cheers, Conk.

I’d like to spin it more recent, and concentrate on how the economic motifs at work in today’s sociopolitical landscape relate to this post. (Don’t hate me because I’m getting all nitty-gritty; I’ve been reading a lot of Krugman lately…)

First, what my fellow contributor has termed “‘hard work,’ self-reliance (read, rugged individualism), and one’s innate abilities” have, after the rise of movement conservatism in the 1980s and 1990s, sinuously transferred into other terminology. These days, I hear the terms “overcome” and “personal responsibility” couched between descriptions of the individual and the American Dream. (Newt Gingrich and Tom DeLay’s infamous social support-slashing “Contract with America” tried to cement the linkage between personal responsibility and the American Dream, and actually included a “Personal Responsibility Act” and “American Dream Act” (one following another in sequence) in the ten bill platform presented to the 104th Congress. Together, these bills ripped away tax requirements from the highest income earners, instituted fiscal penalties for low-income mothers with children, and set two-year limits on income support programs for unwed mothers with children. Many of those who championed the Contract explained that it would be such a great way for “people” to “overcome” their circumstances without “free government handouts.” Luckily, President Clinton – known to Toni Morrison as our “first black president” – vetoed many of these heinous policies.)

So, in the 90s, we have the concept, and we have the actual policy interpretation, of “personal responsibility” melding with lofty, archaic notions of the American Dream.

Today, we don’t have those troublesome ten-bill Contracts. But that doesn’t mean today is any better; it doesn’t mean that public policy isn’t shopped around to lawmakers under the guise of extending the “American Dream” but, in practice, leaves folks high and dry without the ability to “overcome” (as if that were a reality). In fact, as recent New York Times articles have demonstrated, the American Dream is working backwards, especially for those low-income folks to whom it has so falsely promised success and equality. By the time Bush leaves office, economists project that there will be 700,000 fewer homeowners than when he was inaugurated. While wages are dropping and fewer folks are getting health insurance, predatory lending and pay-day check cashers are raking in the bucks, and adjustable rate mortgage sellers are jumping with glee. Assets are dwindling for those who hardly had any, and 2008 is shaping up to be one of the most unequal since America’s post-civil war Gilded Age. (Some are even calling for a restoration of the real American Dream. This approach’s spirit is right, but let’s just say it would benefit from an image consultant.)

Indeed, what’s more picturesque for the misappropriation of personal responsibility with the American Dream than a low-income woman walking into a predatory lending shop, picking up some cash, and walking over to the mortgage broker so she can buy a house? All with her own personal responsibility (!), all in pursuit of that elusive American Dream (!), right? Fast forward weeks, months, or years, and she has defaulted on her mortgage and incurred sky-high interest rates.

This might sound like a sob story, but it’s real. It might seem super wonky for those folks who aren’t steeped inside the beltway, but it’s real. The American Dream isn’t just keeping people “in their place,” it’s pushing them back farther.

Two points to pick up on, which I don’t have time to do today:
1. Lucas learned – or, more specifically was actively taught – how to acquire, rob, steal, sell, network, communicate, lead – all the things necessary to play the game better than the next (wo)man. He expanded on these lessons to become on of the most successful drug traders. How does this complicate the depiction of Lucas as American Dream-seeking individual? Is his story one of immigration (South to North), emigration (lower class to high class), indoctrination (by the allure of the American Dream, or by his teacher for whom he used to drive a car)? Or are those arrangements too glib?
2. A motif to think about, which is explored in contemporary shows like HBO’s “The Wire,” is the failure of institutions: the failure of US Army for allowing drugs into caskets, just to filter back to the same low-income communities from which they heavily recruited boys for military service and, even more, the failure of the police departments, with their overriding corruption, grafts, and abuse. Not to mention the failure of the NY state and federal governments to provide for community development and supportive services for low-income folks and drug users.

