(NAME-MCE) Message 3 Ruby Payne Name-mce Digest, Vol 805, Issue 2
McCurdy, Travis Dale
tmccu2 at uis.edu
Mon May 5 15:58:53 EDT 2008
In Response to Message 3 from Paul Gorski concerning the MSTA hosting the Ruby Payne training.
The first question I had after reading this letter was, "how has no one noticed how oppressive Payne is in her work?" I do not know about Payne's work other than that Mr. Gorski pointed out. But of all of these things are true; if she really does claim that children from poorer families are less capable than those from wealthy ones, how in the world is her work still as widely accepted as it apparently is today?
I come from a lower-middle class family myself. I attended a rural high school where the vast majority of its students were from middle and lower class families. I knew the top two students in my class very well. They were both from lower class families; one of them from a single parent home. As to the fact that Mr. Gorski points out about low-income adults working more hours per week, I can personally buy into that. My father works 50+ hours per week and my mother a solid 40. I believe this is a reflection of why students from lower-income families often work even harder than those in wealthier families. They are around their parents' strong work ethics their whole lives, so the attitude will of course rub off onto the children.
I would also like to say that it really disturbs me that Ruby Payne has never even worked in a high-poverty school, yet she feels she can make legitimate claims about the capability of these students in the classroom.
Of course, all of my thoughts on Payne are based on the assumption that Paul Gorski is accurate in his analysis of her work. But assuming that he is, it really troubles me that the MSTA is engaging in a two day program in which they intend to pass her ideas along to other educators. These are not the kinds of attitudes that we want floating around our schools; that students from wealthier families are more capable than the poorer ones.
Thank you for posting this Paul. It was very interesting and I would like to learn a little more about Ruby Payne myself.
________________________________
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Sent: Mon 5/5/2008 11:00 AM
To: name-mce at nameorg.org
Subject: Name-mce Digest, Vol 805, Issue 2
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Today's Topics:
1. Ignore the "Invitation from Yolanda" email (YSealey at aol.com)
2. Parent Involvement Liaison Certificate Program June 5-6 Los
Angeles CA (Anselmo Villanueva)
3. FW: Your Upcoming Payne Workshop (Paul C. Gorski)
4. Last chance this year to acquire innovative and free US
materials (Thomas Ladenburg)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Sun, 4 May 2008 00:08:03 EDT
From: YSealey at aol.com
Subject: (NAME-MCE) Ignore the "Invitation from Yolanda" email
To: YSealey at aol.com
Message-ID: <c64.23d81276.354e90a3 at aol.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
Hello,
If you receive an email with the above text in the subject line, please
ignore it.
An email was sent to me from someone I know, I responded to this and
apparently an email was sent to everyone in my address book.
I apologize for any inconvenience.
Thanks,
Yolanda
**************Wondering what's for Dinner Tonight? Get new twists on family
favorites at AOL Food.
(http://food.aol.com/dinner-tonight?NCID=aolfod00030000000001)
------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Sun, 4 May 2008 08:36:35 -0700
From: "Anselmo Villanueva" <anselmo.villanueva at gmail.com>
Subject: (NAME-MCE) Parent Involvement Liaison Certificate Program
June 5-6 Los Angeles CA
To: name-mce at nameorg.org
Message-ID:
<88024d6b0805040836p49adc202j1634d31827698189 at mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
Parent Involvement Liaison Certificate Program
June 5-6, 2008 Almansor Court, Los Angeles, California
California Parent Center
Beth Sondak bsondak at projects.sdsu.edu 619.594.4756
http://parent.sdsu.edu/
------------------------------
Message: 3
Date: Sun, 4 May 2008 22:10:00 -0600
From: "Paul C. Gorski" <gorski at edchange.org>
Subject: (NAME-MCE) FW: Your Upcoming Payne Workshop
To: "'Multicultural Pavilion's discussion group on equity, social
justice, and multicultural education.'" <mcp at edchange.org>,
<name-mce at nameorg.org>, <rs at criticalteach.org>
Cc: team at edchange.org
Message-ID: <007401c8ae65$e93677d0$aa02a8c0 at Desktop>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
Hello, friends.
I thought you might enjoy the following letter, which I emailed to the
Missouri State Teachers Association at the urging of a few of its members,
concerned over its hosting of a two-day Ruby Payne training.
