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I just read a paper: "Fictional Money, Real Costs: Impacts of Financial Salience on Disadvantaged Students" arguing that poor Ss do worst on $-themed questions on math exams because $ = stress. This is type of deficit thinking is dangerous. THREAD. 1/8 https://bit.ly/2L5LYLG
I believe that poor Ss do worse on "Johnny wants to buy 3 shorts for $12 each and has $40, how much will he have left" than computing 40 - (3 x 12). But this has nothing to do with being poor. It's about these Ss systemically being denied access to rigorous learning opps. 2/8
I travel across the country to actively fight troubling beliefs that "these kids" either "don't, won't or can't" handle complex content. This belief gap @citizenstewart describes as "blaming the Ps" of poverty & parents is precisely the wrong frame for opining on ed policy. 3/8
Because if you grew up poor or really know poor people instead of studying them from ivory tower, you'd know that clever problem solving around $ is a baked-in way of life. 4/8
"Trying to make $1 out of 15 cents" isn't just a dope Pac line. It's exemplary of the complex constraint optimization problems families in poverty tackle daily. Our ed system's failure to tap into our students' inherent assets are a much more likely explanation for this gap. 5/8
But when the author of a "smart" paper concludes "It is clear that lower SES students face a disadvantage when confronted with [$ related] topics," policy makers listen. Please be more suspicious, especially w/ conclusions grounded in the notion of poverty as a defect. 6/8
The author's suggestion to stop asking $-related questions because "equity" highlights our comfort with lowering the bar for students in poverty. This is @PedroANoguera's pobrecito syndrome masked as a "feasible and relatively simple policy." Not okay. 7/8
I think it's always good to find issues and explore problems in education. Poor students doing worse on $ related math problems should be addressed. But the framework for solving problem can no longer be "these kids can't." Thread done. 8/8
