Can we teach the poor how to be middle class?

There's a NY Times article about a woman, Ruby Payne, who wants to teach teachers how to teach poor students middle class values. This sounds like a great idea to me.

Unfortunately, as documented in the quote below, the liberal academic establishment hates her:

Payne’s work in the schools has attracted a growing chorus of criticism, mostly from academia. Although Payne says that her only goal is to help poor students, her critics claim that her work is in fact an assault on those students. By teaching them middle-class practices, critics say, she is engaging in “classism” and racism. Her work is “riddled with factual inaccuracies and harmful stereotypes,” charges Anita Bohn, an assistant professor at Illinois State University, in a paper on Payne’s work. Paul Gorski, an assistant professor at Hamline University in St. Paul, writes that Payne’s central text “consists, at the crudest level, of a stream of stereotypes and a suggestion that we address poverty and education by ‘fixing’ poor people instead of reforming classist policies and practices.” (“LeftyHenry,” a recent poster on a political blog, was less subtle in his criticism; he called Payne “the Hitler of American academics.” [link])

This is the reason I hate liberals so much, because of their denial of the basic differences between the middle class and the poor, and their insistence that all of the poor's problems are caused by racist government policies and the failure to spend enough taxpayer money on anti-poverty programs.

The poor will never become like the rich because most (not all) of the poor are born with genetic deficiency in IQ compared to the higher classes. But surely poor children can be taught the values of honesty, planning for the future, obeying the law, solving their differences through negotiation instead of violence, and the importance not having children they can't afford to raise. These are the values that middle class parents teach their children but poor parents don't. These values would make poor neighborhoods better and safer places and thus increase the standard of living of poor people while saving the taxpayer money.

Such lessons would do a lot more good than coaching poor children to score a percentile higher on multiple choice reading tests.

Comments

[DML]

Wow, teaching the poor to be nice middle class one dimensional consumers - what a position to aspire too!

In general, I'm leary about giving any money to any public school program because I believe public school are really about teaching your to be a submissive form of cattle. Check out some of the writings of John Taylor Gatto as it most closely matches my thinking on the problems with the school system. These are not issues you're going to fix by throwing money at them.

Such lessons would do a lot more good than coaching poor children to score a percentile higher on multiple choice reading tests.

Surely by now, people know that these ridiculous tests provide no "proof" of anything. They can be gamed like anything else and even if they weren't, they'd just prove that your farm is better at breeding good submissive consumers than the other farms (which is the true purpose of public schools).

If you have Powerpoint, you can see Payne's "Hidden Rules the Among Classes" as mentioned in the NYT article as the heart of her phiosophy here : www.ccaurora.edu/comm/TED/Ruby%20Payne%20Presentation.ppt

HTML version here: http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:geGqAJKs1kkJ:www.ccaurora.edu/
comm/TED/Ruby%2520Payne%2520Presentation.ppt

[The Superfluous Man]

Half Sigma,
Fussell in his book Class, makes a very relevant point:
Proceeding downward, we would normally expect to meet next the lower-middle class. But it doesn't exist as such any longer, having been pauperized by the inflation of the 1960s and 1970s and transformed into the high proletarian class, the new high proles, now head "the masses," and even if they are positioned at the top of the proletarian classes, still they are identifiable as people things are done to. They are in bondage-to monetary policy, rip-off advertising, crazes and delusions, mass low culture, fast foods, consumer schlock. Back in the 1940s there was still a real lower-middle class in this country, whose solid high-school education and addiction to "saving" and "planning" maintained it in a position-often precarious to be sure-above the working class."

[APH]

Her ideas might get more traction in minority inner cities if she was black - Having a white woman give advice "how not to be low class" must irk the hell out of liberal teachers who will find it condescending no matter how practical. Of course there is mention of IQ or the malleablity of intelligence in this article; once again the elephant in the room. On the whole, I support her cause and think there is a lot of simple "rules of life" information that should be transmitted to students if there families are not able to do it themselves. Will Durant once said that "Education is the transmission of civilization" - Things that are intuitive or accepted as fact by the middle class are not to much of the poor. Many poor class people are ignorant by default but perhaps some just never had the information.

[APH]

^ meant to say "no" mention of IQ...

