tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10004193.post8605620000647748201..comments2024-03-28T12:48:28.954-05:00Comments on Educational Equity, Politics & Policy in Texas: Who Gets to Graduate? by Paul ToughAngela Valenzuelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16377527828841110131noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10004193.post-47483961732297651852014-05-19T14:04:09.739-05:002014-05-19T14:04:09.739-05:00I have a similar reaction to this kind of research...I have a similar reaction to this kind of research. I absolutely agree that although this "backdoor" approach to addressing historical inequities does apparently increase graduation rates, it does little or nothing to get at the ideologies that help perpetuate them. <br /><br />To me, the best example of the limits of this approach were found in the article comments that were "picked" by readers or by the NYTimes moderator: <br /><br />http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/18/magazine/who-gets-to-graduate.html<br /><br />I was surprised at how many remarked that the profiled student's SAT/ACT scores indicated that she "didn't belong" at a selective institution like UT, even though she clearly qualified under the top ten percent rule. To me it seems that the absence of a discussion or understanding about school segregation and disparate access to resources opens up a space for the same old discourses of colorblindness and meritocracy to re-assert themselves. <br /><br />Additionally, I think that these (supposedly) sociopolitically "agnostic" approaches can even contribute to the very inequities that they seek to address. In particular, I am thinking of Paul Tough's other writing from a couple years back on research by Angela Duckworth (also a psychologist) and others on the role of things like "grit," "determination," and other "character traits" in helping poor children to succeed. At the very least it seems like this work, like that of Yeager's, can give a "pass" to those who want to argue that poverty and other sociohistorical factors don't matter when it comes to student success. At worst, I think the argument that poor kids lack things like "character" or "grit" reinscribes deficit perspectives and can lead to a crude kind of behaviorism when institutions like KIPP try to "teach" these character traits to their students: <br /><br />http://www.kipp.org/our-approach/character <br /><br />http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/18/magazine/what-if-the-secret-to-success-is-failure.html?pagewanted=allEric Bybeehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13892049672672042928noreply@blogger.com