Category Archives: poor

Poverty and school performance

by

Diane Ravitch mentions a link to Noel Hammitt’s blog on the correlation between poverty and how well a student does in school.  She taught Noel as a student undergrad.

Note:  Noel Hammitt has copyrighted this material, but kindly allows liberal use of it as long as copyright is noted.

The first chart is stunning in how the “F” grade corresponds with the kids in poverty.  Again–they are trying to blame teachers for something that is out of their control–and the biggest factor in how well a child does in school….poverty.

From this chart it appears that there is a powerful pattern in the relationship between the concentrations of poverty in schools and the assigned letter grades for schools. However, we should note that for four years Louisiana put out a report that highlighted High-Poverty High Performing Schools, which suggested that there are, perhaps, many schools that defy this pattern. After carefully examining the lists, which reported higher numbers of schools each succeeding year, with 56 schools in the 2011 release, we noted that many of the schools actually had a lower percentage of students qualifying for free meals than the state average. In addition, most of the schools were magnet schools or schools where Gifted/Talented programs were masking lower test scores for other groups of students in the schools.  Finally, there were schools like Lake Forest Elementary, in New Orleans, that had extensive application and testing procedures that eliminated low-scoring students from the schools.  We also noted that there were no schools that had been on the list every year. Not one school out of over 1300 schools in the state that had overcome the challenges of poverty every year.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

We note that although the private schools seem to have an advantage on the scores, they enroll very few special education students, and they get to select their students.

~~~~~~~~~~~

NAEP scores can be useful checks against a natural tendency of states, districts, and schools to focus on teaching to the test, because NAEP assessments are much more difficult to game or teach to than state level tests. An example of this can be found in states where 90 percent or more of students receive passing scores in their state at the basic level, when only 20 or 30 percent of their students are passing NAEP at the Basic Level.

~~~~~~~~~~

I think this last quote is really important for the non-teacher to understand what is going on with testing.  As we have learned, tests can be manipulated in that the teacher is forced to teach so the children can pass the test so the schools will not be penalized either by closing them or denying them their federal tax dollars through programs such as Race to the Bottom…er, I mean, Top….so the assessment is muddied.  The national assessment appears to circumvent that and gives a true picture of how the children are doing.

Noel notes that a child in poverty can also make high grades–he emphasizes that one should understand this and not have low expectations of these children.  I agree.  The problem isn’t that the child is not capable….but they have so many obstacles to overcome every day that get in the way.

Finally, the biggest point of the paper is that just because a school is called “failing” doesn’t necessarily mean that the kids and teachers are stoopid.  Again, parents and the public need to  ask how that school was assessed, is poverty  a huge problem with the students?

Pregnant mothers, mercury, and toxins

by

Well, this   sounded refreshing by the title.  But I’ll hold my applause until they actually put their money where their mouths are and get off their duffs.

This sentence is why I have my doubts:

“What we’re trying to get is the balance between awareness and alarmist,” said Dr. Jeanne Conry, president of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

~~~~~~~~`

We are waaaay past alarm.  If you’re not alarmed, you haven’t been paying attention.  This is decades past due!  They knew this back in the sixties, so spare me the tender steps and get on it already.  And don’t act all concerned with women’s health when you’re willing to poison them with vaccination….and of course, you’re not willing to treat poor women with whatever they can pay you.

I cannot believe they are recommending fish, especially catfish, tuna and salmon.  This report states catfish are okay, but I have read in other reports that they are high in mercury.   Fish can be high not only in mercury but toxins from pesticides [PDF} and other farm run off.  I don’t go along with the statement that this is good news in regards to standards for drinking water.  I cannot drink tap water because of the contaminants. Note that they are STILL finding DDT decades after being banned.   And because of “budgetary restraints” glyphosate (Monsanto’s RoundUP)  was not measured.   This should alarm everyone.

…and they’re asking the American Chemical Society for its input? A group that makes its living off of chemicals that are toxic to us and destroy our immune systems?  Seriously??

And in the we-are-our-own-worst-enemy category–the report states there are high concentrations of chemicals from home lawn and garden use in streams, etc. in the urban setting.  I’ve told the story before, but it bears repeating–there was a couple who had the perfect yard–grass was unnaturally green and not a “weed” in sight.  They sprayed for weeds frequently, I’m told.  They had not one but two dogs die of cancer.  Yep.

So…yeah, we have our own culpability for contributing to the toxic soup in pursuit of a perfect yard.  And perfect looking vegetables and fruits…who cares if they’re nutritious or not….kind of like our state of society right now, eh?  We judge more by the outside packaging than by what is on the inside….

Okay, I’m off my soapbox.  For now.

 

 

More dolphins beached **edited

by

It’s in Brazil this time.

I wonder if it has anything to do with this spill in 2011…

From the link to the story of Chevron in Ecuador:

Such sentiment holds strong appeal to those who claim that people here, like Ms. Ruíz’s 16-year-old son, are dying from the pollution that Texaco spawned. Citing scientific studies, the plaintiffs claim that toxic chemicals from Texaco’s waste pits, including benzene, which is known to induce leukemia, have leached for decades into soil, groundwater and streams. A report last year by Richard Cabrera, a geologist and court-appointed expert, estimated that 1,400 people in this jungle region — perhaps more — had died of cancer because of oil contamination.

~~~~~~~~~

Note that even Chevron agreed that they had spoiled what once was a pristine jungle.  Even worse is Petroecuador has dirtied its hands with contributing to the mess.  Despite their protests, they cannot pass off their own responsibilities.  <sigh>

I found this update to the above story.

You might recall the story of the proposed mining operation in an untouched part of Wisconsin.

I’m thoroughly convinced that these people are not going to be happy until they’ve destroyed every natural habitat and ecosystem.

~~~~~~~~~

Another reason the dolphins might be beaching themselves is mercury.  A report here on gold mining operations and the threat of mercury….a compelling story.

After being poisoned with mercury, Jose Atehortua suffered terribly:

In the ensuing weeks, Atehortua’s molars fell out; he was besieged by ringing in his ears, loss of hearing and appetite, impaired vision and balance, and damaged kidneys — ailments common to acute mercury vapor intoxication. But somehow kidney dialysis worked, and, slowly, movement returned to his arms and legs. Four months later, Atehortua returned to the entable, famous among Segovia’s miners as the azogado who had miraculously recovered from paralysis.

~~~~~~~

The above symptoms are common with us on the mercury poisoning group.   I personally had ringing in the ears, diminished hearing and appetite, darkened vision, balance issues, kidney impairment, liver impairment, and dental issues including loose teeth.   The alarming thing of this article is that they are thinking it was just a one time deal, instead of him probably suffering from long term poisoning until one night his body had had enough and gave out.  It took me a year after amalgam placement to start having monthly migraines.  Another year to start showing low thyroid symptoms, another year to start with memory loss and weight gain (even though I was still exercising)….and so it’s not as easily dismissed.  I wonder now if this guy, if he continued to work there, is still alive or if he is, whether he is seriously disabled–mentally or physically.

Now expand all of this out to how it must be affecting dolphins and other sea mammals….one can understand why they are losing their senses and beaching themselves.   Moving the entable to another location, while continuing to enable mercury exposure, is not going to help anyone–human nor animal.  And as in the previous story, why pollute a rural area?  Just stop, already.  Just stop.  Gold is not worth it.  All the gold in the world will not buy back your health….this paragraph attests to that:

Meanwhile, evidence is accumulating that more chronic varieties of the acute symptoms endured by Atehortua are affecting the most vulnerable segment of the population. In neurological tests administered to 196 children in Segovia, aged 7 to 13, 96 percent failed at least one measure of intoxication, whose indicators include attention, memory, language, and executive functions. These data are included in a UN health report, published in January, which describes the mercury situation in Antioquia as “dramatic.”

~~~~~~~~~~~

**edited to fix goof on above paragraph.

Blog

by

(PERSONAL BLOG)

I haven’t been blogging the past few days (writing, but not publishing) because the utter depravity of the food stamp fight was more than I could bear.  I was truly wondering whether to stop publishing….

Being poor doesn’t usually bother me to the point where I don’t want to blog–but this hit a little too close to home.  I resent being characterized as a no-good bum by people who are no good bums who get free haircuts, free parking, and coffee and complain because someone asks for food on the table….

More here.

And here.

Being poor has taught me so much,  which I know was the intent.  I have let go of the chains of thinking that my self-worth was wrapped up in what clothing I wore, the kind of car I drove, the house I had, or how much money I made.   Those, I discovered, were empty “calories” for want of a better word…that led to an emptiness of life.  Friends who like you because of your status will desert you when that status is lowered.   This was the second time I had gone through it (my first after my parents’ divorce).

It hit me the other day how badly I was treated after my parents’ divorce and the subsequent poverty I found myself in.  It hit me about the kids in school who may not have known their self-worth because they had not obtained the same status that I had previous to the poverty.  Before the divorce, I had people exclaim with delight, “Oh, you’re [popular doctor’s] daughter!”  After the divorce, these same people would treat me coldly.  Had I not known my previous life of self-worth (even if it was false)…had I not known that their treatment of me had nothing to do with me as a human being, but everything to do with my financial and social status….I perhaps would have felt as I imagine people who are poor their entire childhood (and perhaps life) feel when they don’t realize that they are not dirt because some idiot treats them that way–rather the person who treats them like dirt is the one with the problem.  And I’m not in any way trying to diminish how being treated that way affects one, as my opening statement attests to, but you can feel bad for awhile, but then get your second wind, hold your head up, and take a step forward.

It’s a hard lesson to learn–took me until my forties to realize all of that.  I let others define who I was and what worth I had.  Nobody gets to define who I am, what I am about, or what my soul’s worth is……which is really what you’re left when all the material things are stripped away…

 

 

The reality that you don’t hear about…

by

…that the folks on food stamps can also be adjunct professors.  This has got to be one of the most sobering stories I’ve heard yet.  What the mainstream media won’t tell you is that college educated WORKING people are also in dire straits because the top 1% are taking it all for themselves, as we see in this case.

Note the comment where some administrator in a hospital gave herself a 90k bonus while paying low wages.

And other comments are blasting the university for her extremely low un-livable wages.   Good God.

Many ask why she didn’t have Medicare/Soc. Security at her age?  The article doesn’t tell us, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say she was probably making too much money as a professor for Social Security.  I don’t know about Medicare, but assuming they also have limits on how much they will pay for certain conditions, and if this was the second time that Margaret Mary had cancer, she had probably reached those limits.

They also ask the question of her being on assistance (food stamps, I presume?) .  Ooookay.  Um, let me explain something to those who think that food stamps are some sort of panacea–they’re NOT.  Even if she got food stamps, which we don’t know by this article, it still would not be enough.   Jaysus H., $10,000 a year?  That is less than a $1,000 per month, before taxes.    Who can survive on that??

Here’s the op-ed from Daniel Kovalik, who may have been the last person to talk to her.  What huge indignity for her (and anyone else who has to beg for food or medical care).

And here again we have the fight against unions for teachers…and a glaring point of why we need unionized teachers, because the administrators have their priorities in the wrong places (themselves and athletics):

While adjuncts at Duquesne overwhelmingly voted to join the United Steelworkers union a year ago, Duquesne has fought unionization, claiming that it should have a religious exemption. Duquesne has claimed that the unionization of adjuncts like Margaret Mary would somehow interfere with its mission to inculcate Catholic values among its students.

This would be news to Georgetown University — one of only two Catholic universities to make U.S. News & World Report’s list of top 25 universities — which just recognized its adjunct professors’ union, citing the Catholic Church’s social justice teachings, which favor labor unions.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
What is truly, truly, incredible was the heartless act of the university in calling the police after it was discovered she was sleeping in her office because her electricity was shut off.  Yeah, because Jesus would have tossed her out on her ass, too. /very snarky.
Lastly, let’s take a moment to acknowledge that Margaret Mary was a woman….women are more likely to be in poverty than men.

Statistically, women in America are more likely to be poor than men in all racial and ethnic backgrounds. With over 37 million people living in poverty, over half of them are adult single women. Surprisingly so, women in the U.S. are further behind in comparison to women in other areas of the world. This could be all connected to the gender wage gap, with women earning less money than their male counterparts, and the often expensive responsibility of raising children.

In a report entitled Living Below the Line: Economic Insecurity and America’s Families, lead authors Shawn McMahon and Jessica Horning found that 45 percent of American families live on incomes that fail to provide the basic economic security required to support their basic needs. In just four years, the overall financial insecurity rate rose from 38 percent to 45 percent with an increase in poverty of White children and unmarried couples. Children of color were also found at risk of economic security with more than three-quarters of Black children and three-quarters of Hispanic children facing poverty in their households.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

More on Irish Slaves

by

I went back to read the blog again, and this time clicked on the comments section.  I found the comment below about further study of the Irish slave trade.  It is amazing that this went on for 200 years, and nobody knows about it!

Stumbled upon this website doing Irish Genealogy and thought I’d post that I just finished the book To Hell or Barbados: The Ethnic Cleansing of Ireland by Sean O’Callaghan and am starting White Cargo: The Forgotten History of Britain’s White Slaves in America by Don Jordan & Michael Walsh.

I highly recommend To Hell or Barbados. It reads a little like a history text but still fascinating none the less to learn about this little talked about portion of history even though it went on for almost 200 years!

-J

