Senator Eichelberger on Education “Dogwhistler” or pathetic defeatist?

A recent editorial by the Pittsburgh Courier states
“Pennsylvania’s Senate Education Committee chairman is being rightly criticized for saying minority students from “inner-city” public schools would do better in vocational careers than in college.”


Pittsburgh Courier

Firstly this seems racist to me but I daresay some of the more (ahem) intellectually gymnastic contributors on ATS can attempt to prove that it is not a racist statement in these post -racist times.
Let me ask this. Why target minorities? Would he have said this about the Rust Bucket Communities?
This OP is not primarily about race. Th simple fact is that racists are happy and content with being racists and have no need to even consider their thoughts.
What really bothers me is the senator’s defeatist take on inner city education.
Consider
Inner cities have the full spectrum of academic ability as the rest of the population. Inner cities have a very significant proportion of kids in comparison to the rest of the US because Cities are bigger then towns. New York and LA are both megacities. Most cities have inner cities and ghettos.
Senator Eichelberger has simply given up on education in inner cities. He does not understand what it takes to educate our precious children. For all of his noise, the richest country in the world has a dire education rating in the world. No one can predict where genius originates. To put it mildly American education sucks in comparison to the rest of the world. That is why educated immigrants can take US jobs.
My opinion is this:
School education can be likened to a three legged stool.
I name the three legs:
1) Leadership
2) Parental ambition
3) The child’s wish to learn
It is no coincidence that I have placed leadership first. I ask myself what sort of ethos exist in the school. A recent article in the Economist also points out that good schools tend to have stronger classroom discipline poor schools on a national basis as well as an international basis. On this basis we should learn Chinese as they will conquer the US.
Based on my analysis. I suggest that the Good Senator do the following :
1) Review the current disciplinary framework and get the discipline of learning back into schools.
2) Develop the right of the parent to discipline their kids as they see fit.
3) Give the teaching leadership the right and training to enforce sounder educational discipline. Perhaps allowing some kids to leave school earlier may help.

And to think this idiot chairs the state education Committee!! WTF!!!

All right, I'll make some controversial statements then.

First, in order to think about what I'm about to say take race out of your mind and think solely about the realities of poverty and why it tends to happen.

Among other things, people who live in poverty are often poorly educated because they either were unable or refused to achieve an educational level sufficient to getting and holding down higher skilled jobs that pay better wages. There are a host of reasons why this is. Part of is has to do with poor family structure. A lot of families living in poverty are broken homes or single parent or homes where the parents don't care about education.

But some of it has to do with the innate ability of the people in those homes to learn the more difficult skills required to obtain higher level jobs.

Like it or not, someone with an IQ 80 is going to have a much more difficult time absorbing the necessary skills and information for those jobs than someone at IQ 100 or someone at IQ 120. Does that mean it's impossible? No, but it does mean for them to learn, they will have to work much harder, require a lot more repetition of material, etc., in order to absorb what comes a lot more easily to those further up the native intellect scale.

Our school system is increasingly geared toward a one size fits all approach, and that size is strictly right down the middle. It's as frustrating for the kids at the top as it is for the kids at the bottom. There is no latitude for anyone at the higher and lower ends of the bell curve. So anyone caught out at either end to any degree is going to struggle making schools an increasingly hostile place for them unless they qualify in some way for special serves.

Now, let's circle back around. Consider that we look in our mates for traits that we see in ourselves. That would mean logically that someone with a lower IQ is going to be most comfortable seeking someone else with lower IQ to settle down with. The same occurs on the other end. Sure you are going to see occasional off couples in there, but that is the exception rather than the rule. And there are studies that show that intellect is to some degree heritable with the children often being within 10 points of their parents in native intellect.

So what does that mean? It means that you are unlikely to find many Einsteins growing up in poverty as poverty is often as much a consequence of lack of ability as it is a snowball of other factors, and that is independent of any racial group.

And of course, unlikely doesn't mean impossible. Heritability doesn't mean you can't have the occasional genius cropping up in strange places, but the odds don't predict it happening with as much regularity as they do when you have highly intelligent parents having kids.

So, it makes sense to track our kids like we used to. Put kids of similar ability into classes together with their ability peers, and stop expecting that kid with the lower IQ to suddenly turn into Einstein. Nothing says he won't go on to be very successful at something, even make himself a lot of money, but it's a pretty safe bet he's not going to be doing it with theoretical physics so you shouldn't be trying to track him that way.