Also: She is also fighting an uphill battle against a lot of pop culture where trashy, antisocial behavior is glorified. So I wonder how long her message resonates with students before it gets forgotten and drowned out by Snoop videos...

[Spungen]

I read the article, and she sounds a lot like Paul Fussell except from a middle-class background. I guess the difference is he doesn't give seminars, probably that's why she gets so much more flak. I was worried her material would just be patronizing, counselor bull directed at making poor people more compliant, but it doesn't look like that. I'm totally buying her book.

[Spungen]

HS, if you've ever had any close experience with any lower-class people (not just riding the subway, I mean relatives or friends or SOs), I'd love to read about it. I'm not being sarcastic. You're really astute about the upper classes and the middle class strivers ...

[Spungen]

Checked out Amazon, and she's got two books, one about inter-class relationships called "Crossing the Tracks."

I see someone named Jawanza Kunjufu actually wrote a rebuttal book to her book about poverty and education.

[Half Sigma]

DML wrote: Wow, teaching the poor to be nice middle class one dimensional consumers - what a position to aspire too!

Did you even read the article? Payne's contention, and I agree, is just the OPPOSITE. Poor people spent all their money as soon as they get it. The middle class values are in saving the money for a rainy day.

Poor people can't even save enough money to have a bank account, and because of this they get ripped off by paycheck cashing places.

[DML]

"Did you even read the article? Payne's contention, and I agree, is just the OPPOSITE. Poor people spent all their money as soon as they get it. The middle class values are in saving the money for a rainy day."

Payne's "system" is mostly useless window-dressing drivel. Also, you and Payne are talking about two different things. You claim most poor people are genetically broken and so will stay poor; but if they follow Payne's system, they'd be more palatable to the rest of us. Payne however claims that her system will help move the poor up the ladder. So perhaps I should be asking you if you read the article you linked. :)

Anyway if you haven't read it, don't bother. It's mostly useless window-dressing drivel (as far as advancing up the aforementioned ladder is concerned, but it's decent enough advice to follow). I do agree with you that if poor people followed her advice, they would be more palatable and useful to the rest of society and perhaps make their poverty a bit more manageable.

[Spungen]

She advises people about issues including financial management and conflict management. That's not window-dressing. Competency in those areas is crucial to escaping poverty.

[David Alexander]

Her ideas might get more traction in minority inner cities if she was black

Remember when Bill Cosby pointed out the questionable behaviours of poor black people and he was harassed for being elitist or a "sellout"? The behaviour of poor black people is an untouchable topic not just for whites, but for blacks as well. Just a few days ago in a message board, I was attacked for complaining about the poor habits of my old neighbours in Queens.

Many poor class people are ignorant by default but perhaps some just never had the information.

I'm starting to think that the information was never transmitted to this group of people. Earlier classes of poor people had more social interaction with the middle classes. Social scientists have noticed that the collapse of the black community began with the beginning of welfare, which is coincides with the beginning of the flight of blacks from the inner city to single family homes on outskirts of urban areas. We have in some cases, three generations of blacks who have no connection with the middle class and their values except through a thirty minute television sitcom which seems to only reinforce the idea that things magically happen to become middle class and that whites magically spend money as they see fit.

Poor people can't even save enough money to have a bank account, and because of this they get ripped off by paycheck cashing places.

Thanks to free-checking options due to extra competitive banking markets, poor people should have even less trouble getting a bank account, except for the fact that banks are still much harder to find in the ghetto than other places and years of check cashing have been ingrained into the minds of the locals. Banks aren't interested in setting shop in poor neighbourhoods, poor residents don't have much to save, and whatever extra they get is swallowed up by pay-day loans. Plus, some are apprehensive of the "man" (see unemployed Africanists), others are hiding their income to avoid getting kicked out their various public welfare programs, and others are avoiding child support payments.

The next question to ask should be, what are they going to save their money for? It's nice to have money saved up, but there's a good chance that they may squander the money (i.e. $300 sneakers, more ugly gaudy stuff) anyways. OTOH, don't those in the high prole classes do the same thing, but on socially acceptable items like photography equipment, boats, sporting goods, and traveling?

This topic has made me think about showing my nephew the benefits of banking and opening up a savings account for him.

[Dennis Mangan]

Saying "please" and "thank you" and showing up on time for an appointment would probably be characterized by DML as "window dressing" too, given his solid non-conformist outlook. But those things get you ahead in life.

