Street Violence “Part of Achievement Gap” in Urban Schools
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Stephen Ross listed the litany of crimes that have touched his life with the nonchalance of a kid reciting the names of favorite teachers.
A cousin slain last year, the fatal stabbing of a stranger he witnessed in 2004, an uncle stabbed and injured, a friend’s uncle murdered, the two incidents when he was personally assaulted, a brazen burglary at family’s former home where thieves pretty much grabbed everything that wasn’t nailed down, including the refrigerator. Stephen (pronounced Stefan) paused upon finishing the list.
{snip}
The toll that kind of fear exacts on youth is becoming increasingly evident as researchers draw a line between classroom performance and the trauma and violence encountered by urban students.
It’s a correlation, the experts are discovering, that leads to under-achievement if not outright academic failure in places such as St. Louis.
Preliminary research from the University of Missouri-St. Louis, for example, suggests that more than two-thirds of the city’s public school students may be suffering symptoms of trauma tied to violence.
Steven Friedman, the executive director of Cleveland’s Mental Health Services calls the repercussions of violence on urban youth, “the mental health issue no one was addressing.”
{snip}
NUMB, DISTRACTED, EXHAUSTED
The early returns on UMSL’s research are disturbing, yet, given the city’s reputation, not entirely surprising.
Of the 75 children interviewed so far, 20 percent said they’d witnessed a murder by the age of 12. Another 50 percent had observed physical assault and 25 percent had seen someone threatened by a firearm.
The upshot is that an estimated 70 percent of children attending the city schools have symptoms consistent with post-traumatic stress disorder. Another 50 percent suffer from depression and 70 percent reported problems sleeping.
The current research piggybacks a five-year study, completed in 2003, that tracked 430 St. Louis children. Those findings concluded that when children are witnesses to crime they suffer a host of problems, from a loss of self-confidence to a negative self-image.
{snip}
When numbed, distracted and exhausted students walk through the schoolhouse door, experts say violence claims yet another victim—learning.
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ENDING THE CYCLE
Cleveland’s initiative began in 1997, when Mental Health Services joined with social services, law enforcement, the schools and Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital to form the “Children Who Witness Violence Program.”
Under the program, when children are exposed to domestic violence or the death or injury of a loved one, police summon an “EMS response for social services.” If necessary, counselors assist the family with funeral arrangements, provide food and even advice on how to deal with the media.
From that point, the children are monitored and assessed. Schools are placed on alert. Within 90 days, a referral is usually made for long-term counseling. Approximately 40 percent of the families take advantage of the offer, said Rosemary Creeden, the program manager.
The program has been so successful at treating the “emotional consequences” of violence for immediate families that Creeden hopes to expand the service to children once, twice or more removed from violent acts.
{snip}
Boys in particular identify with aggressors, [Creeden] said, because “they believe that if you can be like the people you are afraid of, then you have less reason to be afraid.”
{snip}
Email Steve Giegerich at sgiegerich@post-dispatch.com.
(Posted on March 10, 2008)
Comments
The research merely demonstrates that a very high percentage of students in urban (read: black and Hispanic) public school districts have witnessed violent crimes. It does not prove any real links between this and poor performance in school, except that those children who witness crimes suffer “a loss of self-confidence” and “a negative self-image.” And since we’re supposed to assume that there is a necessary link between self-esteem and school performance, then the conclusion is obvious. The dirty little secret is the black children tend to have high self esteems as a matter of hard-wiring, and modern public education only makes it higher, yet this has not translated into narrowing the “achievement gap.” If it is true that witnessing violence lowers your self esteem, that doesn’t mean that raising it again will mean that you’ll do any better in school.
Otherwise, even this article and the studies it speaks of merely tell us that many “urban” students who witness violent crimes just happen to do poorly in school. That said, maybe both the violence and academic under-achievement are both effects of the same cause.
Whatever the case may be, prepared to open your wallet. What this article implies is that, based on the fallacious assumption that violence begets trauma begets school failure, there is a cottage industry, the Trauma Mitigation - Industrial Complex if you will, that will demand full funding from governments, foundations and charities, and will bloat year in and year out. Not that it will actually stop violence — it can’t afford that — and not that there will be any long term educational improvements in urban areas.
Posted by St. Louis CofCC Blogmeister at 6:13 PM on March 10
Once again the evil media has everything backward, and destructive. It’s the victims of violence who go on to have mental problems.
Posted by LHathaway at 6:37 PM on March 10
Mental Health my butt!! It is called parents not taking responsibilty in raising their kids with morals & values. Many of these kids have parents who are kids themselves & don’t have a clue on being responsible.
Is mental health the best excuse that these fine folks can come up with??
Posted by at 6:46 PM on March 10
First they said they needed integrated schools. (IQ 85)
Then they said the tests were biased. (IQ 85)
Then they said they needed smaller classrooms (IQ 85)
Then they said they needed black roll model teachers. (IQ 85)
If only we could eliminate poverty. (IQ 85)
If only we could eliminate violence (IQ 85)
I’m conservative and I’m sick of paying for black failure but I’m ready to start paying more taxes for government provided abortions for blacks. I think that would be cheaper in the long run.
Posted by Nordic at 6:50 PM on March 10
Whites live in poverty but go unnoticed because it doesn’t fit the bill. They NEVER had crime like this.
Posted by at 7:30 PM on March 10
It’s interesting how “urban” has become a euphemism for “black”. There was a time when blacks in America were an overwhelmingly rural people, and did not congregate in the cities. “Urban”, to someone prior to World War One, could have meant many things - old-line WASP, white ethnic immigrant, but not “black”.