~~~~~~~~~~~

I found this blog on Sean O’Callaghan’s book To Hell or Barbados.   She writes a powerful paragraph in which she asks:

What if this story of the Irish and Scots had been exposed and well known; would slavery have had a different complexion and perceived differently today? Would the legacy of slavery, the blight and scourge it has inflicted upon people of African descent in the Americas be the same? Or would slavery have been understood for what it is: a system based on the conrol and subjugation of those who have no power–for economic gain.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There is a short documentary video on the site, as well, but it only covers the African slave trade, so no new information on the Irish/Scots slave trade there.

Something disturbing, though, as I’m trying to find other blogs reviewing the book–one had stamped on it “White Pride World Wide”.  That is the LAST thing I would want to come of this information—we don’t need the KKK (and cohorts) to use this to further its hate agenda.   Good God, it should cause them to pause and reflect on how it was done to the vulnerable whites, as well, and therefore, should be a learning moment on empathy and justice.  It should be a lesson on how once again, those in power create hatred towards a specific group to gain even more power (the Nazi’s flash in my mind as I write that).

Do unto others…

The Irish Slaves

by

I happened upon a blog on Irish slavery, and as I read, it seemed to want to pit the African American experience against the Irish, by who-has-suffered-more,  so I continued to search for a less adversarial historical blog and found this.

I don’t recall any mention of Irish slaves during History class.  This piece was rather eye-opening.  The Africans and Irish were forced to mate because the women were comely and would help produce lighter skinned blacks, which apparently meant higher prices for them.  

It also states that the Irish were cheaper and even though Catholic, not considered Christians, so it was nothing to beat them to death.    It never ceases to amaze me how others can dictate how religious another is or isn’t…..to suit their own purpose of degrading them.

Anyway, being of Irish heritage, I found this interesting as well as personal.  My ancestors came over here about that time…so I wonder. 

But I also know one of my ancestors was a slave owner five generations ago….so there is guilt there, too.  (Another ancestor fought in the Civil War on the Union side, so…yeah…trying to right a wrong).