[cuchulkhan]

"the importance not having children they can't afford to raise"

This is the most important difference between the middle and lower classes, sexual restraint, or a least sexual responsibility, birth control etc.

However there remain gray areas that might be blamed on IQ - lack of knowledge of birth control, specifically how/when to use it etc, and I'm of the controversial opinion that putting on a condom for the first time is a mildly g-loaded task. As I think Gottfredson has shown, low IQ individuals have quite a bit of difficulty processing apparently simple instructions, a condom packet is no different.

[DML]

Saying "please" and "thank you" and showing up on time for an appointment would probably be characterized by DML as "window dressing" too, given his solid non-conformist outlook. But those things get you ahead in life.

No, reread my post. I went out of my way to say that Payne's advice was good, but it's not going to move you up any social ladders like she claims it will.

[DML]

Oh man, I made a grammatical party foul. I repeated myself (with exactly the same words, no less) in the same post in my original reply to HS. Oh the shame I feel now! Where's the edit button?! :)

[DML]

She advises people about issues including financial management and conflict management. That's not window-dressing. Competency in those areas is crucial to escaping poverty.

You can take a financial management advice from Warren Buffet, but the bottom line is if you're washing heads of lettuce at Burger King, you will never be in a position to "escape" poverty. You escape poverty by doing one thing only - earning more money.

As I said in my original post (that no one seems to have read carefully!) everything Payne says is good "general" advice, but has little to do with escaping poverty.

[Alex]

No, reread my post. I went out of my way to say that Payne's advice was good, but it's not going to move you up any social ladders like she claims it will.

You are right that it won't make them "move up" the economic ladder, at least if IQ is what is holding them back.

However, it will make living in the ghetto more tolerable. The main reason it sucks to live in the ghetto is that you are surrounded by rude, hostile and crime-prone people. If these "life lessons" even make a small improvement in the behavior of the lower classes, then they are worth teaching in school.

[DML]

You are right that it won't make them "move up" the economic ladder, at least if IQ is what is holding them back.

Thank you! Someone is reading me carefully! BTW, the overemphasis on IQ should be put the bed around here, at least as far as earning potential is concerned. If you have an average IQ, other factors begin to dominate your earning. Even Half Sigma showed this a year ago. Having a high IQ alone obviously has little to no significance to raw earning potential.

However, it will make living in the ghetto more tolerable. The main reason it sucks to live in the ghetto is that you are surrounded by rude, hostile and crime-prone people. If these "life lessons" even make a small improvement in the behavior of the lower classes, then they are worth teaching in school.

Agreed. My words from a previous comment:

"I do agree with you that if poor people followed her advice, they would be more palatable and useful to the rest of society and perhaps make their poverty a bit more manageable."

[Half Sigma]

Low IQ is a much stronger predictor of being poor than high IQ is of being rich.

Having an average IQ and following all the rules WILL get someone out of the ghetto.

But having an above-average IQ and following all the rules will NOT automatically get someone into the upper middle class.

I agree 100% with what Alex said: However, it will make living in the ghetto more tolerable. The main reason it sucks to live in the ghetto is that you are surrounded by rude, hostile and crime-prone people. If these "life lessons" even make a small improvement in the behavior of the lower classes, then they are worth teaching in school.

Ms Payne probably buys into the PC doctrine that there's no IQ difference between the rich and the poor, so it logically seems to her that the class behaviors must be what's keeping them back. But still, her advice if followed will bring better results.

[Don]

And the middle class are satisfied with their lot, right? Is that what the poor should really be aspiring to? It sounds very limiting to me, and I was born dirt poor.

The middle class may be great consumers, but higher consumption doesn't lead to higher happiness, especially if you're working 60 hours per week.

I also think that too much attention is made to IQ on this site. Plenty of people with an average IQ have become rich, and plenty of Managers with an average IQ manage high IQ employees (Dilbert is no exaggeration).

[APH]

Remember when Bill Cosby pointed out the questionable behaviours of poor black people and he was harassed for being elitist or a "sellout"? The behaviour of poor black people is an untouchable topic not just for whites, but for blacks as well. Just a few days ago in a message board, I was attacked for complaining about the poor habits of my old neighbours in Queens.

