Educational Equity with Ruth López Turley

Raise yourself up by your own bootstraps. This is a refrain we hear all the ...

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Raise yourself up by your own bootstraps. This is a refrain we hear all the time, especially as Americans catechized in the dogma of personal responsibility. But what if some people don’t have bootstraps?  What if some don’t even have boots?

This week David and Curtis welcome educational expert and Rice University sociology professor Ruth López Turley. Raised on the U.S./Mexico border, Ruth’s own educational story is fascinating, and lends special weight to her observations about educational equity and how the scriptures (including Mary’s Magnificat) might lead us to some surprising and challenging conclusions.

Show Notes:

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  1. Avatar photo
    Bjmckenz

    Another way to echo some concerns here is to point out that it appears to be a confusion of causation and correlation. Just because poor scores are correlated with segregation in the schools does not mean that the segregation causes the problems. There is a hidden cause of both.

    Perhaps the churches and individuals need to look more carefully at raising the impact or awareness of educational opportunities, and their ability to get people out of the low income or segregated environments.

    This is something that can be done without impacting the schools directly, and I cannot see how it would fail to have parents reaching for more opportunities.

    Without that, it sounds like the schools (or the support groups) are trying to go around the parents and encourage the students to do more than their parents want. This does not seem like a winning strategy. It sounds like we are diminishing the impact of the parents, and reducing their control, and working against their perceived needs. It seems that the schools or groups are snatching the kids out from under the parents. Well there may be a case for that in situations of gross abuse, this does not rise to that level. It rises to the level of an opportunity for education of the communities and the parents.

    Clearly anybody in the schools are working with the kids needs to be incredibly persuasive as to the value of educational opportunities, but that persuasion needs to reach into the home and help the parents understand what they can do to help their kids.

    Once the family understands the possibilities the resources are needed and should be made 100% available.

    So the ministry opportunity becomes "how can we persuade parents to do better for their kids and support their kids reaching for more".

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  2. Jason R. Ward

    I'm currently in an administration education program and we just spent a week on equality vs equity. My fundamental issue is putting people into groups based on race.

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  3. Andy Warner

    The conversation this episode was pretty good, that is until the end. As a Christian I am all for the type of equity that Ruth talks about. Making sure kids have a level foundation to build their education upon seems like a no brainer. I was however disappointed at the seemingly lack of knowledge of Ruth in her area of study. Another commentor pointed out MN and MA as examples where economically disadvantaged kids get more funding per student. I was disappointed that Ruth didn't talk about the "Robin hood plan" in Texas that was started in 1993, that took funding away from wealthier schools and districts and redistributed it to poorer schools and districts. The problem is that while this redistribution of wealth has happened for nearly 30 years it hasn't had a large effect in Texas schools.

    As Ruth said we need to look outside the box. While focusing on schools isn't bad, it's easy to find many scholarly articles that state various aspects of home life are the most important indicators of a child's ability to learn. Teachers and schools are important but family is more so. I was disappointed to not hear more about this area as to how policy can create more stable homes to provide a better, more stable foundation for a child's education.

    Furthermore I was put off at the assertion of the intentions of a parent's plausible reasoning for placing their child at a private Christian school as being covertly racist. Yes many schools decades ago began as an effort to resist segregation, but to assert that these are the motivations in today's culture is fairly absurd.

    I was also disappointed that Ruth never answered the Curtis' question about parental fears of indoctrination in public schools. While this may be more prevalent in different parts of the country its a valid concern. Its not just the fact that a school isn't going to teach my child about Jesus or the bible, but instead the overt hostility toward religion and religious morality that exists in today's public schools is cause for concern. I am teaching my three boys about how to grow up to be strong Christian men and if they are being told that masculinity is "toxic", or that chivalry is dead only makes my job that much harder. I have enough to do in my day-to-day, and fighting with my kids teacher about how my family is structured and how we act towards others is not something I need added to my plate.

    I also noted a lack of acknowledgement of human nature, and the role it plays in how we create groups. I thought it odd for this to be ignored by a sociologist. For example, the discussion about how many schools and churches are still segregated struck me as odd and lacking context. Yes some school boundaries are still drawn to segregate communities. However to ignore the fact that we as humans naturally gravitate towards those who are like us seems to lack a bit of intellectual sincerity. We as humans, often initially base assumptions of commonality on appearance. Without speaking a word we can judge hundreds of people in minutes in an attempt to find others we can relate to. We all make assumptions about a person just by their appearance, their clothes, their fitness level, their posture (and other nonverbals), and yes even skin color. Right or wrong this is how we build groups, who is like me and who can relate to me. I'm not saying segregation of any sort is good, I'm just pointing out we do this naturally and its worth taking into account when we look how groups are organized. It takes a conscious effort to break this pattern, and while its something we should do, its often low on our priority list.

