Madeleine Stewart ENGL 121 B Professor Rankin 17 October 2013 It Takes a Village One of the greatest issues feeding

the achievement gap is the existence of environmental discrepancies between working-class households and middle- or upperclass households. Working-class or homeless families rarely have the means to support or supplement their childs learning by helping with homework and creating an education-centric environment. Yet for children to succeed in school, this kind of environment is a necessity. Community organizations, therefore, must shoulder the burden bolstering students academic success in cooperation with the school administration, with this partnership filling the roles of caretaker, legal advocate, and source of academic support. What students need most is external encouragement, and their communities should take the responsibility of providing it. One of the biggest academic barriers for disadvantaged youth is not curriculum content, but lack of academic resources at home. Working-class or homeless parents are most often busy trying to keep the family afloat, and are not able to help their child with homework or offer motivation, and rarely can maintain an scholastically rich household environment. Consequently, one of the most beneficial services a community organization can offer is free after-school tutoring for children, run by volunteers. In my own personal experience with this, students have generally proven very hard working and dedicated, provided there is someone to offer them support and encouragement,

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Stewart 2 something that students from middle-class families would generally receive from their parents. Expanding these tutoring programs and study centers and making them easily accessible to the working-class or homeless community would greatly improve academic motivation and security among disadvantaged students. Unfortunately, in addition to being largely responsible for their own education, disadvantaged youth may have problems that run deeper than lack of academic preparation. Students may have educational needs that go beyond help with algebra homeworkextending from undiagnosed difficulties seeing or hearing to emotional problems such as anxiety and withdrawal. Academic performance suffers when these issues go untreated. As stated in an article by Patricia F. Julianelle and Maria Foscarinis, which describes the struggles experienced by homeless youth in participating in school, educational needs can easily remain unrecognized for months or years. In other cases, educational needs are misinterpreted and children or youth are placed in inappropriate educational programs. (Julianelle and Foscarinis) It is very difficult for homeless and welfare families to find adequate medical or psychological care. This is well summarized by Philip E. DeVol in his piece, Using the Hidden Rules of Class to Create Sustainable Communities, as he examines the behaviors of middle class families in comparison to families in poverty: Chain reactions are most severe in poverty where financial resources dont provide a cushion. For example, car problems or a breakdown in the childcare system will result in problems at work, which in turn may have a ripple effect across the whole system. (DeVol) While this is discussed in relation to emergency situations, preventative care is equally out of reach for welfare families. The best response to this is for communities to get in
Comment [LR2]: This is a fantastic point Comment [LR1]: Be careful using the Word default citationsthey are often wrong. Here, you used their names in the sentence, so you dont need them in the citation, but you do need a page number. Great use of evidence, though! Formatted: Indent: Left: 0", Right: 0", Space After: 0 pt

Stewart 3 better touch with welfare and homeless youth. The McKinney-Vento Act, for example, partially implemented this, requiring each school to have a liaison serving homeless students (Julianelle and Foscarinis). Expanding this concept to employ more school counselors who can identify potential problems before they inhibit learning could help develop disadvantaged students develop on track with their peers. Of course, as mentioned in Julianelle and Foscarinis article, the mobility of homeless youth often prevents them from connecting with school staff or their community, even if adequate resources are offered. Still, giving students from underrepresented groups greater exposure to mentors and guidance counselors could help identify academic strengths and weaknesses and support their growth in the classroom. The bottom line is: disadvantaged students need more people who care about how they are doing. A final role for community organizations is providing safe places for students to socialize and take part in extra-curricular activities. As mentioned DeVols study, students from middle-class families are involved, on average, in 4.5 adult-supervised after-school activities, while students from welfare families are involved in only 1.2 (DeVol). While not necessarily academic, these organizations can connect students with mentors and encourage values needed for academic success, such as a strong work ethic, good communication, and the ability to see abstract knowledge. In his writing, DeVol sums up the importance of welfare students using abstract knowledge structures, stating, a person must be able to use abstract representational systems in order to succeed in school, achieve at work, and make the transition out of poverty. (DeVol) Activities that promote principles that we see as citizenship are a vital part of a childs development. Being a Girl Scout, for example, would promote teamwork, environmental awareness,

Stewart 4 and other values that are valued in an academic setting. Community organizations should take it upon themselves to reach out to disadvantaged groups and include them in the organization. Academic proficiency is no exception to the saying it takes a village to raise a child. The roles for community organizations in the lives of students are many, but all have a concrete and universal goal: to bring representation and guidance to disadvantaged youth. By working to address potential learning barriers, include underrepresented groups in the community, and help welfare and homeless youth develop study skills and academic confidence, community organizations could greatly improve the success of these students in the classroom. We cannot expect children to succeed without a strong foundation of support, academic resources and encouragement, and it is the job of our communities to fill this role. Madeleine, You did a great job in this essay of using multiple sources and viewpoints to support your perspective. You used evidence well and built on it, but I would like to see you be a bit more intertextual and posit these sources in direct relation to one another as we talked about in class last Tuesday. Your argument for community programming overall is quite robust and presented in a very credible manner, contributing strongly to your progress toward outcome 3. Overall, this is a strong paper.
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Works Cited
DeVol, Philip E. Using the Hidden Rules of Class to Create Sustainable Communities. Highlands: aha! Process, Inc., 2004. Julianelle, Patricia F. and Maria Foscarinis. "Responding to the School Mobility of Children and Youth Experiencing Homelessness: The MicKinney Vento Act and Beyond." Journal of Negro Education 72.1 (2003): 39-54.

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