Donna Gaines argues that students are being routed into vocational schools because of their low test scores and behavior problems. The low test scores and behavior problems stem from the fact that they are from a working class background. These kids then end up in low paying jobs with no hope for anything better. The training that they receive in vocational school is “barely enough to get their foot in the door, the skills are obsolete and superficial and the boss prefers people with more training, more experience, more promise (250)”.

Gaines is saying that the education process is biased toward students that have rich or well-connected parents. These are the students that educators focus their efforts and resources on. The other students can work hard and try to make something of themselves - by themselves, work at low paying jobs, or take risks (248). The choice is theirs.

Gaines offers several examples. Cliff studied graphic arts and printing, but worked in a del

hooks on the other hand is saying that in the college setting, “the focus is on the thoughts, attitudes, and experiences of those whose are materially privileged”. Students from “undesirable” class backgrounds were encouraged to conform to acceptable middle-class behaviors. “Loudness, anger, emotional outbursts, and even something as seemingly innocent as unrestrained laughter were deemed unacceptable, vulgar disruptions of classroom social order. These traits were also associated with being a member of the lower classes. (257)” Some students didn’t “make-it” because of the stress of trying to fit in at college and unable to retain the ability to “deal” at home (260). bell hooks went to an elite college, where class differences where much more noticeable. I don’t believe that class is as big an issue in state run colleges, like Texas A&M – Commerce as they might be in private, elite colleges like Harvard and Stanford. Here we have a very diverse population of students. We have students just out of high school and students like myself who are older and trying to get a degree. We have blacks, whites, yellows and a few browns. We have people who come from middle class backgrounds and people who come from working class backgrounds. We have students that come from two parent households, we have students who come from single parent households and we have students that are married and students who are single parents struggling to get a better education so their kids will be better off. No one is frowned upon because of the fact that they are going to school on scholarship money, or for the way they walk or the way they talk. Class is just doesn’t have as big impact at public universities.

i. His parents died before he was twenty-one. He wanted to open a deli of his own, but didn’t have the needed chunk of cash. He had also wanted to go in on a limo partnership, but again he didn’t have the cash. So he works at Metal 24, a hamburger joint, setting up designs for future tattoos in his

Some topics in this essay:
Harvard Stanford, Donna Gaines, , Texas A&M, middle class, class backgrounds, sometimes takes, people receive donna, education people receive, test scores behavior, low test scores, affect future, students single, low paying, households students, vocational program, scores behavior, college courses, parent households students,