Public Policy, Made To Fit People: Article Analysis

This paper will begin by first providing you with key terms and background knowledge of the current situation. Next, important positions will be outlined along with data that supports those positions. To thoroughly explain the important positions, opposing views will be discussed along with rebuttals to those views. The paper concludes with a summary of the argument and a call to action with possible future research.

This stunt in vocabulary development for these students can either be fixed with instruction (however, they will not make as many gains as their peers), or they can be permanent and lead to learning disabilities. For students that live in urban areas and have families with even lower income and less family support the word poverty can have a detrimental impact on their vocabulary development as well as their self-efficacy and view on schooling. The second area that is negatively effected through poverty and lack of support is mathematics. Flanagan and Grismer state, “High poverty urban middle schools, attended predominately by minority students, for example, appear to provide fewer of the supports and resources that students need to learn a significant amount of mathematics during middle school”, in their paper on closing the achievement gap (Balfanz, Mac Iver and Brynes). There is also evidence that supports a good foundation in mathematics can increase the chance of success in academic endeavors. The U.S. Department of education states, “ At the same time, it has become increasingly clear that students who enter high school prepared to succeed in a challenging multi-year sequence of mathematics courses increase their odds of high school graduation, college acceptance and completion, and access to a wider array of life choices (Balfanz, Mac Iver and Brynes)”.

In this study, there was quite a bit more talking in middle-class homes than in working-class and poor homes, leading to the development of greater verbal agility, larger vocabularies, more comfort with authority figures, and more familiarity with

First, he points out the issue on how inner-city schools are still failing because they are lousy schools that use the same approach each year and still no improvement. Furthermore, science says that students lose ground in the summer, which causes them to lose what they learned the previous school year. Although, science has proven this to be true businesses to use science to better inner-city schools education. In addition to, inner schools failing and losing what they learned poor people are not aware of how critical and important the first three years of brain development. However, wealthy people and educated people are aware of the role of language, stimulus, and response. This causes those who are educated and wealthy children to have an advantage over poor

To be clear, the intent of this essay is not to argue for or against the content; instead, we are analyzing what the article does in terms of the following:

The almost tripling of the number of enrolled students speaks to the Mayor’s drive to meet this goal. The Mayor, through his actions and his speeches, has shown that he believes the research when it comes to early childhood education and its potential lifetime impact on income and lifestyle. His continuing message throughout the election race was that he wanted to end the “tale of two cities,” bridging divides between haves and have-nots in New York City. (Thomas Kaplan, “De Blasio’s Tale of 2 New Yorks Inspires Liberals beyond City,” New York Times, December 20, 2013),

In this thought paper I will compare a few of the issues that I agree with or disagree with from either position. Accordingly, I will cite several websites that I have found as well as define the terms I am choosing between.

I currently teach 90 sixth grade students. By communicating with them on a daily basis, I have developed a positive student/teacher relationship with them on a personal level. My students shared their background information as to who they are in an autobiography assignment that was given the first week of school. I learned additional information through communication with their fifth grade teachers and their parents. After reading the book, Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, I could see parallels between my own childhood and Jeanette’s. I too grew up in a lower income family, as did my parents before me. Ruby Payne points out throughout her book, A Framework for Understanding Poverty, that “the cycle of poverty often repeats itself” (2005), however my parents

As a tutor, I have seen the workings Stockton public schools, and compared to what I learned at their age, these students are lacking a proper education. For example, my third grade student, who is learning to multiply, is battling with addition. Meanwhile, my first grade student strains to read simple phonics. It is unfair to see children forced to receive a minimal education because of where they live in and their parents’ financial status. Therefore, my dream is to enhance the curriculum in public school systems within cities that face socioeconomic adversity. I aspire to equate the educational benefits between private and public school systems. Money should never impede a person’s path to education, and it’s unjust that it plays as a contributing

