Pre School and at Risk Students Solutions and Ideas

Educational Reform I would say that the most effective way to work with children of poverty is to remember what Dr. Ruby Payne (2005) says about poverty -- namely, it is "relative" (p. 2) -- that means, poverty only exists in relation to wealth; so if everyone is in the same socioeconomic status, it is not necessarily the case that the individuals feel "poor." Thus, while schools may embrace a "middle-class" code, they risk disassociating themselves from lower economic class students based on this bias (Payne, 2005, p. 3).

For me, this was a really interesting point, that reminded me of the importance of keeping an open mind about values and how we interpret others, especially in terms of "poverty," which is a word that really has more meaning from a middle-class perspective than it does from a lower class perspective.

Since I do not have much experience working with children, I would say that remembering to not view them as though we all shared the same middle-class values or background would be a good first step to working effectively with children of poverty. The pros and cons of local school boards are that on the pro-side they take authority and responsibility for local schools at a localized level; they are more immediately in charge of overseeing schools and what goes on in them.

This also encourages "democratic deliberation" as Diane Ravitch notes (Koonce, 2016, p. 150) and keeps administrators more focused on the individual, which is a good approach to reform (Curwin, Mendler, 2008, p. 125).

On the con side, local school boards may miss the bigger picture about standards, in the sense of how local schools compare to national schools; or they might have less incentive to really push schools to raise the bar of achievement, especially if they are only viewing themselves in a local or regional context, instead of in a national context, in which it could be seen that they are competing against the country's best.

This kind of context could produce a strong desire to achieve more in schools and can help to cultivate a solid professionalism among teachers, which is also good (Marzano, 2003). My position is that local school boards are good but that they should also try to push local schools to achieve success that is on par with or better than national high levels of achievement so as to help encourage school and educational pride.

The pros and cons of arming trained resource officers as opposed to arming teachers and principals in schools are the following.

On the pro-side, it keeps teachers from having to be armed and appear like a military force; it ensures that professionals are wielding the weapons rather than untrained teachers; and it ensures order and safety against the potential threat of attack in a school; on the con side, it is less immediate (for instance, what if an attack occurs in the classroom?); it takes power away from the teacher and student and puts it in the hands of a militarized personnel; it turns the school from a place of learning to a place of fear.

My own position is that guns should be kept out of schools in spite of the threat of attacks; so I do not support arming teachers or trained resource officers, as both give off bad messages of fear and violence. The concerns related to universal pre-school are that it puts children in the classroom at an age that is not necessary; for instance they could still be learning things at home at that.