Means to help disadvantaged students succeed

Stuart Weiss, Las Vegas

Monday, Feb. 14, 2011 | 2:01 a.m.

Again and again we ask, “Why can’t Johnny read” — in a broader sense, why are our students doing so badly in the humanities, math and science? Usually we hear that the answer is more money for schools in tax-poor districts. This can’t hurt. But money for schools can seldom overcome long-term poverty and an impoverished culture that leaves children unready to succeed in life.

There is solid evidence that children are a product of their parents’ prosperity and culture.

Look at some key figures in our success stories: Bill Gates of Microsoft; Sergey Brin and Larry Page of Google; Steve Jobs of Apple; and Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook.

They did not begin at the bottom; they were raised by prosperous, educated parents, in school districts surrounded by peers similarly brought up; then they interacted with men and women similarly raised at their universities; and often they left after a year or two because they knew more in their area of expertise than their professors.

This was equally true of the men who decoded the German naval code during World War II and built the earliest computers, as Jane Smiley’s book, “The Man Who Invented the Computer,” reveals.

Thus, if there is even a partial answer it may lie in replicating the advantages of the men mentioned above.

First, through policing, break up the gangs and prevent bullying on the street. Second, in impoverished areas, establish Starbucks-like coffeehouses filled with computers and staffed with men and/or women idolized in these areas, who will attract, teach and inspire the intellectually and financially deprived to upgrade innate talent and skills, to work together toward their own and common goals, and to enhance their inherent creativity.

Thus, good schools or not, they may become, as the Army says, the best that they can be.