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Poor white kids failing at school - Maggie's fault

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View joe_cpfc's Profile joe_cpfc Flag Basingstoke 05 Apr 16 5.34pm Send a Private Message to joe_cpfc Add joe_cpfc as a friend

Originally posted by Kermit8

By all means lay the blame rightfully at mis-management, inequality and ongoing social ills but I can't stand all this ethnic lumping. It's just divisive. Either you come from a good family with positive role models or you don't.

Either you want to do well at school or for one reason or another you don't/aren't able to. Either your peers are a good influence or they are not and either you are unlucky enough to have been born poor and probably go to a crap school or you are not.

You can't just target whites when it is obvious the problems go beyond skin colour.

Spot on

 

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View Rudi Hedman's Profile Rudi Hedman Flag Caterham 05 Apr 16 5.54pm Send a Private Message to Rudi Hedman Add Rudi Hedman as a friend

Originally posted by Mapletree

I don't think it's skin colour Kerms, it's background and history. You will find teachers in tough areas confirming that the poor whites are generally doing less well and often more disruptive. We have discussed this at Mapletree Towers due to some direct knowledge of New Addington. I am guessing that the children and grandchildren of immigrants have role models that are highly motivated and competitive. They had the get up and go to emigrate. And most of us have some experience with 'tiger mothers'.

White British families without many or any academic qualifications or ability will have by and large been okay after leaving school compared to ethnic minorities with few qualifications and/or limited English. For decades you could get a trade and apprenticeship or just by luck find yourself in a job that aftera few years pays the mortgage. For eample, the local garage might give you a chance or a family friend of a friend. Quite difficult for ethnic minorities to be hired by a local knuckle dragger.

Too many British people take services in this country for granted. Education, hospitals and healthcare, policing etc. Where there is little of these in home countries, they're probably more appreciated. Also if white British people have hardly or never paid tax they don't know the value of education. Or if the safety net is so safe that it has until now provided enough room/rooms, new mobiles and Sky telly, where's the incentive to raise your game?

 


COYP

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View Rudi Hedman's Profile Rudi Hedman Flag Caterham 05 Apr 16 6.02pm Send a Private Message to Rudi Hedman Add Rudi Hedman as a friend

What I want to know is when do teenagers stop talking like rappers in that manufactured Jafaican accent after they realise it limits their career prospects?

It isn't limited to any race, probably more which school or ability set or social group you're in at school. It's almost a novelty talking to a state school educated teenager who doesn't sound like Tinie Tempah.

There was a documentary on BBC2 on Sunday tracing a SE London family called the Nelsons over a century. The last generation black girl you'd think after hearing her speak in Jafaican and the little interest her unemployed from age 16 Mother showed she'd have no chance. It said at the end she'd passed her A Levels and was going to University.

Edited by Rudi Hedman (05 Apr 2016 6.04pm)

 


COYP

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nickgusset Flag Shizzlehurst 05 Apr 16 8.23pm

Poor folk don't do as well in school, jobs, housing and health as well-off folk and really well-off folk (all 68 of them) run everything and pretty much get what they want when they want.

And this is news?

 

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View Mapletree's Profile Mapletree Flag Croydon 05 Apr 16 8.25pm Send a Private Message to Mapletree Add Mapletree as a friend

Originally posted by nickgusset

Poor folk don't do as well in school, jobs, housing and health as well-off folk and really well-off folk (all 68 of them) run everything and pretty much get what they want when they want.

And this is news?

In 2014 the University of Oxford admitted more girls called Eleanor than students who had received free school meals.

 

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View Jimenez's Profile Jimenez Flag SELHURSTPARKCHESTER,DA BRONX 05 Apr 16 9.09pm Send a Private Message to Jimenez Add Jimenez as a friend

I saw it with my own eyes 15 minutes ago. Black kids with pants around the seat of their pants, rapping, along with all the hand signals. Whilst the studious muslim kids seemed to have their heads buried in their text books getting a head start on their homework. I agree with Rudy most kids are so dumbed down that they all thing they are going to be playing in the NBA or are going to be Raps next big mogul....

 


Pro USA & Israel

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View Kingvagabond's Profile Kingvagabond Flag London 06 Apr 16 1.59am Send a Private Message to Kingvagabond Add Kingvagabond as a friend

I'm not sure dumbed down is the right term but I would say that the media portrays an idea that if you're young and working class , to escape poverty you need to be a top sportsman (footballer or athlete as other sports are for the rich). Ironically, that's the opposite of the Tory (also dishonest) rhetoric of meritocracy.

What I would also say is that outside of my children with ASD, most disruptions in my classes are caused by white British boys who are pupil premium (what used to be called Free School Meals). Black and Asian children tend to very polite and (mostly) fairly studious. Coincidentally, all of my NQT (and ITT) training was on BME, Asian children, Eastern European children and SEN children. None of whom are struggling in my class. Go figure.

 


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He was right!!!...and we killed him!!... poor Orpinton Eagles........

