"What they deserve.."

In Noguera's The Trouble with Black Boys, I was struck by this quotes. "...there is surprisingly little objection to the sorting process because students come to believe that their grades, test scores, and behavior have cerated a future of them that they deserve." (p. 118). After reading this section, I realized that my previous conception was that these students retained a belief that it was the school that was to blame for their failure rather than themselves. I think there is still some level of this for every student that school has failed, but, especially after reading Being Down, I realized that the school system is set up to consistently blame the student for his or her failure. At some point, regardless of whether or not a student knows better that the school is really the problem, there must be some level of internaliztion of these beliefs. A student like Jessica from Being Down, for instance, is being directly blamed for her problems by the school administrators. They are taking no note of how other influences might have made an impact, such as her difficult pregnancy. I would imagine a student like Jessica, at some level, may feel as if they deserve the grades they get or the test scores recieved, despite the fact that the responsibility doesn't just lie with them personally.

Additionally, I think this speaks to the belief in the power of the school system. When the school system says you aren't worth it, it's final because so much is decided by one's success in school. The school system is an overwhelming prescence in our society and whether or not you achieve in that context is often a determinate for one's overall success. Since this is true, how can schools not possess an incredible amount of power over the worth of individuals, a worth that is therefore internalized by the student that respects the school system as all powerful.