WM: I would argue that poor whites suffer a similar fate from similar preconditions. Beyond low birth weight, etc. there is a type of deprivation which comes from having a family that is not a reading family. No books in evidence, no readers in the household. Unknown to both parental and/or guardian units, kids are not absorbing some cultural signals in a way that they can use them in the future.From the Monday, November 24, 2003 USA Today under the headline "POOR, MINORITY KIDS FACE LONG ODDS IN EDUCATION," here are the lead paragraphs: ... "Before they're even born, poor minority children are at risk of doing poorly in school, a new report suggests. ... "
Apparently, somewhere during the 4th grade, according to studies, kids go into a slump. This comes about when the learning is divorced from mythic, cultural, and other sources of information that have not been shared with kids. For example, we have January because of the Roman god Janus. Janus was a number one type god to the Romans during Ceasar's time, and it connects forward to Shakespeare's Julius Ceasar and to calendars in general and to physics and North African history, yadda, yadda. A plethora of other touch stones that exist along the way are helpful in absorbing the most one can out of a grammar school education. You see how that goes? If the family a child comes from has no notion of any of the parts of that whole thread of history, it becomes more difficult, if not impossible, to hold on to the later information. Each time a kid has less to hold on to--meaning less that relates to anything in his/her daily life or home life, the less the kid is prepared to go forward to the next year of information the schools are trying to impart to students.
This applies to white kids as well as children of color among the poor. Unless you were born to the middle class shortly after it's invention, you can trace back to your personal ancestors and say, "My great grandmother could neither read or write. Three generations later, I have earned a BA" or whatever. Without outside forces pushing it--rarely could a family produce among those who are only two or three generations away from both kinds of illiteracy--in any language--college bound generations. Without strong outside incentives and a huge amount of support from families that can rarely understand themselves what the kids are talking about with their schoolwork, it takes longer than three generations. There may be nothing greater than bone poor poverty to stomp out the lights in a child's eyes.
WizardMarks, Central ________________________________
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