It's the #Racism and the #Poverty #Stupid #hcsboe

Huntsville City Schools March 11, 1963 -March 11, 2015  (Huntsville Times file)

According to the powers that be , Low-income (code for black/brown) children know 30 million fewer words and Huntsville City Schools plans to fix that by spying on them.  I kid you not.

This past Thursday, the Huntsville City Schools Board of Education voted unanimously and without asking any questions to approve a $93,500.00 contract with the LENA Foundation purportedly to help close the 30 million word gap that exists between children born above and below the poverty line.

Here is what we know we don't know about the latest spy, I mean LENA program.  

1. The recorder will likely record statements like, “You look like your daddy,” or other “not pleasant” conversations despite Ms. McCaulley’s and Mr. Davison’s assurances that it will only record, “wah, wah, wah” like Charlie Brown’s teacher. LENA’s website makes this clear. They will be recording children.
2. The district will target low-income families and entice them to record their conversations with “diapers, formula” and a likely guaranteed spot in the Pre-K program after the child turns 3 or 4.
3. The district believes that parents (at least poor parents) don’t know how to talk to their children.
4. The district believes that sending a text message to parents reminding them to talk to their children and bribing parents to attend a weekly and then monthly meeting will fix this problem.
5. The district believes that it is completely acceptable to turn infants into data points that are available for review by any “stakeholder” at any time day or night via a smartphone.
6. The board members are more interested in laughing at Dr. Wardynski’s attempts at humor than they are actually doing research to see if the things he is recommending actually have any basis in reality.

This school board ,and their media enablers, have demonstrated they are not willing to admit there is a problem, much less less solve it.  They think all they have to do is throw some money at some clueless consultants, blame the victims (parents,child, community), and it will go away.  Not.

It's the Racism. 

 Racism, and its ability to increase the odds that a pregnant mother will deliver her child early, can kill. There is also evidence that racism can alter the capacity for a child to learn and distorts lives in ways that can reproduce inequality, poverty and long-term disadvantage, the studies found.

 Kramer’s findings also suggest that since poor minority families often concentrate in sections of a city and therefore send their children to the same set of the nation’s increasingly segregated (by both race and class) schools, children struggling to learn due to a preterm birth aren’t evenly disbursed. Some schools are likely serving large numbers while others, in wealthier communities and those serving mostly white students, may be serving few to none.

The reason low income children know 30 million fewer words is because their parents are products of the Huntsville City School System.  The reason their parents are low income is because their parents are products of the Huntsville City School system.   It's a vicious cycle.

Maybe if HCS invested in children, instead of Lap Tops and Ipads, a  Director of Community Engagement,   a Political Strategist,  an off the books Spy program,  Attorneys fees, and would stop replacing certified teachers with Teach for America, we could get to the root of the problem and break the cycle of poverty and ignorance instead of perpetuating it. 

"It's easy as A-B-C, 1-2-3"
Step 1  Admit you have a problem
Step 2  Identify the problem
Step 3  Solve the problem

RedEye