We know the answer to that question.
It doesn’t start in high school.
It doesn’t start in middle school.
It doesn’t start in elementary school.
It starts before the first day of kindergarten.
Yet our elites blame teachers for the very existence of the achievement gap.
They think that teachers “cause” the gap.
They think that teachers alone–without any additional help–can close what they didn’t open.
I got an email from a young teacher. She studied language acquisition and literacy. She was a student teacher in kindergarten. She said she could see which children had been to preschool and which had not. She wrote as follows:
“…if there have been many studies on the achievement gap including ones showing the gap as young as 9 months of age, why isn’t anyone intervening? Why is our government trying to close a gap a decade after the child is born? Perhaps, more research needs to be done. Perhaps, someone just needs to say, “Hey, this is a problem that we might be able to fix.” Could you imagine though, if we delayed the gap by a few months or a year? If we closed it when it started to show? If we took baby steps, slowly closing it as it started instead of trying to force shut a wide gaping divide? I just don’t understand why we aren’t going this route.”
I don’t understand either.
I don’t know why the politicians think that more testing will close the gap.
Why do they think that testing children in kindergarten will make them smarter?
Why don’t the billionaire philanthropists invest in a model preschool program to demonstrate how to close the gap?
Why don’t they invest in 0-5 programs to show how to close it?
Educators could tell them–and the Congress, and the U.S. Department of Education–so much if only they would listen.
Diane
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Only the adults in a home can help to close the achievement gap. It starts when the child leaves the hospital in the arms of a mother and father. It starts with positive interactions with extended families. One has to include the extended family today because so many of our children are being raised by grandparents, aunts, and uncles. It certainly can not be left to the teachers when that child enters school.
The question of “when does the achievement gap start?” has the answer within itself. Why are we talking about an “achievement gap”? What is that achievement gap and how is it supposedly measured? When we talk of “achievement gap” we are talking about supposed outcomes which is the language of the business sector, outcomes, efficiency, profitable or not, etc. . . . Instead we we should be using the language of justice. Is what we are doing for the students-the process of teaching and learning right and just? Does that sometimes have efficiency concerns, yes but they are a minor part unless we are talking dollars per student gaps between districts and such.
To speak of “achievement gaps” is going inside the belly of the “trojan horse” gift that is corporate deform and reinforces that “gift”. We need to turn around the focus from outcomes to process. The deformers do not want us to focus on the process and whether it is right, just, efficient, proven or not etc. . . they love talk of achievement.
Be that as it may, the differences that students experience start before conception-is mom (and yes, at this point we have to look at the mother’s life experiences more than the father’s) physically and mentally mature enough and has all the resources available so that when she does become pregnant, she can reasonably hope for and achieve a good environment for the developing fetus, for a healthy birth process, and to have a decent environment to which to bring the child home? Good thing we teachers have a say in/control that scenario, eh?
Is the infant in good health and ok in terms of hereditary issues, and if not are there resources readily available to ameliorate problems. And then in raising said child do the parents have the necessary skills to ensure that the child, by the time he/she reaches school age will be as prepared as all the other children of his/her cohort.
Does our society really make a just effort to insure these things (and my list is far from complete)? That is the question we should be asking, not “When does the achievement gap start?”
Thanks for highlighting that the achievement gap begins at home. One could also argue – as Duane notes above – that it sometimes begins in the womb.
However, Diane’s statement…
“Why don’t the billionaire philanthropists invest in a model preschool program to demonstrate how to close the gap? Why don’t they invest in 0-5 programs to show how to close it?”
…is sadly different from the facts.
See here one example of what Gates and Buffett are funding: http://www.buffettearlychildhoodfund.org/educare.html
Additional examples of Buffet and Gates work on this topic:
http://buffettinstitute.nebraska.edu/# (Buffet)
http://thrivebyfivewa.org/ (Gates)
Diane, I agree that more needs to be done to close the achievement gap BEFORE kids get to school, but please fact-check before throwing stones.
I notice that five foundations (including Gates) are putting up ” more than $1 million” in grants for building Educare centers. Meanwhile the Gates Foundation put $2 billion into breaking up large high schools and hundreds of millions into teacher evaluation and many more millions into charter schools. Are you suggesting that early childhood education is a major priority for the Gates Foundation? I often read what Bill and Melinda say, and I can’t recall this being a focus for either.
That grant is a tiny fraction of the spending.
