at all. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2017, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/article-unsayable-truths-about-a-failing-high-school-fair-article-or-not/787293/106 "2017-05-27T18:45:41Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > As I have pointed out in other threads, sustained 80 hour workweeks are nearly impossible for anyone. Do the math. That is over 12 hours a day 7 days a week, 365 days a year and much more when you factor you factor in commuting time and mandatory meal breaks. Yep, doesn’t leave much time for the kiddies. Now, I am a business owner, so my situation is a bit different (and is only one location) but I have only very recently stopped spending over 80 hours a week here every week. I know very well what an 80+ hour work week looks like. And what do you mean by mandatory meal break? You may be under the impression that meal breaks are mandated by federal labor laws, but they are not. They are state by state, and many states do not have one. You may live in a state that does, but you should know that your experience is not universal. Ohio, for instance, which is relevant because that is where I have lived and worked my entire life, does not. > [@](#): > > You would be looking at something like a schedule something like 6 am - 10 pm seven days a week even if you could coordinate scheduling perfectly between multiple jobs. Anyone that works a schedule like that wouldn’t be all that poor either even at minimum wage (and I would question why someone that works that hard would be stuck in minimum wage jobs; they would at least get overtime if their primary job exceeded 40 hours). More importantly for this thread, this hypothetical woman wouldn’t have time to have sex let alone have kids and why would she? That would be dumb. Couple of unfounded assumptions you have made there. The first is that OT would be available to a MW worker. It’s not. If you are a fast food manager, and you have .01 hours of overtime at the end of the week, you are going to be getting shit from your DM for a month. Most of the time, it is hard for MW workers to even get to 30 hours, much less 40 or overtime. Like I said, usually one job, they are going to get as close to full time as possible, upper 30’s if they are lucky. Second job is not as much, but is close to 30. The third job may only be 10 or so hours a week, but they need that income to make ends meet. As far as the sex quip that you made, well, they aren’t having sex anymore, they don’t have time for that, sure, but they have the results of having sex when they were less busy, and those don’t go away just because she doesn’t have time for them. > [@](#): > > I am not saying that no one has ever worked 80 hours in a week because I know they have in short bursts but it isn’t sustainable. However, hours worked inflation is even more common than IQ and penis size inflation. I know managers and executives that do it too and they are all either delusional or lying. Anything over 50 - 60 hours is likely wrong because they would just a robot at that point and not be able to take care of any personal needs let alone have any sort of life at all. Depends on how you manage your time. I know people who are poor at time managment, and only work a part time job, but always complain about not having time for anything. But then I know people, and I am one, who are able to manage time effectively, and are able to work quite a number of hours, while still taking care of themselves and having a social life. I sleep less than 5 hours a night, which helps, but I am going from 6am till 1am pretty much every day. Spending 7am to 8pm at work 6 days a week, plus another 5 or so on the seventh sounds like a lot, but it still leaves me 5 hours every evening free to do whatever I desire, as I have no kids to take care of. It sounds as if the people you know are primarily from the first type, but I must assure you, your experience in this is also not universal, you just might not meet these people, because they don’t have time for your slower lifestyle. ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2017, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/article-unsayable-truths-about-a-failing-high-school-fair-article-or-not/787293/107 "2017-05-28T01:10:39Z")
> [@Scumpup](#): > > The alternative school got shut down by the PA DoE because it had a dozen or so kids from across 4 grade levels in it. A different subject teacher rotated in each period. DoE figured the little darlings were not getting sufficiently individualized grade-level appropriate instruction and forced us to place them back in the GP. I ran ISS very successfully for two years. Our last Republican governor slashed education funding and it hit my district hard. Teachers were furloughed and ISS was eliminated. Our present Democratic governor hasn’t completely made good on restoring funding, so we remain a skeleton faculty. We’ve seen all our best students leave as their parents didn’t want them in this madhouse…so things just keep getting worse. Fuck it…I spent 25 years working at helping this community unfuck itself. It didn’t happen, but I tried. Oh, I’ve gotten an even worse story. Here in Kansas there is a state school for kids who have mental issues. We are talking things like schizophrenia, in Ossawatomie. Well the Phd’s out there thought it was bad that those kids were not in a regular school so they had them mainstreamed to the Paola Ks schools. Well these kids were really messed up and caused loads of problems and the administration wouldnt kick them out so the school turned into a nuthouse. ---