Social class also brings other resources to children besides extracurricular activities. One being a higher quality in education. In the article, “Before a Test, Poverty of Words”, Ginia Bellafante discusses the correlation of class to education. Bellafante interviewed Steven F. Wilson, who states that these children in his institutions were “word deficit” (Bellafante, 34). Meanwhile, Bellafante supports Wilson 's comment with her own previous experience when she witnessed a boy around the age of three who was being immersed into a “continuous receipt of dictation” (Bellafante, 34) by his “affluent, ambitious parent” (Bellafante, 34). This experience also proved accurate as Bellfante 's article comments that “children of professionals were, on average, exposed to approximately 1,500 more words hourly than children growing up in poverty” (Bellfante, 34). Being deficient in vocabulary can affect a child 's ability to attend a top tier educational institution as they will be less prepared for

Despite the fact that Meaningful Difference was written in 1995, Betty Hart and Todd R. Risley findings are both good and bad news story. Often uneducated parents can supply children with the experience for a healthy intellectual development, while educated parents cannot supply their children with a healthy intellectual development. Parents who do not provide their child with experience, making up for the deficiency with remedial programs is impossible. An earlier study by, Hart and Risley compared the vocabulary development of preschool youngsters from a poor neighborhood with that of children whose parents were university faculty member. Upon doing the study they found

In the quest to make education a more equitable, empowering force for all scholars, irrespective of racial and demographic background, no fight garners as much urgency as that to close the literacy gap. Whereas science, social studies, or math may or may not enter the daily discourse of a wealthy family as it raises its child, reading will unquestionably monopolize a statistically significant portion of child rearing time. Betty Hart and Todd R Risley outline the devastating scale of this schism in their work “The Early Catastrophe: The 30 Million Word Gap by Age 3,” which

However she makes an egregious idea about the lower class. In the article it states “The problem is the differential impact on children from poor families. Babies born to low-income parents spend at least 40 percent of their waking hours in front of a screen — more than twice the time spent by middle-class babies. They also get far less cuddling and bantering over family meals than do more privileged children.” I disagree with this statement. In an article “The Impact of Parents’ Background on their Children’s Education” it states that Even though the parents of low-income families participate less in their children’s education, according to Neuman, “most parents – even low-income and culturally and diverse parents – possess the attitudes and at least the sufficient early literacy skills and knowledge to help their children get on the road to literacy” (Neuman 221)….. Even though most research shows that low-income families are less involved in their children’s education, there is still some research that proves that social status has a small impact on the successfulness of their children’s education. Disregarding social class, nearly all children in the United States will almost always have some interactions with literacy in their early years of education with their parents before officially starting school.” (http://www.macalester.edu/educationreform/publicintellectualessay/Gratz.pdf) No matter what social class a parent is in every parent will make the sacrifice to make sure their child is

To begin with, socioeconomic status is categorized an individual’s or family’s social status regarding income and occupation. I believe children from a low socioeconomic status have a disadvantage in learning language as opposed to a higher socioeconomic status. Language acquisition is the process that humans can perceive, dissect, and understand language. Much research has been conducted on infants and children to support this. According to Spencer, Clegg, and Stackhouse (2012), many young children in that are from areas of social disadvantage learn words at a different pace than their peers that are more advantaged. Many studies have been published to support this. However, one

Social problems are highly caused by the improper administration of laws, distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges in a society. Justice is at the heart of many legal, political, religious and philosophical arguments. Social factors affect all persons, irrespective of ethnic origin, gender, possessions, race and religion to be treated equally and without prejudice. Public policies are expected to solve problems efficiently and effectively, serve justice, support governmental institutions and policies and encourage active citizenship. However, public policies at both the local state and national level may contribute to social problems. Some of these rules impose restrictions on the freedom needed by individuals hence limiting the aspect of fairness and equality in the society. Moving towards the right direction and building a stable complete functional community in the world will be noted only if the negative aspects in the society are done away with as soon as possible. This paper is a discussion on several aspects in the society; inequality, gender, race and ethnicity, work and economy, marriage and family.