Making Wrong Assumptions About Public Education and Public Schools

            Yesterday I received a “voter report card” from MoveOn.org.  The report card informed me that during the last five general elections, I voted only once compared to my neighbors who had voted in more than one general election. 

            What annoyed me about this voter report card was that it did not consider or possibly know that during the 2008 election, I lived and voted in Indiana.  In the 2000 election, I voted in Pennsylvania, but I lived in another part of the city.  However, with limited information, MoveOn.org made assumptions about me that were not accurate.  This got me thinking about the assumptions made about public education and public schools.

            There are a lot of assumptions made about public education and public schools.  Assumptions about the effectiveness of public education, assumptions about the teachers who work in public schools, and assumptions about the students who attend public schools are often generalized to all schools, all teachers and all students. 

Since most assumptions are based on an individual’s perception, speculation or interpretation of information, what an individual reads, listens to, or engages in discussion, the information is filtered and processed via their socio-economic lens and assumptions are made.  Since, a majority of the information comes from non-objective sources, the individual fails to understand their assumptions are based on partial information.

            Assumptions by themselves are innocuous.  However when assumptions develop or influence educational policy or affirm stereotypes of urban and suburban schools and students, assumptions can be very harmful. 

            One such example is the assumption of the underachieving urban, public school student.  The assumption that urban, public school students are poor, born out of wedlock, undereducated and involved in criminal activity has been detrimental to these students as they apply for jobs.  Unemployment and underemployment is extremely high among urban, public school students because the assumptions made about them have influenced the decision to hire them.  Another example of how assumptions have been detrimental is when these students apply to college, these assumptions have hurt urban, public school students who are denied acceptance into top tier colleges because colleges view their schools as academically inferior and they do not believe these students have the skills to graduate in four years.

Finally, what is most disheartening is the assumptions are likely to follow these students into their adulthood.  Because of where they live and where they graduated, these students are likely to become underemployed or unemployed adults.  These students should not be judged on assumptions, they should be judged on their ability and potential.