Meanwhile, the kid who demonstrates the mathematical aptitude of Alan Turing in the heart of the inner city does need special support, but it's more beneficial to recognize him and move him to a track in a school where he can get what he needs than it is to try to treat all the other kids in his school like little Turings and waste a bunch of money doing it. It's highly unlikely most of his peers will appreciate or make good use of the opportunity.

The concept of magnets and concentration schools make a whole lot of sense and they aren't discriminatory. All of us are born different with different ability levels, talents and interests.

Pennsylvania's school system period is garbage.

I went to a public school in a suburb about 30 minutes north of Philly in the late 90's early 2000's and nobody was learning anything. The dropout rate was north of 50%. Teachers were sleeping with students and selling drugs.

It was a joke.

If you wanted a decent education you had to go to a private catholic school.

The Department of Education has given up on inner city kids long before this guy..

What is wrong with Vocational schools?

Some kids do not learn well in todays school set up... some need to be mobile and active not sit still for 8 hours a day...

Some folks do extremely well working with their hands, and what I saw out in Oklahoma vocational school do not carry the same stigma as they do for our "enlightened" city brethren.

Lastly... true inner city schools are a wreck for a number of reasons some include things that no matter how much money is poured into the school system it will not matter.

a reply to: Irishhaf

Yep.

I have a nephew wh's good with his hands. I know he has an undiagnosed learning disability and the school is content to sit on the ADD diagnosis he does have to explain it all away, so he's not getting nearly all the help he needs. But he would be very good in a vocational education setting because book learning even with extra support just isn't his thing. It's not that he couldn't do it; it's just not what he's made for and prefers. That's my oldest nephew's strength.

originally posted by: Irishhaf
The Department of Education has given up on inner city kids long before this guy..

What is wrong with Vocational schools?

Some kids do not learn well in todays school set up... some need to be mobile and active not sit still for 8 hours a day...

Some folks do extremely well working with their hands, and what I saw out in Oklahoma vocational school do not carry the same stigma as they do for our "enlightened" city brethren.

Lastly... true inner city schools are a wreck for a number of reasons some include things that no matter how much money is poured into the school system it will not matter.

Just a moment. I do not think there is a dam thing wrong with vocational schools but they are bound to go the way of all education in the US if they do not set up the building blocks of a decent school>

Fact is there is nothing wrong about working with your hands. They is plenty wrong with anyone doing a bad Job. Any work that allows survival is better than getting short -lived mega bucks as a criminal. However the world of working with your hands is changing and requiring the "3 R" and an ability to pass exams.

It is idiotic to grumble about immigrants taking jobs and not be prepared to overhaul the entire education systems as opposed to even considering Jim Crow education!

originally posted by: Tiger5
A recent editorial by the Pittsburgh Courier states
“Pennsylvania’s Senate Education Committee chairman is being rightly criticized for saying minority students from “inner-city” public schools would do better in vocational careers than in college.”


Pittsburgh Courier

Firstly this seems racist to me but I daresay some of the more (ahem) intellectually gymnastic contributors on ATS can attempt to prove that it is not a racist statement in these post -racist times.
Let me ask this. Why target minorities? Would he have said this about the Rust Bucket Communities?
This OP is not primarily about race. Th simple fact is that racists are happy and content with being racists and have no need to even consider their thoughts.
What really bothers me is the senator’s defeatist take on inner city education.
Consider
Inner cities have the full spectrum of academic ability as the rest of the population. Inner cities have a very significant proportion of kids in comparison to the rest of the US because Cities are bigger then towns. New York and LA are both megacities. Most cities have inner cities and ghettos.
Senator Eichelberger has simply given up on education in inner cities. He does not understand what it takes to educate our precious children. For all of his noise, the richest country in the world has a dire education rating in the world. No one can predict where genius originates. To put it mildly American education sucks in comparison to the rest of the world. That is why educated immigrants can take US jobs.
My opinion is this:
School education can be likened to a three legged stool.
I name the three legs:
1) Leadership
2) Parental ambition
3) The child’s wish to learn
It is no coincidence that I have placed leadership first. I ask myself what sort of ethos exist in the school. A recent article in the Economist also points out that good schools tend to have stronger classroom discipline poor schools on a national basis as well as an international basis. On this basis we should learn Chinese as they will conquer the US.
Based on my analysis. I suggest that the Good Senator do the following :
1) Review the current disciplinary framework and get the discipline of learning back into schools.
2) Develop the right of the parent to discipline their kids as they see fit.
3) Give the teaching leadership the right and training to enforce sounder educational discipline. Perhaps allowing some kids to leave school earlier may help.

And to think this idiot chairs the state education Committee!! WTF!!!

