VivirLatino

"My teachers don't have time for me" sounds a little funny for a ratio of 22:1. Here in Spain it's really common to share your class with 30 (sometimes even 40!) students. Teachers have time for those students that work hard. If you don't care about high-school... well, you can't expect someone watching over you all your life...

22-1 is a very very low average and I can tell you that in NYC a public school class with 22 students is a dream . I know. I was excited when my daughter's class ended up having only 22 kids. It really is more along the 30-1 ratio here not to mention outdated books and a curriculum that goes out of its way to marginalize students of color.

Nobody denies that bad schools, bad teachers, and bad economic status have a significant impact on a child’s educational outcome. These are very important factors, and factors that must be accounted for, this is after all, one of the primary reasons why I am such a strong supporter of vouchers, the only truly educational reform with clear results.

With that said, this doesn't mean that these are the only factors involved. If you read the article I quoted in full, you will see that the discussion was between Asians and Hispanics going to the same school, and overall living in the same neighborhood. So a lot of the above factors were somewhat controlled for. In addition to this, the author of the article, Zhou, grew up in Echo Park. Contrary to what you may think, Echo Park is not like San Francisco. Echo Park, for example, is largely Mexican, and has a large amount of poverty and gang activity. So Zhou writes from personal experience, not the often outdated and unconnected to reality crap that is taught in our elite universities.

How do vouchers solve the problem of bad schools, bad teachers, and poverty? Wouldn't it make more sense to use that money to fix the schools, properly educate teachers and deal with the underlying causes of poverty.

I did read the article in full and agree that it raises some issues. Continuing to prmote Asians as the model minority vs. Latinos being just one.

I merely referenced the article; the post wasn't about your post but about the Pew study, and the fact that while many may blame Latino parents for "not pushing their kids enough", it's funny how people love to overlook the fact that poverty and overcrowding are issues that MUST come into play when comparing Latino children to students of other races.

No one is comparing Echo Park to San Francisco, though there are parts of San Francisco which would fit a similar description. Poverty is quite an obvious problem in this, one of the most expensive cities in the country (no, we don't all live in Victorian houses with Uncle Jesse), and while tourist eyes may never see it, it's here.

I agree with Mala, the article reinforces the notion that Asian-American children are superstudents and Latino kids are lazy underachievers. Sad.

Maegan la Mala,

The question is no longer 'How do vouchers solve the problem of bad schools, bad teachers, and poverty'; the question now is why isn't this implemented faster and quicker in other areas. You see, vouchers have already been implemented in various states, and they have clear positive results for the teachers, the schools, and especially the students. Just click on 'education' on the right side (pun intended) of my website, you will see study after study showing how vouchers works.

Also, just as a point of clarification, as far as taking money away from an individual public school, there are many different ways one can implement vouchers, and a voucher plan does not necessarily have to ‘gut’ the public school. For example, here in California, there is already ~$7,000/year per student of our tax dollars set aside for the public school of that student. The way vouchers would work is if that student happens to go to a failing school, that school would be put on probation, and only after still not reforming, would vouchers get implemented. They would start off slow, giving the market a chance to meet demand, but eventually every kid in that failing school would be given a voucher that could be used to send that kid to the school of the parents choice. Now here's the thing, not all of the ~$7,000 needs to go to the parent. The state could decide that only $4,000 or $5,000 is necessary, given current market values of private schools. So the remaining $3,000 or so could be used to help the school improve, or it could be used to help other good schools improve. Bottom line, only the schools that are failing are ‘gutted’, but who cares, why would anybody want to put more money into a particular school that is failing and unreformable anyway? Better to use that money to fund schools that actually work, and that actually work for the people we most care about, the children who were formerly stuck in a poverty trap, by their previous school.

Jennifer Woodard Maderazo,

Like I said in my previous comment, these were apples to apples comparisons. The Asians went to the same school, lived in the same neighborhood, and had the same teachers, yet one group excelled, and the other didn't. In fact, the more you study this, the more you see how culture becomes a better predictor of school performance than people realize, the results may offend you, they may insult your false sense of orgullo, but facts are facts, and its about time we started discussing them, to hide from it is to refuse to deal with the problem head on, which means more kids are left out of the American dream.