**Author:** ![Grestarian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grestarian/32/3227_2.png) [@Grestarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grestarian)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2017, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/article-unsayable-truths-about-a-failing-high-school-fair-article-or-not/787293/108 "2017-05-28T05:49:56Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > Lack of education in birth control and family planning seems like an easy issue to solve. > [@k9bfriender](#): > > Lack of family planning is actually the harder part, as that is getting people to do things differently than they were taught o do them by their parents, and reinforced by the environment that they grew up in. [FONT=Times New Roman]I’ll second **K9Bfriender**. The Pill has been around for almost half a century, condoms for almost half a millennium and yet there are substantial cultural, religious, and secular institutions that continue to be very actively opposed to dissemination of sex education and ancillary topics (e.g. family planning, women’s rights and economics, gender dynamics, etc.) > [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Then go back to the questions I asked. Which is it? Are the problems black people have just the inevitable result of them being black? Or are the problems black people have the result of things that have been done to black people? This is presented as a mutually exclusive dichotomy, but the situation is not dichotomous. It’s a lot more complex than that, hence all of this discussion. [But I’m stating the obvious. ;)] > [@k9bfriender](#): > > The kids are not getting good role modeling in the benefits of an education, the benefits of waiting to have a family, and the benefits of getting out of the cycle of poverty, or even that these are things that are possible for them. They just see their parents working, all the time, and see that as their future as well. School and an education does not seem a way out to them. {snipped} > You call it a culture as if it is the way they wish to be, but it’s more a culture in that it is the way they have been forced to be by societal influences. We need to remove those societal influences, before we can blame the victims of the same. …or, if blaming said victims, also step up and take responsibility for perpetuating the influences. And, if taking responsibility, we (humans in general, society at large, the big WE, not just us thread contributors) can also take initiative in researching and contributing to positive changes. {Yeah, okay, so you can say me and John Lennon are dreamers…} > [@k9bfriender](#): > > Immigrants worked their asses off to get here in the first place. They were looking for a better life. They may not know all the ins and outs of American society, but that have a plan. {snipped} > Of course they are then going to do their best to instill that sort of work ethic in their children, even if they don’t have academic knowledge to pass down. Just for everyone’s edification, while the casual observer tends to just think “migrant” as if all migrants are the same, there are actually two general forms of migration relevant to this discussion: They’re casually referred to as pull migration and push migration. Immigration (into migration) tends to occur when people are attracted to the opportunities/conditions of a country. Something is pulling them in. Those migrants tend to be wealthy enough to find a way to travel to the new land and set up new lives. In general, they were planning to ‘make it’ in the new place before they left the old place. These are the immigrants of whom k9bfriender speaks, above. In the 1850’s immigrants came from all over the world to see if they could strike it rich by either finding gold or providing good or services to everyone else who was flocking to the nation. Emigration (out-of migration) tends to occur when people are trying to get away from conditions in their source country. Something is pushing them out. They may or may not be wealthy, they may or may not have had a destination in mind, they may or may not have had plans for the future beyond surviving long enough to not be where they were. Emigrants were driven from Ireland by Great Potato Famine, from Germany and Poland during the 1930’s, from Southeast Asia during the 1970’s, from the middle east today… > [@astro](#): > > You can chicken and egg this scenario to death but in the end (IMO) it gets back to poor, single mother households. If you can’t fix a culture of single mother household, multi generational poverty and the bad decisions and attitudes that roll out of that lifestyle context there’s really no real world “fix” to academic performance. But, as someone [**yellowjacketcoder** , perhaps?] noted above, the connection is spurious. Poor single mother households are another symptom of the problem, not a cause. > [@astro](#): > > I think it’s granted that the root of the specific dysfunction we are talking about with respect to the attitudes and behaviors of children coming out poor, single mother households is deeply embedded in the history of how racism has impacted black people in America over the generations and > [@k9bfriender](#): > > I will agree that a