    I do agree that thinking in terms of groups can be helpful when working to alleviate inequity in education. I am part of a congregation that actually partners with a title 1 school in an effort to raise up those teachers and students. We work with the principal and PTA to provide the school, teachers and students with resources they need. It has ranged from painting the teachers lounge to being the pen pals of a second grade class. I don't say this to brag but to give real world examples on how a group can make a difference in a positive and healthy way. As an individual this would have been a monumental lift but for a small-ish congregation it created a joyful service opportunity. As a Christian we should be evaluating what our congregation is doing in our community or the communities around us. A good question to ask if we closed our doors tomorrow would anybody (the community) notice. If the answer is no, then its probably time to some work.

    Thanks again guys for the conversation!

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    Ben DeGrow

    This may betray some of my own biases, but I thought this podcast missed a golden opportunity to dig deeper into the role of education choice policies in addressing inequities. Based on the conversation, Dr. Turley & I would likely find common ground on policies to abolish (or at least expose) school district assignment boundaries that closely align with racist redlining of the New Deal era, maybe also to expand open enrollment access, including support to overcome information, transportation, and related barriers to exercising choice within the education system.

    Still, it would have been helpful to hear the guest do more to resolve the tension between her reflexive "support your public school" stance (+ largely dismissive view of private Christian education) and her justifiable concern about endemic segregation within most states' K-12 public school systems. The conversation would have benefited substantially by weighing the educational choice research on racial integration (it's largely favorable!) - maybe next time Curtis & David can find a guest to provide a more expansive view of educational opportunity and willingness to explore the evidence behind other solutions. It's a thorny issue to disentangle, but this sort of perspective would be highly beneficial.

    (The points elsewhere about weighing Thomas Sowell's work on "Discrimination & Disparities" also merited further consideration....)

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    JonathanRRogers

    This was an interesting episode with an interesting guest. Ruth López Turley sounds like she cares deeply about helping disadvantaged students catch up to their more advantaged peers, which is a noble endeavor. Unfortunately, she seems to be operating on a couple of deeply flawed assumptions.

    First, despite her assertion, it is not reasonable to expect arbitrarily chosen, nebulously defined groups such as "black," "white" and "Hispanic" to perform equally in all ways. There are many ways in which those groups vary on average, including age, wealth and family cohesion. There are hundreds of unquantifiable differences between those groups we often put under that category of "culture." Many people will agree that the fact that on average, black students don't do as well academically as white students indicates that something is wrong, but if it's not clear why the average differences exists, what useful action does that information lead to? For an empirical exploration of the causes of disparities, check out Thomas Sowell's "Discrimination and Disparities." https://www.hoover.org/research/discrimination-and-disparities

    Second, Ruth assumes that disparities must be addressed in public schools, but gives no reasons to support that assumption. She asserts that improving public schools is everyone's responsibility even if they have no children. It seemed to me that her belief in the essential role of public schools is an article of faith that prevents her from considering alternatives, including homeschooling, private schools, coops and various other alternatives. She did take time to mention that some Christian private schools in the US were created to avoid racial integration. She didn't mention that many had existed earlier, especially Catholic schools. David should have pointed out that there's a long history of discrimination against Catholic schools in favor of effectively Protestant public schools under the so-called Blaine amendments.

    Additionally, the discussion of equality of opportunity vs. equality of outcome was completely botched. Ruth repeatedly asserted that "equality" meant that every student would get the same resources. AFAICT, should completely dodged the more nuanced concept that students who start with fewer resources need more to have opportunities equal with those who start out with plenty of resources. Even if equal opportunity could be achieved via giving more help to the disadvantaged, it wouldn't guarantee equal outcomes.

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    1. Ken Motamed

      Perhaps the most important aspect in which these demographic groups differ is cognitive ability, but that's a taboo subject these days.

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      1. Alan

        I mean do you have proof that it is something intrinsic and not just a function of classism/racism/social upbringing? I’m not arguing that human abilities exist on a bell curve, but I find it hard to believe you without very solid proof.

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    2. Alan

      I mean it depends what you view the purpose of mandatory (regardless of public or private delivery) k-12 is. If you view schooling primarily as a means to make your kid more competitive for finite resources like college spots etc. then yeah there is no problem with alternate delivery systems. However, if that were the true purpose of k-12 it would be optional, and parents could just choose to not educate their kids. Obviously this isn’t the case. The reason it is mandatory is because an adequately educated public is a good everyone even the childless benefit from in the form of better workers, lower crime, innovation etc.