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View Big Guy's Profile Big Guy Flag 06 Apr 16 7.29am Send a Private Message to Big Guy Add Big Guy as a friend

The reason poor white kids are not doing well in school is cultural not ethnic. The guardian article suggests out that the social cohesion of the poor white community was destroyed by thatcher in the 80s. There is an element of truth to this but only in so far as many poor white folk were unionised and were employed in the manufacturing industries. Many poor white folk were neither. The destruction of the poor white idyll of always being able to leave your door open or popping next door to borrow a cup of sugar had gone long before thatcher said there's no such thing as society, if it ever existed in the first place. No. What destroyed that culture was the success of other cultures more attractive to poor white kids. It could be argued that this started in the wake of the austerity following the Second World War, when music and literature encouraged a generation to rebel against the previous generation's failure to avoid killing each other. Rock n roll, beatniks, the stones, flower power, glam rock, punk rock, new wave, rap.......the list is endless. Nihilism became cool. You reap what you sow.

 


Time to go Alan

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View JHB's Profile JHB Flag London 06 Apr 16 9.07am Send a Private Message to JHB Add JHB as a friend

Originally posted by Kermit8

By all means lay the blame rightfully at mis-management, inequality and ongoing social ills but I can't stand all this ethnic lumping. It's just divisive. Either you come from a good family with positive role models or you don't.

Either you want to do well at school or for one reason or another you don't/aren't able to. Either your peers are a good influence or they are not and either you are unlucky enough to have been born poor and probably go to a crap school or you are not.

You can't just target whites when it is obvious the problems go beyond skin colour.

I'd agree with most of this. It was striking that when I was at school in the 90s there were some very bright kids whose parents cared more about whether their children were perceived as being 'tough' and able to 'handle themselves' than whether they were doing well academically. I got a lot of grief from some kids for being a "boffin" just because I worked hard and did well in my results. For these kids that was the worst possible thing you could be. I often think how some of those kids could have done if they'd been given a bit more encouragement at home.

As others have pointed out often the parents had few qualifications as well but had decent jobs. Unfortunately a lot of those jobs simply don't exist anymore or are a lot harder to find so the prospects for the kids are much worse. That was back in the mid 90s as well and the situation has worsened since.

 

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jamiemartin721 Flag Reading 06 Apr 16 9.28am

When I was a poor white kid, admittedly living in an area with a lot of wealth, there was a lot of emphasis with my parents on the importance of education, not necessarily educational success. To my parents, education was something that wasn't available to them, and they saw that their lives were limited because of it.

This certainly seems to be true of some of the working class in the past, particularly among trade unionist organisation members and a significant section of the working class (left wing and right wing) that education was vital to opportunity.

Obviously there were those who didn't care, and invariably among my family, their kids achievements have been minimal in life, echoing their parents, rather than surpassing them - and some of them definitely have made a good life for themselves in spite of a s**ty start - but the great advantage of education and a willingness to learn and exploit your own intelligence, is that it means opportunities exist and continue to exist, that simply would otherwise be closed.

Most important thing a child can get, is a good basis in education. You don't have to be the best student, you just need to understand the 'why and how', be able to read proficiently, communicate and write. One thing I noticed when I did my apprenticeship, was that a large part of it was focused on skills that appeared to have nothing to do with my job (writing skills, computer literacy, presentation skills and comprehension skills).

To me, the failure to obtain a reasonable competency in these skills, along with a respect for intelligent achievements, dooms a white working class to simply to repeat its previous generation.

Indian parents, Asian parents, Black parents, Muslim parents etc seem to understand that knowledge and the capacity to use knowledge is inherently rewarding in life (which may well have not been an option for their parents).

A reasonably stable background and competency in education are essential to the improvement of the working class, especially in an era where work otherwise will be limited, and prospects entirely defined by the options their employment can provide.

 


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View DanH's Profile DanH Flag SW2 06 Apr 16 10.23am Send a Private Message to DanH Add DanH as a friend

There's an interesting paper written by Steven Levitt (recommend reading Freakonomics if anyone is looking for a good book) which looks at how much impact school choice has on a child's attainment and then looking at what factors do actually have a bearing on it if the school choice is almost irrelevant (it was).

Turns out that the IQ of the parents and those from a good socio-economic background were the main factors affecting attainment. Perhaps the non-white demographic in Britain are catching up in the socioeconomic stakes and achieving far better test results as a result.

 

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View johnfirewall's Profile johnfirewall Flag 06 Apr 16 3.13pm Send a Private Message to johnfirewall Add johnfirewall as a friend

Originally posted by DanH

There's an interesting paper written by Steven Levitt (recommend reading Freakonomics if anyone is looking for a good book) which looks at how much impact school choice has on a child's attainment and then looking at what factors do actually have a bearing on it if the school choice is almost irrelevant (it was).

Turns out that the IQ of the parents and those from a good socio-economic background were the main factors affecting attainment. Perhaps the non-white demographic in Britain are catching up in the socioeconomic stakes and achieving far better test results as a result.

Good book. I particulary relished reading the evidence the dispells most of what people think about everything (not that you're allowed to mention any pattern where race is a variable, even when presented alongise the statistics, but that's another story)

I'll confess that I don't know many highly educated people or any with children old enough require too much of an educational kick-up-the-backside but these people are generally white lower middle-class and are happy as long as the kids are focussed and have interests outside of schools such as sport or art.

Whatever the stats say, money buys an education, which in turn yields a greater income.. And repeat.

Looking at kids from my school, I can't see any deviation from the established norms, I mean none of them are millionaires. Can I derive from that this is because none of the parents were well-off? Sadly the working class part of me does cling to that assumption.

 

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