Nice try at race baiting. From your link:

“Well, I have finally been the victim of a fake news story,” the statement reads. “The Carlisle Sentinel did a convoluted and incomplete story about my town hall meeting last week, the Democrats decided to spin it even further, and other liberal media outlets followed along.” The Republican lawmaker, who represents Blair and parts of Cumberland, Franklin, Fulton and Huntingdon counties, continued. Hughes “is calling me a racist because I spoke about the failing schools in Philadelphia, located in minority neighborhoods, not preparing their students for college. He’s trying to say that since the kids are Black, that I think they’re not capable of learning. Wrong. I see the potential of these children and want to see them succeed.” Eichelberger made sweeping and insulting generalizations. Hughes is right in pointing out that the problem is many minority students are victims of Pennsylvania’s unfair school-funding system and some drop out of college because they can’t afford it. Despite the problem of coming from poorly funded schools, many African-American and Latino students overcome the obstacles and do well and finish college. The problem of underperforming schools is not just limited to urban schools that serve African Americans and Hispanics but also schools in rural areas and towns where mostly white children attend. The fact is that many American children, of all races, are not being properly prepared for the vocational careers that Eichelberger says would be better suited for “inner-city kids.”

This is the exact problem the Trump administration is trying to address with more focus on magnet schools. Give the kids the education they want instead of forcing everyone into a bubble that only benefits a few.

Many of them (inner city pore) would be better served by vocational schools and/or training.

"Every one must go to college" is one of the biggest lies that our government and the big banks (and universities) have convinced Americans and it has been detrimental to our youth.

There is a skills gap I'm the US; their are many well paying jobs that are going unfilled because they take vocational training not a college education.

If those inner-city kids (and their families) where smart they would demand their school districts create pathways between high school and vocational schools. They'd wind up making bank while their whiter richer counterparts are paying the bank for student loans they got for an education they can't use.

Racist? Only if your a moron do you hold pore kids back in order to win some political debate by calling anyone with an alternative view a racist. The banks are laughing at you.

Where in the world is the offensive, racist statement? It appears neither in your OP, nor at the source you link. I cannot even make sense of what I'm reading at the source link on the Wordpress platform. Maybe Eichelberger is correct that it is fake news.

The real offense is that state colleges and universities gobble up federal and state monies and with open arms, accept under-qualified and under-prepared students into their arms, only to have an unacceptable percentage of those students disappear by mid-term, or fail out after a semester.

The post-secondary school system in this country treats students like a commodity, and it is a self-feeding, obese beast.

Every eight years or so, an Administration in Washington comes along that wants to throw billions of dollars into the easy-money side of the budget. State universities gobble it up and become fatter and bigger while admission standards are lowered so they can pump-in more $tudent$, many of whom are doomed to fail, just so they (the universities) can grab more state and federal monies. And the beat goes on.

I don't care if a student is pink, blue, green, white, brown, yellow or black; poor, rich or middle income; resident or immigrant: Don't set them up like bowling pins only to bowl them over with failure.

I'll add this

after the bankers ruined the economy, the jobs market has become pure crap. A Lilly white VERY wealthy person told me a few months back that she may not send her kids to college because in the long run it may not be worth the cost because the downward pressure on wages and the lack of jobs, and the insane cost of tuition etc
She may just give them the equivalent $ to start a business

now if you are a poor inner city kid, if you don't have $200,000 to start a business, why not learn a trade ?

my neighbor went to a vocational high school, got his HVAC license at age 20, and now is in a union and has a house and the american dream

something to noodle on

originally posted by: ketsuko
a reply to: Irishhaf

Yep.

I have a nephew wh's good with his hands. I know he has an undiagnosed learning disability and the school is content to sit on the ADD diagnosis he does have to explain it all away, so he's not getting nearly all the help he needs. But he would be very good in a vocational education setting because book learning even with extra support just isn't his thing. It's not that he couldn't do it; it's just not what he's made for and prefers. That's my oldest nephew's strength.

I waited three weeks for an appointment with my electrician, and two weeks for a "non-emergency" appointment with my plumber. A local auto-shop where I get my car inspected every year is only open 9-5, with no weekends.

Hopefully you continue to encourage your nephew. He'll likely be able to write his own ticket to success.

originally posted by: Tiger5

originally posted by: Irishhaf
The Department of Education has given up on inner city kids long before this guy..

What is wrong with Vocational schools?

Some kids do not learn well in todays school set up... some need to be mobile and active not sit still for 8 hours a day...

Some folks do extremely well working with their hands, and what I saw out in Oklahoma vocational school do not carry the same stigma as they do for our "enlightened" city brethren.

Lastly... true inner city schools are a wreck for a number of reasons some include things that no matter how much money is poured into the school system it will not matter.