poor single mother household is not an ideal place to raise a child. The mother does not have time to spend educating and socializing her kids, she is spending all of her time just trying to keep a roof over their head and food on the table. If her education is similar, then she will not be passing on knowledge or curiosity to her children. Throwing money at it is not going to work, obviously, as the money needs to be spent in productive ways. There is something to be said for financial support, so that the mother does not need to work 3 jobs at the same time as she tries to raise children, but that’s not enough. Having an uneducated and not overly responsible person, even if they have more time, spend time with their children is not going to make massive improvements. It really requires a comprehensive solution of pre-school all the way down to infancy, as well as school for parents, so that they are able to navigate the world better, and teach their children. The key term from my sociology courses (some on education and some on race issues) is _enfranchisement_. One is enfranchised when one has internalized\* the values and norms of the larger society in which one is a member. \*\* AHunter3\*\* talked about that as ‘acting middle class’ even while he was homeless. One is disenfranchised [/FONT] [ul] [li][FONT=Times New Roman]when one has failed to adopt mainstream values and norms,[/FONT][/li][li][FONT=Times New Roman]when one has relinquished mainstream values and norms,[/FONT][/li][li][FONT=Times New Roman]when one actively rejects mainstream values and norms. [/FONT][/li][/ul] [FONT=Times New Roman]There are lots of values and norms in every society, and the three types of disenfranchisement are not exclusive; they bleed into each other (or mix-and-match, if you prefer the paradigm). Once in a while mainstream media will talk about ‘disenfranchised youth’ as a phenomenon behind teen rebellion, rock N roll music (and some variants), drug abuse, etc. But modern mainstream America’s middle class values currently include [/FONT] [ul] [li][FONT=Times New Roman]education through high school [/FONT][/li][li][FONT=Times New Roman]holding a steady job[/FONT][/li][li][FONT=Times New Roman]earning at least a self-sustaining income[/FONT][/li][li][FONT=Times New Roman]finding a spouse[/FONT][/li][li][FONT=Times New Roman]acquiring a single family home in the suburbs with a white picket fence, 2.3 kids, a pet, and two cars.[/FONT][/li][/ul] [FONT=Times New Roman] No, that’s not a punch line. No, that’s not the idealized 1950’s myth leveraged by the recent conservative Presidential campaign and thoroughly shredded in another SDMB thread. That is the fantasy world of old TV shows and there’s no coincidence in the fact that the ideal is very supportive of capitalism: earn, spend, multiply (if only slowly now-a-days) and perpetuate consumerism. Very few of us in the middle class (or higher) question that paradigm. It’s not that we’re too close to the trees to see the forest. It’s that we ARE the trees and most of us are not aware enough to question our own roles in the perpetuation of the standards and norms and values that make up that paradigm. But let’s backtrack just a bit; scroll back to the discussion of immigration and emigration. There is a third type of foreigner in the United States and I’ll venture to suggest that it’s the worst type of foreigner to be. Because while the immigrant sought opportunity here and the emigrant voluntarily left his (her) old life behind, the third type of foreigner is fully aware that he (she) never had a choice. That’s the source of disenfranchisement for what we generalize as ‘the black’ person, whose ancestors were brought to the Colonies and the expanding States-and- Territories as slaves. That is also the source of disenfranchisement for what we generalize as the Native American ‘person’ whose civilizations precede that of European colonists but who were swept aside by force or fakery as ‘the white man’ spread from coast to coast to heed the call of his ‘Manifest Destiny.’ That is the source of disenfranchisement for what we distinguish, for some reason, as persons of Central American ancestry who, like the Native Americans, are no longer welcome in the lands of their ancestors’ roots and heritage.\* Do you wonder why these three groups of people are unwilling to buy into the mainstream norms and values of the dominant society? It’s not simply because they didn’t have a choice in being here. One could ultimately wind up with a variant of “Well, you’re here now, so let’s get on with fitting in.” It’s also because they have seen centuries of abuse at the hands of the colonists, the slaveholders, the imperialists and they see that the abuse has not stopped. And the cultural resonance there is one of asking, "Why do I want to become part of that machinery of abuse? Why should I become like the white guy who pays my mother pennies to pick his strawberries and then charges her dollars to sleep in plywood shacks? My father has a PhD and you insist on hiring him only to clean your filthy office at night! Why should I respect the sheriff who buys cocaine to support his son’s habit and then busts me for having a joint in my pocket? Why should we try to build bank accounts and raise families when authorities are shooting our sons with impunity? Why do I want to adopt the norms and values of people whose hypocrisy constantly victimizes me? Answer: I don’t. The alternatives, as we’ve discussed, are short-term plans, instant gratification, flashy fashions. Giving to the system only as much as one must in order to get back what one needs, without exceeding expectations or taking pride in the work or certainly not helping the boss take more skin off my back! One need not be well educated to attain; one simply needs to be smart in the right ways – ways you can learn for a short time _at_ school, but not _in_ school; not from books or teachers. How do we fight that? How do we inspire enfranchisement?