I also have some wandering thoughts about the movie’s depiction of the drug trade. I’m not sure how to effectively deal with them; I almost don’t want to write them, for fear that they will fall out of the movie’s purview. But…For every one Lucas, there’s a small-time dealer who is bound to get hit with a disproportionate sentence for slinging a small amount of crack (100x more cocaine would get him the same sentence). The movie didn’t really unveil how structurally racist the justice system was and is, or how unequal access to jobs, as well as the mechanisms of post-industrial urban decline, factor into a group’s welfare and well-being. But, then again, this was a story of an individual. I guess stories about communities aren’t as sexy, especially for American audiences.

d.

This American Prospect article, http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/tapped_archive?month=10&year=2007&base_name=the_teach_for_america_numbers, is helpful in delineating some of the numbers. According to Goldstein, TFA is 70% white and numerous studies have shown that inexperienced young teachers don’t, um, make the grade. Let alone the fact that TFA is almost as selective as an Ivy League school. (So, once again, send in the privilege.)

I think service is great. I think we need more teachers, and TFA certainly provides that. But what’s the quality? What are we saying about our schools if we send in inexperienced, highly educated white folks? TFA seems more like the easy solution — the band-aid — to a system and an institution so deeply troubled that it’ll take a lot more than excited young people with a “good heart” to change it.

Since we’re doing anecdotes: From my experience in undergrad, those selected for TFA were politically ambitious, not very progressive, and resume builders without a college track record of activism or advocacy, at the undergrad, in the community, or at the state level.

Laura sounds like the perfect TFAer. It’s exciting to hear about her experience, and to have a discussion about the positive effects of TFA. I simply hesitate to call service like TFA the solution to a problem that is so deeply interwoven with social and economic policy and overt and structural racism.

See below for the re-pasted American Prospect piece:
THE TEACH FOR AMERICA NUMBERS.

Speaking of the wisdom — or lack thereof — of relying on young participants in national service programs like Teach for America as stopgaps in struggling schools, Negar Azimi’s New York Times Magazine story probes deeply into the practice and ideology of TFA. So, exactly how effective are TFA teachers? It depends on who you ask:

The question of what it takes to be a good teacher has inspired a series of spirited data wars between T.F.A. and its critics. Most often cited (by the critics) is a 2005 study examining the links between student achievement and their teachers’ certification status. In a study of more than 132,000 students and 4,400 teachers in the Houston public-school district, Linda Darling-Hammond, a professor at Stanford University’s School of Education, and three colleagues found that students taught by certified teachers outperformed those taught by noncertified teachers in reading and mathematics. Uncertified T.F.A. teachers had negative impacts on student achievement on five of six tests. Tellingly, their effectiveness improved when they gained certification.
T.F.A. has called the Stanford study flawed, arguing that its sample sizes were small and questioning whether it was subject to adequate independent review. (The organization’s P.R. team is formidable.) Teach for America points to a 2004 study carried out by Mathematica Policy Research that shows T.F.A. teachers’ student scores matching those of a comparison group of novice and veteran colleagues in reading and slightly better in math. Over two months of talking to T.F.A. staff members, I was referred to this study no less than 13 times. Another study points to the fact that principals clamor for T.F.A. teachers; 74 percent considered T.F.A. teachers more effective than other beginning teachers.

Darling-Hammond’s explanation for the numbers is not exactly flattering to T.F.A. “The principals who are saying ‘I love T.F.A.’ are responding to the fact that teaching standards in schools that hire uncertified teachers are typically low,” she told me this summer.

Some other interesting numbers on the program: Over 40 percent of TFA-ers leave the profession within 3 years. And 70 percent of the young teachers are white, although many are placed in almost completely non-white schools.

It feels heartless to criticize a program that’s, well, so good-hearted. Of course America’s most elite college graduates should be giving back. But while it appears that TFA is very effective at connecting business leaders and young professionals with the public school reform movement and imbuing them with a sense of commitment toward public education, it’s unlikely TFA is impacting student achievement in any broadly-defined way. It is not a substitute for larger, more systemic pushes to get the best teachers into the most difficult classrooms.

–Dana Goldstein

Posted by Dana Goldstein on October 4, 2007 5:34 PM