Low-income parents—what they want from schools

Abstract

The subject of Ellen Brantlinger's (1985) paper--socio-economic disadvantage and reduced educational opportunity--is one which has received much attention throughout North America since World War II. Somehow, the assumption has come to be widely accepted that poor and ethnic people possess different aspirations and abilities than other groups. That this assumption flourishes in the United States can be demonstrated by the range of studies represented in Brantlinger's literature search. Such assumptions also underly many of the Canadian studies addressing the academic performance of children and can be found, for example, in the research sponsored by the Board of Education for the City of Toronto. These studies emphasize the acceptance of a myth which has gained credence, a myth that poor and ethnic children are somehow different. Many teachers, but not all, in the Canadian system accept this myth. My experience as a classroom teacher in Toronto's inner-city schools has convinced me that most parents, regardless of financial status, view education as a vehicle for ensuring their children's future success in life. Indeed, many of the parents of the children presently in my grade 2/3 class (most of whom are low-income) have expectations that their children will proceed to university. And, from my observations, these children, given academic preparation, are fully competent to succeed at this level. Then, you ask, How did this myth become accepted? In Ontario, before World War II, the then-Department of Education prescribed curriculum and enforced standard tests to ensure that every child was taught a set body of skills and knowledge. In those years, if too many students failed, the teacher, not the child, was deemed responsible. Following the war, educational policy changed dramatically. American progressivism was adopted as a philosophy, look-say reading methods became predominant, and prescribed curriculum was abandoned in favor of individualized curriculum, presumably reflecting the "unique" needs of each child. The impact of these changes can be measured in the numbers of "learning disabled" children we presently claim (some 20 to 30 percent, according to Wilson's 1983 study). A large percentage of these so-called disabled children come from ethnic families or families where the educational level is low. As noted in an earlier article (Weir, 1983), once it was established that the children from these families experienced difficulty under the new rules, "it was only a step to a socio-economic-ethnic explanation as to why children failed to bloom under the new philosophy--namely, whereas middle-class parents could afford tutors, could send their children to private school, or had the time and education to assist their