Referring to the “social contract” that offers quality education in exchange for unquestioned obedience, Noguera writes, “The repeated violations suggest that the students understand completely that the social contract underlying their education has been broken. By their actions, it appears they have decided to make the lives of adults and other students miserable as a way of obtaining retribution for a failed education” (117).  In reading this passage, I was compelled by two terms in particular: broken, and retribution. On my first reading, I wasn’t sure who Noguera meant to imply as the “breaker” of the contract - the students, or the school system.

"O'Connor argued that there is nothing about poverty in and of itself that places poor children at academic risk but, rather, it is how structures of opportunity and constraint come to bear on their likelihood for achieving competitive educational outcomes." (from "The Intersection of Race, Culture, language, and Disability")

"[Avery] was a kid caught up in gangs; he was being victimized and was violent against others; he had been in prison; he was large, black; he did not learn as fast as others; he had medical problems; he was dyslexic; and in the minds of business-oriented school administrators, he would be expensive to educate." (From "Being Down")

"Most of these students would probably not succeed in day school for the simple reason that day school was not set up for them. It would not meet their needs and did not have what it took to work with them; unfortunately neither did the afternoon school." - p.72, Casella "Being Down"

Hey Everyone,

After reading Noguera's piece last night, I actually stumbled upon this article that relates to what he covered in his article. Below you will find the link to a recent article the Huffington Post had written concerning the San Francisco Unified School District's method to close the achievement gap at their schools by recruiting more Black Teachers. I think this article would be a potentially great article to discuss after the readings we will be discussing on Thursday also given the fact that it is a situation currently happening. Feel free to share thoughts!

"It is not only schools that are failing these students, but also families and communities." (Casella 75)

                I had an interesting conversation with my mother this past week about the different nominations for the Oscars and the winners/nominees of the Golden Globes.  She had been listening to NPR and they were talking about the total lack of diversity this year, that the majority of those up for awards were white males.  What we were discussing was whether the movie and entertainment industry is still dominated by this presence.  In my mind, I think of actors as trying to be good public figures, of generally speaking out against oppression and urging people to celebrate their differences.  As my mom pointed out, though, the committee that decides who deserves recognition are people who have earned respect throughout their lives and as such they are the older generation, which c

At one point Noguera points out in his, "The Trouble with Black Boys" article the following,

"The majority of my students who seek to become teachers and the vast majority of teachers I have worked with did not enter the profession because they wanted to serve as sorters and gatekeeprers. They also did not choose to teach because of the high status the profession enjoys or because they believe it will lead to financial security. Most are motivated by the idea that education can transform lives by inspiring young people and exposing them to knowledge that makes it possible to dream, aspire, and imagine new possibilities for themselves and the world" (120).

One of the readings that especially struck me this weak was "Race War: Policing, Incarceration, and the Containment of Black Youth," by Bakari Kitwana because it embodies an intersection of a lot of my studies in health and education.  I took Anthropology of AIDS last year, and we often talked about how the "war on drugs" proved to be catastrophic in raising incarceration rates and HIV and AIDS transmission rates within the black community.  I was especially struck by the increase of "707 percent" (Kitwana 5268*) within the 10 year period and I can imagine that the rates are only higher now, since that statistic is now twenty years old.  

In the Blanchett article, the intersection of race and disability (among other factors) is examined. I already knew that people of color with disabilities were less likely to be diagnosed and to receive proper support and accommodations for their disabilities, because people of color are more likely to be in a lower economic class. However, I hadn't thought about how similarly society treats race and disability, and how that adds to the struggle of being someone who is both a person of color and a person with a disability. On page 392, Blanchett mentions the "segregated classrooms" and "poor post-school outcomes" that students with disabilities experience, and these things are also often experienced by students of color.

Ecological Perceptions of the Latin American Migrant Worker