Paul
******************************
Paul C. Gorski
Founder, EdChange: <http://www.edchange.org/> www.EdChange.org
Social Justice News: <http://www.socialjusticenews.net/>
www.SocialJusticeNews.net
Multicultural Pavilion: <http://www.edchange.org/multicultural>
www.EdChange.org/multicultural
SoJust History Project: <http://www.sojust.net/> www.SoJust.net
Feminist Tees Shop: www.cafepress.com/feminist_tees
Social Justice Store: <http://www.cafepress.com/edchange>
www.cafepress.com/edchange
Multicultural Poster Store: www.edchange.org/posters
NAME: <http://www.nameorg.org/> www.nameorg.org
-----Original Message-----
From: Paul C. Gorski [mailto:gorski at edchange.org]
Sent: Sunday, May 04, 2008 10:06 PM
To: 'kking at msta.org'; 'bmoe at msta.org'; 'gmmcray at msta.org';
'chrdina at msta.org'; 'rharmon at msta.org'
Cc: 'Paul C. Gorski'
Subject: Your Upcoming Payne Workshop
Hello MSTA Board,
Did you know that by hosting Ruby Payne you are spending a lot of money on
somebody whose work has been shown summarily to be both completely wrong and
extremely oppressive? Did you know that her "framework" is based on a
concept, the "culture of poverty," which was introduced by Oscar Lewis in
the early 1960s and completely discarded as erroneous and unfounded by the
early 1970s? Did you know that an analysis of the truth claims in her book,
A Framework for Understanding Poverty, uncovered hundreds of inaccurate
statements--points throughout her book that conflict directly with decades
of research on the intersections of poverty and schooling? Did you know that
not a single leading scholar (as in, people who base their work on research
and collect their own data, who make "data-driven decisions" as we like to
say in education) or anti-poverty activist has endorsed her work, and most
have rallied to point out the destructiveness of her work?
Did you know that low-income adults actually work more hours per week than
their wealthier counterparts?
Did you know that decades of research has shown that low-income parents hold
the exact same attitudes toward education as wealthy parents, but that they
don't enjoy the same access to involvement because parent involvement is
usually structured around assumptions that people don't work multiple jobs?
Did you know that wealthy people are more likely than low-income people to
be substance abusers?
Did you know that most low-income people are hard-working, ethical,
intelligent, and non-violent? Did you know that these people are invisible
in Ruby Payne's work?
Did you know that sessions critiquing Payne's work have been delivered at
all of the top education conferences in the country, including the AERA
conference? Did you know that some of the top journals in the country have
published articles critiquing her work? Did you know that not a single one
of these journals has published an article supporting her work or showing it
to be effective?
Did you know that Ruby Payne has contributed thousands of dollars to extreme
right-wing politicians? Did you know she has written several articles in
support of No Child Left Behind despite being from Texas, where its
precursors were devastating to low-income students?
Did you know that Ruby Payne self-publishes and that she's making millions
of dollars through a for-profit organization that she founded?
Did you know that Payne has never worked in a high-poverty school?
Did you know that researchers in Indiana are about to release an article
that shows empirically how Payne's work increases stereotyping among
teachers who participate in her workshops?
The fact that most of us in education don't know these things--that we
continue to use Payne's work despite the fact that it's not grounded in any
sort of reality--is symptomatic of why our schools are so rife with class
inequities and why we've made hardly a dent in these inequities. We're
fighting a battle that we don't understand because we're trying to
understand it through lenses smeared with inaccuracy and prejudice. We'd
never teach math teachers that 2+2=8, then encourage them to use that
knowledge in their own classrooms. But we will teach them that low-income
students are incapable, have uncaring parents, can't communicate, tend
toward violence--all things she argues which are 100% false--and send them
into their classrooms to apply this bias in their interactions with
low-income students and their families.
At the very least, I implore you to bring somebody else in, as
well--somebody who can challenge the damage Payne will do.
Please see attached several of the aforementioned articles. Just a sampling.
Paul
******************************
Paul C. Gorski
Founder, EdChange: <http://www.edchange.org/> www.EdChange.org
Social Justice News: <http://www.socialjusticenews.net/>
www.SocialJusticeNews.net
Multicultural Pavilion: <http://www.edchange.org/multicultural>
www.EdChange.org/multicultural
SoJust History Project: <http://www.sojust.net/> www.SoJust.net
Feminist Tees Shop: www.cafepress.com/feminist_tees
Social Justice Store: <http://www.cafepress.com/edchange>
www.cafepress.com/edchange
Multicultural Poster Store: www.edchange.org/posters
NAME: <http://www.nameorg.org/> www.nameorg.org
------------------------------
Message: 4
Date: Sat, 03 May 2008 12:34:03 -0400
From: Thomas Ladenburg <t.ladenburg at verizon.net>
Subject: (NAME-MCE) Last chance this year to acquire innovative and
free US materials
To: <name-mce at nameorg.org>
Message-ID: <C4420C3B.30AA%t.ladenburg at verizon.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
I am still offering copies of what I and many others consider to be the
best supplementary free material available for making US History classes
more interesting and meaningful. Do you want an informed discussion, trial,
simulation, or only a more in-depth understanding of important episodes in
your US History class ? simply email me and I'll send you two lists of free
units and lesson-chapters ? one for average high school students, and the
other accessible for all in high and many in middle school. My latest units
at the more accessible level are on the Civil Rights Movement and the
Vietnam War.
Tom Ladenburg
t.ladenburg at verizon.net
------------------------------
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