pp. 205 - 216 Summary and Analysis

Mike Rose states he is impressed by how often the tie between poor performance and class and culture is missed or overlooked. The longer he is in the field of education, the more obvious it is to him how much educators fail to see the problems of their students. Many schools have remedial English programs that are totally separate from the traditional English programs to the extent that the remedial programs only teach basic grammar and not the basic writing skills that students need. The students are not allowed to write more than a sentence for the first year.

The use of the term "remedial" is itself a problem because it has connotations of being substandard or inadequate. This is the term used to designate students who aren't performing at the standard level of expectation. Many of these students...