As far as Educare is concerned – and Educare is designed to be a model preschool program — Buffett is a huge funder of that, Buffett’s wife spends a lot of time on this, and I know Gates’ funds Educare work in their state. There are 12 Educare centers, they cost about $10 million each to build, and each one has an operating budget of about $3 million annually. Source: http://www.educareschools.org/about/educare-facts.php . That’s $120 million to build those centers and, $36 million annually going toward operating these centers. That’s significant spending going toward early learning and trying to figure out how to improve it.
I also looked on Gates’ site and found they have spent $50 million since 2008 on “Early Learning (U.S.).” You can go to their site, check the Early Learning box, and see the grants they are making: http://www.gatesfoundation.org/grants/Pages/search.aspx
Gates’ were also part of their state’s effort in winning $60 million from the Federal government through Obama’s Race To The Top Early Learning Challenge.
I know the Gates’ also give money to Family Homelessness and other poverty-related issues that are oftentimes the root cause of the achievement gap.
Net-net, I think some important billionaires are spending millions of dollars of their own money on improving early childhood education in the U.S.
When will we hear Bill or Melinda urge the governors to devote more resources to early childhood education? When will they urge them to stop cutting the education budget? When Melinda goes on PBS Newshour again, will she talk about early childhood education or will she reiterate that public education is “broken” and that the foundation’s main focus is teacher evaluation? Will she speak positively or continue the same tired line about how the Gates Foundation will find the trick that puts an effective teacher in every classroom in America, the one that gets an 18-month gain every 12 months?
Educare was first established in my area and it’s a great model that I’m glad to see growing, but it’s still just a drop in the bucket. They have multiple funding streams and 50 – 60% of operational costs are funded by Head Start and Early Head Start.
http://www.educareschools.org/about/educare-facts.php
The income qualifications for entrance to Head Start and Early Start have long been based on the federal poverty guideline, which is not adjusted for cost of living in different areas within the 48 contiguous states and is extremely low. I’ve worked in Head Start and I’ve seen poor families turned away who earned slightly more than poverty level.
http://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty/12poverty.shtml#guidelines
The federal definition of poverty is not consistent across programs. For kids enrolled in schools, “poverty” is based on the income qualifications for free and reduced price meals in the National School Lunch Program and School Breakfast Program. Children who qualify for free meals come from families who earn up to 130% poverty level and those eligible for reduced price meals come from families who earn up to 185% poverty-level. The 130% – 185ers% don’t qualify for Head Start and Early Start.
Click to access 2012-7036.pdf
In the 80s, states like Illinois recognized they had large numbers of underserved poor kids under age 5 who didn’t qualify for Head Start and they established their own State PreK programs for children at-risk. IL expanded that into Preschool for All in 2006, becoming the first state in the nation with preschool intended to serve every 3 and 4 year old child whose parents wanted to enroll them. However, there has never been enough money to cover that, as funding has been slashed repeatedly (and IL did not win the RTT-ELC race). Children at-risk do take priority in the program and while more kids are served now, per pupil expenditures have decreased and, when combined with Head Start, IL is only serving 40% of low income kids.
http://www.chicagoparent.com/magazines/web-only/2012-april/preschool-yearbook
Duncan speaks repreadedly about the importance of Early Childhood Education, but I know only of his push to increase Head Start Standards and RTT-ELC. I have to wonder how ELC will be playing out, considering the expectation that Commom Core standards be developed for birth – 5 and, especially, the testing requirements –and inherent issues involved in that. I’ve administered standardized tests to 3 and 4 year olds before, in order to meet federal requirements, and when I said that the crying babies had been untestable, I was sent back repeadedly to try again, because the feds want their data. I always tried to reduce the stress on kids by making it fun for them, sometimes violating test protocol, but not all children were responsive and it made me feel like the boogyman.
I wrote regarding this matter two times already but my computer crashed each time and I lost everything –which happens way too many times every day. So I must be brief.
Under the Obama/Duncan watch, Even Start, a family literacy program for poor parents of young children, and Early Reading First, a language and literacy program for preschoolers in poverty, both lost funding and died. All federal eggs are pretty much in the RTT-ELC basket…
Poor families in states who lost the race still have Head Start, for ages 3-5, and Early Start, for 0 – 3, but they don’t have enough slots/funding, especially in Early Start –which is really the critical period, according to research, such as Hart & Risley’s 30 million word gap study. Plus there are many poor kids whose family income is just above the designated poverty level and don’t qualify for those programs.