+ Or maybe it’s more appropriate to ask how we (the middle and upper class; wealthy enough, at least, to able to afford a computer with Internet access and probably a Straight Dope annual membership), stop inspiring disenfranchisement. And that’s where a lot of our other threads have been important. Why does it matter what happened in Ferguson Missouri, in Phoenix Arizona, in South Central Los Angeles? Why does accuracy in news and journalism matter? Why does LBJ’s Voting Rights act matter? Why was acceptance or rejection of the 44th US President such a big deal at all? I think we stop inspiring disenfranchisement when we stop marginalizing the disenfranchised as human beings; when we fix potholes and streetlamps in Boyle Heights just as frequently as we do in Westlake Village; when we start enforcing laws with equal vigor against everyone. Maybe when they see mainstream America has stopped treating racial minorities as second- or third-class people, they’ll think mainstream America is worth joining. > [@Slash1972](#): > > The criminal justice system? Not so much, so it seems almost futile to try to fix that in any sort of small timeframe. Criminal justice, as a system, has taken many forms over many centuries based on the dominant views of crime, its causes, and punishment/justice/incarceration and its purpose(s). We haven’t started realizing the current system is ineffective in a small timeframe. There’s no reason to think it can be fixed in a small timeframe either. In fact, since it has slowly changed forms over the centuries, it’s reasonable to think it will continue changing forms for centuries and that we can – if we’re willing to try – make those changes help society overall. But I kinda think that deserves a different thread. > [@Scumpup](#): > > Fuck it…I spent 25 years working at helping this community unfuck itself. It didn’t happen, but I tried. Thank you for trying. Really. Please take a moment to (re?)watch the Twilight Zone episode “The Changing of the Guard” –G! \*The term I want to use here is “grok” from Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land. It fits better, but I’m not sure how many would recognize it. # You will find a similar strain of resentment among those with native Hawaiian ancestry, and among native Okinawans as well, for very similar reasons. +I’m going to set aside for now the argument that there are those who see the world as a series of zero-sum games; who are quite happy with inequities and inequality because they see themselves as benefiting from them. [/FONT] ---
**Author:** ![Corry\_El](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecae2f/32.png) [@Corry\_El](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corry_El)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2017, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/article-unsayable-truths-about-a-failing-high-school-fair-article-or-not/787293/109 "2017-05-28T18:40:23Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > 1. We’re talking about academic performance of groups not individuals. I think we both would agree that there’s evidence that black students, as a group, perform poorer academically than white students, as a group. Yes? > > 2. So the question is why this happens. My opinion - and I’ll openly admit that this is a personal opinion - is that there is no inherent reason why the academic performance of black students should be indistinguishable from that of white students. I think ideally you should be able to compare them side-by-side and see the same distribution of good and bad results. Do you agree with this? > > Or are you saying you believe that this is not the case? That even if there were no outside factors at work and black students and white students had the same experiences and circumstances that there would still be a noticeable difference in their academic performance? 1. Yes, obviously, and it’s not just ‘black’ v ‘white’, there are plenty of patterns of greater/less academic achievement by group besides that one. 2. The basic problem here is the same general one I commented on last post. There you conflated ‘what is done to X’ to with the reality of a social situation (almost any pattern in society) that is the sum of all things which _have_ been done, including the knock on effect of what ‘X does to X’ based on what ‘was done to X’ earlier. ‘What is being done to blacks’ an a whole explanation is so cartoonishly oversimplified as to have essentially no value IMO in finding practical remedies to the racial divide in the US. Or only very limited ones. Likewise in the real world it’s bass ackwards to imagine we could make everyone come to school from the same home/outside life (or one that varied by individual but didn’t correlate at all with race) and then see what happens. It’s too far removed reality to have any practical meaning. It’s _just_ IMO some recitation of a catechism