      As far as why public schools should be the primary focus, it’s mostly political reality. The real unobtainable answer to this is socioeconomic integration of neighborhoods. Most of the issues that poor kids face come from growing up not just in poverty but around it. It’s where their social morays come from. Schools currently do their best to counter this because people are willing to throw money at schools and children rather than have them move next door, but spending 6-8 hours a day at school can’t counter spending 16-18 hours in poverty stricken neighborhoods, but like I said integration is impossible because parents are increasingly risk averse, and don’t want to take the chance that some poor kids fuck up little johnnys path to Harvard they would rather let them rot in poverty than maybe possibly mess with little johnnys perfect path to Harvard. A good adage to end on is just because most violent crime is committed overwhelmingly by the poor doesn’t mean the majority of the poor are violent” but the small risk runs high in every parents mind. Altruism ends where children begin.

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        JonathanRRogers

        I'd say it depends on whether you view children as the responsibility of their parents or of the state. If they're the state's responsibility, of course the state should decide how to educate them.

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  6. linda

    Lost me when you actually started to define equity and equality. Then it morphed into the same old same old racist pathways.
    Born to German immigrants ancestors. They wanted land and finally settled in Nowhere Land at the time (still is) in Camas Prairie, Id. My grandma had a third grade education in a one room school house. She married and had 6 kids during the Depression. My mom had a 9th grade education and then left for Seattle to work for Boeing during the war. My dad was from a family of 8 kids. He left school to work for the Merchant Marines during the Depression to send money back to the family. They drafted him right off the boat to go into the Navy because of WW2.
    The great part is that because of all these efforts the third generation was able to go to college and we did by the dozens. There were a lot of cousins in this family.
    Bottomline, this is an argument about racism. Blacks and Hispanics are not doing as well as others. So? How did the Irish do for generations? Many different ethnic groups have washed through this shore and eventually come out the better. Many black middle class Americans, who are the greater number, would agree.
    Equity as it is currently used in academia is a cancer and will eventually lead to more people leaving the gov't education system than joining. My daughter is already looking for a new school for her biracial 5 yr old when he starts 1st grade.

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    1. Ken Motamed

      Inequity is yet another ploy by Progressives to demonize their political opponents.

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  7. Reebah

    Really enjoyed the conversation, but I was disappointed when I looked up her first Texas fact regarding per pupil spending versus inmate spending. In a quick search, Texas spends 54 billion on education and 2.5 billion housing inmates. To me her number rings disingenuous. You could let every prisoner out and it would barely make a mark on the education bottom line. On the other hand, really thought her story of not knowing about SAT prep and finding ways to offer more to under privileged areas makes tons of sense.

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      JonathanRRogers

      Regardless of the specific numbers, comparing spending per prison inmate vs spending per student makes little sense because those are entirely different services. AFAIK, Texas public schools don't house students in facilities designed to keep them from leaving. Schools don't feed students every meal or clothe them.

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  8. Greg M

    Hm. Not convinced so far. It would be interesting to know what the guest makes of Thomas Sowell's work - the idea that equitable outcomes amoung different groups is not the norm, historically or geographically? We dont anticipate professional sports teams to be ethnically balanced.
    Further, consider areas like Mn and MA where the public E-12 finance system provides siignificantly more money to minority and economically disadvantaged students, yet the outcomes don't buy better academic outcomes for those students.
    Also, I'd suggest that the conversation participants would be well-served to consider the historic growth of Christian schools outside of the south. A broad, broad brush was used to paint/include Catholic, Lutheran and Reformed schools (whose mission and systems predate integration orders) as participants in segregation.
    Finally, I suggest readers consider the research of Cardus and Notre Dame that has shown conclusively that committed Christian schools siginificantly increase the likelihood the graduates will remain faithful Christians as adults. And, that those Christian institutions model more of the socially desirable outcomes that Christians and others desire.

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      JR

      Good point about Minnesota and Massachusetts. The intent may be good, but the results sometimes don't match the desired goals. The white-black achievement gap in Minneapolis, for example, is close to the largest in the country, if not the largest.

      Greg M, looks like your comment got posted four times.

