Demographics and Hope...

So this is my first post based on our homework readings. There are two articles we were assigned to read for class last week. The first was on the shifting demographics of urban schools, and the challenges implicit in these shifts. The other article was the Annenberg promise. It is much more hopeful, discussing pros and cons of urban teaching and suggesting possible solutions to the issues of urban education.

So, as I said, the first article is on the shifting demographics of America and how these shifts may/will impact education. First off let me say I am very suspicious of statistical analysis. I do them all the time and it's really not hard to play with the numbers in such a way so that they'll support your viewpoint, regardless of what your viewpoint is. As Mark Twain said, "There are three types of untruths: Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics!"

Anyways, the article itself is fairly straightforward. The first section discusses overall changes in enrollment and debunks the belief that there is a massive "Tidal Wave" of incoming students. Really, there are a few areas/districts that are expecting increases (I'd guess CA, TX and FL, based on the article. Probably other border states as well), but in most of the US enrollment will remain static or even decline slightly. Okay, I can accept that. Though I wonder how they determine where kids now growing up will end up? The same section discusses transiency, and how students tend to move around a lot. What if all the families with young students in San Diego suddenly moved to Iowa? Wouldn't that throw off all the demographic projections being made in this article? I'm sure they have historically proven models for studies like this. I suppose this is one reason why I'm more comfortable with populations I can fit in a petri dish.

The second section states several facts about race in the US. Increased numbers of "minorities", increases racial mixing, increase in people claiming "multi-racial" heritage and increasingly uneven distribution of racial diversity. I hadn't really thought of most of this before, but it makes sense and I can accept that these are all very important issues for education. But the article barely touches on how to deal with these issues. And even if a good plan was put forth, how would it get through the bureaucratic and political mess, get funded and come to fruition?

The third section talks about the aging population in America, many of whoms children are grown and out of school already. Will these people be willing to continue to fund education? I say hell no. Okay, maybe they'll have grandkids in school they'll want to suppport, but I know people on a fixed income and they are uniformly against anything that cuts into that income. Growing up in Anchorage, AK I remember many ballot measures in the 80's that would increase taxes or issue bonds that were soundly defeated. Why? There were more voters without kids than there were with kids. And the ones without kids didn't want to fund the education of other peoples kids. They didn't worry about improving society as a whole or where the doctors and judges that would be supporting them in the future came from. They just didn't want their pocketbooks affected in the here and now. I'd say Alaskans are very shortsighted, but sadly I've found that trait is a lot more widespread then just up north.

The last section discusses race vs. national origin and that the latter will become more important than the former. I've seen this firsthand to an extent. Again, growing up in Alaska, my high school was very diverse. We had a lot of different nationalities represented, particularly from Pacific Rim countries. And yes, different nationalities behaved differently, and had different expectations in behavior. Japanese vs. Phillipino vs. Samoan vs. Alaska Native, they tended to react differently to situations, because they had different cultural standards for behavior than I did.

I also work in a major NYC hospital, and it is very, very diverse. It's not unusual to see labs where less that 20% of the employees are US citizens. And I really believe every nationality on Earth is represented there somewhere. And again, people from different cultures and different nationalities react differently. And the reactions may seem odd to those of us raised in a different culture, but if you try and figure out why they react the way they do it always makes pretty good sense. It's just a matter of making the effort to understand where they're coming from.

Okay, so I write like I talk: Way too much. I'm going to cut this short and review the Annenberg Promise tomorrow. Let me know what you think and I'll talk to you all later.