Unequal Childhoods - Annette Lareau [16]
During the years of the study, local political figures openly criticized the district for doing a poor job educating children. At Lower Richmond, one of the district’s more accomplished schools, about one-half of each class reads below grade level and about one-third of the fourth-grade cohort is at least two years below grade level. The district is under pressure to raise test scores, but the budget is very limited, and shortfalls occur annually. Unlike in the suburbs, inner-city schools do not have wealthy parent associations capable of supplementing individual site budgets. At Lower Richmond, few parents participate in the Parent-Teacher Association; meetings often have only three or four attendees (usually the officers). Social relations among the teachers are another potential cause for concern. Real tensions underlie a generally cordial atmosphere. Some of the Black teachers feel that white teachers treat certain Black children unfairly, as a Black third-grade teacher charged angrily:
There are some faculty members—some of the children aren’t treated equally. Some Black children with certain reputations did certain things and . . . [got] kicked out to another school. Some white children would do serious things and they would get detention, call parents, or suspensions.
Although white administrators and teachers generally did not agree, other Black educators at the school echoed these concerns.
Relations among the children at Lower Richmond also are strained sometimes. Serious threats to safety are unusual.6 But physical fights between children are common on the playground throughout the week. Teachers estimate that at least one-half of the children have serious life problems, often involving a parent who is absent or incapacitated. The school counselor works regularly with Child Protective Services to address the needs of students she feels are being neglected (e.g., those who come to school in winter without coats) or abused. In a single classroom, it is common to have several children who have “serious issues.” In Mr. Tier’s fourth grade, among the white students, there is Lisa, whose mother left her and who now “lives with her father, who likes to drink to excess”; Thomas, whose mother disappeared one day and, although she eventually returned, still has no contact with her son; and Shaun, whose father “does cocaine, . . . is paranoid, and was arrested twice this year.” Among the Black students in the class, there is Tanisha, who lacks even the most basic school supplies (such as a school bag) teachers prefer students to have. Another student, Toya, is disruptive. She “gets in fights all the time . . . but her mother . . . [instead of reprimanding her daughter, spends her time] explaining to me why it’s not Toya’s problem.” Julius is from a home where “there is a whole history of drug abuse and violence.” Teachers at Lower Richmond note that in addition to being emotionally upsetting, their students’ life problems are academically disruptive. Uniformly, the teachers want their students to arrive at school each day “well groomed” and “prepared to learn.” They also want parents to be involved in their children’s education, to “sign homework, help with projects” and “be positive,” in the words of one fourth-grade teacher.
These expectations are met by some. There are both Black and white children whose parents are steadily employed, as well as those whose parents are energetically striving to move up in the world. In Mr. Tier’s class, there are three such Black children—Isaiah, whose mother is absent but whose father is devoted to him; Morrell, whose mother has “gone back to college to become an elementary school