David Alexander: Good point - I forgot how Cosby's words fell on deaf ears, but this woman's approach seems a little bit different - She might be teaching small,tangible things that collectively change a person's mannerisms and life outlook whereas Cosby's meta-approach (get an education, get a job, get married, etc...) are concepts "too big" to be taken seriously. If that makes any sense...

Re: cuchulkhan - the whole condom thing is totally related to IQ - lack of future orientation (i.e. not putting much thought into family planning, consequences of unprotected sex, etc..) There's a host of other explanations why the trivially easy task of using a condom is not more popular for those who can seemingly least afford kids, but as Ruby Payne notes in her PowerPoint slide, poor people are thinking about the "Present" not the "Future."

[DML]

Low IQ is a much stronger predictor of being poor than high IQ is of being rich.

Even more, you only need an average IQ to be rich.

Having an average IQ and following all the rules WILL get someone out of the ghetto.

No, it won't.

Earning more money gets you above the poverty line. Period.

Not everyone who's poor is an animalistic barbarian as many here seem to think. Following these rules will get a pleasant lettuce washer who wears condoms and knows how to manage money he doesn't have.

[superdestroyer]

I find it odd that the Powerpoint presentation about poverty strictly takes the urban, black version of poor. I doubt that poor Hispanics in El Paso spend as high a percentage on clothes as poor blacks in Newark, as an outgoing sense of humor, or buy as many video games. The idea that poverty is matriarchial is also a black idea more than a Hispanic idea.

Dr Payne is basically arguing that poverty makes adult men act like 12 y/o with an obsession on the now, an obession on getting attention, and an obsession on entertainment. She seems to propose that since black families cannot get their males to stop acting like 12y/o as they become older then it is the job of the schools to do it.

[Nancy Lebovitz]

The people who were transported to Australia didn't look very promising at the time, but afaik, Australians now have the usual range of intelligence.

[Dareano]

Nancy, many of the convicts were petty thieves who simply stole food or clothing. Some were political prisoners. Also, England wasn't much of a meritocracy, I doubt there was a great correlation between IQ and income. HELL, there isn't one even today! So the poor people who stole food and were shipped to Australia might not have been any dumber on average (at least once poor nutrition is factored).

Also, Australia has been home to many non-convict immigrants. It's not like Australians are completely the descendants of convicts.

[Peter]

Thanks to free-checking options due to extra competitive banking markets, poor people should have even less trouble getting a bank account, except for the fact that banks are still much harder to find in the ghetto than other places and years of check cashing have been ingrained into the minds of the locals.

Check cashing places typically have much longer hours than banks. Many are open 24/7. Long hours can be especially important to lower-income people, many of whom work nonstandard hours.

[The Superfluous Man]

"The idea that poverty is matriarchial is also a black idea more than a Hispanic idea."
That's probably only temporary, considering the 50% Hispanic illegitimacy rate.

[David Alexander]

Peter, the ability to cash checks during non-standard hours isn't that bad due to the fact that there's direct deposit available from most employers and automated deposit machines at most banks. Plus, more and more banks have extended hours, and a few banks are have Sunday hours of operation. Banks (and credit unions) still tend to avoid these neighborhoods since the poor have low rates of savings that make opening branches in such areas unprofitable. Plus, the whole fear of perpetual bank robberies.

In the end, the non-standard hours aren't that bad when compared that most 9-5hrs miss window of traditional banking hours.

As I said earlier, fear of banking combined with the desire to avoid debt, welfare, and child support commitments are why bank use is low amongst blacks. In contrast, illegal immigrants are using banks that allow them to cash checks since some of them see the check cashing fees as money they could be sent to Mexico (or their respective home nation) instead of being wasted on cashing the check.

[Turambar]

So many interesting things about this article....

1. Did anyone else find this funny:
And now it was time for lunch, fried chicken and sweet iced tea and white sheet cake for 1,400, served in a second giant conference hall just across the atrium from the first.
This is what they serve to someone who inveighs against casseroles?

2. The advice seems very similar to "Dress for Success" where Malloy says that he is just explaining the rules for certain groups, not justifying them. Doing a "Search Inside the Book" on "A Framework for Understanding Poverty" I see Payne does not reference Malloy although my memory of his book is that is goes over the same ground of fitting into a different class (in more than just clothing). Is she just recapitulating a better work to a different audience?

