There was a very interesting article
in the NY Times, this weekend that I think warrants further exploration and discussion. The article dealt with the topic of
income inequality and overall school performance. Its premise is that children who happen to be born into financially
disadvantaged households perform markedly worse in school on average than their
peers from more affluent backgrounds.
This income/performance disparity is
a proven fact and I will not even attempt to dispute this as it has been
abundantly documented, most notably in the Equality
of Educational Opportunity (Coleman) Study (EEOS), 1966 also known as the Coleman Report. The Coleman Report was commissioned by
the US Department of Health, Education, and Welfare in 1966 to assess the
availability of equal educational opportunities to children of different race,
color, religion and national origin.
This is an example of how use of a social survey was an instrument of
national policy-making. More
recently Sean F. Reardon of Stanford University published a paper entitled, Income Inequality and Income Segregation
(2010). Reardon determined both
income inequality and income segregation in the United States grew
substantially from 1970 to 2000.
His study investigates whether and how income inequality affects
patterns of income segregation along three dimensions—the spatial segregation
of poverty and affluence; race-specific patterns of income segregation; and the
geographic scale of income segregation.
In short, the achievement gap between children from high- and low-income
families over the last 50 years now far exceeds the gap between white and black
students. This fact is as thought
provoking as it is disturbing. The
National Assessment of Educational Progress shows that more than 40 percent
of the variation in average reading scores and 46 percent of the variation in
average math scores across states is associated with variation in child poverty
rates. Unfortunately,
international research tells a similar story. Results of the 2009 reading tests conducted by the Program for International Student Assessment
show that, among 15-year-olds in the United States and the 13 countries whose
students outperformed ours, students with lower economic and social status had
far lower test scores than their more advantaged counterparts within every
country. The statistic belies the
following question: can it be possible that the substandard performance of
American students on international tests be unrelated to the fact that
one-fifth of American children live in poverty?
Thus far, American policy makers
continue to take the stance that since they cannot change the backgrounds of
students and consequently should focus on the things that they can control. For example, President George W. Bush’s
signature education law, No Child Left
Behind, set unrealistic expectations for the nation’s schools. While President Barack Obama has
instituted policies that have primarily concentrated on encouraging school
efficiency through judging teacher performance using the test scores of their
students as well as promoting the creation of charter schools to encourage
competition.
Federal education policy seems to
want to bring all students to high levels of achievement but has taken no
consideration for the challenges that disadvantaged students may face. Can schools alone offset the effects of
poverty? Does the fact that some
schools “make it” or “beat the odds” make it reasonable to expect that all
schools will or should? Are the
effects of a few years of high quality education enough to make a significant
impact in the lives of underprivileged children over the long term? Can we really address education as a
singular issue? Since education
policy makers can’t take on poverty itself, should they try to provide poor
students with the social support and experiences that middle-class students
enjoy as a matter of course?
As NYC continues to struggle to open more charter schools where children have access to free and excellent education with no zip code encumbrances, the questions for me are some of the ones I posed to you, my readers. Frankly, I'm on the fence about whether or not the academic gains are long term and charter models can be scaled up to address the needs of larger populations of disadvantaged students. We cannot ignore that families that deal with financial crisis on a daily basis don't have the where-with-all let alone the resources to invest in enriching activities, especially during the summer months when the most learning loss occurs. Low-income parents are in a constant struggle to provide basic care such as food, clothing, housing and the provision of adequate medical care to their families. Given that national and state budgets are stretched and the weighty political power of conservative groups aren't likely to dedicate a significant amount of effort to the goal of poverty reduction at this time in our history, I'm not certain what this means for the low-income and financially disadvantaged children across our nation over the long haul. I am certain, however, that having access to a high quality education, if only for a few years, will certainly not hurt.
Weigh in faithful readers… put on
your thinking caps and let’s go WAY BEYOND Z!