about there being no ‘inherent’ reason in a narrow theoretical sense. To which my theoretical answer would be, ‘I don’t know’. And if one answer or another is based on ‘belief’, that should devalue it IMO as a driving force in practical policy making. My outline opinion of practical school policy is a) it’s ridiculous to talk about fixing schools by fixing the racial disparity beyond schools. Either there are smallish steps to improve schools, in part as a tool to have some positive influence on the racial disparity in society, or else throw up one’s hands. Some bigger solution to society’s problem which will then bounce back to improve schools is hopelessly unrealistic IMO. b) we should stop being so obsessed with group performance differences, and while it’s fine to ‘believe’ these wouldn’t exist ‘all things equal’, such belief shouldn’t be central to school policy. That obsession can have real negative side effects. And on recent theme, parents working very long hours is definitely not the main problem in underclass schools. There are surely such cases, but workforce participation and hours tend to be lower not higher than average in the underclass. And it’s true for the standby ‘works three jobs’ that that’s rare anywhere in the workforce. It’s just a turn of phrase at its most harmless, taking it literally as some common situation is silly. Anyway the flip side of the coin of parents being even fully employed is that, while a lot of their time and energy is spent on work, kids see a world where full time work is a norm. It’s less of a norm in poor areas (including poor rural areas, poor white areas), part of the problem. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2017, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/article-unsayable-truths-about-a-failing-high-school-fair-article-or-not/787293/110 "2017-05-28T20:57:42Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > Oh, I’ve gotten an even worse story. > > Here in Kansas there is a state school for kids who have mental issues. We are talking things like schizophrenia, in Ossawatomie. Well the Phd’s out there thought it was bad that those kids were not in a regular school so they had them mainstreamed to the Paola Ks schools. Well these kids were really messed up and caused loads of problems and the administration wouldnt kick them out so the school turned into a nuthouse. There are situations where mainstreaming is not appropriate. This is one of them. When I was growing up in the 1970s, there was a facility of my neighborhood for “emotionally disturbed children”. Knowing what I do now, I believe most of them had Reactive Attachment Disorder; the higher-functioning kids went to regular schools, and most of the time, we couldn’t tell they were from there until they told us. However, one thing they all had in common was that no matter how intelligent they were, they were always several grade levels behind where they should have been. ☹ p.s. Grestarian, could you choose a font that’s easier to read? ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2017, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/article-unsayable-truths-about-a-failing-high-school-fair-article-or-not/787293/111 "2017-05-28T20:59:39Z")
> [@Corry\_El](#): > > And on recent theme, parents working very long hours is definitely not the main problem in underclass schools. There are surely such cases, but workforce participation and hours tend to be lower not higher than average in the underclass. And it’s true for the standby ‘works three jobs’ that that’s rare anywhere in the workforce. It’s just a turn of phrase at its most harmless, taking it literally as some common situation is silly. Anyway the flip side of the coin of parents being even fully employed is that, while a lot of their time and energy is spent on work, kids see a world where full time work is a norm. It’s less of a norm in poor areas (including poor rural areas, poor white areas), part of the problem. I believe that the “very long hours” thing is more likely to be seen in wealthier areas, and I also feel that there are some occupations for which it’s best for the people who do them not to have children. The wise ones know this. ---
**Author:** ![Corry\_El](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecae2f/32.png) [@Corry\_El](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corry_El)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2017, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/article-unsayable-truths-about-a-failing-high-school-fair-article-or-not/787293/112 "2017-05-28T21:16:35Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > I believe that the “very long hours” thing is more likely to be seen in wealthier areas, and I also feel that there are some occupations for which it’s best for the people who do them not to have children. The wise ones know this. Yes, longer hours tend to correlate with higher incomes per hour. But by the same token, aside from the imperative to be ‘fair’, higher socio-economic status is a positive on average for kids’ academic prospects. I doubt that any broad category of exception to that can be carved out validly. In individual cases anecdotally, sure. But in general even for any whole occupation, I doubt it. Being the kid of a successful workaholic might be less favorable on average for academic performance than being the kid of some theoretically optimum parent(s)\*. But it’s likely on average to beat the crap out of being the kid of an underclass single parent, again for academic performance. \*the other factor being the higher likelihood of an intact family at higher income, and one parent might work extreme hours but the other not. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2017, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/article-unsayable-truths-about-a-failing-high-school-fair-article-or-not/787293/113 "2017-05-29T00:46:24Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > Yep, doesn’t leave much time for the kiddies. > > Now, I am a business owner, so my situation is a bit different (and is only one location) but I have only very recently stopped spending over 80 hours a week here every week. I know very well what an 80+ hour work week looks like. > > And what do you mean by mandatory meal break? You may be under the impression that meal breaks are mandated by federal labor laws, but they are not. They are state by state, and many states do not have one. You may live in a state that does, but you should know that your experience is not universal. Ohio, for instance, which is relevant because that is where I have lived and worked my entire life, does not. > Couple of unfounded assumptions you have made there. The first is that OT would be available to a MW worker. It’s not. If you are a fast food manager, and you have .01 hours of overtime at the end of the week, you are going to be getting shit from your DM for a month. > > Most of the time, it is hard for MW workers to even get to 30 hours, much less 40 or overtime. > > Like I said, usually one job, they are going to get as close to full time as possible, upper 30’s if they are lucky. Second job is not as much, but is close to 30. The third job may only be 10 or so hours a week, but they need that income to make ends meet. > As far as the sex quip that you made, well, they aren’t having sex anymore, they don’t have time for that, sure, but they have the results of having sex when they were less busy, and those don’t go away just because she doesn’t have time for them. > Depends on how you manage your time. I know people who are poor at time managment, and only work a part time job, but always complain about not having time for anything. But then I know people, and I am one, who are able to manage time effectively, and are able to work quite a number of hours, while still taking care of themselves and having a social life. I sleep less than 5 hours a night, which helps, but I am going from 6am till 1am pretty much every day. Spending 7am to 8pm at work 6 days a week, plus another 5 or so on the seventh sounds like a lot, but it still leaves me 5 hours every evening free to do whatever I desire, as I have no kids to take care of. > > It sounds as if the people you know are primarily from the first type, but I must assure you, your experience in this is also not universal, you just might not meet these people, because they don’t have time for your slower lifestyle. Good for you. Do you make above minimum wage all things considered? That is what we are talking about. I wish everyone used their personal gifts to do whatever they can do. For me, that means lots of sleep and family time. I work to live and not the other way around. That is a common middle-class attitude and one of the reasons that I am not that ambitious but a very good professional. I have plenty of money but I just use it to make my life easier in some ways. I have no interest in working my ass off until I die. I just got through bitching my daughter out because she made a ‘C’ in one of final term tests as a high school freshman. I am not having that level of retardation in my house because she should be valedictorian if she tried at least a little but it is a balancing act. I don’t want to be like a Chinese Tiger Mon either because I have seen the end result of those and it isn’t good unless you expect your child to memorize all results so perfectly that they become the equivalent of a human calculator ($3 at your local store). There are vanishingly few people that make near minimum wage and work a sustained 80 hour work week. That is a myth perpetuated by liberals but it is completely false. I worked a 77 hour work week once in high school unloading trucks and stocking shelves and it almost killed me even in peak physical condition. I also worked three jobs while in college and only one of them payed minimum wage - administrative assistant, research assistant and wedding caterer. The latter paid the bills and the first two were for experience. As **Shodan** has repeatedly pointed out (correctly), most chronically poor people don’t work much if at all. The idea of a single mother that works 80 hours a week has about as much basis in reality as BigFoot. ---
**Author:** ![Corry\_El](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecae2f/32.png) [@Corry\_El](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corry_El)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2017, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/article-unsayable-truths-about-a-failing-high-school-fair-article-or-not/787293/114 "2017-05-29T02:57:09Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > There are vanishingly few people that make near minimum wage and work a sustained 80 hour work week. …As **Shodan** has repeatedly pointed out (correctly), most chronically poor people don’t work much if at all. The idea of a