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  9. Greg M

    Hm. Not convinced so far. It would be interesting to know what the guest makes of Thomas Sowell's work - the idea that equitable outcomes amoung different groups is not the norm, historically or geographically? We dont anticipate professional sports teams to be ethnically balanced.
    Further, consider areas like Mn and MA where the public E-12 finance system provides siignificantly more money to minority and economically disadvantaged students, yet the outcomes don't buy better academic outcomes for those students.
    Also, I'd suggest that the conversation participants would be well-served to consider the historic growth of Christian schools outside of the south (post integration). A broad, broad brush was used to paint/include Catholic, Lutheran and Reformed schools (whose mission and systems predcate integration orders) as participants in overt segregation.
    Finally, I suggest readers consider the research of Cardus and Notre Dame that has shown conclusively that committed Christian schools siginificantly increase the likelihood the graduates will remain faithful Christians as adults. And, that those Christian institutions model more of the socially desirable outcomes that Christians and others desire.

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    Ben Connelly

    Have to say, not only do I think it is morally correct for a parent to do what’s best for their kids, it might be morally wrong for a parent to intentionally disadvantage their own kids in the name of social justice or equity.

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    1. Alan

      That begs the question then, if we have problems providing adequate opertunity to kids that already exist, is it moral to become a biological parent?

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        Ben Connelly

        Actually it doesn’t beg the question. I believe you mean, “does it raise the question?”

        I would think that it doesn’t, but that’s because I think the premise of the question is completely false. But that would take too long to go into.

        In my earlier comment, “yes,” meant, “yes it is moral to have kids.”

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      2. Adam Shields

        It doesn’t really beg the question. It is whether we are interested in equity or not. We have a small portion of the population spending huge sums on kids. We have the ability to have equity. We just have to decide to do it.

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        1. Alan

          Actually it kind of does. If being a moral parent means doing the absolute best for your kids education as the OP suggests, and the current system that advantages your kid requires you to either behave immorally yourself, or perpetuate an immoral system that essentially benefits your kid at the expense of others then your options are:

          1) Have kids and behave immorally in order to fulfil the moral obligations as a parent
          2) have kids and act morally but fail the moral obligation of being a parent
          3) Not have kids.
          4) change the system in such a way as to bring equity thus robbing your child of their comparative advantage and failing your moral obligation as a parent.

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            Ben Connelly

            “If being a moral parent means doing the absolute best for your kids education as the OP suggests”

            Not what I said but I’m unsurprised it would get characterized that way by a guy who appears to believe the world is zero sum.

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          2. Adam Shields

            This is a very limited view that assumes a zero sum game view of the world. It is possible envision a system that does work at equity for common good (the name of the show).

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    2. Adam Shields

      I am someone that is 'intentionally disadvantaging" my children. My wife is a teacher and we send my kids to the school where she teaches, not where we are districted. It is the same district, but a different elementary school.

      The school where my kids go is 90% non-white (almost entire Black and hispanic) and 70% poor. There is another elementary school that is less than 1 mile away, again same district, the is 7% poor and 11% Black and Hispanic. The school where my kids go has almost entirely apartments feeding into it and the next closest school I am referencing is almost entirely single family housing. This is a historic issue, the zoning hasn't changed in decades.

      As mentioned in other comments, we don't think we are saving the school by my kids going there nor do we think that we are harming our kids. My kids are around kids that will be more diverse and they will be more socially and emotionally equipped to handle that diversity in a variety of settings as they age. Also we believe that the quality of education is good, in some cases better than what is available at other schools because they teachers are expected to reach kids where they are.

      (My niece is at one of the richest schools in our district, but when she was in elementary and having difficulty learning to read, the school just said, take her to tutoring, we can't really help her. So my sister in law did take her to tutoring and it was with my daughters current teacher and while my niece does have some learning disabilities, the tutoring and support has kept her on grade level in ways that the well off school was unwilling to do in the classroom.)

      And we are not the only parents making a similar choice. There are a couple dozen other white and predominately welloff/middle class parents that are taking their kids to the school because they believe that one way to address equity is for white parents not to invite non-white and poor kids into the Predominately white and higher income schools, but to make the choice to integrate in the other direction.

      (Similarly if White Christians wanted to go to more diverse churches, they could make the choice to just go to churches that are already diverse. According to one study I saw, less than 1% of white evangelicals attend a church that is predominately minority, and has predominately minority leadership. And those rates seem similar to me around schooling and housing.)

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        Ben Connelly

        Sounds like you’re actually not intentionally disadvantaging your kids. You’ve made a solid argument that they will be better off for having attended the school where your wife teaches.

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        1. Adam Shields

          We do not believe we are (disadvantaging them). But the school is a lower performing school than either our zoned school or the neighboring school i mentioned and the simple ranking systems of websites like greatschools or others websites say the our school is low performing and the other schools are high performing. Which influences people’s choices and would hinder them.

          As the guest suggested zoning changes would be simple (although unpopular and would potentially impact some homeowners’ housing values by 100k or so in my estimation.