Posted by Irish at 8:39 PM on March 10
“Rainbow Babies”
“Children Who Witness Violence Program”
“Ending the Cycle”
Blahblahblah. I’ve been hearing these tiresome slogans and witnessing the creation of “foundation” after “program” after “initiative” for the last few decades. The only thing that ever seems to come out of them is the need for yet another program to address yet another, even more debased, ghetto trend.
Anyone else remember that one from the early 90’s where the blacks actually had a celebrity-backed “movement” to stop describing a black woman as a “bitch” or “ho”?
Funny at first, until you realized how nauseatingly pathetic the whole thing really is.
Posted by ZKR at 8:42 PM on March 10
Stop whinning! When Al Capone’s gangs ran wild in Chicago in the roaring 20’s, a hell of a lot of children graduated.
A lot of British kids still learned in school during the Blitz in 1940. German kids didn’t stop learning when the 8th Air Force was bombing them! This was much worse that any gang warfare!
Also helps to have a mean IQ over 85.
Posted by flyingtiger at 1:07 AM on March 11
Quick! Get a few truckloads of tax dollars to cure this social problem! Throwing money at a social problem in the past hasn’t worked, but this time for sure! After all, “it’s for the children”.
I can just see the fountain of federal disability checks showering the ghetto in a downpour of other people’s cash.
The poster at 6:46 PM nailed the problem perfectly. And the parent will never, ever be held accountable. Irresponsible parents are the only people that get away with producing predators.
Wait a minute! I thought the black toxic-tribal leaders like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton et.al. always said that blacks were violent due to white racism! Well, which one is it, bruthas and sistas? Then again, which excuse will make you folks the most money?
Posted by Proactive at 1:29 AM on March 11
“I’m conservative and I’m sick of paying for black failure but I’m ready to start paying more taxes for government provided abortions for blacks. I think that would be cheaper in the long run. “
Not only government paid abortions, but implantable birth control devices should be manditory unless a parent (note the singular) decides to opt out.
Posted by at 8:21 AM on March 11
To Nordic—very well said!
If there is a mental illness afflicting black urban youth is is lack of discipline and low IQ, the former is a function of the non-existent black family and the latter is a function of genetics.
Posted by at 8:27 AM on March 11
Reading this article brought home to me once again how hopeless the situation is for millions of Blacks and how it would feel to read an article like this but substitute ‘Whites’ for ‘Blacks’(or ‘urban’). It must be absolutely crushing for those few Blacks, who through a rare and fortunate combination of good genes and hard work have made successful lives for themselves. Over 50 years of molly-coddling have achieved virtually nothing for so many Black ‘families’, no amount of feel good social work or money is going to change anything, more money equals more opportunities for violent, ostentatious behaviour and power; and it’s not just an American thing, go to any region where Blacks live and you see primitivism, hopelessness, despair and violence, most especially in Africa. Read David Livingstone’s accounts of the horrors he found when he first set foot on that continent.
I seem to foresee a time when those few successful blacks who live amongst us will also say, enough, segregate me from those people.
Arc.
Posted by Arcadian at 12:30 PM on March 11
Just a way of blaming it on Whites. You’re supposed to feel guilty. Don’t you feel guilty?
Posted by at 1:27 PM on March 11
As a white woman, I am becoming increasingly alarmed by the black on white crime. Why is it not a hate crime for a black man to kill or rape a white woman, but if it was the other way around the media would be all over it describing it as a rash of hate crimes by whites. When are white people finally going to wake up.
Posted by at 3:26 PM on March 11
This story should be E-Mailed to all 275,000 parents in California who home school their children. Now that an enlightened judge has ordained that their kids would do better witnessing the odd killing, rape, robbery and even having the chance to be a victim to boot.
California has two lady senators , a lady speaker of the house and strict gun laws. Those parents need to remember why Paul Revere made his ride and why the Captain of Lexington`s Militia said,” If they want a war, then let it begin here.”
Boys and girls, I`m 63 with Agent Orange polluted blood, 50 extra pounds and nothing much to lose. If someone raises the ” Don`t Tread On Me ” banner again, I might just make it to the rude bridge that arched the flood this time. Probably not, we will have Obama as president and we can trust our liberties to him and the rest of his elitist Ivy League pals.
Charles B. Tiffany
Kissimmee, Florida
Posted by Charles B. Tiffany at 4:24 PM on March 11
Boys in particular identify with aggressors, [Creeden] said, because “they believe that if you can be like the people you are afraid of, then you have less reason to be afraid.”
They identify with aggressors because they are aggressors. Big fish eat the little fish. The little fish eat the smaller fish.
Posted by Drew at 5:45 PM on March 11
Someone casually reading this idiotic “study” would conclude that all the violence traumatizing these poor black kids is simply erupting out of nowhere for totally unknown reasons. Who’s committing all these violent crimes? Hint: it isn’t whites or Asians, and it certainly isn’t Klingons, Romulans or Cardassians.
And kudos to “flyingtiger” for his excellent post. Interesting that other races can learn under hardship conditions, but blacks can’t seem to learn much of anything even under ideal conditions.
Posted by Strider at 9:51 PM on March 11
“Who’s committing all these violent crimes? Hint: it isn’t whites or Asians, and it certainly isn’t Klingons, Romulans or Cardassians.”
Uhmm, I always thought in the star-trek world, ‘Klingon’s’ was a very mild code-word for blacks, tho, I’ve met blacks who have actually referred to whites as Klingons talking about them.
Posted by at 10:59 PM on March 12