single mother that works 80 hours a week has about as much basis in reality as BigFoot. People can argue endlessly about what’s the best approach to work and life, and tell others’ their own personal choice is best, as is the tendency. It doesn’t really mean much in the big picture of public policy toward schools which is the ostensible topic here. In that context your last paragraph is correct. The idea that lots of kids from poor single family homes have a mom (a large majority of cases it is mom) who works lots of hours is just BS. I don’t know about ‘don’t work much’. But working a lot more than 40 hours a week in low paying jobs is just obviously not that common. The average work week in the whole US labor force is only in the mid the 30’s, and we’re way out in space on politically driven stereotypes to imagine lots of employed high paid people in today’s US economy who work less than 40 hours a week. Poorer people often work in jobs where employers have an economic reason (often regulation, not to sidetrack into a debate about regulation but it’s often the reason in practical reality) not to offer them even 40 hours. And BLS stats show the % of the US workforce with more than one job is around 5%, although few of them either would be high paid people. If you get paid a lot per hour, it’s more worth your while to work more hours. That’s part of it, again big picture, not accounting for the personal situations and preferences of every single person in the country. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2017, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/article-unsayable-truths-about-a-failing-high-school-fair-article-or-not/787293/115 "2017-05-29T03:26:19Z")
> [@astro](#): > > Your points are cogent but the article’s take is that “disobedient, aggressive, and uncaring” behavior norms are far more pervasive among children of black, single mother households than any other ethnic groups. They are presenting this as a hard fact. While there are “disobedient, aggressive, and uncaring white, latino, asian, and multiracial students” they exist in far smaller percentages relative to the student body. The point is that there are so many kids like this in urban schools they effectively cripple the learning process and the school’s ability to function as a place of learning for the kids that do want to learn and until the dysfunctional family scenario is fixed nothing is going to improve. > > Is this an untrue or unfair characterization? I don’t think so. It’s terribly unfortunate, but in general, if you were to just about anyone that that a school is predominantly black and lower income, they’re going to tell you that it has poor academic performance, and a host of other ills that don’t seem to affect lower income schools of other ethnicities. I mean, if you look in my own school district, you have a bunch of schools within the SAME district that are funded equally well by the district and all draw from the same tax base, and the teachers are paid equally. Guess what? The schools that are predominantly populated by white upper middle class students do very well on test scores. The schools populated by black low income students do very poorly. And I’m not talking about schools separated by miles across a large district either; I’m talking about schools separated by literally a mile or two as the crow flies. There is something that… isn’t right, or doesn’t foster success, or what have you in the black community when it comes to young black students and academic success. That seems to be an incontrovertible truth. I don’t know what to do about it - I don’t know how you change a culture, but it’s not necessary the fault of the schools- if it were, you wouldn’t see that happening within the span of a couple of miles within the same district, with schools that are funded equally. I have to think that it’s cultural factors that hinder the success of the black students, when all else is pretty much equal, and within the span of a mile or two. ---
**Author:** ![Corry\_El](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecae2f/32.png) [@Corry\_El](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corry_El)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2017, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/article-unsayable-truths-about-a-failing-high-school-fair-article-or-not/787293/116 "2017-05-29T14:53:58Z")
> [@bump](#): > > I don’t think so. It’s terribly unfortunate, but in general, if you were to just about anyone that that a school is predominantly black and lower income, they’re going to tell you that it has poor academic performance, and a host of other ills that don’t seem to affect lower income schools of other ethnicities. > > There is something that… isn’t right, or doesn’t foster success, or what have you in the black community when it comes to young black students and academic success. That seems to be an incontrovertible truth. I agree the difference is at least in many cases not ‘funding’. I live in a town with in many recent years the highest spending per pupil in the state (which is among the top spending states in the US), and very mediocre results within that state. The student body which goes to the public schools here (from which is subtracted a significant portion of the upper middle class kids going to private school) is just not going to compete with the student body in well off suburbs…let alone heavily Asian towns just