Is There a “Privilege” Gap in Education?

Townhall.com ^ | September 10, 2014 | Harry R. Jackson, Jr

[ealgeone]

More moneys the answer.....that’s the ticket.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

The purpose of affirmative action is to put people with IQs of 85 into positions for which they are completely unqualified.

[BitWielder1]

It's an ambition gap more than anything else.

[FlingWingFlyer]

There must be some kind of a “gap”. Most celebrities and politicians send their kids to private rather than public schools.

[Responsibility2nd]

According to a 1995 University of Kansas study (Hart and Risley), children of educated parents hear 2,100 words an hour. In contrast, those with working class parents hear 1,200 words, and children whose parents are on public assistance hear only 600. The vocabulary and attentiveness of the primary caregiver—whether it is a parent, a nanny or a daycare worker—plays a central role in the cognitive skills children will demonstrate later in life.

That's very interesting.  There were plenty of reasons why we read stories to our babies, but little did I know then that it would mean having a greater educational advanatage later in life.

[MrB]

What is it about leftists that they just can’t fathom that those with more resources are going to have more and better choices available to them?

[Jim Robinson]

That and a parenting gap.

[Still Thinking]

Can kids learn particular skills to help them overcome adversity?

Absolutely. If you can teach a kid to read well and truly inculcate the ideas that hard work is good and commie fascists are Ebola, then he'll do well, unless he's overwhelmed with millions of gibsmedats. Even then, he'll do better than he would as yet another of them.

[T-Bird45]

FTA: A growing body of research indicates that part of the answer may lie in the tremendous amount of brain development that takes place during the first three years of life. Babies are born to learn, and we now know many neural networks in the brain are significantly strengthened or weakened long before a child has entered formal schooling.

You learn this as a parent with each child but you don't really get to appreciate until you interact with your grandchildren in that age range. It floors me every week on Wednesday when we keep the oldest granddaughter, age 2-1/2 years, at the increase in language from one week to the next.

[antidisestablishment]

Actually, it’s low IQ and fetal alcohol syndrome. It is causation, not correlation. Not many children make it because they suffer the effects of their parents’ choices.

And that doesn’t even consider the effects of government intervention and forced dependence.

[bboop]

It is tremendously important to read to your (little) children. Jim Trelease (see his website) speaks on this often. It is as important in the later years as well. If children grow up in a millieu of words, they ingest them and turn around and use them, value them. I tutor Middle School kids in writing, and those that struggle invariably have working parents, perhaps a nanny who doesn’t speak English well, not a lot of verbal interaction with the parents or anyone, often not a family dinner where conversation is encouraged.

When I encourage them to read with their kids, they look at me as if I were a Marian.

[roadcat]

In contrast, those with working class parents hear 1,200 words, and children whose parents are on public assistance hear only 600.

Yes, and I bet most of those 600 words are four-letter words. That's what I have observed, hearing welfare moms and dads screaming at their kids "RJ, get the f*** in here!". That kind of talk does not help one get into college.

[Vigilanteman]

Yep. And the redistributionists will never agree that good parenting makes a difference. Two parents work best. One parent which values education can still work.

Fake parents who squeeze out babies and use the additional government income to buy more booze, drugs and lottery tickets don't work so well.

The key is to encourage more intact families and less fake families.

[Nepeta]

It isn't poverty, it's CULTURE.

Children raised in poor immigrant families which valued education and insisted their children get ahead were reared by parents who cared about them and instilled a work ethic. The kids never considered growing up and being nothing. They were taken to the public library. They were shown free or nearly free art exhibits.

It does not take money to raise a educated adult. It takes a family with the culture expecting their kids to be educated adults. Lots of kids from upper middle class homes are utter losers because their parents indulged them.

[Flintlock]

Who benefits from an uneducated/undereducated class???

Who FIGHTS the very idea of a ‘charter school’??

Who indeed.

[Covenantor]

Author, and maybe editor, are grossly inflating parents concern and commitment to their childrens education.

If the parent or parents are semi-literate the child has no model for learning. And will have no reading material beyond micro-wave meal packaging and 40 oz malt liquor labels. By the time first grade rolls around too many have been conditioned to look upon natural curiosity as a quality to avoid or hide deeply. Next time a recycle truck passes by, ask the crew how many newspapers or magazines they collect from poor neighborhoods.

[a fool in paradise]

The purpose of affirmative action is to put people with IQs of 85 into positions for which they are completely unqualified.

[Attention Surplus Disorder]

“White privelege” refers to the massive degree of speciousness that white people believe they are entitled to engage in when concocting convoluted theories as to why they are the guilt-ridden benefactors of forces over which they have no control and do not wish to control. Especially when you compare the kind of rhetoric the typical Atlantic Monthly intellectual slings around compared to “Yo homie, dat be like da shizzle upside yo drank mama Ritchie Cunningham slave-ass”.

[ChildOfThe60s]

There were plenty of reasons why we read stories to our babies, but little did I know then that it would mean having a greater educational advantage later in life.

Thirty years ago when I read to my baby every day, continued to do so even after she had learned to read, I/we knew exactly that. And we were 100% right.

Yes there is a “Privilege” Gap. Our kid had it & still does. It's the privilege of having two parents (one of each sex) that love each other and care for the well being of their offspring. Two parents that nurture and educate their child. Raise her to be a self reliant, moral person.

It is a "privilege" that the left wants to take away from good parents to "level the playing field", to "equalize" things.

I fought those bastards when she was growing up & I never backed down. Most of the time I won, and I was not liked by the educational establishment in Polk County, FL.