Blogger and retired math teacher G.F. Brandenburg deciphers the central claim of the corporate reform movement: Does poverty matter? Is it destiny? Can a young teacher with a few weeks of training and high expectations college overcome the effects of poverty?
He tests the proposition by examining the correlation between test scores and poverty rates in Wisconsin. What he finds will not surprise you.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I can’t get to the report. I keep getting routed to gmail.
I fixed the link.
The link seems wrong. This should be the link: http://gfbrandenburg.wordpress.com/
I fixed the link.
Same here.
Try this link:)
FYI— your link to the article by Brandenburg leads me to a gmail sign-up…
that said, I don’t think I need to read Brandenburg’s article to know that poverty is linked to test scores… the link was established for me decades ago. In the 1970s when the first standardized tests were administered in PA, a study found that high test scores correlated with the mother’s education and the father’s occupation… These findings have been replicated through the years and lead to the same conclusion: children born in certain ZIP codes always outperform those in other ZIP codes on standardized tests… Until we make achievement fixed standard and time variable (i.e. abandon our current obsession with tests tied to grade-levels) we will get the same results… At the same time we need to address the root causes of poverty and stop pretending that the problem with low scores is “bad teaching”
I was born into a lower income family. My father was a disabled WWII vet; my mother, a housewife. We lived on government assistance, hand-me-down clothing, and no frills– no dining in restaurants, no vacation trips or even day trips. I have four siblings. Daddy graduated eighth grade and had some trade school training, and Mama graduated high school. it did not occur to them to promote any particular educational goal beyond high school.
When I was 15, I tried to drop out of high school– not sure why. No direction. I completed the GED tests but was too young to officially drop. I passed the tests, and the GED coordinator phoned my high school counselor. She is the one who put the idea of college into my head. I began to consider that my future could have a real plan, one that I made intentionally. I also watched my teachers. They introduced me to my future. They talked to me of what I might do beyond high school. They asked about my plans. My parents could not do this; they had no experience in the area of college, and their thinking was framed by their experience. Plus, getting through the day-to-day needs of the family required much of my parents’ energy. For my parents (my mother alone once my father died when I was 12), the “future” consisted of what was necessary for the next day.
I understand that much of the effect of poverty involves the limiting of a child’s experience and exposure to the world. it takes time– investment by caring people– to broaden a child’s view of his or her own possibilities. Reframing a child’s thinking happens through relationship, not through having a series of temporary teachers and fold-up, replacement schools.
Succinct, eloquent, to the point, realistic.
Props.
Funny (in a sick sort of way…)
Just today we had an IEP meeting for a very troubled kid.
Very low SES (basically on and off homeless)
Discipline record as long as your arm (with the school and the county police).
Extremely disruptive, very poor grades (3 time as a ninth grader).
He did not want to go to the vocational school, so he was reenrolling here (regular ed HS)
So, the administrator says we can re admit him etc. but if he crosses any lines we will contact his parole officer.
The mother says we should contact his parole officer right now because that might get him to “act right”.
The kid then says to the mother “You call my parole officer and then I’ll call your parole officer and tell him you be smoking weed every day again”.
I guess a TFA intern or a righteous charter could fix this situation, right?
Sigh.
So well put.
Sadly, what would likely happen is that a TFA intern in an obedience, er, charter school would act on the advice of the school’s CEO and send such a child and parent to a counselor, who would then apply a combination of tough-love threats of monetary fines for future infractions, sympathetic appeals to a better future for the child if he was in a school that provided a better ‘fit’ and a promise that partially completed courses would be remediated on the child’s transcript so he didn’t have to retake the same classes if — you guessed it — he voluntarily left the charter and went to the local public school.
A little later the charter school would congratulate itself on how well-behaved and hard-working their students were and smugly point to prospective customers how unruly the nearby public school was, using as examples the same kinds of students they eased out.
So yes, the situation would be fixed: for the charter. For the child, for the parent, for the community, for the nation: no.
While my experience affirms the link between test scores and poverty, what has made the difference with my own students is the intense infusion of “culturally relevant” texts (i.e., the “canon”) into my cirriculum. I know that there are detractors to this philosophy, but when my spanish-speaking students come to me thrilled that they understood some cultural allusion in the media because of some “classic” text we studied in my class, I feel I have dome something significant to help assimilate them into their adopted culture, something that will help them be well-rounded citizens. Isn’t that the purpose of education? WASN’T that the purpose of education?
The same is true of my FRL kids. Cultural education is the ONLY way to “level the playing field.”
Anyone who can read knows of the close correlation between poverty and academic achievement. That said, we should never use the words “poverty is destiny” because it implies futility. Poor children need to know they CAN succeed and teachers need to be hopeful also.
On that subject I hope everyone gets to read Sonia Sotomayor’s new autobiography (My Beloved World). It is a wonderful testament to the determination of a person to get the best education possible and to realize her personal aspirations despite the limitations of her birth and disability (Type I diabetes). For those of us interested in the education of the child, Justice Sotomayor reminds us that it takes:
basic care in terms of the health and welfare of the child;
the determination and persistence of the learner;
the positive influence of the family, especially the parents;
the importance of a school that has mainly (not exclusively) well-behaved students who value learning.
If we truly want to help all children, we must study the life stories of people like Sotomayor and ask ourselves: How can we help impoverished children who have lost the joy of learning? What can we do to make certain each child’s basic needs are met? How can we help children whose parents do not value or nurture their education? How can we provide the opportunity for each child to attend a school where the majority of children are well-behaved and actively involved in learning?
Sooner or later, I believe we will face reality and do something constructive to level the playing field for all children. All the “reformers” are doing now is “rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic” and soon everyone will know it.
The phrase used by “reformers” is “Poverty is not Destiny,” as if to counteract educators’ claims that poverty is destiny, when it is research that has long demonstrated that socio-economic status (SES) is the strongest predictor of school success. Maternal education is the second strongest predictor of school achievement. Funny they don’t say, “Poverty and Moms are Not Destiny.”
What I find disturbing is how “reformers” blame and shame US teachers for the persistent achievement gap between low income and high income students, as if America is the only country in the world where the gap exists. That is blatantly untrue, as demonstrated on international tests: International Tests Show Achievement Gaps in All Countries… http://www.epi.org/blog/international-tests-achievement-gaps-gains-american-students/
That the achievement gap exists between wealthy and poor kids in virtually all countries is not news, though it’s rarely reported in the US media. Poverty in our nation has been increasing, while our government ignores it and expects teachers to be the sole mediators of poverty, rather than develop job programs, support labor unions and legislate livable wages. It’s an easy, cheap shot to scapegoat American teachers instead of actually addressing poverty here.
OECD Secretary General Angel Gurría said, “Countries get the poverty rate they are prepared to pay for.” In nations like the US, the cost is in sacrificed lives.