Our Kids the American Dream in Crisis Peer Review
The American Dream in Crunch
past Robert D. Putnam
Simon & Schuster, 2015, $28; 400 pages.
As reviewed by Isabel Sawhill
A child built-in in America has many advantages compared to those born in, say, Somalia, Mainland china, or Mexico. Only those advantages are far more dependent on family background in the U.Southward. than we might wish. It'southward non merely that some kids are rich and others are poor. It'southward likewise that some have educated parents, including both a mother and a male parent in the habitation, who possess the social capital as well as the resources of time and money to ensure that their children are prepared for school past the time they reach age four or v. At the other finish of the spectrum is a group of children whose early home life, or lack thereof, makes it far more difficult for them to succeed in schoolhouse. These are the kids whose fathers may be incarcerated, whose mothers may be working long hours at depression-wage jobs, who live in troubled neighborhoods with little to occupy them in their free fourth dimension, and whose parents lack the connections and knowledge needed to put them on a path to the centre class. These gaps betwixt rich and poor, between the privileged and the disadvantaged, are growing, suggesting that whatever degree of social mobility has existed in the U.S. in the past may now be threatened. Such growing gaps also accept profound implications for educators and for the idea that schools can recoup for what children exercise non receive at dwelling or in their communities.
To me, this is the bulletin of Robert Putnam's new book, Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis. Through a serial of interviews and family unit portraits of today'south kids, backed up by an impressive array of information and a synthesis of the bachelor research, he shows that we are dividing into ii very dissimilar Americas. As a guild, we are sorting ourselves by income, by family structure and parenting styles, and by the kinds of communities in which we live. Class-based residential segregation is increasing, leading inevitably to more class-based school segregation every bit well. That means some schools and classrooms are filled with salubrious and well-cared-for children, who are curious, engaged, and set to larn, while others are populated with also many kids whose ability to larn is seriously constrained by a host of difficulties—from lack of proper nutrition to disruptive or withdrawn behavior. Of course, minority children, whether black or Latino, are unduly represented among the latter, but Putnam besides sketches a portrait of large class disparities within the black and Latino communities. At one point, he compares two Latino families whose children attend high schools in Orange Canton, California. Both schools spend about the same per pupil, have similar instructor-educatee ratios, similar numbers of guidance counselors, and well-qualified teachers (as measured by teaching and feel). Thus, on the measures that schools can control, the 2 schools are roughly comparable. But they are serving very different educatee populations, reflecting all of the aforementioned course divisions. And the result is huge disparities in dropout rates, in truancy and suspensions, in college aspirations, and in Saturday scores. The Orange County story is a microcosm of what is at present a national blueprint. Differences in schoolhouse resources, although they matter, tin can't begin to explain the widening differences in educational outcomes. What does matter is the socioeconomic backgrounds of a child'south classmates. As Putnam says, "whom you go to school with matters a lot."
The postsecondary story is, if annihilation, even more dour. Children from higher-income families are much more probable to go to college and especially to complete a degree than those from lower-income families. And these class gaps in college omnipresence and graduation accept been growing. The usual response among many observers of this trend is to debate for greater needs-based financial help. But, as Putnam argues, "the burdens on poor kids take been gathering weight since they were very young. Rising tuition costs and pupil debt are the terminal straw, non the chief load."
In the cease, Putnam raises the question of whether schools contribute to growing disparities, or whether they are simply the sites where these disparities play out in the life of a child. Practise schools make the opportunity gap better or worse? His conclusion: "the gap is created more by what happens to kids before they go to school, past things that happen outside of school, and by what kids bring (or don't bring) with them to school…than by what schools do to them." He argues, withal, that even if schools aren't part of the problem, they could be a bigger office of the solution.
In his terminal chapter, Putnam recommends a diverseness of well-known school-based reforms, such equally moving poor children into better schools, compensatory financing for schools in poor neighborhoods to enable them to attract the all-time teachers and counselors, more school-based extracurricular activities and social services, and more try to engage the whole community in the education process. These approaches all seem sensible enough, but whether they will actually brand much of a dent in the growing gaps that Putnam identifies is unclear. For instance, although he cites one successful example of an effort to movement poor kids into schools in better neighborhoods, the Moving to Opportunity program—a randomized, controlled trial of this approach—has not had much success in boosting school achievement among poor kids. (A just-published written report suggests a positive effect for very young kids, all the same.)
In sum, the book is a treasure trove of research and of stories of how the opportunity gap plays out in the lives of real people. It is carefully argued, and written in an accessible manner. It makes clear that schools face formidable challenges over which they have very limited, if any, control. The final affiliate lays out a familiar calendar of steps that might be taken to meliorate the lives of the disadvantaged, from strengthening the condom cyberspace to boosting earnings in depression-wage jobs. My ain view is that these kinds of measures are fine, merely unless we can brand progress in affecting the habitation environments of today's children, whatever progress will exist modest at best, and the job of the schools will only become more than difficult. Schools cannot compensate for problems that begin in the habitation. These bug, too, are getting worse.
Isabel Sawhill is senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and writer of Generation Unbound: Globe-trotting into Sex and Parenthood without Marriage.
Terminal updated June 2, 2015
Source: https://www.educationnext.org/taking-on-the-opportunity-gap-our-kids-robert-putnam-book-review/
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