Invalidities in Reporting and Discussing the Educational Progress of Disadvantaged Urban Children

Current trends in reporting and discussing the educational progress of disadvantaged urban children seem to be made without the benefits of recent findings in educational psychology, learning theory, studies of the effects of societal conditions on educational progress, or psychometric procedures. When these recent findings are considered, one would find that the characteristics such children bring to school are fixed behavioral patterns that are reinforced by their environments. Secondly, one would find that their underachievement is related to the discontinuity between their societal patterns and the prescribed educational referents. Therefore, the methods they use to solve problems are significantly different than those expected in the educational setting. For these and other reasons, methods to measure their ability to master educational tasks provide indices of the discrepancies between their cultural experiences and those offered in the educational setting. The circumstances which prevent disadvantaged children from being successful in school are not universal. They are complex and take on a variety of forms. To argue that a specific set of materials or educational programs will do the job for all urban children within a given school or at a given grade level would tend to suggest that the advocate neither understands the problem nor appreciates the situation. (Author/JM)