What is Reddit's opinion of Good Schools Poor Neighborhoods: Defying Demographics, Achieving Success (Urban Institute Press)?

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India is an example; I do have experience in third world countries, Tanzania, specifically, but I chose India as an example because it is better known and because, in terms of population and its poverty, it has less to give its children in rural regions than Tanzania does.

>The reported results from RI seem about expected - based on the level of poverty of its students [...]

Again, for some reason we are equating stupidity/inability to learn with poverty, and this is just not so. It creates a system where it's ok for the middle and upper classes to just say, "Well, they're poor, we can't expect them to do well in school." It's unfair to do so.

There are schools which perform well under terrible conditions. If you're interested in specifics, there are a couple of books/studies I could point you too. I could also point you to a bunch of studies that show that affluence can have nothing to do with a student's success. Hell, in India, there are states which have terrible literacy rates (59% in Bihar) and fantastic rates (90+% in Kerala). The variations in terms of funding for public, rural education do not differ much there.

Let me give you an Tanzanian example; it is consistently in the bottom 25 poorest nations on earth. In its urban center of Dar es Salaam, the study I'm looking at (1992, unfortunately), shows a illiteracy rate of 2%. Kigoma, a rural province, having an illiteracy rate of 20%. The country, at that time, had a total literacy rate of approx 10%. (http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_01/0000019b/80/13/20/09.pdf). Now, given their economy has since collapsed (again), one would question as to whether their educational systems (limited to literacy) would have also shrunk. It has. But with a country so poor, its literacy rate wavers around 70%. (WorldFactbook). This is 15% better than this Rhode Island city, where the standard of living, the 'educator's' credentials, school facilities are all exponentially better.

So, as for Rhode Island, no, I don't know what was happening at that school. I don't think anyone does. The argument I'm making is that they should be fired for incompetence. The argument the superintendent made was that they were acting together to prevent more help being given to students and demanded too much compensation.

I'm not a free-market capitalist, but I do think that when you do not perform your job adequately, and then team-up against ideas that will benefit the students you are supposed to care for, you are unworthy of your salary and of your position.

Check out: http://www.amazon.com/Good-Schools-Poor-Neighborhoods-Demographics/dp/087766742X