Just a moment. I do not think there is a dam thing wrong with vocational schools but they are bound to go the way of all education in the US if they do not set up the building blocks of a decent school>

Fact is there is nothing wrong about working with your hands. They is plenty wrong with anyone doing a bad Job. Any work that allows survival is better than getting short -lived mega bucks as a criminal. However the world of working with your hands is changing and requiring the "3 R" and an ability to pass exams.

It is idiotic to grumble about immigrants taking jobs and not be prepared to overhaul the entire education systems as opposed to even considering Jim Crow education!

see this is one of the problems I have with people as of late... Jim Crow education... with people throwing around hyperbole you cannot have an actual discussion on a subject.

a reply to: Tiger5


Been hearing for some time that many should go to trade school, white/black who ever.

If inner city or urban blacks are not being prepared properly for liberal arts type study then blame the mostly black administrators that run these schools. Besides we are just never going to see but a small number of students coming out of anywhere becoming intellectuals, math wizard physicists ect.

So tell me then, with most urban city systems being run by black folk and being very, very political, how is it they are called Jim Crow? You want to call them house negros?

Lol trade jobs more like they need to be flipping burgers. I work a trade job its highly skilled and everyday i see some people who have no clue what they are doing act like they are in trade jobs when we need to explain everything to them. Business people act like they are highly educated because they can use email and excel these people who make fun of trade jobs couldn't last a day doing one i have witnessed it. I used to work for a temp company for trade and when we got into prevailing wage these business people temp agency workers would see how much we made and thought they could do it too after two days they would be gone. They talk on their phones all day and basically have be be shown how to do everything multiple times. While most if not all the guys in my trade can do everything these business aholes can do. Most people know how to use a printer, access files and make phone calls and emails its not rocket science and the people in my trade can program, read blueprints, read wiring diagrams ect on top of answering calls and emailing.

Truth is a trade job is probably harder then getting a college degree and then pushing pens all day in some cubicle talking about stupid crap near a coffee machine

originally posted by: DanDanDat
Many of them (inner city pore) would be better served by vocational schools and/or training.

"Every one must go to college" is one of the biggest lies that our government and the big banks (and universities) have convinced Americans and it has been detrimental to our youth.

There is a skills gap I'm the US; their are many well paying jobs that are going unfilled because they take vocational training not a college education.

If those inner-city kids (and their families) where smart they would demand their school districts create pathways between high school and vocational schools. They'd wind up making bank while their whiter richer counterparts are paying the bank for student loans they got for an education they can't use.

Racist? Only if your a moron do you hold pore kids back in order to win some political debate by calling anyone with an alternative view a racist. The banks are laughing at you.

But why target minorities only? Now that is that question!

originally posted by: Logarock
So tell me then, with most urban city systems being run by black folk and being very, very political, how is it they are called Jim Crow? You want to call them house negros?

Please look up JIm Crow Laws (they were similar to Apartheid). Sheesh man get a grip!


Jim Crow

There ya go. I thought I would give you a helping hand:-)

originally posted by: Logarock
a reply to: Tiger5


Been hearing for some time that many should go to trade school, white/black who ever.

If inner city or urban blacks are not being prepared properly for liberal arts type study then blame the mostly black administrators that run these schools. Besides we are just never going to see but a small number of students coming out of anywhere becoming intellectuals, math wizard physicists ect.

Yes I agree that he number off intellectuals will be a small percentage. However we still need a lot more people that are able to manage Modern industry. We cannot all be wheelwrights!

Did you read my 3 points for sensible education system? Are you so complacent about the future of this country as it further slips down the pan?
Guess what! Administrators perform administration! You obviously do not understand policy making and the role it has in corporate governance. Do you work for the Chinese Government?

Then Senator Vincent Hughes sails in to compound the idiocy by ignoring the problem. He attacks! Hurrah!! (m sarcasm) The people in the cheap seats scream Yay! (my Sarcasm) I want to barf because the Good Democrat has no idea how to fix the problem! He attacks the symptom and the singing canary!

www.phillytrib.com..." target="_blank" class="postlink">T he Philadelphia Tribune

Both of them are just idiotic because I can see their lack of cojones and their intellectual bankruptcy. Sheesh I bet both their kids go to the same school and they both are part of the same country club!
The educational problem is not party political!!

Here is a novel idea. The middle classes have been decimated over the last 20 years or so. many of these people have working brains. Why not have a system whereby people can retrain in vocational skills to get a new job? Again if you retrain your own then there is no need to actually import workers unless your business needs dirt cheap labour. A good brain can certainly adapt and learn!