Teacher Controversial Evaluation in New York State and the Role of Social Science - Research Paper Example

Explore the testing and teacher controversial evaluation in New York show how the role of Social Science is shaping Public Policy Solving social problems using scientific knowledge has been a long time Trend in American liberalism. This becomes more relevant in solving the poverty problems. Liberal investigators have indulged the poor as a basis of creating knowledge directed at social action. They have incorporated research techniques and data collection majoring on social survey mainly on the progressive era. In what they have referred to as the paradox, liberal social scientists have asserted that ideology and politics are to blame. They have claimed that Americans have solutions but puts every blame in the shoulders of policy makers who are accused of lacking the political will to implement effective policies. According to O’Connor, separation of the working class from the working poor denies the poor their political rights since this denies them access to better wages as result of the organized labour groups of the working class. Since the commencing of war against poverty, which witnessed its offshoot in the1960s, policymakers and intellectuals found in both sides of America’s political spectrum have given working poverty a lot of attention. The perspective of the conservative scholars has been that non-working poverty is a more urgent problem that requires urgent response than the working poverty. They derive this conclusion on the basis that nonworking poverty is a moral danger, which leads to laziness and dependency. On the other hand, they regard any work, even those that are poorly paid to be beneficial. Solving the problem of the nonworking poor according to them can only be stopped if the governments stop offering benefits to the poor. This in a school situation involves even stopping the educational benefits given to the poor. Contrary to their conservative’s counterparts, liberal policy makers and scholars have fronted the argument that the challenges of the nonworking and working poor are intertwined and similar. The have argued that the only difference between the working and the non working l lies in their ability to overcome basic barriers. They have enlisted factors such as affordable childcare services, transportation to work and accessing houses near jobs stations. These challenges according to them can only be overcome by helping the nonworking enter the labour market. This can be done through providing housing assistance, affordable schooling systems and offering other aids to poor families. A charged political system has also seen parties accuse each other for failure to alleviate the working poverty. Policy makers and scholars from the conservative wing have attributed inequality, over taxation and overregulation as the main causes of unceasing working poverty. They are proponents of the view that welfare benefits should be reduced and less stringent lab our laws should be enacted. Liberals on the other hand are of the perspective that reduced or increased governments intervention is the immediate solution to working poverty problem. O’Connor (34-36) asserts that politically charged image, a feature of the nonworking poor as welfare dependant makes reforms in the welfare policies more urgent than the working poor. She is of the conclusion that stipulations in the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity act moved most poor parents from welfare roles to workforce. She is of the opinion that this eventuality should have happened after first solving the problem of the working poverty. O’Connor expresses the need for change in the argument about poverty knowledge. She cites political obsession with matters of welfare dependency, which overshadows the problems related to wage decline. Comparisons made between children students non poor families and those from poor families in New York schools indicated that; those from poor backgrounds have got a higher likely hood id dismal performances than those from nonpoor families .Their education years is characterized by repeated grades expulsions or suspension from school or worse dropping out of school. These children have also been identified t with learning disabilities in high school or elementary than the nonpoor counterparts.Early years have been reported as vital in the Child’s development. Evidence has suggested that family poverty has a direct effect on young children since it affects his school years (O'Connor 40). Family poverty was directly associated with lower scores in school. Children who spend most of their years in poor homes experienced a greater level of negative cognitive growth and poor educational outcomes. The effect of poverty in middle childhood also corroborates those of early childhood. Poverty levels have been associated with poor achievement in mathematics and lower reading. In New York schools, children who were raised in poverty for lifetime contrary to their rich counterparts are likely placed in non-age appropriate classroom. Poverty also affected educational outcomes in the following ways. Those parents who were poor or had a history of Welfare receipts had a lot of stress, which led to conflicts with their children. This provided less stimulative environment for learning. Family income, which also becomes a great factor in influencing material resources, becomes a limiting factor to poor families and the education of their children. Under president Barrack Obama’s government, the U.S education department emphasized on gender and ethnic gaps in scholar’s college enrollment and achievement rate towards an objective that the U.S would guide the world in college graduates by 2020. In addition, the United State Census Bureau account that in 2010, 36 percent females aged 25 to 29 detained a degree with only 28 percent of males in the same age party. Achievement disparities are often attributed to social economic factors. According to 2009 statistics from the Census Bureau, of all younger children staying with their families, 15.5 million stay in poverty. Statistics shows that defined a family of four children in New York City contain less than 21947 dollars per year. According to a seminal scrutinize of language establishment in 1995, children living in poverty have lower language skills as compared to children found in middle-income families. Research has reviewed that the rate of dropout New York schools to be higher mostly to those children living in poverty. The United State department of education indicates that 68 percent of 12th graders in schools with high levels of poverty graduated in the year 2008 with a diploma as compared to low poverty schools consisting of 91 percent of 12th-graders. However, it was discovered that, those children living in poverty and had under grade level by 3rd grade, were 3 times as likely to fail to graduate from high school level as those students raised in middle class. In the year 1998, more than 13 million kids under the age of eighteen stayed in families whose income was below poverty line. In spite of a constant decrease in the rate of children living in poverty by 23 percent in 1993 to 17 percent in 1999, the New York City still records highest number in childhood hardship. In New York City, income and poverty is reviewed by the poverty threshold, mostly developed in 1959 to provide basic needs for poor families in the City. Each year the threshold is, regulate for the customers price index rate of living. Research experts have evaluated poverty threshold on a number of accounts. First, administration transfers such as housing subsidies, food stamps as well as charge benefits and tax payments