3. There is a compelling government interest in having an educated populace. Is there really a compelling government interesting in having school children all having the same social conventions? Knowing how to order dinner in French? In not playing the tv too loud?

4. How would any of this raise test scores- the ostensible reason that the school district bought "boxes" of her material and got 1400 staff together. I check the summaries of her books on Amazon, and I really dont understand, beyond some fairly well understood advice about diligence and work habits, how any of this is suppose to raise test scores. Lets suppose you could "La Femme Nikita" a student to pass for upper class- how exactly does that change her math test score?

5. Only the New York Times could be surprised by this:
The passage of the No Child Left Behind law in 2002 brought a new urgency to the issue of poverty in the classroom. For the first time, schools were required not only to report their overall test results but also to calculate the scores for various “subgroups,” including racial minorities, students for whom English is a second language and students whose parents’ income is low enough to qualify them for a free or reduced-price lunch. It soon became impossible to ignore that there was a problem: poor students were scoring well behind their wealthier peers.

6. If the intention of these "hidden rules" is help groups identify members who are not already know to them, wont they simply adopt new measure and new totems for group membership? If everyone is now wearing huge sunglasses, they switch to something else. If everyone now knows about San Tropez, then they go somewhere else.

7. The division into three classes is very simplistic- probably too simplistic. For instance there is an upper class celebrity division and a middle class academic division. The habits of these two sub-divisions are very different from those of the larger class. Should the government really be in the business of encouraging the emulation of either?

[Jim Beam]

They're "middle-class because of their better genes"...don't make me laugh Mr. Sigma. It's as if that the developments in materialist philosophy has never occurred to you.

I know that since the last quarter of the 19th century, there has been a ready market among the wealthy for a "scientific" theory that would "prove" that they were "naturally superior" to all other humans.

In other words, that their position in the ruling class was "deserved"...and not a matter of contingency.

Genetics was their "last best hope" for such "proof"...but the cracks have already appeared.

Alas, Poor Darwin : Arguments Against Evolutionary Psychology, edited by Hilary Rose and Steven Rose, New York : Harmony Books, 2000, ISBN: 0609605135.

Anyone who has had any contact with capitalist authority on a daily basis has little difficulty recognizing the wide-spread stupidity characteristic of our "superiors".

Haven't you ever read Dilbert?

Every ruling class in history has always been convinced that their "superiority" was conferred by birth.

The record is pretty clear that such a hypothesis cannot withstand critical examination.

In other words, you're full of $hit.

(Pardon the swear word, I know that's low-class...it must be my damn inferior genes...)

[SFG]

But having an above-average IQ and following all the rules will NOT automatically get someone into the upper middle class.
Depends how you define upper-middle-class. Fussellian, or the common definition? I'd argue Fussell's upper middle class is actually the lower end of the upper class, due to the presence of inherited money (the usual definition of the upper class according to sociologists). Also remember you're in Manhattan with its colossally hypertrophied upper end of the social ladder. In many parts of the country, a 100K-a-year pediatrician is upper middle class. In Manhattan, that dude's middle class and is probably getting financial help from Mom and Dad.

Yeah, IQ won't make you rich. It's mostly helpful for getting you into prestigious colleges. If you are smart and don't go to Harvard (or even Columbia or Tufts), your brain is useless.

[SFG]

Er, useless for helping you make money, that is. Certainly it can allow you to perform certain tasks more efficiently, but you won't see any of the upside from that yourself.

[gh]

What a dumb article - IQ always reverts to the mean. Wealth is handed down through the father. Therefore the rich/middle become as dumb as the poor - they just keep the money. If you don't think the rich are dumb then go to Harvard where 25% of the little geniuses have to take remedial reading.

[Spungen]

If you don't think the rich are dumb then go to Harvard where 25% of the little geniuses have to take remedial reading.

Does anyone out there know if this is true? It sounds unlikely.

[Spungen]

I just ordered a couple of her books, I'll blog if there's anything interesting.

[David Alexander]

With caring for your infant and your legal work, where do you have the time and energy to read books?

[Spungen]

Who said anything about reading them? They'll sit on our bookshelves with the other 1500 and detract from our son's future layability.