disparity and outliers

On Sunday morning I got to read two chapters, notable because it was two chapters in a row. After the swirl of events this week, sitting down to read a book during daylight hours, cup of coffee next to me, was a delicious treat. To be able to read and still be awake after even one chapter is rare enough, but two chapters especially so. Of course, I have a certain set of privileges. First, questioning the very nature of that Jesus character means that my sabbath mornings are pretty relaxed, even on Palm Sunday. Second, and more important, I have a career and culture that allows me a bit of leverage. I can elect not to grade one morning and I'll still have employment the next day. Planes won't fall from the sky if I'm a day behind; mail will still be delivered whether I complete a list of tasks on my 'to do' list; setting aside a paper draft for another day will only impact one or two other, forgiving people.

Yesterday I was reading more about Outliers and the privileges given to children of middle class families. Rather than simply being more financially secure, an entire culture of advantage surrounds them. For example, Karyn was out on Sunday afternoon delivering permission slips to all the members of Troop 2366 so that they can take an educational trip to the city landfill today. (There should be an entire blog entry about that.) Being able to go to a neighborhood school, sign up for a Brownie troop, have parents and mentors that have the flexibility to volunteer their time to contribute to their experiences, play soccer on Saturday mornings and go to violin on Tuesday afternoons -- these all require a specific structure and culture that aren't endemic to all children and families. If we were single parents, if we were both forced to work more, if we didn't advocate for our children in their classes, and if we didn't have a sense ourselves for the value and culture within school, our kids would be predisposed to a much different trajectory through life. This all made me think of basketball.

On the same day, I saw an NPR story about this disparity between graduation rates of members of women's versus men's college basketball teams. UConn's basketball teams, for example, graduate 100% of their top rated women's squad while only one-third of the men's team earns a diploma. At first, I felt the draw towards not being surprised, but then I realized I was making my own assumptions about the character of these different players. So I started to challenge the assumptions I was making and found that I came up with no good reason for why there should be this great discrepancy, unless there are outside factors that make the UConn women's basketball team the outlier that it is, on its way to an undefeated season and a legacy of perfect graduation rates. Perhaps, I wondered, there is something embedded into the academic programs, mentoring, and advising of successful student athlete programs that all of our more general academic programs should pay closer attention to. If a school can recruit students first to play (and win) basketball games, and also assure them of academic success, shouldn't a program like this have something to inform us about how to create academic achievement in all of our students, regardless of background? Or do we dare to exert so much effort? Have we decided not to look at and consider these examples of success that could inform problems in academic disparity? And if we considered these successful examples, would we be bold enough to follow their example? Or would we just continue to label them as "outliers?"