While blaming demographic factors used to be how educators and policy people explained poor student performance, that's giving way to something else: blaming the schools themselves.
As schools in urban areas have proved that students in those areas can succeed despite their demographics, the newest phenomenon is to blame the schools and the principals.
Blogger Larry Cuban, an education writer and former teacher, district superintendent, and professor, writes in a post called "Reframing Shame: How and When Blame for Low Student Achievement Shifted," that the two extremes (the students and their backgrounds vs. the school) are each incomplete and do not advance education.
