Urban Education and the Media

I have been looking through and reading various articles and came across one article from 2005 which stated, "Urban students at the middle school level lagged behind their peers nationwide in their ability to perform relatively straightforward scientific tasks, according to the study, based on the results of a special sampling of the 2005 National Assessment of Educational Progress." The article which this came from, as well as other television news reports, seems to suggest that it is the students' fault for not performing at an acceptable level. I was thinking about several of the articles and discussions we have had in class over the past week, and realized that these reports do not mention that many schools have teachers teaching content areas in which they have no real background knowledge. I can only imagine that the students were lagging behind their peers from across the nation, because they have English teachers or History teachers attempting to impart scientific ideas and concepts.
In the South Park and Family Guy episodes which were posted earlier, the majority of the blame is put on the students'. There seems to be this idea that "The students didn't work hard enough...They don't value an education." I think the reality is that many students do try to do well in school, but the majority of the problem lies in the teachers and the administration. If the teachers do not challenge their students and do not expect them to achieve anything, the students will most likely take that to heart - it's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

As I am typing this there's a report on abc news regarding the aftermath of hurricane Katrina. When asked to rate their performance after the hurricane, a FEMA representative said that they gave a "Solid B" performance. The area the reporter was talking about was a very poor area to begin with. Now, the majority of the housing is still ruined, and the citizens are still living in trailers or are even homeless. What does this mean for the children in the area who are trying to get an education? Will the students have to go to school in a building that is invested with mold and mildew? Where will the various towns get the money to improve the buildings? What about getting qualified teachers into the area? If someone took a survey of the area and measured student performance, I'm sure these students would be "lagging behind" as well. I think that many news reports or newspaper articles fail to look deeper into the actual causes of the problems which exist. The problems which exist in urban areas do not go away by saying that the students need to try harder.