north of us. It’s not going to happen, and the question becomes instead IMO when tilting at that windmill becomes positively deleterious to overall education policy. I think it already is. But our public school district is only a small % ‘anglo’ black. It’s mainly Hispanic though a significant % white. Nor does the district do _as_ poorly as true ‘inner city’ (aka virtually 100% black) schools in the worst districts in the state. So it’s not strictly a black/white thing. But it’s not mainly a funding thing. It would be nice if it was. Just like it would be nice if there ‘we’ were doing something to the people in poor performing school districts ‘we’ could just stop doing. But both of these are largely unrealistic themes. Not entirely: in some particular cases school funding might be an issue, and there might also be currently actually racist practices\* which can be clearly identified, and stopped. But in general IMO school funding and current racism are clearly not a large % of the explanation, they are just things a) more comfortable to discuss and b) which fit into a mentality of ‘can do’, ‘present solutions! or why are you commenting at all?!?’. But not all perceived problems have solutions. \*stuff like black students getting suspended a lot more relative to their actual behavior. Although, claims similar to this are used in other cases to paper over uncomfortable facts so that type of claim now needs extraordinary evidence IMO. ---
**Author:** ![CelticKnot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/celticknot/32/3392_2.png) [@CelticKnot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CelticKnot)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2017, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/article-unsayable-truths-about-a-failing-high-school-fair-article-or-not/787293/117 "2017-05-29T15:16:50Z")
Poverty and single-mother households won’t be eliminated if there are rewards for them: More children without fathers in the home = more welfare money. Work too much, and lose some of your benefits. In many situations, Welfare pays better than minimum wage. None of this is about skin color; it’s about culture. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2017, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/article-unsayable-truths-about-a-failing-high-school-fair-article-or-not/787293/118 "2017-05-29T15:26:21Z")
> [@CelticKnot](#): > > Poverty and single-mother households won’t be eliminated if there are rewards for them: More children without fathers in the home = more welfare money. Work too much, and lose some of your benefits. In many situations, Welfare pays better than minimum wage. > > None of this is about skin color; it’s about culture. That is thing that scares me about the idea of guaranteed basic income that has been floated about. We have had versions of that before in the U.S. and other parts of the world and it always ends in disaster. Liberal types don’t seem to understand human nature. No, people won’t use something like that to do volunteer work and improve themselves. They will sit around and play video games and form gangs to make even more illegal income. It is 100% guaranteed. It is especially dangerous to have younger males sitting around bored. All you are going to get is lots of violence, out of wedlock children and illegal activity. I say that as a former member of that subset myself. I don’t know the whole solution myself but you can’t incentive poverty and idleness. Money itself has little to do with it. If you think Americans are dumb now, just wait until you tell them that they don’t have to worry about school and can just chew and screw all they want. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2017, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/article-unsayable-truths-about-a-failing-high-school-fair-article-or-not/787293/119 "2017-05-29T15:30:40Z")
> [@CelticKnot](#): > > Poverty and single-mother households won’t be eliminated if there are rewards for them: More children without fathers in the home = more welfare money. Work too much, and lose some of your benefits. In many situations, Welfare pays better than minimum wage. > > None of this is about skin color; it’s about culture. Every word of this is pretty much racist propaganda. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2017, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/article-unsayable-truths-about-a-failing-high-school-fair-article-or-not/787293/120 "2017-05-29T16:04:42Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > Every word of this is pretty much racist propaganda. Every word of yours is just baiting for something no one in this thread said. I can’t speak for the person that wrote it but I personally know white trash families (their term) that have the same mentality. Intergenerational poverty is something they excel at and have no intent on changing. School is for suckers and the goal is to drop out as soon as they legally can. If there was an Olympic event in dysfunction households, they would win it all. I don’t know how you can help someone like that except for the somewhat rare cases of a child that wants to make it out. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/article-unsayable-truths-about-a-failing-high-school-fair-article-or-not/787293.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/article-unsayable-truths-about-a-failing-high-school-fair-article-or-not/787293.md?page=7)