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While structural factors related to the political economy of urban areas, and more specifically related to de-industrialization, globalization of the world economy, suburbanization, and middle class flight, have had profound effect upon the character of urban areas (Wilson 1980; Massey and Denton 1993) and urban schools (Maeroff 1988; Payne, 1986) social capital can also be employed as a theoretical construct to help explain the persistent failure of urban schools and to promote efforts aimed at improvement and change.
As I pointed out in the two vignettes, a major difference distinguishing the middle class parent from the lower class parent is the power of choice. By virtue of the human capital (i.e. education and information) and economic capital they possess, middle class parents have the ability to leave a school if they do not like the way their children are treated or if they perceive the quality of education offered as inadequate. Leaving may mean enrolling a child in another public school or opting out of the system altogether by sending their child to a private school. However, leaving is not the only option available because middle class parents also have other resources at their disposal to fight for what they want. Politically savvy middle class parents can petition higher authorities such as the superintendent or School Board, they can utilize organizations such as the PTA (Parent Teachers Association), churches, or the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) to exert influence on school officials, or they can draw upon external contacts, such as lawyers or the media, to press for what they want or believe they are entitled to.
In contrast, lower class parents typically lack the ability to choose the school their children attend, both because the cost of private school is prohibitive, and because they may lack transportation to gain access to better schools in more affluent neighborhoods (Fuller 1996). Furthermore, unlike middle class parents, the ability of poor parents to fight for what they want is often constrained because they tend not to receive the same kind of respect and responsiveness from school authorities when they seek recourse for change. Like the parent in the first vignette, lower class parents, even when angry or passionate about their concerns, are more likely to be disregarded and not taken seriously by school officials (Lareau 1988; Kozol 1990; Comer 1982). Most writers on this problematic have argued that poor parents and children need to acquire the cultural capital (i.e. speech, style, customs, etc.) valued by the middle class in order to enhance their ability to obtain the services needed for their children (Ogbu 1978; Solomon 1992; Anderson 1986). However, such a transformation is extremely difficult to bring about and may even be impossible for most. Abandoning forms of behavior that one has acquired over the course of a lifetime, and that continue to have value in particular communities and settings, in exchange for those of another group or class, requires a high degree of motivation and self conscious acquisition. Even if cultural assimilation occurs actively and willingly, there may be no guarantee of acceptance by members of the dominant group if discriminatory attitudes related to race and class, are operative. There is considerable evidence that even middle class minorities, especially blacks, are subject to forms of racial bias and discrimination (Cose, 1995; Hacker, 1992; Barret, 1998), and the acquisition of the requisite cultural capital by itself may not be enough to counter the effects of such practices.
Moreover, such a formulation places the onus for change on the less powerful actors, thereby absolving those with more power of responsibility for modifying their own dismissive actions. It may be that it is as unrealistic to expect middle class school officials in positions of authority to change their attitudes toward the poor, as it is to expect the poor to adopt a new set of cultural norms. For this reason, I believe greater emphasis must be placed on the development of a different kind of social capital - that which is derived from organization and association. Putnam (1994) suggest that we ask ourselves "What types of organizations and networks most effectively embody - or generate - social capital, in the sense of mutual reciprocity, the resolution of dilemmas of collective action, and the broadening of social identities?" (1994:26) Within the context of economically depressed urban areas, I believe that to the extent parents and concerned community allies are able to marshal resources, organizational and legal, and expand their social networks in ways that enable them to increase the support they receive from churches, businesses, non-profit organizations, and established civic groups, urban schools can be transformed into community assets which more effectively respond to the needs of those they serve.
As a way of illustrating how such a change can be brought about, I will utilize the case of a public hospital that recently was forced to change the way in which it provides health services to its patients. For the sake of protecting the identities of those who work there, I will call this particular hospital the Wellness Medical Center. It is administered by a county government somewhere in the state of California, and is widely regarded by the public as the hospital of last resort. By that I mean with the exception of trauma care, for which it is well known and respected (largely because it serves more burn victims and individuals with gun shot wounds than any hospital west of the Mississippi), few patients with private health insurance patronize this hospital. The wait for medical service is typically quite long - even for emergencies, waiting rooms are generally crowded and dirty, and service from hospital personnel, including physicians, tends to be rushed and impersonal. For years, the patient base for Wellness Medical Center has been drawn largely from two sources - indigent care for poor people lacking health insurance, and senior citizens and others receiving some form of public assistance who are covered by MediCal. Individuals from these two constituencies have constituted a captured market - meaning they had no other options for health services - and until recently, no other health facility was interested in providing services to them.
Two years ago the status of MediCal patients was significantly elevated as compensation for health services to recipients was significantly increased. Suddenly, patients whose access to health care had been limited largely to public health facilities, were being actively courted by private hospitals. In effect, through a simple change in the law, their social capital, at least within the field of public health, increased markedly, and they were transformed from being seen as an undesirable drain on resources, into valued prospective customers.