          So it is likely that school segregation will continue in my district. The district is 35% white students but 4 of the 7 board members are white. The school board is one that is similar to the type of fights David has previously referenced in his writing. They were under investigation by their accreditation agency this past year for board members fights which fall among racial lines. So it is unlikely this will be addressed. As David referenced the school board and current leadership are opposed to addressing equity as a goal.

          The last social studies director was fired about 2 years ago and no one has been hired for that position. Under a recent law, staff cannot be trained on racial issues in teaching.

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            Ben Connelly

            Right. But my argument wasn’t that parents should send their kids to schools that “society say” are better. My argument was simply that parents shouldn’t intentionally cause harm to their children to benefit “society.” It sounds to me like you think you made the right choice. Who knows - maybe I would have made a similar one if I were in your shoes.

            All I’m saying is that it should be up to individual parents to decide what’s best for their kids and that they should do what they think is best. Of course that means different parents will come to different conclusions about what is best.

            I actually agree with the idea of changing the zoning laws. I’m neither surprised nor deterred by the drop in home values.

            I’ve never supported school segregation along racial lines.

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      Curtis Chang

      This is such a complicated issue - and a deeply personal one that gets at the specific balance of needs, personalities, capacities of your children as well. As I said on the podcast, it’s one that our own family wrestled with for a while. I don’t think there’s one right answer for everyone individually - and Ruth was careful to make that point. But at the same time, it’s also critical to let the Gospel reframe exactly what we consider is “to the advantage (or disadvantage) of our kids.”

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        Ben Connelly

        Thanks, Curtis. Good point. I think you handled the question well during the podcast. As you say, it’s a complicated issue - I tend to get defensive too quickly about these questions (and others). You’re right that ultimately we should consider the Gospel when determining what is the best way for us to do right by our children. I honestly wasn’t defending NIMBYism, more just reacting to what I perceived - perhaps wrongly - as an argument that parents should intentionally disadvantage their kids in the name of equity (for instance, Ruth didn’t say this, but I could see the logical implication of this argument being that parents should keep their kids out of AP/advanced classes so that they don’t have any leg up over any of their peers).

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      JR

      Curtis asked an important question about what to do if a parent sees a conflict between doing what is best for the child and what may be good for the broader community. The question was couched in terms of religious belief, but her answer focused on integration. I wonder if she thinks most parents who claim a religious motivation for private schooling are closet racists. As she observed, segregation schools arose after the Brown decision, but racism is certainly not the only reason someone might choose a private school. Curtis should have pressed her on this point: If you think that sending your child to a public school is spiritually harmful, what do you do? ... I'm not recommending a response one way or the other, but it would have been good to hear her thoughts, even though I realize she is a sociologist and not a pastoral professional.

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      1. Adam Shields

        There are many reasons why Christians choose private school, but we can't ignore that race is a significant one that has lots of evidence for it. Even in diverse communities where Christianity is diverse, Christian schools are disproportionately white.

        Another issue is that many Christian schools have very conservative curriculum which even if minority parents may be interested in having a Christian education, they are not interested in history or biblical teaching that has been influenced by groups like Bob Jones, Doug Wilson, David Barton and others.

        I am not against Christian education, I do know many that are good Christian educators but we do have to have open eyes to see that our racial history has significantly influenced our Christian education options.

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      Kmregan7

      But who is to say what's "best" for their kids? Would it be morally wrong for a parent to intentionally disadvantage their own kids in the name of religion? There are religions that don't want children educated in such things as evolution because it goes against their religious beliefs.

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        Ben Connelly

        Would it be better to force those parents to teach their kids evolution? I’m all in favor of public schools teaching evolution, but I don’t think there should be a law telling parents they can’t homeschool their kids and tell them there’s no evolution.

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          Kmregan7

          I don’t know but maybe? Is it possible to force people to teach things in general? And do children have rights? Under religious freedom laws, parents can keep them from needed medical care and homeschool them to prevent them from learning things deemed ‘wrong’ by the parents…but we obviously don’t want no parental control….it’s a tricky issue.

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            JR

            I think David addressed this in his Sunday newsletter today.

            Parental rights give way when there's a serious charge of abuse or neglect.

            Of course, that only shifts the debate to other areas. Is not teaching the concept of evolution a case of educational neglect, for example (assuming there is such a thing in the law as educational neglect)?

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        JR

        I'm sure that the parents who do that don't think they are putting their kids at a disadvantage.

        Societally (as David points out in today's French Press), we've decided that the people who decide what is best for kids are ... parents, though lately, there's been some chipping away at that from both left and right.

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