are not highlighted as major cause of poverty. Secondly, regional and urban distinctions in the living cost are not included when calculating the poverty threshold. Despite criticisms posed against the process of assessing poverty in New York City, the current reviews brings out information that has made use of poverty definition, while acknowledging its weaknesses. This reviewed that achievement tests, high school graduation, and grade completion are the major issues connecting family poverty to children’s educational outcomes as well as their cognitive learning. Timing of poverty has been brought out to make a great difference vis-a-vis child outcomes. In New York City, simple comparison is made between children found in poor families and those from middle or rich families using countrywide datasets. The results indicated that poor kids are more likely to perform worse at school than non-poor children are because of the economic status of their families. Children from poor families are considered twice as likely as non-poor children to replicate a score, to have been expelled from school, or to have sneaked out of high school. They are considered to be 1.4 times as likely to be indicated as having learning capabilities in high school than their counterparts originating from poor families (O'Connor 33). As with many studies inspecting the impact of poverty on kids, correlation research is scarce in many ways. Researchers need to carry out simple comparisons between the no-poor children and the poor, which do not actually account for other family or child behaviors. For example, maternal education, single-parented households, and child health complications- that may play a role to child development apart from the impact of poverty itself. Selection prejudice is another potential problem facing many children from poor families. A researchers by the name Susan Mayer, argues that the status of poverty is determined by the decisions made by family members. For instance, a question of whether to pertain for government services or apply for employment leading to upwardly biased estimation of the relationship existing between income and kid outcomes which eventually influences education of the child. In New York city, the liberal ideals of the right to question authority, freedom of belief and the aspect of individualism shaped public policy in that they help people to be critical in their thinking and question the technocratic and apolitical perspectives that are rooted in school curricula. In this regard, social scientists will advocate for participation in development and formulation of public policies. United State culture has significant regional inflections, thus, most Americans are conversant with these differences despite the economic transformation that is experienced in most of these regions. Similarly, Americans are known to be a mobile people who often vacate their areas of origin. The Dutch as a trading colony, fishing, and hunting grounds founded New York City for Native Americans. The culture wars is the state in which there is conflict or clash of ideas about what one beliefs to be correct or true and other people with different views. Peoples experience, friends, family, education, and media assist a person to form a worldview or a belief system (O'Connor 42-43). The urban area is unsettle which implies that urban regions are organized in ever increasing towns, suburbs and multiculturalism which are all targeted by urban policies. For instance, New York City undergoes all forms of tribulations of competition pressure, inequalities, illegal immigration, pollution, crime, poverty, and lack of social housing. Culture wars influence the choice of school in those parental preferences in the field of academic quality, school values, disciplinary codes and racial composition of students plays a vital role in deciding which school one attends. It has been noted that parents of distinct socioeconomic and racial backgrounds find distinct school values that are significant. In most cases, parental choices of schools reflect their perception of education. New York City has made tremendous changes in educational policies and reforms in that its cross sectoral conditions have been essential in bringing up change. In this manner, organizational arrangements in the business sector and their association to local government affect whether there is the need to avert school reforms, which advocates that good leadership is critical in bringing about change in schools. In addition, culture and municipal sector affect New York’s ability to take action and improve education in the State. Cultural breakdown takes place when people move from rural area to an urban area in another country. This clearly explains the issue of cultural assimilation in New York City’s economy. The problem that occurred is that it took long for the immigrants to assimilate in New York. In the 1930s, the New York schools described social pathology as the natural product of urbanization and modernization. There temporary cultural breakdown was explained as the process of disagreement, accommodation, assimilation and competition that all immigrants experience. They changed their focus from political economy to debate about how distinct ethnic or cultural groups went through the four-step process. The great depression that took place renewed the concern over employment and wages. Sociologists changed from progressive era approaches to approval of new deal laws creating unemployment insurance, workers right to organize, and a minimum wage. In addition, they held the fact that in New York City social class and lovers of laissez faire have to adopt new economy policies (O'Connor 49). They argued that poverty was a problem of corporate ruin and uncontrolled capitalist markets therefore advocated for the need of powerful social construction and welfare state. Social scientist continued to strengthen their views that poverty was a result of cultural deviance or persistent psychological expression of white racism in New York. With this argument, they called for the need to end racism and abolish the issue of social class. In contemporary society, living in urban area is the dream that many people desire. It is important to note that people who live in urban areas are fairly wealthy and short on family members. In New York City, people are more committed towards building up, which translates to a more inclusive city of high-rise living (O'Connor 52-55). One factor that hinders urban housing policy is that the US federal policy is biased towards home ownership given that more than 70 percent of detached houses are occupied while 80 percent of family occupations are rentals meaning that the government is bribing Americans to stay in detached houses in suburbs as opposed to high-rise homes or family houses. In this regard, urban schools continue to have many problems. It is important for policy makers in New York City rethink how to deal with better schooling because of increase in poor families living in suburbs of the city. In order to create a just society in New York City, there is dire need to appreciate the cultural diversity of population of the town and redesign the policy of the city to incorporate the poor by making sure that educational services are available to everybody. The policy makers should put into consideration the idea of establishing elementary school to enable most children who can walk from their home attend schools. Moreover, most of the houses in the city ought to be family owned rather than rentals. Work cited O'Connor, Alice. Poverty Knowledge: Social Science, Social Policy, and the Poor in the 20th century. New York: Princeton University Press, 2001. Print. Read More