The change in law had a profound effect upon Wellness Medical Center. Until that time, MediCal patients were the only customers capable of generating revenue, meager as it might be, for the hospital. If this population abandoned Wellness to seek health services at private facilities, Wellness would be left with indigent care alone; a patient base that would lead to the ultimate financial collapse of the hospital because services to this population generate no income for the hospital at all. Faced with the prospect of loosing their only paying customers, hospital administrators at Wellness became very concerned about finding ways to improve the quality of customer service. In response to what they perceived as a looming crisis, consultants were hired who could assist in bringing about what they described as "a change in the culture of the institution." (8)
I was one of the consultants who was hired to work with the clerks in admissions and registration. These are the "frontline" employees who are responsible for admitting patients and scheduling appointments. Throughout the hospital they were widely regarded as unfriendly, unresponsive, and often rude toward patients. Changing their attitude and conduct toward patients was seen by the hospital administration as essential to improving the quality of service.
As I conducted interviews and observations with the clerks over the next six weeks I came to see that their attitudes and behavior toward patients was directly related to the conditions under which they worked, and a by-product of their treatment by management. Working in cramped quarters with equipment that often malfunctioned, and unable to assist sick and injured patients who became angry and frustrated while waiting to be seen by a physician, the clerk's frequently became angry and irritable themselves. Their own sense of hopelessness about their working conditions produced indifference and frustration, and when confronted by sick patients who had become angry over the long wait to see a doctor, they often returned the hostility directed at them or responded with what appeared to be callous disregard toward their health needs. When I produced my final report to management with a list of recommendations on how to improve patient service in admissions and registration, I explained how service was linked to working conditions, and that it would not be possible to address former without responding to the latter.
Though they had a genuine interest in improving customer service, hospital administrators had difficulty responding to the concerns of the workers. Even though most of my recommendations seemed fairly simple and obvious(provide clerks with functioning equipment, redesign the registration work area, employ fair and consistent rules for all employees, etc.), the administration had trouble responding because they claimed they were hampered by cumbersome bureaucratic procedures and intractable union regulations. Nonetheless, because they understood that the survival of the hospital, and by extension, protection of their jobs, was at stake, they found ways to respond positively to the clerks, who in turn gradually began to improve the quality of patient service. They did so because they understood that a failure to respond would prevent them from retaining the patient population they valued.
Wellness Medical Center is a lot like many urban public schools. Like this public hospital, they too provide services to a captured market, have guaranteed source of revenue (average daily attendance in the case of public schools, state and county subsidies in the care of Wellness), and very little regard for the quality of service provided. Like the employees at Wellness who informed me that they go to private hospitals for their own health needs, the ultimate indication of the quality of service provided at urban public schools is the fact that the vast majority of teachers would not educate their own children in the schools where they work(Noguera 1994). Urban schools with a long track record of failure often develop norms which normalize student failure, and insulate professional educators from any sense of responsibility over student outcomes (Payne 1990). What is important about a case like this one is that it shows that when patients, and by extension parents, have the power and means to choose who will provide a particular service (health or education), service suppliers have greater incentive to treat their clients with dignity and respect. That is, even without changing the race, class or status of the clientele - the key ingredients of their perceived social capital - service providers can be compelled to improve the quality of service if their clients have access to alternative suppliers, otherwise they run the risk being put out of business.
This is not the same as the arguments that are typically used by proponents of school vouchers or school choice. Proponents of these policies (Chubb and Moe 1988; Cobb 1992) typically overlook the fact that vouchers don't insure access to good schools. Under voucher systems, choice remains in the hands of private schools, who are not obliged to accept students simply because they apply and have vouchers. Unlike educational facilities, hospitals and clinics generally have the capacity to expand their client base quite easily. In contrast, the ability of schools to expand is limited by capacity based on size and space, and even more importantly, the status of schools is directly related to their selectivity. Hence, while private hospitals might jump at the prospect of serving greater numbers of paying MediCal patients, private schools are less likely to open their doors to poor minority parents and their children even if they have vouchers. (9) For this reason, vouchers are more likely to benefit middle class parents who can use the voucher as a subsidy for private school tuition payments and draw from their own resources to make up the difference. (10) Finally, numerous studies have shown that choice without access to transportation and adequate information about schools is a farce. Where they have been implemented, choice systems tend to favor those with the most social capital (i.e. the middle class, the well connected, the highly motivated, etc.), while those with the least are left behind at the least desirable schools.(Wells 1992)
What this case suggest is that by empowering patients with the means to exercise choice, the service supplier has greater incentive to improve the quality of service and satisfy customer needs. Significantly, the benefits of this empowerment accrued not only to those covered by MediCal, but to the uninsured as well, since any improvement in conditions at the Wellness Medical Center would be available to all who patronized the hospital. A similar approach is needed to change the relationship between supplier and consumer at urban public schools such that they are compelled to become more responsive to those they serve. Given the limitations of choice and vouchers already pointed out, I believe the answer can only be found through the adoption of strategies that give greater power in site decision making to parents, and thereby provide them with the means to hold schools more accountable.
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Other articles by Dr. Noguera.
Dr. Pedro Noguera is a professor at the Graduate School of Education at the University of California, Berkeley. He is also past president of the Berkeley School Board.
Published in In Motion Magazine May 20, 1999.
The portrait of Dr. Noguera is by freelance photographer Kathy Sloane (kataphoto@aol.com).
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