“No one said a teacher was his favorite because she or he was easy”.
– Harper et al., 2014, p. 22

This study on black on latino male high school achievement in NYC resonated a lot due to my student teaching placement. I am in a charter high school in the Bronx that is 60% Latinx and 40% black. I am very familiar with the deficit model thinking in regards to latino and black males due to media and unfortunately adults at the school. While many teachers work extremely hard and set high expectations for their students, some I have heard say “We just have to accept that some of our kids won’t get into college”.

I find this extremely problematic because I think this perpetuates the false ideas that latino and black males are lazy and/or unintelligent. The two points that struck me the most from this reading was the positive support from family surrounding education (p.15) and the high expectations teachers set for their students. For example, “no student struggles to immediately name and reflect fondly on his favorite pair of teachers”(p. 21). This section discussed how many teachers went the extra mile in helping students through tutoring, after school support and/or expressing care for their personal lives and struggles. Teachers who care this much about students must also have high achievement expectations for them. The teacher that “offered marathon tutoring from 9am to 9pm on Saturdays for students were at risk failing algebra” did not accept that the rhetoric that not all their students could be successful. I think that in order for any student, regardless of race or socioeconomic statues, to be successful, they need a supportive in school and out of school community that helps them set high expectations for success. Teachers with high expectations will encourage and challenge students to succeed and successful schools will support both students and teachers. My only critique is that perhaps is biased as it appears to have been partially funded by the NYC DOE, who may have wanted to publish positive findings.